ARCHITECTURE NATURE-ACTION 181 



telligence, environment, or morality could remedy these 

 individual defects, or enable these organs to sustain 

 such a free and diversified life as that of an ape, or a 

 human being. 







In all these cases and in many others that might be 

 cited, a fixed cooperative balance between all the vital 

 processes of life is never attained. Organic balance 

 is constantly fluctuating, the threatening deflections in- 

 dicating unequal progress in one or the other of the 

 great vital functions ; the return toward a more stable 

 norm, indicating the restoration of equality in the prog- 

 ress of all. In other words, the organic balancing 

 point of individual life is never central ; the living or- 

 ganism is always longer on growth than on adminis- 

 tration. The latter is always behindhand, and by re- 

 adjustments and compromise is constantly striving, as 

 it were, to catch up with growth in order to meet the 

 demands of its increased content. 



. 



But it is a familiar fact to the morphologist that 

 there are inherent limitations to the modifications and 

 readjustments that can safely be made in a given struc- 

 tural plan, or method of growth, after it is once estab- 

 lished. 



The nature of these limitations can be but roughly 

 determined, if at all; but their existence is clearly in- 

 dicated by the limited development of their products 

 after a prolonged period of trial ; and by the fact that 

 another method, under apparently similar external con- 

 ditions, and in a very much shorter time, gives infi- 

 nitely larger returns. 



