Such answer to this question as we may hope to find, must be looked for in the effects wrought on the organism as a whole by increased function in one of its parts. For since the discharge of its function by any part is possible only on condition that those various other functions on which its own is immediately dependent are also discharged, it follows that excess in its function presupposes some excess in their functions. Additional work given to a muscle implies additional work given to the branch arteries which bring it blood, and additional work, smaller in proportion, to the arteries from which these branch arteries come. Similarly, the smaller and larger veins which take away the blood, as well as those structures which deal with effete products, must have more to do. And yet further, on the nervous centres which excite the muscle a certain extra duty must fall. But excess of waste will entail excess of repair, in these parts as well as in the muscle. The several appliances by which the nutrition and excitation of an organ are carried on, must also be influenced by this rhythm of action and reaction; and therefore, after losing more than usual by the destructive process they must gain more than usual by the constructive process. But temporarily-increased efficiency in these appliances by which blood and nervous force are brought to an organ, will cause extra assimilation in the organ, beyond that required to balance its extra expenditure. Regarding the functions as constituting a moving equilibrium, we may say that divergence of any function in the direction of increase, causes the functions with which it is bound up to diverge in the same direction; that these, again, cause the functions which they are bound up with, also to diverge in the same direction; and that these divergences of the connected functions allow the specially-affected function to be carried further in this direction than it could otherwise be--further than the perturbing force could carry it if it had a fixed basis. It must be admitted that this is but a vague explanation. Among actions so involved as these, we can scarcely expect to do more than dimly discern a harmony with first principles. That the facts are to be interpreted in some such way, may, however, be inferred from the circumstance that an extra supply of blood continues for some time to be sent to an organ that has been unusually exercised; and that when unusual exercise is long continued a permanent increase of vascularity results. § 69. Answers to the questions--Why do these adaptive modifications in an individual animal soon reach a limit? and why, in the descendants of such animal, similarly conditioned, is this limit very slowly extended?--are to be found in the same direction as was the answer to the last question. And here the connexion of cause and consequence is more manifest.