360 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



ments, acting in a determinate relation, have a certain scope 

 of operation, the filling up of which constitutes the develop- 

 ment of the individual. 



iii. Both as a condition and result of this development 

 elements of energy originally foreign to the organism are 

 absorbed and arranged so as to subserve the organic 

 movement. 



It is only in the second c moment ' that we find anything 

 like a c pre-formation ' in the germ of the mature indi- 

 vidual, and even here there is not necessarily any real 

 identity of character, though there is true continuity of 

 individual being. What must exist at the beginning is not 

 the developed structure in miniature, but rather something 

 that will seize on all that comes within its grip and throw 

 it into place in such fashion that bit by bit the structure 

 will grow. As in a country dance a person standing at a 

 certain point and giving his hand to dancers in succession 

 will swing them round in a definite direction, and so pro- 

 duce in the end a new formation, so we may conceive the 

 organic system dealing with all that comes to it, and after 

 selecting what it can absorb and extruding what it cannot, 

 throwing each item that it retains into the position in which 

 it will form part of the matured order. For this purpose 

 the germ need not be in the least like the matured order. 

 It must only have a mode of operation, which is determined 

 by the needs of that order. In this respect it resembles a 

 purposive idea, and, in fact, as we have seen, there is an 

 element of purpose involved in organic action as such. 

 But it is not until the higher levels of development are 

 reached that it becomes a fully articulate purpose guided by 

 an idea. At lower levels an organic element reacts to each 

 situation in such wise as best to maintain the union of the 

 living whole, and in the course of growth, as each ele- 

 ment is added, the addition is so made as to preserve, while 

 it unavoidably modifies, that union. The action of each 

 element at each moment is directed to the maintenance of 

 the equilibrium of the next moment, and the arrangement 

 of the organism is such that this process does not defeat 

 itself, but leads on and on to a point of maturity. Beyond 

 this point, on the other hand, the organism cannot advance. 



