4.S LIFE : OUTLINES Ol- GENERAL BIOLOGY 



is no mere yielding of life to its environment, in simple self-adjust- 

 ment so far as may be; life has been too much thus regarded, but 

 that opens the way to passivity and degeneration. Fundamental 

 though environment is, the progress of evolution is ever marked 

 by active adaptation, with increasing domination of environment 

 accordingly. Hence the progress, alike for individual and race, from 

 encysted cell to highest forms of plant and animal life, and at length 

 to man himself; indeed, even more and more for advance of nature's 

 forms and their locations through his action. 



In this book we are using the term "ecological" as more or less 

 e(juivalent to the old-fashioned Natural History. Ecology is the 

 study of the higher physiology of organisms, of organisms in the 

 plural, and in their relations to other organisms and to their en- 

 vironments in space and in time. Digestion is a problem for the 

 student of the physiolog>' of the individual; parasitism leads to a 

 consideration of host as well as parasite; the life of a beehive raises 

 even more markedly ecological questions. Similarly, photosynthesis 

 in the green leaf is a question for the physiology of the individual; 

 in studying the root-tubercles of Leguminous plants, there are two 

 parties to be considered; similarly the relation of flowers to their 

 pollinating insect visitors is in the main a study for the ecologist. 



ORGANISMS IN THEIR ENVIRONMENTS 

 (Haunts and Seasons) 



In this chapter, illustrative of ecolog\', it is convenient to separate 

 the organism-environment relation from the organism-organism 

 relation. On the one hand, living creatures have entered into vital 

 relations with their haunts and habitats, which have again in most 

 cases to be thought of as changing throughout the year. On the 

 other hand, living creatures have entered into vital relations with 

 otIuT organisms, including not only their kindred, witliin the family 

 or the sfxriety, but entirely different types, whether parasites or 

 partners or simply comjK'titors. Hut the distinction between the 

 two sections must not be pressed hard, since no rigid line can be 

 drawn between an animate and an inanimate environment. 



RELATIONS BETWEEN ORGANISM AND ENVIRONMENT. 



MuTe is a risk of looking too superficially at the fundamental 

 facts of life. They require to be .scrutinised, to use Fabre's favourite 

 word. I'^veryone knows of the relation between organism and 

 environment, but it is really a very complex set of relations which 

 require analysis. 



(i) There is the organism's relation of constant and normal 

 dependence on its environment. For each kind of living creature 



