430 Mast, L. J. Henderson on "The Fitness of the Environment". 



essence of the environment, are not only fit but fittest, that there 

 are no others which could he substituted without loss to the 

 organism. Our author says (p. 272), "The fitness of the environ- 

 ment results from characteristics which constitute a series of maxima 

 unique or nearly unique properties of water, carbonic acid, the 

 compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen and the ocean so 

 numerous, so varied, so nearly complete among all things which 

 are concerned in the problem that together they form certainly 

 the greatest possible fitness. No other environment consisting of 

 primary constituents made up of other known elements, or lacking 

 water and carbonic acid, could possess a like number of fit char- 

 acteristics or such highly fit characteristics, or in any manner such 

 great fitness to promote complexity, durability, and active metabolism 

 in the organic mechanism which we call life." 



The treatment of this subject is comprehensive, intelligent and 

 intensely interesting. It is, in the reviewer's opinion, a valuable 

 contribution to science, in spite of the fact that a thorough and 

 altogether excellent treatment of the same general subject con- 

 taining similar conclusions appeared in the "Bridgewater Treatises" 

 approximately one hundred years ago, for it brings the whole matter 

 once more up to date. It is very interesting to find that the 

 results of the marvelous recent development in physics and chemistry 

 so admirably incorporated by Henderson in his work serve only 

 to strengthen the conclusion of the earlier authors with reference 

 to the degree of fitness of the more important factors in the environ- 

 ment. It is to be regretted that other factors were not included 

 in this thorough study, especially nitrogen and its compounds. 



There seems to be no room for doubt regarding the conclusion 

 that C, H, and and their compounds are not only fit but fittest, 

 that no other known elements or compounds could in any way 

 be substituted without loss to the organism. But I think this does 

 not necessarily mean, as the author appears to imply in the third part 

 of the book covering 38 pages devoted largely to philosophic specula- 

 tions, that the fitness of the environment is not solely due to adap- 

 tation on the part of the organism, that Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, etc., 

 are not fittest simply because the organism in the process of 

 evolution seized upon the fittest factors in the environment. It 

 does not show that complex, durable, self-regulating systems (life 

 according to Henderson), perhaps less efficient in certain respects 

 than we have at present, could not exist by making use of other 

 elements. Nor does this or anything else in the book seem to 

 warrant the author's final conclusion (p. 312) that, "the properties 

 of matter and the course of cosmic evolution are . . . intimately 

 related to the structure of the living being and to its activities"; 

 and that "the whole evolutionary process, both cosmic and organic, 



