THE RELATIONS OF ENVIRONMENT TO LIFE 71 



Animals in their natural state are only consumers, 

 or, at best, and in only a few cases, storers of supplies. 

 Man is a producer. The formula of life s ^rela 

 tion to environment must be altered accordingly. 

 Besides this, man has wants which no animal shares. 

 Environment proves equal to his enlarged demands^ 

 and even stimulates new desires, as if Nature herself 

 must have suffered neglect, must have failed to find 

 application for her abundance, if rational life had 

 not appeared. But for this life, the buried treasures 

 would have lain concealed throughout the ages; 

 beauty adorning the landscapes would have had re 

 stricted value, for lack of emotion to be stirred by 

 its contemplation. 



Inferences based on food-supply now either become 

 inapplicable, or require to be greatly modified 

 in the form of their statement. When we reckon 

 up the necessaries of life, we do not now think of a 

 patch of cultivated ground around a homestead. The 

 wide world has become the area of supply. Men 

 in remote parts share the fruits of the earth s richest 

 orchards and vineyards. The struggle for existence 

 is conspicuous enough in the history of men, but it is 

 encountered under conditions different from those 

 applicable to lower orders of life. Difficulties which 

 tell sorely against animal life, disappear before human 

 effort; difficulties which oppress mankind, are im 

 perceptible to animals. 



Let us begin with what is common to organic life, 

 the better to distinguish afterwards what is special to 

 humanity. In all cases, the history of life is a history 

 of the interaction of organism and environment. Bare 

 life is insufficient to work out a history for itself. Life 



