190 THE FITNESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT 



attaches to the regulation of the conditions of a 

 chemical process. The only way to gain an 

 idea of this is to examine a work on physi- 

 cal chemistry. Certainly, however, nothing has 

 lately arisen more essential to biology than the 

 understanding of the influence of temperature, 

 pressure, reaction, concentration, ionization, 

 etc., upon all physico-chemical structures 

 and changes, whether inorganic or vital. 



Thus the fitness of the ocean appears as an 

 embodiment of the physical fitnesses of water 

 and carbonic acid, resulting directly and in- 

 evitably from these and other natural phenom- 

 ena, and providing a lodgment for life and a 

 medium for its earlier development upon the 

 earth. No philosopher's or poet's fancy, no 

 myth of a primitive people has ever exag- 

 gerated the importance, the usefulness, and 

 above all the marvelous beneficence of the 

 ocean for the community of living things. 



