430 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



38. 



Environ- 

 ment. 



here we meet first of all with the great fact that a living 

 thing cannot he conceived to exist alone ; it is dependent 

 upon its environment, and upon other living things of 

 similar, never quite identical, and mostly very different 

 nature. As a consequence of the conception which 

 guided Lamarck in contemplating the living world 

 especially the crowd of living things which before 

 him had remained unobserved the influence of en- 

 vironment plays a greater and greater part in the 

 study of every form of life. The further funda- 

 mental property of all living matter that it absorbs 

 through intussusception other matter which surrounds 

 it, that it grows and multiplies by division, casting 

 off some portions of its own substance as useful 

 secretions or cumbrous and useless excretions has the 

 twofold result that every living thing modifies its own 

 surroundings and that it creates a society of its like which, 

 through an automatic process of crowding-out, exercises 

 a kind of selection among its members, they being forced 

 to accommodate themselves to circumstances and to each 

 other. 1 The process suggested by Darwin as the rationale 



there seemed no need for further in- 

 vestigation. Physiology, expounded 

 as it often was at that time in the 

 light of such a conception, was apt 

 to leave in tlie mind of the hearer 

 the view that what remained to be 

 done consisted chiefly in determin- 

 ing the use of organs such as the 

 spleen, to which as yet no definite 

 function had been allotted. The 

 discovery of the glycogenic function 

 of the liver struck a heavy blow 

 at the whole theory of functions." 

 (Sir M. Foster in ' Claude Bernard,' 

 p. 90.) On the necessary condition 



of the experimental as distinguished 

 from the anatomical method, namely, 

 that it deals with the organism 

 whilst it is alive, see the conclud- 

 ing remarks in Sir M. Foster's 

 article on " General Physiology " in 

 the ' Ency. Brit.,' vol. xix. 



1 The relations of living things 

 to each other and to their environ- 

 ment admit of being contemplated 

 in two ways, which may be best 

 distinguished by a reference to 

 human society, exhibiting as it does 

 the two phenomena of co-operation 

 and of competition. The former 



