THE EVOLUTION OF INDIVIDUALITY 47 



tern of philosophy, or mathematics, on that basis. But 

 nature cannot build in that way. She has no make- 

 believe systems. She must create with things as they 

 are. Man cannot build a bridge, nor does nature create 

 a living organism, on a four dimensional system of ge- 

 ometry. This constructive test is our test of reality. 



Hence apparently every new creative process, every 

 forward step in evolution, is the product of finding a 

 better way of conveying materials and power from a 

 less useful to a more useful condition, from a non-co- 

 operative to a cooperative one. The very fact that 

 growth and progress is a reality is, in itself, a declara- 

 tion of creative dividends; it is nature's proclamation 

 of that righteous, pathfinding attribute which glorifies 

 matter. 



IV. The Growth Purpose in Nature- Action 



This process of nature-growth is "purposeful" in 

 the same -sense that the physiological acts of a plant, a 

 worm, a frog, or a human being, or any of their parts 

 or organs, may be purposeful, or self-constructive acts; 

 for nature-growth is the product of the cooperative acts 

 of many different things, the purpose of which, or if 

 you prefer, the end, or result of which, is the creation, 

 preservation, and growth of nature's individuality and 

 of all her constituent individualities. In this broader 

 concept of nature-growth, light and gravity, vitality, 

 genes, and gemules, heredity, intelligence, "selection," 

 social conduct, and all the rest of the growth-machinery 

 of life portrayed by the physicist and biologist may be 

 regarded merely as local, or special manifestation of 

 a common creative agency. 



