LAWS OF ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE 81 



that as soon as ecological phenomena are investigated 

 dynamically and expressed in terms of processes, 

 this science will of necessity become more closely 

 correlated with those allied sciences which have al- 

 ready availed themselves of such methods. ... It 

 seems a very simple matter to give assent to the idea 

 of the law of change, yet in its practical application 

 this simplicity often vanishes at once when it is 

 seen that it involves the relation of cause and effect. 

 ... As this method of thinking is not generally 

 understood, it is occasionally applied in such a crude 

 and general sense that its bearing cannot be grasped 

 when applied to special or concrete problems. There 

 can be no question as to the general validity of this 

 method, but what is now needed is to know how these 

 processes are combined and related to produce 

 particular environmental conditions or situations. 

 That these difficulties are not confined to the ecolo- 

 gist alone, but are obstacles which arise in any 

 attempt at scientific interpretation, is worthy of 

 special notice. We are thus able to see why certain 

 naturalists, apparently not recognizing or understand- 

 ing the developmental processes which scientific ideas 

 undergo, nor being acquainted with the tendencies 

 of interpretation, dynamically considered, now making 

 such rapid headway in ecological botany, geography, 

 physiography, geology, and psychology, are inclined 

 to look upon such attempts in biology as merely a 

 fad or personal peculiarity of the student, and not of 

 any particular consequence. Such ideas confuse 

 the incidental with the essential and suggest a com- 



