THE EVOLUTION OF INDIVIDUALITY 41 



ones, are merely other names for diverse spheres of 

 enveloping conditions, or for different arrangements of 

 matter and energy in time and space. 



Each environment, therefore, includes and excludes 

 certain things, and in accordance therewith creates and 

 preserves, prevents and destroys. It limits and local- 

 izes the individual thing both by creating it when and 

 where it is, and by setting the boundaries to when and 

 where it cannot be. What therein is possible and im- 

 possible is thereby determined. 



An individual, then, is a particular part of the uni- 

 verse in contrast with the whole. Its existence pro- 

 claims the fact that it is a localized sphere of cooper- 

 ative activity in a cooperative environment. It is a 

 resultant of both positive and negative factors. It is 

 created and sustained by cooperative and destructive 

 conditions within itself, and by cooperative and destruc- 

 tive conditions outside itself. Without these localizing 

 creators and delimiting destroyers the individual could 

 not exist, for without the one, it could not come into 

 being and without the other, it would be coextensive 

 with the universe. 



Thus the distinction between the internal and ex- 

 ternal environment -of any individual is a matter of 

 mental convenience only. Both environments are con- 

 tinuous, and cooperatively one; each, in its own way is 

 directive and creative. 



II. The Creative Drift 



As we grow in knowledge and experience we be- 

 come more and more conscious that all the appar- 

 ently separate acts of nature in reality form one con- 



