FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549  
550   551   552   553   554   555   556   557   558   559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   >>   >|  
ly lead to the extinction of those groups with which they do not enter into close competition. In some cases, lowly organized forms appear to have been preserved to the present day from inhabiting confined or peculiar stations, where they have been subjected to less severe competition and where their scanty numbers have retarded the chance of favorable variations arising. Finally, I believe that many lowly organized forms now exist throughout the world from various causes. In some cases variations or individual differences of a favorable nature may never have arisen for natural selection to act on and accumulate. In no case, probably, has time sufficed for the utmost possible amount of development. In some few cases there has been what we must call retrogression of organization. But the main cause lies in the fact that under very simple conditions of life a high organization would be of no service--possibly would be of actual disservice, as being of a more delicate nature and more liable to be put out of order and injured. 4. Man: An Adaptive Mechanism[187] Everything in nature, living or not living, exists and develops at the expense of some other thing, living or not living. The plant borrows from the soil; the soil from the rocks and the atmosphere; men and animals take from the plants and from each other the elements which they in death return to the soil, the atmosphere, and the plants. Year after year, century after century, eon after eon, the mighty, immeasurable, ceaseless round of elements goes on, in the stupendous process of chemical change, which marks the eternal life of matter. To the superficial observer, nature in all her parts seems imbued with a spirit of profound peace and harmony; to the scientist it is obvious that every infinitesimal particle of the immense concourse is in a state of desperate and ceaseless struggle to obtain such share of the available supply of matter and energy as will suffice to maintain its present ephemeral form in a state of equilibrium with its surroundings. Not only is this struggle manifest among living forms, among birds and beasts and insects in their competition for food and habitat, but--if we may believe the revelations of the science of radio-activity--a process of transmutation, of disintegration of the atoms of one element with simultaneous formation of another element, is taking place in every fragment of inanimate matter, a process which parallels in ch
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   549  
550   551   552   553   554   555   556   557   558   559   560   561   562   563   564   565   566   567   568   569   570   571   572   573   574   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

living

 

nature

 
matter
 

process

 

competition

 
variations
 

elements

 

atmosphere

 

element

 

favorable


century

 

plants

 
present
 

organized

 
struggle
 
ceaseless
 
organization
 

spirit

 

harmony

 

imbued


scientist

 

profound

 
mighty
 

return

 

animals

 

immeasurable

 
superficial
 

observer

 

eternal

 

stupendous


chemical

 

change

 

science

 

revelations

 

activity

 

transmutation

 

beasts

 
insects
 

habitat

 

disintegration


fragment

 

inanimate

 
parallels
 
taking
 

simultaneous

 

formation

 

manifest

 
obtain
 

desperate

 

concourse