312 THE FITNESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT 



I cannot hope to have provided more than 

 a very imperfect illumination of certain as- 

 pects of teleology in this venture upon the 

 foreign field of metaphysics, and I should 

 wish to be understood as very doubtful of my 

 success in stating what seem to me some of 

 the philosophical conclusions to be drawn 

 from the fitness of the environment. 



There is, however, one scientific conclusion 

 which I wish to put forward as a positive and, 

 I trust, fruitful outcome of the present 

 investigation. The properties of matter and 

 the course of cosmic evolution are now seen 

 to be intimately related to the structure of 

 the living being and to its activities; they 

 become, therefore, far more important in 

 biology than has been previously suspected. 

 For the whole evolutionary process, both cos- 

 mic and organic, is one, and the biologist may 

 now rightly regard the universe in its very 

 essence as biocentric. 



