BENEVOLENCE AND DISCIPLINE 159 



envelopes, and the right placement of them in time and 

 space, which in varying degrees always go with them. 

 What the new life then becomes is not merely a larger 

 germ product, but a resultant serial product due to the 

 cooperative action of the germ with all these initial and 

 serially added contributions. 



The influence of specific containers, more volumi- 

 nous yolk mass, and a constant food supply, to which 

 the germ must adapt its growth, is very considerable, to 

 say nothing of other modifying conditions; and their 

 directive influences and compulsions may continue long 

 after the agents themselves have bodily disappeared. 



And when at last the embryo is hatched, or born, it 

 comes under the directive compulsion of another set 

 of agencies, that of the great world of plant and ani- 

 mal life. These external, bionomic environments were 

 created by the growth and multiplication of all the 

 constituent members of life at large. They regulate 

 and control the individual in much the same manner 

 that its internal environment regulates and controls 

 the life of its constituent parts, but in a less rigorous 

 degree. 



It is evident that the internal environment of every 

 individual thing, whether it be a molecule, an animal, 

 or a social aggregate, is more directive and exacting 

 than its external environment, for it is more homogene- 

 ous, it contains fewer conflicting elements, fewer ene- 

 mies and neutrals; all its constituent parts have a nar- 

 rower common interest, and all of them cooperate bet- 

 ter to a common end, than those of the outer world. 



But, as we have already seen, there is no definite 

 boundary between these inner and outer environments 

 of life. The two are always bridged by channels of 



