VITAL ACTION VS. NATURE-ACTION 203 



dom, the usage of it, and the ways in which it meets the 

 demands of the outer world, and the limitations laid 



FIGURE 2. DIAGRAM TO ILLUSTRATE How THE ARCHITECTURE OF A PLANT 

 (supposed to be located in the northern hemisphere) is THE FORMAL EXPRES- 

 SION OF A DUAL ACTION SYSTEM, one internal, the other external. It is 

 intended to show that the thing we recognize as a growing tree is the 

 tangible expression of a profitable differential exchange between rootlets 

 at one extreme, leaves at the other, each located in a different circulating 

 medium, air and soil. The chief actors are the sun, air, weather, and gravity, 

 on the one hand, and on the other the new conditions successively created 

 by the progress of growth from an initial point, such as shading, imprison- 

 ment, support, and the necessary extension of the lines of exchange. The 

 chief compelling and limiting factors are indicated, their lines of action, 

 and the conformity, or orientation, of the whole vital action system to them. 

 Social factors are not indicated. 



upon it by its own over-shadowing growth, is, and must 

 be, displayed in all its architecture, if we could but see 

 it and read it rightly. See diagram, fig. 2. 



