Social Environment 



the following guise. The first forms of life to 

 emerge from the inanimate were simple vege- 

 table types. The peculiarity of the vegetable 

 world is that it has the power to take the in- 

 organic elements of nature and convert them 

 into its own substance ; that is, it sturdily makes 

 its own living by elaborating its tissues from 

 the raw material of inanimate nature. The 

 animal world emerged from the vegetable when 

 in the competition for a livelihood some of the 

 primitive forms discovered a convenient short 

 cut to success in preying upon their kin. The 

 animal world is, therefore, secondary to the 

 vegetable world, living as it does by the devour- 

 ing of the latter; and in the ascending circles 

 of its evolution it never returns to a grubbing 

 in the elements for a living, but remains the 

 higher exploitive caste of the life series. 



To unmoral nature the path of least resist- 

 ance in the most paying aggression is ever the 

 highway of evolutionary progress. To replen- 

 ish the earth and subdue it to its own uses was 

 the original commission written into the living 

 tablets of all flesh. So it proved that animal 

 life, rising through its successful conquest of 

 the vegetable, developed differing forms that 

 fell upon each other in fierce competition, and 



