Augmentation

“ Name [n,uur’u] coalesces with augmentation in-between before the numeral-names from [onr’u] to [onpathu] . 472/66 The succeeding tens (pahthu, irupahthu, etc.) also coalesce in the same way. 473/67 Succeeding names denoting measurement of capacity and weight will also coalesce with the terms above. 474/68 Name [n,uur’u] with numeral prefix will also coalesce with the terms above. 475/69 Before thee succeeding numeral-name [aayiram] it coalesces with the empty morpheme [in] . ”

“ I have called this book a study of Growth and Form, because in the most familiar illustrations of organic form, as in our own bodies for example, these two factors are inseparably associated, and because we are here justified in thinking of form as the direct resultant and consequence of growth: of growth, whose varying rate in one direction or another has produced, by its gradual and unequal increments, the successive stages of development and the final configuration of the whole material structure. ”

“ So I have added to use the energy of effort, and the Lamarckian theory, completed, can be characterized as the theory of the origin of species, by effort, use, and disuse. A prominent cause of change of structure may be here referred to; and that is, change in consequence of excess or diminution of growth-energy, due to the action of use and effort in disturbing its equilibrium. That is to say, that excessive growth in one place has caused diminished growth in another, and vice versa. ”

“ In such a structure, then, we have certain primary phenomena of growth manifested in their original simplicity, undisturbed by secondary and conflicting phenomena. What actually grows is merely the lip of an orifice, where there is produced a ring of solid material, whose form we have treated of under the name of the generating curve; and this generating curve grows in magnitude without alteration of its form. ”

“ And while growth is a somewhat vague word for a complex matter, which may {11} depend on various things, from simple imbibition of water to the complicated results of the chemistry of nutrition, it deserves to be studied in relation to form, whether it proceed by simple increase of size without obvious alteration of form, or whether it so proceed as to bring about a gradual change of form and the slow development of a more or less complicated structure. ”

“ It is clear, I think, that we may account for many ordinary biological processes of development or transformation of form by the existence of trammels or lines of constraint, which limit and determine the action of the expansive forces of growth that would otherwise be uniform and symmetrical. ”

“ In short the celebrated doctrine of “preformation” implied on the one hand a clear recognition of what, throughout the later stages of development, growth can do, by hastening the increase in size of one part, hindering that of another, changing their relative magnitudes and positions, and altering their forms; while on the other hand it betrayed a failure (inevitable in those days) to recognise the essential difference between these movements of masses and the molecular processes which precede and accompany {55} them, and which are char­ac­ter­is­tic of another order of magnitude. ”

“ We have seen that a slow but definite change of form is a common accompaniment of increasing age, and is brought about as the simple and natural result of an altered ratio between the rates of growth in different dimensions: or rather by the progressive change necessarily brought about by the difference in their accelerations. ”

“ The differences of form, and changes of form, which are brought about by varying rates (or “laws”) of growth, are essentially the same phenomenon whether they be, so to speak, episodes in the life-history of the individual, or manifest themselves as the normal and distinctive char­ac­teris­tics of what we call separate species of the race. From one form, or ratio of magnitude, to another there is but one straight and direct road of transformation, be the journey taken fast or slow ”

“ The term growth ought strictly to be confined to mere increase of size, and development to change of structure. [916] Now, a child is said to grow into a man, and a foal into a horse, but, as in these cases there is much change of structure, the process properly belongs to the order of development. ”

“ The differences of form which are the resultants of these differences in rate of growth are especially manifested during that part of life when growth itself is rapid: when the organism, as we say, is undergoing its development. ”

“ We have been assured by our guides in these matters that in the processes of evolution there is no continuous or unbroken chain of progress, that growth or change does not necessarily imply development, but, on the contrary, only as a structure becomes better fitted for its conditions, and only as its organs become more highly specialized for the performance of all the duties involved in its environment, may it be said to be in the line of progress. ”

“ If, on the one hand, further growth implies more complex structure, on the other hand changeableness of structure is a condition to further growth; and, conversely, unchangeableness of structure is a concomitant of arrested growth. ”

“ Nevertheless they are so important, so full of deep theoretical significance, and are so bound up with the general question of form and of its determination as a result of growth, that an essay on growth and form is bound to take account of them, however imperfectly and briefly. The phenomena which I have in mind are just those many cases where adaptation, in the strictest sense, is obviously present, in the clearly demonstrable form of mechanical fitness for the exercise of some particular function or action which has become inseparable from the life and well-being of the organism. ”

“ The deep-seated rhythms of growth which, as I venture to think, are the chief basis of morphological heredity, bring about similarities of form, which endure in the absence of conflicting forces; but a new system of forces, introduced by altered environment and habits, impinging on those particular parts of the fabric which lie within this particular field of force, will assuredly not be long of manifesting itself in notable and inevitable modifications of form. ”

“ The new must include the old—the old must incorporate and assimilate the new, and each must modify and be modified by the other. Progress in all things—in geology, in society, in philosophy—is by evolution and growth ”

“ The whole phenomenon of variability in regard to magnitude and to rate of increment is in the highest degree suggestive: inasmuch as it helps further to remind and to impress upon us that specific rate of growth is the real physiological factor which we want to get at, of which specific magnitude, dimensions and form, and all the variations of these, are merely the concrete and visible resultant. But the problems of variability, though they are intimately related to the general problem of growth, carry us very soon beyond our present limitations. ”

