Growth

“ Here it is sufficient to call attention to the law of growth, through which the living receive the power of self-development,—of bringing their endowments into act, of building up the being which they are. Whatever living thing is strong or beautiful has been made so by growth, since life begins in darkness and impotence. To grow is to be fresh and joyous. ”

“ But fresh and green from the rotting roots Of primal forests the young growth shoots; From the death of the old the new proceeds, And the life of truth from the rot of creeds On the ladder of God, which upward leads, The steps of progress are human needs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Growth—development—the going on to perfection, are the laws of life; and more emphatically so as appertaining to the life of the human soul. That life, in all its high activities, burns still in the soul of your lost darling, and he will grow, in the world of angelic spirits to which our Father has removed him, up to the full stature of an angel, a glorified form of intelligence and wisdom. ”

“ This means growth—the gradual uplifting of mankind, the diffusion of knowledge, as well as of food—the growth of intellectuality. And as this comes, think you that man will not rise higher? A great reservoir is being tapped and from it will flow, in the future, rich streams to fertilize the whole world of humanity. ”

“ Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single child passing through a single life to the collective process of growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works I have named. ”

“ And growth is all that matters. And for growth, tradition in some form or other is the first essential. For tradition, you see, is only another name for that principle of continuity without which the very idea of growth—let alone progress—is impossible. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And thus we see how wonderfully man is provided with the essentials of growth. This tender germ of progress is preserved in hard shells and prickly coverings, which, when they have served their purpose, are thrown aside, as not only useless but detrimental to further development. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is there not some confusion of ideas about this fetish of progress? Do we not confound progress with movement, action, assuming that where these are there is necessarily advance? Whereas much of our activity is like the waves of the sea, going always and arriving never. What we desire is the still progress of growth that comes of root striking downwards and fruit urging upwards. And this progress in character and conduct is not attained through conditions of environment or influence but only through the growth of ideas, received with conscious intellectual effort. ”

“ I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human choice. ”

“ This is Development. Once born, it is laid hold of by the principle of Growth which lasts until maturity. Now in the groups called Species, as well as in individuals, we observe exactly the same distinction. ”

“ 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 ”

“ When the environment is all-embracing, when it covers the whole circle of which the soul is or can be the centre, the growth made in response to it is the growth of the soul as such, and the knowledge which rewards that growth is the knowledge of supreme reality, or, in the language of religion, the knowledge of God. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I had been trying to educate myself in the new and wonderful cosmogony of growth which was first enunciated in the sixties, and was going to be, as I firmly believed, the basis of a new philosophy, a new system of ethics, a new poetry, a new everything. ”

“ Nature, which by one law of development evolves ideas, hypotheses, modes of inward life, and represses them in turn, has in this way provided that the earlier growth should propel its fibres into the later, and so transmit the whole of its forces in an unbroken continuity of life. Then comes the spectacle of the reserve of the elder generation exquisitely refined by the antagonism of the new. ”

“ All analogies point to a still increasing vigor in the growth of the kingdom of heaven. If the mustard tree is never seen growing, but only to have grown; yet the greater the tree, the greater its power of daily making large growth, without its growing being perceived. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It may possibly be an aid to the comprehension of the process of growth to regard one factor, namely the organism, as the active side of the development tending to indefinite growth in all directions, and the other factor, the environment, as the regulating, resisting factor, limiting such growth; the conception may, perhaps, be legitimately resorted to as we resort to various other devices which bring into prominence some one side of a process to the neglect of others but to the simplification of our concepts and calculations. ”

“ To extend, as well as to make clearer, this conception of the Social Science, let me here set down a question which comes within its sphere. What is the relation in a society between structure and growth? Up to what point is structure necessary to growth? after what point does it retard growth? at what point does it arrest growth? There exists in the individual organism a duplex relation between growth and structure which it is difficult adequately to express. ”

“ The forces employed in the elaboration of the human being, differ in their manifestation at various stages of its growth. There are two marked forces to be noted, often confounded together, but important to distinguish—viz., the power of growth and the power of development, the former possessed throughout life, the latter at certain epochs only. ”

