VITAL ACTION VS. NATURE-ACTION 195 



III. Architectural Problems, and the Increase of 

 Power Through Architectural Improvements 



The instruments of animal life are of special sig- 

 nificance to us because through them man has acquired 

 his own distinctive powers. We shall therefore en- 

 deavor to show in this and the following chapters: (i) 

 how man's distinctive powers have been upbuilt by 

 means of his organic instruments. (2) Wherein the 

 power of those instruments is permanently limited. 

 (3) How science has added to them a new order of 

 physical instruments. (4) How these new physical in- 

 struments have opened up to man's constructive usage 

 an inexhaustible source of world power, thereby cre- 

 ating with unparalleled rapidity a wholly new phase 

 of world life. 



The basic invention of animal life, as we have al- 

 ready indicated, was one which gave to it greater free- 

 dom of movement and the power of profitable response 

 to the activities of a larger world. To that end, the 

 chief bodily instruments of animal life are discriminat- 

 ing receivers and conveyors. That is to say, they are 

 specialized sense organs, such as smell, touch, taste, 

 seeing, and hearing, so constructed that they respond to 

 particular agents of the outer world, and to no others; 

 connecting nerves to convey the impulses so received 

 to their respective terminals; and muscles and other 

 organs which, on receipt of these impulses, in turn act 

 in such a way as to assist in the conveyance of requisite 

 materials to and from the bodily sources of supply and 

 demand; and also to assist in the conveyance of the 

 whole body (locomotion) toward what is good and 



