20 MAN AN ADAPTIVE MECHANISM 



viduals to the supply of food, which has resulted in the 

 present almost perfectly balanced distribution of groups 

 and species of plants and animals, all utilizing in cycles 

 the same matter and the same energy. Plants obtain 

 their nourishment from mineral substances through 

 their utilization of solar energy. Plants are food for 

 animals; animals die, disintegrate and become food 

 for plants. Thus matter circulates eternally, the radi- 

 ant energy of the sun being transformed by plants 

 into chemical energy, which in turn supplies the energy 

 of animals, by which it is returned to the external 

 world in the form of heat and motion. All this is ac- 

 complished in such a way and in such succession as 

 to occasion the least amount of friction, so as to give, 

 indeed, an effect of perfect harmony throughout 

 nature. 



In all this concourse of living and non-living bodies, 

 the one most conspicuous feature is the facility with 

 which each individual atom, molecule, animal, 

 species, group responds in an adaptive manner to 

 the entities in its environment, or dies disintegrates 

 - and in disintegrating surrenders the elements which 

 allow other entities to assume the burden of existence 

 or to become more completely adapted to their sur- 

 roundings. It is the omnipresent working of this 

 universal law of equilibrium, compromise, or " adapta- 

 tion/' which is at the bottom of that appearance of 

 homogeneity and peace which leads the casual observer 

 to believe that nature is the result of design. The 

 peace he sees, however, is but the relative peace of 

 the center of a mighty whirlpool, or the grim, trenchant 

 peace of the battle-field deserted after carnage; and 



