46 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



small each be in itself, has more than local interest ; though this is 

 fundament;il to each, from infancy onwards. Each mind as it widens, 

 each life as it enlarges, has before it the ojx^n secret of its actual 

 and extending inter-rehitions throughout the wide world, cosmic, 

 natural, and human alike; and these from the long past as well. 

 What biolog>* calls our ontogeny, and social life our education 

 each, of course, in its right sense of true and full development— i> 

 each essentially an adaptation to our region, to know it, and to be 

 efficient in it. Yet for these apparently simple studies and activities 

 no worM-culture can be neglected, none of the arts of life ignored. 

 Our whole world of life is made up of regions fundamentally like 

 our own in cosmic conditions, from heavens to rocks and soil and 

 waters, to sky and weather; and so for its plants and animals, its 

 human life as well; so in our fundamental regional .schooling we are 

 being prepared and interested to know more and more of other 

 regions of the surrounding woild, and their past evolution. Without 

 these, indeed, our own immediate region cannot be really under- 

 stocnl; as, indeed, its schools and imiversity, its libraries and Press 

 so plainly exist to testify. Thus only can it now be efficiently worked 

 and lived in; as the whole vast inter-organisation of human affairs 

 shows, and even the daily details of our lives, from our food onwards. 

 In short, as evolution comes into our philosophy of life, this becomes 

 geographic, regional in the concrete: Ecology is thus comprehen- 

 sively understoo<l, and likewise participated in. Our younger 

 generation, despite all their ajiparent fascination bv mechanisms, 

 or absorption in sports, are increasingly coming to all this. They are 

 often turning to fuller nature-exix^rience and appreciation, and 

 towards varied occupational education and careers, and these truly 

 ecological; i.e. consistent with the understanding and conservation 

 of nature and life in evolution; and hence towards their own better 

 develojmient and survival accordingly. 



The Environment and the Organism are the two great pheno- 

 menal interests arousing our observation; so we have tended (and 

 only too readily, since so easily) to observe them apart. Thus 

 geography on one side, and natural history on the other; and each 

 with immediate and fascinating analyses of its own. While this 

 separation lasts, earh primarilv concentrates on observing and 

 recording the forms of his chosen set of phenomena; and with great 

 results accordingly, the former in maps, atlas, and globe, and to 

 geo-morphology, and the latter in its herbaria and museums, 

 morphological also. In time the geographer has come to take note 

 of plant and animal distribution nnd make its maps in his large way, 

 as for forests and moors, jilains and deserts; the zoologist and botan- 

 ist have been stirred by the complement al interest, until they now 

 add distribution maps even to the museum or botanic garden label'^ 

 naming their sjHries. Thi*^ is enough for taxonomy and palaeon- 



