4 Social Environment 



amoeba, immediately began reaching out with 

 insatiable appetite to its environment in the 

 endeavor to assimilate to itself as food all that 

 it could master. The aggressive growth pro- 

 cess thus beginning is taken as the most funda- 

 mental principle of life, from amoebas to 

 empires. Growth early branched into the two 

 allied activities of feeding and reproducing — 

 the hunger and love which are said to have 

 built the world. 



The second principle to which the biologist 

 calls our attention is that which underlies repro- 

 duction. In varying environments the first 

 simple forms of life gradually became unlike 

 each other, and eventually, as the methods of 

 reproduction became more complex, life ac- 

 quired a cei"tain racial flexibility. In explana- 

 tion of this flexibility it has been shown that 

 in the growth and conjugation of the micro- 

 scopic cells which form the bridge from one 

 generation to another, nature throws together 

 the hereditary elements derived from the ances- 

 tral lines as if she were playing a gigantic 

 game of dice. Out of this shuffling of the fac- 

 tors of heredity may come fortunate combina- 

 tions, giving rise to individuals better adapted 

 to the demands of their environment; and thus 



