resistance — his toughness. In the city, however, he has to observe a hundred 

 restrictions and interferences. There are traffic regulations; he cannot come 

 and go as he pleases. He has to step aside or adjust his pace to that of others. 

 He cannot spit whenever or wherever he feels like spitting. He is constantly 

 reminded that he may be makmg a nuisance of himself. There are demands 

 upon his manners, his dress, his speech. These all "cramp his style". And yet 

 he cannot get tough with these tender people. They have even specialized 

 here: toughness is handled by the police. 



Social Integration The human community, like the natural community, 

 becomes progressively more integrated, or unified. The increasing variety of 

 activities become more and more closely co-ordinated. And they become 

 more and more closely related to the outside. The rural and the urban, for 

 example, become more closely knit. Manufacturing, or processing, becomes 

 more closely related to production of raw materials and to the machinery of 

 marketing or distributing. Transportation and communication services mul- 

 tiply^out of all proportion to the growth of population. 



All these changes mean closer interdependence. Each individual must be 

 more sensitive to the moods and needs of others, must be more tolerant of 

 others, more ready to give, as well as to take. And interdependence extends 

 to an ever larger area as interchange of goods and services covers eventually 

 the whole earth; and civilized man becomes at last a citizen of the world com- 

 munity. The ruggedness of the individual who minds his own business and 

 disregards everybody seems to be out of place. 



Man and Other Communities^ When an equilibrium is reached, whether 

 in a natural community or in a human community, it may be disturbed by a 

 variety of happenings. By a radical change in climate, for example, as has 

 happened repeatedly in the past, or by a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, a 

 flood, the diversion of a river, a hurricane. But again and again a natural 

 community of plants and animals has been seriously disturbed by the intru- 

 sion of one restless, roving, ruthless species — man. Man makes his own com- 

 munity and tries to subordinate the rest of life to his purposes. And some- 

 times he destroys the very beings upon which his further existence depends. 



In Brief 



Decay, which is itself a living process, breaks up the organic compounds in 

 the bodies of larger plants and animals and makes the elementary substances 

 again and again available as raw materials for living bodies. 



Plants and animals are related in continuous food series, or "chains". 



There is a numerical relationship between the members of one species and 

 those of other species in the same food chain. 



iSee No. 5, p. 577. 

 575 



