138 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



together in one and the same activity ! Lamarck's genius 

 made evident this fact of prime importance the medium 

 acts on animals through the intermediary of the animal's 

 mechanism. We have just seen how this intermediary 

 mechanism may be considered in three different scales. All 

 the phenomena of biology are reduced to establishing equili- 

 brium, on the one hand between living mechanisms and 

 exterior phenomena of the same scale, on the other hand 

 between the three orders of mechanisms which exist, united 

 by bonds of cause and effect, in one and the same living 

 animal. 



In the living animal the phenomenon of equilibrium takes 

 a particular form that is characteristic of life habit. 

 Habit with living beings, equilibrium pure and simple 

 with not-living beings, are the two factors of what we call 

 the universal harmony. 



