NATURE'S DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 115 



merely mean that ultimately the right constructive 

 things come into the right constructive relations. But 

 why is it that there is so little evidence of chance in the 

 products of growth ; that is, in the constructed, or grow- 

 ing things? Why is it that with the progress of evo- 

 lution, all the constituent parts of a living thing become 

 more stabilized in structure, and regulated in their 

 functioning, if the fate of these constituents was orig- 

 inally governed by chance? The biologist is con- 

 stantly confronted and confounded by this dilemma, 

 for nature offers him an equally pointed denial and af- 

 firmation of freedom and repression, mechanism and 

 vitalism; spontaneity in the new, determination in the 

 old ; of internal autonomy, and external control. He 

 clearly sees the reign of disorder in the smaller affairs 

 of life, and with equal clearness the reign of order in 

 its larger affairs; the initial lack of direction in ele- 

 mental parts, and the ultimate direction of elemental 

 parts within the resultant whole; the lack of purpose- 

 ful action in life's constituents, and the intelligent, pur- 

 poseful conduct of the living organism. He is an ex- 

 pert witness to the perpetual contradiction of life by 

 death, and to the perpetual contradiction of death by 

 a recurrent life. 



Here we touch the very heart of nature-c6nduct, 

 and if we look intently we may catch some glimpse of 

 her methods of self-construction and self-control. 



These apparent contradictions are due to the fact 

 that at every stage of growth, there is created within 

 every growing thing some new phase of communal life, 

 some new phase of environment, which governs the 

 action of these constituent parts. For since no growth 

 can confine its products to a single point, and since all 



