330 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



re-bear its own birth. Such is the supreme 

 desire of the body: it feels itself a part and 

 is unhappy till it integrates itself; or it feels 

 itself in prison, till it breaks out and recon- 

 structs its prison; it is a slave in Assimila- 

 tion, but is free in Generation (or relatively 

 so). 



As the relation between the assimilative 

 and reproductive processes of the animal Or- 

 ganism is the most significant of this whole 

 sphere, we may employ still another set of 

 categories to designate it: potential and 

 actual. The Organism in Assimilation re- 

 newing its own ready-made tissues, is po- 

 tentially creative or reproductive; it re- 

 news itself as old, as given, as unseparated 

 within itself. But when it renews itself as 

 a new individual it is really new, creation is 

 actual, reproduction is realized in the separ- 

 ated Organism which is no longer merely po- 

 tential in the first Organism. The Generative 

 Process is thus the true realization of what 

 Life assimilates, completing such Assimila- 

 tion into a whole. Even the body will totify 

 its own hunger, and altruize its selfish crav- 

 ing. 



These expressions suggest a higher sphere, 

 the social order of man. The socio-economic 

 institution springs from the need of nutrition 

 and assimilation in the human organism; yet 



