3 io DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



7. Let us, as before, suppose a living being with parts or 

 organs A, B, C ... and normal life processes Aa, B/3, Gy, 

 and let us take the case where any large or prolonged devia- 

 tion from A a is fatal to life. Then we shall find that 

 modifications such as a' set up deviations /3', 7', which tend 

 to restore a. If we suppose that the modifications /3', y 

 are set going mechanically by a', we must attribute them 

 to a pre-determined mechanical arrangement. The charac- 

 teristics of this arrangement are that it acts as a whole, 

 maintaining as a whole a life process admitting of certain 

 limited deviations in all directions from a common central 

 type. Every elementary process sets up other processes 

 which react on it, either (i) in such a way as to maintain it, 

 carry it through and perhaps prepare for its repetition if 

 it is a normal incident of the vital whole, or (2) so as to 

 modify and thereby convert it into a process compatible 

 with the whole. The organic whole may thus be conceived 

 as shaping or determining its constituents as much as it is 

 determined or constituted by them. Now, so far, we have 

 conceived this relation mechanically. That is to say, we 

 have conceived each process as beginning independently 

 of the remainder, whether through environmental stimulus 

 or internal changes of structure, and we have conceived an 

 arrangement such as we have actually noted in the case of 

 some machines, whereby such a process sets up others 

 which, finally, through a series of causal links react upon it 

 and shape it into conformity with requirements. The 

 confessed machine will exhibit one or perhaps two such 

 devices, affecting a particular part in a special way, through 

 a series of connections. Let us suppose the reactions 

 quickened and multiplied. The functions of any organ 

 then come under the influence of others more speedily and 

 more completely. Its action, not only in this respect or 

 that, but in all respects calls forth reactions from the rest 

 of the organism which affect it, maintaining, annulling or 

 controlling as the case may be ; and the reaction is more 

 and more speedy and direct. Thus the time and the 

 sphere of the independent action of any part are conceived 

 to be progressively shortened. In the limit both are zero, 

 and the part does not for any time or in any respect act in 



