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to modify his environment and make it fit to live in; second, to abandon 
the environment and go into a better one. 
To what extent shall one make efforts to modify his environment, 
to improve it? How early or how late shall one abandon efforts? These 
are questions of varying importance in the life of all. There are many 
factors to be considered. With some it is an easy matter to ‘pull up stakes,’ 
as the race did in its pastoral stage. The very evolution of the race, from 
a wandering life to one anchored, so to speak, to a city environment makes 
it difficult for the average individual to leave the crowded city and go 
back to the more primitive country life. We need only read the pathetic 
letters of Mrs. Carlyle with her chronic illhealth in smoky London, but 
with good health in her old country home in Scotland. She evidently 
realized relationships and made many trips to and fro, but after being 
accustomed to London life and meeting congenial people, it was next to 
impossible to go back to the monotonous life in the country. We thus see 
that physically she needed one sort of environment, that of the pure air 
of the country; mentally she required the contact of kindred minds, to 
be found in the large city. 
What we get out of a book depends largely on the interest with which 
we take it up and on our previous knowledge. We get out of it what we 
put in. A book in Greek or in Science will be understood by comparatively 
few, in contrast to the many who read and understand a popular novel; 
even ‘problem novels’ are not always understood. By observing a man 
turned loose in a large library one can arrive at certain conclusions. 
A biography may be so simple that most any reader can understand 
it. The biography or life of a military man is full of descriptions of battles, 
best understood by old soldiers; the life of the musician is apt to be full 
of technical musical matters and best understood by musicians; the 
scientist best understands the biographies of men of science. The indi- 
vidual in chronic illhealth will likely be the most appreciative reader of 
the biography of a man who had chronic illhealth—and the physician who 
studies the subject from a biological standpoint will likely be the one 
who not only appreciates, but understands such a life and the influence 
of environment. 
If I can induce some of you to read biography in the light of environ- 
mental influences, especially of such a man as Huxley, then I shall have 
accomplished all I had in mind in beginning this paper. 
