THE TETRAKINETIC THEORY 279 
ACTION ACTION 
AND  Pcetne sawed INTERACTION. ........06- AND 
REACTION REACTION 
Functions of the Functions of the Functions of the 
Capture, Storage, Coérdination, Balance, Capture, Storage, 
and Release of Coéperation, Compensation, and Release of 
Energy Acceleration, Retardation, Energy 
of Actions and Reactions 
Since it is known that mamy actions and reactions of the organ- 
ism-—such as those of general and localized growth, of nutrition, of 
respiration—are codrdinated with other actions and reactions through 
interaction, it is but a step to extend the principle and suppose that 
all actions and reactions are similarly codrdinated; and that while 
there was an evolution of action and reaction there was also-.a cor- 
responding evolution of interaction, for without this the organism 
would not evolve harmoniously. 
Evidence for such universality of the interaction principle has 
been accumulating rapidly of late, especially in experimental medicine 
and in experimental biology. It is a further step in our theory to 
suppose that the directing power of heredity which regulates the initial 
and all the subsequent steps of development in action and reaction, 
gives the orders, hastens development at one point, retards it at 
another, is an elaboration of the principle of interaction. In lowly 
organisms like the monads these interactions are very simple; in 
higher organisms like man these interactions are elaborated through 
physicochemical and other agents, some of which have already been 
discovered although doubtless many more await discovery. Thus we 
conceive of the origin and development of the organism as a con- 
comitant evolution of the action, reaction, and interaction of energy. 
Actions and reactions are borrowed from the inorganic world, and 
elaborated through the production of the new organic chemical 
compounds; it is the peculiar evolution and elaboration of the physi- 
cal principle of interaction which distinguishes the living organism. 
Thus the evolution of life may be rewritten in terms of invisibe 
energy, as it has long since been written in terms of visible form. All 
visible tissues, organs, and structures are seen to be the more or less 
simple or elaborate agents of the different modes of energy. One 
after another special groups of tissues and organs are created and co- 
érdinated—-organs for the capture of energy from the inorganic environ- 
ment and from the life environment, organs for the storage of energy, 
organs for the transformation of energy from the potential state into 
