COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



development, and heredity ; while the external 

 equilibration of the forces in the organism with 

 environing forces is generalized in the laws of 

 variation and adaptation. As the result of the 

 former process, all organisms tend to assume cer- 

 tain typical forms, as inevitably as crystals. In 

 the case of the lowest organisms the forms as- 

 sumed may be possibly due to the operation of 

 chemical polarity similar (though much more 

 involved) to that which gives form to crystals. 

 In all but the lowest organisms the forms as- 

 sumed are the expression of tendencies due to 

 the cooperation of countless ancestral forces, and 

 such tendencies are now not improperly classified 

 under the head of " physiological polarity,'* — 

 provided that nothing more is meant by "po- 

 larity " than the ability of certain special groups 

 of forces to work different structural changes in 

 different directions. So much for the internal 

 adaptive process. But now, as the result of the 

 parallel process of external adaptation, it follows * 

 that the forms due to the internal process can 

 remain constant only so long as the environ- 

 ment remains unchanged. If the changes in the 

 environment are too great or too sudden to be 

 equilibrated by changes in the distribution of 

 the system of internal forces, the system is 

 overthrown, and the organism perishes. But 

 if the external changes are moderate and grad- 

 ual, the adjustment of the organism to them by 

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