ARCHITECTURE NATURE-ACTION 187 



VII. The Compulsion of Established Constructive 



Methods 



It is evident that as these two lines of life become 

 more firmly established, all further progress, or im- 

 provements, must be built on and around the basic 

 principles of these two inventions. For the plant, 

 therefore, the problem of life is to discover a better 

 use for its own peculiar instruments; to find a more 

 fitting place for itself in the sun f or soil, or water, and 

 to enter into more profitable relations with other forms 

 of plant and animal life. In so far as it succeeds in 

 doing so, in those respects it grows and so becomes more 

 specialized, its structure more specific, or divergent. 

 The same is true of animal life in all its varied phases. 



