I4I0 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



ditioning habit or instinct ; so the sensed place, the environment, is 

 now actively modified. Here, then our psj^chological life-factor is 

 acquiring new and initiative importance : this side of life is no longer 

 mere Bio-psychosis, but Psycho-biosis, as animal and child, let 

 alone human adult, so readily show. Each is now something of 

 Mind-body, not merely of Bod3^-mind. In our first half-schema of 

 relative passivity, in acceptance of environmental conditions and 

 stimuli, life is seen as in the main determined by its circumstances : 

 but now here, on this side, it begins to determine them: in short, 

 here comes into evidence the urge of life — libido, elan vital — and 

 as psycho-organic. Every success in the modification of environment 

 has in it something of adaptation, and this two-fold. For underlying 

 this bodily action we find a psychic factor. Resultant to activity, 

 we find some adaptation of organism also, and sureh^ so far ps^^chic, 

 together with such measure of external achievement as may be; 

 i.e. of relevant environmental change. 



Here, now, in the animal world, we have already a basis for 

 widening survey. Recall how in many groups we find striking con- 

 trasts of passivity and activity, as from less or more sedentary 

 forms, to swimming and active ones; as in coelenterates, worms, 

 molluscs, crustaceans, and even insects; and much of the same in 

 higher forms. Thus even the largely sessile Ascidians have active 

 congeners; and in every group of Vertebrates something of the like 

 can be seen, as to extreme in the contrast of the nimble lizard or 

 snake and the passive tortoise, yet with something of the like 

 contrast within their families as well. On the whole, the passive 

 types tend to live by accepting what nature gives; while the active 

 take more from nature. On the active side is corresponding progress: 

 on the other more of passive adaptation; and even to degeneration 

 in many cases. Plants extremely depend on environment, needing 

 little beyond soil, water, atmosphere, and light; so though active 

 psycho-biosis is not easily demonstrated, we cannot but wonder at 

 their amazing sensibility, as demonstrated from Darwin's experi- 

 ments to Bose's. 



We must not forget that each of these two aspects of life is in 

 speedy succession and alternation; the life process does not stand 

 still, but oscillates; and that continually; so that practice makes 

 perfect; yet how? Surely in the measure of psychic co-ordination, 

 however sub-conscious. Now to all this it is no adequate answer to 

 say, with Loeb and others, that the specific movements of animals 

 under given stimulus are enough for understanding them; since 

 our own simplest pain or pleasure — say according to whether we 

 .sit down on a drawing pin or a cushion, or taste bitter fruit or sweet 

 — is enough for us to realise that life has its psychological side too; 

 and this for simpler beings than ourselves; and even that this line 



