ARCHITECTURE NATURE-ACTION 173 



ject to its inherent architectural limitations, which in 

 turn strictly limit the upbuilding of its inhabitants. 



So it is with all the housings of life. To preserve 

 its integrity, to insure its continued growth and the 

 continuity of its shelter, every living thing must itself 

 make its own additions to itself of definite things in 

 definite ways, and its own eliminations. It must 

 rightly orient itself to the more stable cosmic agen- 

 cies, such as heat and light, and air and gravity; pro- 

 vide for its necessary renewals and remodellings ; lay 

 out its own internal lines of incoming and outgoing 

 products; and keep itself in touch with the shifting 

 lines of world traffic all about it. That all this really 

 is done, is clearly displayed in the architecture of liv- 

 ing things, that is in their structural plans, and in their 

 functioning, or their ways and means of handling their 

 constructive materials. 



This constructive action is less in evidence where 

 it is most constant and most evenly balanced, as, for 

 example, in a crystal, or stone; here the minute con- 

 tributory acts, and the multitudinous actors cannot stir 

 our sensibility; only the sum is sensible, producing in 

 us the preponderant impression of solidity and un- 

 changeability. 



It is most impressive where the actors, or function- 

 ing organs, are visible, or tangible bodies, themselves 

 moving in measurable orbits under mutual influences, 

 as the planets and satellites of our own solar system, 

 or the cilia, heart, blood corpuscles, legs, or wings, 

 of a living organism, moving with monotonous, rhyth- 

 mic repetition in definite channels, or pathways. 



These orbits of moving planets, organs, or corpus- 

 cles, may be swayed by passing influences, the imme- 



