ARCHITECTURE NATURE-ACTION 175 



in a helpful or self-saving way. Neither the receivers, 

 nor the conveyors, nor the other actors, rightly con- 

 structeH to that end, are present. 



A creative genius, with nothing but gelatinous in- 

 struments to work with, could not rise above the physi- 

 cal limitations of his instruments, or above the creative 

 power of the things which he is able to give and to re- 

 ceive. 



III. Architectural Diversity a Prerequisite to Evo- 

 lution 



Thus life cannot advance in the same directions, nor 

 at the same rates, nor to the same degrees. It thereby 

 acquires the structural diversity on which its coopera- 

 tive action depends. If all the constituent parts of an 

 animal were exactly alike, or on the same dead level 

 of structure, the animal could not exist. This is like 

 assuming the impossible to be possible, for the very 

 essence of vitality is the cooperative action of an in- 

 finite number of parts in multitudinous variety. And 

 just as these diversified powers are essential to the crea- 

 tion and preservation of each individual life, so also are 

 many different species, orders, and classes of living 

 things essential to the creation and progress of life as 

 a whole. 



Life, therefore, had to bide its time, and await the 

 vital and social organization of its countless armies of 

 animal and plant life progressing on a world-wide 

 front; wait till its pioneers had themselves constructed 

 the organic instruments that would enable them to find 

 the ways and means which nature keeps in reserve, or 



