FACTORS IN CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION 35 



special creative powers of its own. In the same way, 

 protoplasm may be regarded as a system of cooperat- 

 ing proteids and of other agents, within and without; 

 life is its distinctive attribute. An animal is a system 

 of cells and organs cooperating with one another and 

 with their environments. A state is a group of human 

 beings systematically cooperating with one another and 

 with their environments. In each case, the individual 

 is created by the cooperation of its inner parts and their 

 outer media. It endures only so long as that inner and 

 outer cooperation continues and only so long as the 

 individual, as a whole, continues to cooperate with its 

 environment. According as one or the other of these 

 cooperative systems declines or fails, senility appears, 

 followed by death and dissolution. 



The term conveyance is used to signify the transfer, 

 in time or place, of any material, power, or agency. 

 Where a creative, or saving act follows as a result of this 

 conveyance, a service to that end is performed. Con- 

 veyance may be brought about by "chance," or by a 

 more or less elaborate -series of acts which are them- 

 selves cooperative, as for instance by the transfer 

 through space, or the conservation through time, of 

 materials and power by means of cosmic activities; 

 by terrestrial and atmospheric circulation; the distribu- 

 tion of animals and plants, of organic foods; of "germ 

 plasma" during the process of reproduction; the cir- 

 culation of the products of digestion and respiration in 

 the alimentary, vascular, and secretory systems ; by the 

 distribution of nerve impulses and the conveyance of 

 information through the conserving and distributing 

 agency of science, literature, and art, and by the distri- 



