 One of these deep conditions of aesthetic form is rhythm. Dewey finds rhythm “the first characteristic of the environing world that makes possible the existence of artistic form” (AE: 147). The rhythms of art are grounded in the basic patterns of the relation of the live creature and its environment. Dewey opposes the theory of rhythm as the steady recurrence of identical elements as in a ticking clock: “the tick-tock theory” of rhythm (AE: 168). Rather, each rhythmic beat or tick does not merely repeat the past but drives the rhythmic process forward. Various natural phenomena exemplify this type of rhythm, including “a pond moving in ripples, forked lightning [and] the waving of branches in the wind” (AE: 159). These are contrasted to rhythmless phenomena, such as “a monotonous roar” (AE: 159), which do not involve mutually resisting forces and thus do not entail a gathering up of energy which would create an anticipation of release, as in the case of the beating of a bird’s wing. Neither do these wholes possess the kind of accumulation that Dewey finds essential to aesthetic form.