NATURE'S DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 119 



environments. It cannot temper the seasons ; nor con- 

 trol the physical nature of its habitat; nor radically 

 change the character and distribution of its food sup- 

 plies ; nor alter the basic attributes of its fellow beings. 



Life itself must seek out and find the best environ- 

 ments to live in, rightly using its instruments of dis- 

 covery, and its machinery of response, to keep in touch 

 with those constructive agents, mental and bodily, 

 which the external world holds in readiness for the 

 service of life. 



Life can endure only so long as it yields to these 

 larger agents upon which it depends, and builds itself 

 up in harmony with the more rigid medium in which 

 it exists. The chief problems in the administration 

 of its external affairs, therefore, are how to avoid, or 

 exclude, those things which are harmful; how to seek 

 out, and appropriate, or associate itself with, the things 

 which are serviceable; how to submit to the counter 

 currents and turbulent eddies created by the unequal 

 progress of the world at large; and thereby itself make 

 progress in the performance of its services. 



Hence whatever progress life actually has made in 

 its external affairs has been made by better usage of 

 the products of world-growth, and by improvements in 

 the ways and means of self-insulation, or protection 

 against them. That means better response to them; 

 better locomotion toward them, or away from them; 

 better communication, and more profitable exchange 

 with them. 



All these improvements have their origin in the 

 shifting conditions of the outer world, where each part 

 grows, as best it may. The improvements exist, and 



