FACTORS IN CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION 33 



est terms used in the biological sciences, but the pro- 

 cesses so designated have no creative value. The terms 

 merely imply that a definite sequence of products en- 

 sues, or affirm the self-evident fact that something al- 

 ready created is selected for survival, or that it endures. 

 They do not suggest how it was created, why it survives, 

 or wherein its fitness lies. 



I shall try to show that there is but one answer to 

 all these questions; that there is but one creative proc- 

 ess common to all phases of evolution, inorganic, or- 

 ganic, mental, and social. That process is best de- 

 scribed by the term cooperation, or mutual service. 



While the term cooperation expresses a most strik- 

 ing and fundamental attribute of nature, yet it is as 

 impossible to define cooperation as it is to define grav- 

 ity, or chemical affinity. In all such cases, we can 

 affirm only what things do, not what they are. While 

 we cannot explain why things cooperate, it would ap- 

 pear that all knowledge and all knowable things are the 

 products of mutual influences, or reciprocal services. 

 This action can be expressed only in terms of the things 

 so created, or in the methods of their creation. The 

 methods themselves can be expressed only in relative 

 terms of service, Tightness, and progress, that is in terms 

 of more or less service performed in the conveying of 

 the "right" things, to the "right" time and the "right" 

 place, for constructive purposes. 



The power to create something new, when these 

 services are fulfilled, is something universal and inex- J 

 haustible; something standing apart, in human knowl- 

 edge, from every other attribute of nature. 



The law of cooperation is expressed in the simple 

 yet marvelous fact that when two or more things, 



