REVERSION, NOT A LAW, SUI GENERIS. 115 



cise of his» crural appendages, those members would 

 become, either atrophied, or greatly shrunken in size. 

 If, then, he were to indulge in judiciously-increased 

 activity, they would regain their normal, functional, 

 and structural integrity. This regain will not, then, 

 be caused, by such increased activity; but, by the 

 coordinating power of the organism, which ties to- 

 gether all the parts, and which, of itself, never nor- 

 mally changes; but which is changed, or modified, 

 in its efficiency, by the absence of the condition, 

 needful for the exercise of its power. It thus changes 

 and the minimum of such change, to which it is 

 subjected by external conditions, is, doubtless, that 

 flux which it experiences, when the usual process of 

 the disintegration of tissue, is taking place. We are 

 engaged, now, only in establishing our assumption 

 that, after primal Evolution, the only kind of de- 

 velopment, or of growth, possible, is Reversion, which 

 is the regain of a. species' lost integrity; but it is 

 the purpose of this work, to demonstrate, that the 

 only, normal state of this coordinating (or as some 

 may call it, vital) force, is the state in which it is in the 

 maximum degree of efficiency, possible for any indi- 

 vidual of the given species; — and that, within any 

 given species, it is impossible to have any other, 

 normal coordination of parts, -than that coordination 

 which comprises all of the characters of such species. 

 All of the differences, between individuals of the same 

 species, are due to the different manners and degrees 

 in which this full integrity of the organism, has been 

 modified; together with the different modes and de- 



