AGENCIES, HABITAT, AND GROWTH 107 



IX. The Creative Cadence and the Formal Accents 

 of Organic Growth 



All the phenomena of development to which we 

 have referred are ultimately expressed in organic ar- 

 chitecture and organic action. But the force behind 

 all these phenomena, the force which compels the 

 marching and counter-marching, the structural balanc- 

 ing and unbalancing, is the basic power of growth, 

 and the cooperative action upon which it depends. 

 This cooperative action is manifest in all bodily move- 

 ments, in the functioning of vital organs, and in their 

 rhythmic checks and releases. Its accumulated achieve- 

 ments in constructive Tightness are impressively dis- 

 played in the unswerving leadership of germinal ma- 

 terials, and in the long procession of upbuilding, con- 

 structive acts in the growing embryo. It is because 

 each system of cooperative action tends, sooner or later, 

 to attain a relatively balanced condition of income and 

 outgo, that definite forms, and more or less stable struc- 

 tures, are produced, which may be recognized by the 

 morphologists, and classified by them into branching, 

 graded series, roughly indicating the historic sequence 

 of their creation, and the relative creative value of the 

 various ways of cooperative action. 



Nothing more clearly shows us, or more concisely, 

 the real unity of nature-life, and the way life has grown, 

 than the great phylogenetic trees of the animal and 

 plant kingdoms, as they have been reconstructed for us, 

 in their main outlines at least, by the biologists. When 

 we have fully grasped what they signify, we shall not 

 so much question whether one phase of life is higher 

 than the other, or lower; whether the stem is more im- 



