NATURE'S DUAL SOVEREIGNTY 127 



because it is very largely self-created and self-con- 

 trolled. That it is not wholly so, is due to its depend- 

 ency on its external environment. 



A molecule of water, for example, is self-con- 

 structed, self-controlled to the extent that it is created 

 through the cooperative action of its constituent parts. 

 But it cannot exist or endure unless it happens, or is 

 placed in, or finds, the right environmental conditions 

 to that end. So it is with a living thing, or any other 

 object. Hence the administration of the external life 

 is not and cannot be self-insured or self-determined, 

 for no individual life either creates or controls, except 

 to a very limited degree, the world in which it lives. 



The external life is insured, like the internal life, by 

 several sets of agencies: (i) In part by the long estab- 

 lished order, and the basic quality, of the cosmic and 

 terrestrial environments of life. The nature of these 

 environments, their universality and durability is in- 

 sured by their own constructive methods; over them, 

 life has had, and can have, no measurable control. (2) 

 In part by life's self-constructive and self-saving usage 

 of the varied ways and means provided by nature as the 

 legitimate and compelling heritage of life. (3) In 

 part by the directive discipline of the external world 

 which irrevocably prescribes when, and where, and 

 how life may, or may not, exist. It is only by avoiding 

 that which is evil ; by seeking, and finding, that which 

 is good; by yielding, not breaking, under superior 

 forces; by obedience, or submission to the dictates of 

 the established physical, organic, and social order, that 

 individual life can attain cooperative conformity with 

 nature action, and rightly use her resources in a com- 

 mon creative purpose. 



