ABSTRACT
‘Growth’ is a word of notorious imprecision, but it stoutly defies semantical reform. Change of size is almost always accompanied by transformation; growth by proportionate enlargement is very rare. Adults of different but related species acquire their distinctive shapes because they conform to different but related rules of transformation. The sizes and growth rates of animals are functionally in gear with all the other parameters that define their way of living—their rate and manner of reproduction, their behaviour, habitat, enemies and food. Accretionary products like shells and hair are made by living cells which grow in the organic style: all additive growth is subsidized by acts of multiplication. The rules of organic transformation are therefore analogous to those the author has already arrived at in respect of growth. The specific growth rate is greater in early life than latterly and so also is the rate of change of form.
