CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND ITS CIRCUMSTANCES. 99 



him specific mental relations, which accord with specific 

 chemical relations in the things around. Seeing, then, that 

 in all cases we may consider the external phenomena as simply 

 in relation, and the internal phenomena also as simply in 

 relation; our conception of Life under its most abstract 

 aspect will be The continuous adjustment of internal rela 

 tions to external relations* 



While it is simpler, this formula has the further advantage 

 of being somewhat more comprehensive. To say that it in 

 cludes not only those definite combinations of simultaneous 

 and successive changes in an organism, which correspond to 

 co-existences and sequences in the environment, but also 

 those structural arrangements which enable the organism to 

 adapt its actions to actions in the environment, is going too 

 far; for though these structural arrangements present in 

 ternal relations adjusted to external relations, yet the con 

 tinuous adjustment of relations cannot be held to include a 

 fixed adjustment already made. Life, which is made up of 

 dynamical phenomena, cannot be described in terms that 

 shall at the same time describe the apparatus manifesting it, 

 which presents only statical phenomena. But while this 

 antithesis serves to remind us that the distinction between 

 the organism and its actions is as wide as that between 

 Matter and Motion, it at the same time draws attention to 

 the fact that, if the structural arrangements of the adult are 

 not properly included in the definition, yet the developmental 

 processes by which those arrangements were established, are 

 included. For that process of evolution during which the 

 organs of the embryo are fitted to their prospective func 

 tions, is the gradual or continuous adjustment of internal 

 relations to external relations. Moreover, those structural 

 modifications of the adult organism which, under change of 

 climate, change of occupation, change of food, bring about 

 some re-arrangement in the organic balance, may similarly 



* In further elucidation of this general doctrine, see First Principles, 

 25. 



