CHAP, vi DEVELOPMENT AND HARMONY 353 



question undergoes decomposition along with the body as 

 a whole, a new process of continuous modification sets in by 

 which a new result is arrived at, but we do not think of this 

 process as one of development, but rather as one of decay. 

 We might indeed, relatively to the idea of decomposition, 

 still use the term development the decomposition is more 

 or less advanced, it progresses from small beginnings, 

 becomes well marked and then complete. But without the 

 qualification we should never use the term development of 

 this process. It is just the reverse of development. Thus 

 we seem clearly to have and to apply some notion of 

 development in general, as a process having a certain 

 distinctive character or trend opposed to a reverse process 

 which we call that of dissolution or decay, and it is clearly 

 this general sense that we shall require if we are to speak 

 intelligibly of the world-process as a whole as a process 

 of development. To begin with, in the instance taken, 

 which is typical enough, we clearly predicate development 

 of the process by which the organ acquires distinctive 

 character, and this distinctiveness, again, involves a com- 

 bined arrangement of parts, a certain formation involving 

 a joint working of tissues as, for example, the attach- 

 ments of muscle, tendon and bone that make up the 

 essential mechanism of a limb. There is in the ordinary 

 phrase a combined advance in differentiation and integra- 

 tion, and this combination only becomes more conspicuous 

 if we turn from the single organ or limb to the entire 

 organism. It is, as compared with any stage of the 

 embryo, highly differentiated, while it is also, as compared 

 with any stage but the very first in which the embryo is 

 a single cell, more completely integrated its parts, that is, 

 are more definitely adapted to the requirements of com- 

 bined action. Putting the two points together, we find 

 that what has happened is an extension of the organic 

 character, and that is, again, a more complete co-operation 

 of a greater aggregate of parts and of forces. 



2. The paradox in the conception of development, and 

 the standing difficulty in all theories of its nature and condi- 

 tions, lies in the question in what sense the germ can be 



