Enlargement

“ In each of these cases the growth made is inharmonious and one-sided: the balance between the two intersecting planes of growth, or between the two opposite sides, has been lost. But when a tree is planted in the open, and when all the other conditions of growth are favourable, it grows harmoniously in all directions,—upward, outward, and all around. In other words, it is growing as a whole, growing, as it ought to grow, through every fibre [254] of its being, and yet maintaining a perfect symmetry of form and the harmony of true proportion among its various parts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In the natural process of growth, the gap must necessarily be wider between the summits of the twigs than lower down, and, instead of imagining “missing links,” it is necessary to trace each separate branch as low down as possible, and to institute the comparisons between the lowest points that can be reached. The method is simply the logical result of the fact that every existing form of life stands at the summit of a long branch of the whole tree of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What we call its growth we ought rather to call its unfolding. It contains within itself everything that is necessary for its own vital processes. Even if I were to cover it up entirely, or put it in a warm, dark room, it would sprout and unfold itself in exactly the same way as it does here in the diffused light of my study. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The gradualness of growth is a characteristic which strikes the simplest observer. Long before the word Evolution was coined Christ applied it in this very connection—"First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." It is well known also to those who study the parables of nature that there is an ascending scale of slowness as we rise in the scale of life. ”

“ The Bible contains many figures illustrating this idea of growth or progress, whether applied to character or service. For example, it refers to the garden as a place where things grow, and thus illustrates the garden of the soul; to the development of a building in course of erection, 'all fitly framed together' and growing; to the growth of a fortune by wise investment, in the use of talents, two becoming four, five becoming ten, and so forth. The growth of the human body is also referred to, with its limbs, muscles, and parts developing with the head ”

“ 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. ”

“ The study of expansion reveals to us the fact that expansion and contraction furnish the many elements of all human action, but that expansion is first, that expansion expresses joy, exhilaration, animation in life, and that contraction, aside from its co-ordination with expansion in causing control in intensity, expresses antagonism, hate, anger, pain. ”

“ Growth came when, looking your last on them all, You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day And cried with a start—What if we so small Be greater and grander the while than they? Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ I said.
“Yes, they will have grown; yet I think too they will not have grown. It is possible to grow and not to grow, to grow less and to grow bigger, both at once—yes, even to grow by means of not growing!” ”

“ As the waves grow when the winds strive with the other forces which govern the movements of the surface of the sea, as the heap grows when we pour corn out of a sack, as the crystal grows when from the surrounding solution the proper molecules fall into their appropriate places: so in all these cases, very much as in the organism itself, is growth accompanied by change of form, and by a development of definite shapes and contours. ”

“ These facts relating to growth are of fundamental importance for a correct interpretation of the oft-discussed phenomena of early arrest of growth. We have seen that among members of the same race a prolonged period of growth goes hand in hand with unfavorable development, while an abbreviated period of growth results in larger dimensions of all physical measurements, and in a superiority of mental activity. ”

“ Growth produces big things, and not only things of this sort but men. Between bigness and greatness, however, there is a distinction of kind, not alone of degree. Growth is a measure of bulk, of quantity ”

“ DEIFICATION OF THE ELEMENTS OF GROWTH
The elements of growth, in the mind of primitive man, are four in number, the earth, grain, rain, and solar heat, and it is not remarkable that all of these came to be regarded as deified powers, and were latterly personalized in anthropomorphic form. It does not appear that the sun was at first looked upon as an agency of growth. ”

“ This law of growth, progress, evolution, unfoldment, by gradual and ever ascending stages, is absolute in every department of life, and in every human accomplishment, and where it is ignored, total failure will result. ”

“ A growth resulting from culture under Divinely appointed agencies. The most splendid growth, other things being equal, is the result of the highest culture. The highest culture is possible only through the most rigid conformity to the laws of development and the appliance of the best agencies. 4. A growth the standard of whose completeness is the fulness of Christ. The stature—the adultness, the full-grown manhood of Christ—is the standard of growth, whose attainment is the Christian’s noblest zeal. ”

“ By judicious questioning the teacher will show that it is impossible to define it, except by its manifestations in plants and animals; it is associated with the taking in of food; then by comparing the growth of a building or rock with that of a plant and animal, it will be possible to give some idea of growth by accretion as distinct from growth by assimilation; thus the mystery of growth will be gradually approached, the teacher pointing out that growth is only possible where there is life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Take a primeval forest, cut down the old growth and another will spring up, not like the first, but a more solid, thicker growth. So it is with error; like an old growth, error is tall and porous with a great show. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To what power shall we ascribe this acceleration, by which the first beginnings of structure have accumulated to themselves through the long geologic ages complication and power, till from the germ that was 168scarcely born into a sand-lance, a human being climbed the complete scale, and stood easily the chief of the whole?
In the cases of species, where some individuals develop farther than others, we say the former possess more growth-force, or “vigor,” than the latter. We may therefore say that higher types of structure possess more “vigor” than the lower. ”

“ We shake down if we become small; we shake up if we become great. And when we have reached the place our size determines, we stay there so long as we stay that size.
If we wish to change our place, we must first change our size. If we wish to go down, we must grow smaller and we shall shake down. If we wish to go up, we must grow greater, and we shall shake up. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of middle height, extraordinarily broad-shouldered, and with large strong hands and feet, he gave the impression of having been intended for a giant, whose growth had stopped before reaching its fulfillment. ”

“ At the same time it is perfectly true that all changes of form, inasmuch as they necessarily involve changes of actual and relative magnitude, may, in a sense, be properly looked upon as phenomena of growth; and it is also true, since the movement of matter must always involve an element of time81, that in all cases the rate of growth is a phenomenon to be considered. ”

“ Let us expand, then, where we are healthy and strong. Is not there a magnificent field left for our ambition of aggrandizement? Yes, and it fills my soul with delight when I see events preparing themselves which will lead the whole continent north of us into our arms. ”

“ We know now that they are stages in a growth, and in a growth not determined by an accidental environment only, but by an original purpose, a purpose to be realized in the history of the human race as a whole. ”

“ In the spiral shell we have a problem, or a phenomenon, of growth, immensely simplified by the fact that each successive increment is irrevocably fixed in regard to magnitude and position, instead, of remaining in a state of flux and sharing in the further changes which the organism undergoes. ”

“ 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. ”