iv MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 309 



to call into being a process which redresses the balance. 

 More generally, in any self-acting machine, it may be con- 

 tended that as soon as we consider its permanent operation, 

 there is not that ' indifference ' of parts which our defini- 

 tion postulated. Thus in our own example, though any 

 given movement of the eccentric follows < mechanically ' on 

 the turn of the axle, no matter what is happening to the 

 rest of the machine, yet if we look at the normal working 

 of the mechanism as a whole and consider the conditions 

 on which the recurrence of this particular motion rests, 

 must we not, after all, admit that it is precisely its relation 

 to the remainder, the fact that it is connected up with a 

 steam cylinder and its appurtenances that keeps it in being ? 

 Must we not say that as truly as in the living plant or 

 animal, the working of the slide valve gear is determined 

 not wholly by its internal structure but by the effect it has 

 on the remainder of the arrangement ? 



If we admit the cogency of this argument we shall be 

 forced to recognise in such an arrangement as a self-acting 

 machine something of the organic character, and for this 

 recognition, in fact, the result of our discussion will in the 

 end provide some justification. The machine, however, 

 remains in essence a machine, partly because it does not 

 grow but is made, i.e. the organic character disappears 

 entirely when we consider its genesis, partly, and this is 

 the point to be emphasized for the moment, because the 

 organic relationship is here, beyond doubt, secondary. It 

 is the result of operations of part on part which, however 

 cunningly devised to combine, to maintain one another, 

 and even to regulate and compensate for divagations, 

 operate from moment to moment, each in accordance with 

 the laws of its structure, directly affecting and affected by 

 that only which is in immediate continuity with it. Now 

 the fundamental question for the validity of the organic 

 concept is whether there is any structure where the action 

 of each element appears to be determined by its place in 

 the whole which cannot be reduced to a mechanism after 

 this fashion. The organic concept seems to be something 

 different from the mechanical, but if so what is the differ- 

 ence and how can it be explained ? 



