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ing, neutral, or sterile of immediate results, but yield- 

 ing its products in deferred dividends. These adap- 

 tive fitness are the by-products of something else or 

 of other constructive acts. They can be measured only 

 by their creative power, actual or potential. 



Man, as an individual, is more or less fitted to his 

 social and physical environments, as a flower, or a na- 

 tion, is fitted to its physical and social surroundings. 

 But the number and complexity of the fitnesses is much 

 greater in one case than in the other. Man, for ex- 

 ample, is made up of a greater number of internal parts 

 than the plant, all of them marshalled in groups, and 

 classes, and organs, mutually moulded and fitted to one 

 another in one cooperative, bodily service; as a con- 

 stituent of nature-life, he is fitted to a greater variety 

 of external things, and to more subtle, more fleeting 

 external events; and, as a member of human society, 

 he is fitted to his brother members for a great variety 

 of social services wholly lacking in every other phase 

 of nature-life. Hence he does a greater variety of 

 things ; his life is larger and quicker, more resourceful 

 than that of any other organism, and he is a living part 

 of a much larger cooperative system. 



IX. Adaptability in Nature- Action, as a Universal 

 Creative Tropism 



The world of action is revealed to us as an archi- 

 tectural system, a universal network of physical and 

 chemical organization ; it may be on a gigantic, endur- 

 ing scale in terrestrial and cosmic affairs, or on an 

 infinitesimal, more fugitive scale in the affairs of atoms 

 and molecules. In every direction, these graded, struc- 