“ Hence, if man goes on selecting, and thus augmenting, any peculiarity, he will almost certainly unconsciously modify other parts of the structure, owing to the mysterious laws of the correlation of growth. ”

“ It is evident that by the combined action of appropriate forces any material form can be transformed into any other: just as out of a “shapeless” mass of clay the potter or the sculptor models his artistic product; or just as we attribute to Nature herself the power to effect the gradual and successive transformation of the simplest into the most complex organism. In like manner it is possible, at least theoretically, to cause the outline of any closed curve to appear as a projection of any other whatsoever. ”

“ Let us begin, then, with a few facts respecting which we are all agreed, and which as they are sometimes called by the name of Evolution, are supposed to supply evidence of the correctness of the theory.
(1) We all believe in growth. It is a matter of fact that the world is full of growth. And this growth is not limited to gradual, or continuous, enlargement or development ”

“ Increase is caused by the augmentative power of that which is the subject of increase: but the formation of the body is caused by the generative power, not of that which is generated, but of the father generating from seed, in which the formative power derived from the father's soul has its operation. ”

“ A complete curve of growth, starting from zero, has the same essential char­ac­teris­tics as the regeneration curve.
Indeed the more we consider the phenomenon of regeneration, the more plainly does it shew itself to us as but a particular case of the general phenomenon of growth189, following the same lines, obeying the same laws, and merely started into activity by the special stimulus, direct or indirect, caused by the infliction of a wound. ”

“ No small part of what is known as Wolff’s or von Baer’s law, that the individual organism tends to pass through the phases char­ac­ter­is­tic of its ancestors, or that the life-history of the individual tends to recapitulate the ancestral history of its race, lies wrapped up in this simple account of the relation between rate of growth and form. ”

“ As the final result of his laborious investigations, His tells us "that a comparatively simple law of growth is the one essential thing in the first development. Every formation, whether it consist in cleavage of layers, or folding, or complete division, is a consequence of this fundamental law." ”

“ And again, "The march of transformation is the resultant of forces both internal and external which operate in a definite manner upon a changeable organism and similarly affect large numbers of individuals." ”

“ But in a larger or a more complex organism the study of growth, and of the rate of growth, presents us with a variety of problems, and the whole phenomenon becomes a factor of great morphological importance. ”

“ I should expect not merely change but a new method of producing the change. Or, to make an Irish bull, I should expect the next stage in Evolution not to be a stage in Evolution at all: should expect that Evolution itself as a method of producing change will be superseded. ”

“ Over all these causes of Change I am convinced that the accumulative action of Selection, whether applied methodically and more quickly, or unconsciously and more slowly, but more efficiently, is by far the predominant Power. ”

“ I can understand how certain influences are necessarily toward improvement, but how is it that our elevation is assured when so many are unconscious of such a tendency, and in the outer world at least, multitudes seem to be bent upon getting lower instead of higher in the scale? I feel quite sure that the masses of our ancestors in the past, were no better than the masses now, and did not consciously co-operate with nature for their own improvement. ”

“ When we do meet with a clear and unmistakable series of such progressive magnitudes or ratios, manifesting themselves in a progressive series of “allied” forms, then we have the phenomenon of “orthogenesis.” ”

“ And thus it is with the changes produced by growth in societies, as well as with those metamorphoses accompanying change in the mode of life—especially those accompanying change from the predatory to the industrial life. ”

“ As time goes on and the needs of life become more complex, power follows need. We have been long accustomed to consider growth as applied almost exclusively to size in its various aspects. But Nature, who has no doctrinaire ideas, may equally apply it to concentration. A developing thing may expand in any given way or form. ”

“ Natural development always proceeds from the simple to the complex—not inversely; progress consists in differentiation, i.e., in the evolution of originally similar parts into special organs of different structure and independent functions, and not in the retrogression of differentiated beings of rich specialization to a protoplasm without physiognomy. ”

“ One of the simplest cases of correlation is that a modification which arises during an early stage of growth tends to influence the subsequent development of the same part, as well as of other and intimately connected parts. ”

“ True, he states the method or law of that change. But the method is discovered by induction. Induction is in turn annihilated by evolution. The fabric as it rises loses its foundation, and floats in the air, a baseless vision. ”

“ Formerly I used the somewhat vague expression of correlation of growth, which may be applied to many large classes of facts. Thus, all the parts of the body are admirably coordinated for the peculiar habits of life of each organic being, and they may be said, as the Duke of Argyll insists in his 'Reign of Law,' to be correlated for this purpose. ”

“ The faculty of growth is inherent in every part of an organized body; it is the primary effect of life. This faculty of growth has given rise to the various modes of multiplication and regeneration of the individual, and by its means any progress which may have been acquired in the composition and forms of the organism has been preserved. ”

“ A growth of new vital force—which yet was not a growth—everything pointed the other way, let me say a stock, was to be grafted into the decaying and wasting organism, permanent in its character, constant, without flux or reflux. ”

“ Such are the several conditions by which the phenomena of growth are determined. Conspiring and conflicting in endless unlike ways and degrees, they in every case qualify more or less differently each other's effects. ”

“ Phyletic growth, or the evolution of the organic world ever into higher and more complex forms, or at least into forms of different structure, is, as I have said, merely the sum of the processes of growth of the ancestors—together with the result of external influences on the forms during their development and their existence. This additional modification which the individuals as such undergo is—together with the influence of crossing—the very cause of the constantly progressing evolution. ”