THE OCEAN 189 



important physical conditions of the ocean is 

 taken into account. Indeed, however difficult 

 it may be to make out those subtle traits of 

 physiological processes which account for 

 their efficiency, their adaptability, and their 

 exactness, I feel sure that no one who is thor- 

 oughly conversant with the general char- 

 acteristics of the life process can fail to see a 

 rough counterpart in the means by which 

 conditions in the ocean are regulated. 



It is certainly a salient, and hardly a mean- 

 ingless fact that the processes of inorganic 

 and organic evolution have a similar out- 

 come in complex, exact, and almost ideally 

 efficient activities. Is it not possible that in 

 the case of the organic processes some have 

 now and then been regarded as adaptations 

 which in reality arose automatically and 

 quite inevitably ? 



The existence of efficient regulation of the 

 ocean, establishing its most important physico- 

 chemical characteristics as constants, is of 

 far greater importance in the sciences of nature, 

 especially for living organisms, than could 

 formerly have been guessed. Such natural 

 processes were perhaps even necessary to 

 make life possible in the birthplace of life. I 

 cannot undertake to explain the very great 

 importance which to-day the physical chemist 