“ The principle of growth is that of inherent vitality in the seed itself, and the operations of the gardener have their exact analogue in Mental Science. We do not put the self-expansive vitality into the seed, but we must sow it, and we may also, so to speak, water it by quiet concentrated contemplation of our desire as an actually accomplished fact. ”

“ The eternal affinities which exist between these conditions produce all the phenomena of Growth.
Growth is the change which takes place in a structure in obedience to the law of conformity to the changes which take place in its environment. ”

“ Is it not through the idea of growth? We are in a condition of process, of growth, of which our state on earth is but the preliminary condition. And this must mean that in one sense we know all that lies before us ”

“ 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. ”

“ Whims, no doubt, there are, passing phases through which natural growth carries us, flutterings of the needle when too near some powerful influence; yet amidst all variations the true direction will be discernible and ultimately will be dominant. ”

“ Fulfillment and desire are twin links in the chain of higher development, As the more advanced stages are reached, the energy of growth and the facility of unfolding seem to be released more readily through conscious than through subconscious effort. ”

“ The idea controlling this answer is that growth and development are in accordance with the law of the universe, and that destruction and decay are features which are only good in so far as they may be on the way to something better; as leaf-mould assists the growth of flowers, or as discords in their proper place conduce to, or prepare for, harmony. ”

“ Each age has its own special method of existence; thus there are laws for growth, for maturity, for decay. There are the great facts of growth by exercise or use; the necessity of maintaining a just distribution of force amongst the various parts, lest one grow at the expense of another; the alternations of action and rest required in every part of the economy; the varied life of different functions which give to each its individuality and special rule ”

“ 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. ”

“ But we must rather look for it wherever the organism retains for us, and still presents to us at a single view, the successive phases of preceding growth, the successive magnitudes attained, the successive outlines occupied, as the organism or a part thereof pursued the even tenour of its growth, year by year and day by day. ”

“ That God has created a partnership between Growth and Man, which is properly distinguished as the Man-Nature partnership. That the functions of the partners are clearly [214] defined by rigid limitations; Nature doing all the growing without harmonizing or cultivating anything; while Man performs all of the harmonizing or cultivating, but none of the growing. ”

“ There can be but one real agent of growth, or seeming growth, anywhere, and that agent is the integral world itself. It may grow all-over, if growth there be, but that single parts should grow per se is irrational. ”

“ In every living thing there is an element of continuous growth; in every aggregation of living things there is an element of continuous improvement. In the first instance, a vital actuality appears; whence, no one can tell. ”

“ Now what gives the increase in these cases is something which, though it generally requires labor to utilize it, is yet distinct and separable from labor—the active power of nature; the principle of growth, of reproduction, which everywhere characterizes all the forms of that mysterious thing or condition which we call life. ”

“ To give positive attention to such qualities is to arrest development upon a lower level. It is systematically to maintain a rudimentary phase of growth. Other activities are signs of a culminating power and interest ”

“ Interest passed from mechanism to biology. And, with this change of interest, a wholly new scientific ideal began to dominate our intellectual imagination. It was the ideal of growth. Life was in movement. ”

“ This classification, here roughly indicated and capable of further expansion, will be found in harmony with the 324 results of detailed analysis aided by development. Whether we trace mental progression through the grades of the animal kingdom, through the grades of mankind, or through the stages of individual growth; it is obvious that the advance, alike in cognitions and feelings, is, and must be, from the presentative to the more and more remotely representative. ”

“ The history of the discovery of growth is a large part of the history of human culture. That individuals grow, that the child grows to be a man, the colt a horse, the scion a tree, is easily recognized, though with unassisted eye the processes of growth are not discovered. ”

“ For normal development there must be both the growth principle and power within the individual, and the growth stimulus and materials supplied by the environment.
The rate and nature of growth and development are influenced by two factors: (1) heredity (race, family) ; (2) environment (climate, social status, economic resources, city or country, materialistic or idealistic atmosphere, commonplace or cultured, ugly or beautiful, expressive or repressive, guiding or neglectful) .
Growth and development are two different processes. Growth is increase in size ”