The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)Spencer, Herbert
Science
The Principles of Biology, Volume 1 (of 2)
Spencer, Herbert
Biology
The qualified dependence of growth on organization, is equally implied when
we study it in connexion with that adjustment of inner to outer relations
which constitutes Life as phenomenally known to us. In plants this is less
striking than in animals, because the adjustment of inner to outer
relations does not involve conspicuous motions. Still, it is visible in the
fact that the condition on which alone a plant can grow to a great size,
is, that it shall, by the development of a massive trunk, present inner
relations of forces fitted to counterbalance those outer relations of
forces which tend continually, and others which tend occasionally, to
overthrow it; and this formation of a core of regularly-arranged woody
fibres is an advance in organization. Throughout the animal kingdom this
connexion of phenomena is manifest. To obtain materials for growth; to
avoid injuries which interfere with growth; and to escape those enemies
which bring growth to a sudden end; implies in the organism the means of
fitting its movements to meet numerous external co-existences and
sequences--implies such various structural arrangements as shall make
possible these variously-adapted actions. It cannot be questioned that,
everything else remaining constant, a more complex animal, capable of
adjusting its conduct to a greater number of surrounding contingencies,
will be the better able to secure food and evade damage, and so to increase
bulk. And evidently, without any qualification, we may say that a large
animal, living under such complex conditions of existence as everywhere
obtain, is not possible without comparatively high organization.
While, then, this relation is traversed and obscured by sundry other
relations, it cannot but exist. Deductively we see that it must be
modified, as inductively we saw that it is modified, by the circumstances
amid which each kind of organism is placed, but that it is always a factor
in determining the result.
§ 45. That growth is, _cæteris paribus_, dependent on the supply of
assimilable matter, is a proposition so continually illustrated by special
experience, as well as so obvious from general experience, that it would
scarcely need stating, were it not requisite to notice the qualifications
with which it must be taken.
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