a
later result is what is meant by growth.

The primary condition of growth is immaturity. This may seem to be a
mere truism--saying that a being can develop only in some point in which
he is undeveloped. But the prefix "im" of the word immaturity means
something positive, not a mere void or lack. It is noteworthy that the
terms "capacity" and "potentiality" have a double meaning, one
sense being negative, the other positive. Capacity may denote mere
receptivity, like the capacity of a quart measure. We may mean by
potentiality a merely dormant or quiescent state--a capacity to become
something different under external influences. But we also mean by
capacity an ability, a power; and by potentiality potency, force. Now
when we say that immaturity means the possibility of growth, we are
not referring to absence of powers which may exist at a later time; we
express a force positively present--the ability to develop.

Our tendency to take immaturity as mere lack, and growth as something
which fills up the gap between the immature and the mature is due to
regarding childhood comparatively, instead of intrinsically. We treat
it simply as a privation because we are measuring it by adulthood as a
fixed standard. This fixes attention upon what the child has not, and
will not have till he becomes a man. This comparative standpoint is
legitimate enough for some purposes, but if we make it final, the
question arises whether we are not guilty of an overweening presumption.
Children, if they could express themselves articulately and sincerely,
would tell a different tale; and there is excellent adult authority for
the conviction that for certain moral and intellectual purposes adults
must become as little children. The seriousness of the assumption of the
negative quality of the possibilities of immaturity is apparent when
we reflect that it sets up as an ideal and standard a static end. The
fulfillment of growing is taken to mean an accomplished growth: that is
to say, an Ungrowth, something which is no longer growing. The futility
of the assumption is seen in the fact that every adult resents the
imputation of having no further possibilities of growth; and so far
as he finds that they are closed to him mourns the fact as evidence of
loss, instead of falling back on the achieved as adequate manifestation
of power. Why an unequal measure for child and man?

Taken absolutely, instead of comparatively, immaturity designates a
posi