THE RELATIONS OF ENVIRONMENT TO LIFE 81 



all around. Cultivated fields, varieties of crop, the 

 highways, the dwellings, and busy centres of industry, 

 offer familiar testimony. In a large sense man 

 originates his own environment. It is to his reproach, 

 if he is mastered by circumstances. He is master, as 

 no other living being on the earth can be. Perspective 

 requires that the commonplaces of our life be con 

 templated at every point, as they appear in relation 

 with the facts of animal history. Darwin s observa 

 tions proved how largely power, in its aspect of 

 muscular development, determines ascendency; we 

 must here give prominence to power of a higher kind. 

 Only thus does the order in Nature become visible. 

 Everywhere, power in the life affects its own relations 

 to environment. Continual change thus appears in 

 application of fixed laws, consequent on higher potency 

 in the life. Progress ever increases facilities for advance. 

 Environment is at first Nature s gift; afterwards, it 

 is what man has made it, by rational appreciation of 

 Nature s laws. Civilisation reacts on the world itself. 

 What is a railway in Central Africa, but nineteenth 

 century civilisation carried into the midst of the 

 country furthest in the rear ; the results of thought, 

 contrivance, and skill brought to the doors where 

 their presence is least expected. Civilisation gives 

 direct help to those least favoured in the race. 

 Science and skill are bridging the chasm which severs 

 barbarian from civilised. Abundance of the gifts of 

 Nature, lying around the abodes of savage tribes, pre 

 sents a large part of the attraction to this effort. Chris 

 tian benevolence moves on the same tracks, but it 

 comes from greater depths in the soul, and aims at 

 higher results in the lives of suffering men. Engineer- 



