LIVING FORMS. THE LAW OF FORM. Ill 



the very meaning of the words, for by " resistance " 

 is meant that which, preventing, thereby directs the 

 motion. So that, in fact, we may look at the 

 question of organic form from another point of view, 

 and obtain an assurance respecting the mode of its 

 production which might be independent of experi- 

 mental evidence. 



For it is clear that organic forms are the result 

 of motion. By this expression, indeed, nothing more 

 is meant than that, as we consider form to depend 

 upon the position of the particles of which any 

 body consists, so, in the case of organic bodies, 

 these particles must have assumed their various 

 positions by moving into them. And since it is the 

 inevitable nature of motion to take the direction 

 of least resistance, it is equally clear that organic 

 forms are the result of motion in the direction of 

 least resistance. Which proposition, again, is only 

 putting into a general formula the result to which 

 observation has led us. In fact, here, as so often 

 elsewhere, we first discover a truth in nature and 

 then see that it is necessary. 



Organic forms, like all natural forms whatever, 



