vi DEVELOPMENT AND HARMONY 357 



joint working of several forces or, at lowest, the liberation 

 of one force from anything that counteracts it. Mechani- 

 cally considered and the whole process of Reality is 

 mechanically conditioned development consists in the 

 rearrangement of forces so that from a state in which they 

 conflict with one another and produce no regular series of 

 changes (potential energy), they come to work in definite 

 relation with one another, so that while each is responsible 

 for some series of changes or some feature of such a series 

 (kinetic energy), they together build up structures of 

 definite types and relatively enduring character. 



This process of development begins within the inanimate 

 world, and that is why I have used the term structure 

 instead of that of organism. Every organism is a struc- 

 ture, but not every structure is an organism. A structure 

 is a whole constituted and maintained by interacting parts. 

 The behaviour of each part is affected by that of others 

 in some way which is distinctive and which is such as to 

 give to the whole a definite character and a definite mode 

 of behaviour a line of action persisting in time which 

 will only be modified by the infringement of some external 

 force. The solar system is such a structure. It would 

 appear that the chemical atom is such a structure, its 

 elements being the corpuscles, and the binding force the 

 electrical attractions and repulsions that constrain corpuscles 

 to assume certain alternative mutual relations. Atoms 

 brought within the sphere of mutual influence can modify 

 one another, and form higher structures, which are mole- 

 cules of the chemical compounds. But in all mechanical 

 structures, and the chemical is assumed to rank ultimately 

 with the mechanical, though the parts influence each other's 

 behaviour, the action due to each is unaffected by the 

 remainder. The mode of action characteristic of the part 

 persists unchanged in whatever combination it may be 

 found. Every force in a mechanical structure operates 

 with its own magnitude and in its own direction, and, if the 

 rest of the structure were suddenly dissolved, would con- 

 tinue to operate in precisely the same way. Only, as any 

 element operating with such force is at the same time 

 operated upon by other elements of the system, the actual 



