xii ACTIVITY AND SUBSTANCE 215 



of changes rather than on their mutability, on the mere 

 instability of organic processes. Thus if with Spencer we 

 conceive life as an adjustment of internal to external 

 relations ( mutual adjustment would be better !), it is 

 evident that the success of life will depend on the degree 

 of correspondence, however attained, between the organism 

 and its environment. Perfect correspondence therefore 

 would be perfect life, and might be conceived as arising 

 by a gradual perfecting of the correspondence until the 

 organism either adapted itself completely to an unchanging 

 environment or instantaneously and part passu to a 

 changing one, in such wise that the moment of non- 

 adaptation (if any) was too brief to come into consciousness. 

 In either case the relation of the organism to its 

 environment would be unchangingly the same. It would 

 persist therefore in being what it was, in expressing its 

 nature in its activities, without alteration or decay, gaining 

 nothing and losing nothing, because of the perfect 

 equipoise of waste and repair. 



That such an equilibrium is not unthinkable may 

 be illustrated also by the conceptions of a balance of 

 income and expenditure, of the stationary state of 

 economics and of perfect justice as a social harmony in 

 which each maintains his own position in society without 

 aggression on others. Surely in none of these cases could 

 it be asserted that there was a cessation of social or 

 industrial relations. Once more, does not the apparent 

 paradox arise merely out of the habit of interpreting 

 evepyeia aKivrjcria 1 ? as a cessation of activity ? 



Yet it is this latter view which is really unthinkable, 

 as may be illustrated by taking a hypothetical case, that 

 of an adaptation or harmony on the verge of the per 

 fection, the possibility of which is in dispute. 



It must be admitted that in the stage immediately 

 preceding perfect adaptation the organism is very much 

 alive, and moreover carries on its life with a minimum of 

 friction and a maximum of success. In such a life 

 difficulties would exist only to be overcome, and no 

 process of adapting would be more than momentary. 



