ENVIRONMENT 



_>(>!) 



ENVIRONMENT 



ENVIRONMENT, cnvi'runment, from the 

 French word meaning to surround, covers the 

 broadest possible field, for it involves all the 

 outside conditions under whose influence every 

 vital thing lives and moves and has its being. 

 Thus it includes not only the physical environ- 

 ment implied by climate, contour (topography), 

 food supply, the laws governing light, darkness, 

 sound and the like, but also the social environ- 

 ment implied by race, customs, religion, and 

 the institutions of family and state. Of the 

 two, physical environment has the stronger in- 

 fluence and, indeed, practically determines the 

 social. Plants, animals, men and women all 

 are affected, and to a great extent molded, 

 by their physical environment. The industries 

 of a community or a country, the physical, 

 mental and moral traits of an individual or a 

 people, even the political destiny of a nation, 

 if traced back far enough, will be found to 

 root in physical environment. 



The Element of Climate. Climate is per- 

 haps the most important element in physical 

 environment. Heat and moisture, which con- 

 stitute climate, largely govern the distribution 

 of life on the earth. Hot countries, for in- 

 stance, produce a more luxuriant vegetation 

 and are more densely populated by the human 

 family, because here the problems of food, 

 shelter and clothing practically solve them- 

 selves. This very ease of living, however, leads 

 to habits of slothfulness and indifference and to 

 the loss of alert mental faculties, because man 

 has little need to exercise them. A representa- 

 tive product of such an environment is the 

 native African or Malaysian. 



Extremely cold countries, on the other hand, 

 are thinly populated; people live in small, 

 scattered groups, without political organization ; 

 and so much energy is consumed in wresting a 

 mere living from nature, so deadening is the 

 monotony of diet and season, that man has 

 neither leisure nor inclination to develop his 

 higher powers. Such an environment produces 

 the Eskimo stolid, unambitious, unintellec- 

 tual. See ESKIMO. 



Arid regions develop an alert, self-reliant 

 type, like the Sahara Arab or the old-time 

 American Indian of the Great Plains, forced 

 into nomadic or semi-nomadic habits through 

 the need of going in search of food and water 

 for the herds and flocks which represent the 

 instruments of the only "trade" possible in that 

 particular environment. See NOMAD LIFE. 



The ideal environment is that of the tem- 

 perate zones, where conditions of living strike 



a balance, where there remains a fair amount 

 of leisure for self-development, and where 

 varying seasons and sudden changes in temper- 

 ature keep both mind and body wholesomely 

 stimulated. It is worthy of note that with few 

 exceptions, the great cities of the world are 

 not far from the 40th degree of north latitude. 



Characteristics of the plant and animal life 

 of a region depend, no less than the human, 

 upon the climate environment. The degree of 

 moisture is so important a factor in plant en- 

 vironment that the vegetation on the dry and 

 that on the rainy side of the same mountains 

 are often as different as though belonging 

 to two widely-separated areas. Rainfall is 

 such an essential factor of man's environment 

 that an insufficient rain supply has been the 

 cause of many great migrations, especially in 

 the early stages of history. 



Adaptation to Environment. Every living 

 thing must be in harmony with its environ- 

 ment or it cannot continue to exist; and as 

 the forces which move the world are constantly 

 creating new environments, life is continually 

 adjusting itself to changing conditions. This 

 readjustment is what constitutes progress and 

 evolution. Adaptation is the name given to 

 the process of becoming fitted to environment ; 

 and the phrase, "the survival of the fittest," 

 implies that only those forms of life have sur- 

 vived through the ages which were most per- 

 fectly adapted to their environment. In fos- 

 sils we read the ever-fascinating story of the 

 relation that has existed from earliest times 

 between environment and life. See EVOLUTION ; 

 FOSSIL. 



Adaptation, however, is also a matter of 

 present-day history. A plant species will in 

 time adjust itself to a very dry and sandy soil 

 by growing long roots which reach out after 

 moisture. Some plants of the desert have roots 

 fully five times the length of their stalks. The 

 wild rose, to be certain of spreading its species, 

 grows a great number of stamens; the culti- 

 vated rose, no longer needing this protective 

 measure, adjusts itself to its new environment 

 and puts into extra petals the life-force that 

 formerly went to make extra stamens. In the 

 development of the dog from the wolf; the 

 horse from the primitive eohippus; the big, 

 juicy apple of cultivated orchards from the tiny 

 wild fruit of the Black Sea, and in countless 

 other similar instances we get chapter after 

 chapter of the story of plant or animal life 

 adapting itself to changing physical environ- 

 ment. 



