222 THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 



Mr. Herbert Spencer defines our conception of life 

 -as ' ' the continuous adjustment of internal relations 

 to external relations," 55 and this has been generally 

 accepted as the best definition yet given. Now ad- 

 justment, or adaptation, is not, as we have already 

 seen, a mechanical process, but implies not only 

 intelligence to understand what is being done, but 

 freedom of movement to prevent threatened action. 

 Indeed the idea of unconscious adaptation is absurd. 

 This is agreed to both by Professor Cope and Pro- 

 fessor Mark Baldwin. In time adaptation may be- 

 come instinctive, but it must at first have been 

 intelligent. And thus we see that mind must 

 originally have been free to act, although it after- 

 wards became subject to law. It is important to 

 remember that to fall into a habit is to impose a 

 law upon oneself. Instincts are laws which have 

 been imposed on the present generations by their 

 ancestors. And all reflex action is the same. From 

 ihe studies of animal life made by Fabre and others, 

 nothing comes out clearer than that instincts, how- 

 ever strong, are not immutable, and that some indi- 

 viduals are more intelligent than others. This holds 

 true with birds and mammals as well as with insects. 



These self-imposed laws are not like the physical 

 Jaws of the universe, for they can be altered or 

 annulled. Dead matter has been subjected by the 

 Creator to fixed laws , as we call them ; but living 

 protoplasm is free to act. To it has been given the 

 power of adaptation, or antagonism to the fixed laws 

 55 " Principles of Biology," 2nd edition, vol. 1, p. 99. 



