Life Is Struggle with Environment 59- 



should be said to be dependent on the moisture. A 

 plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of 

 which only one of an average comes to maturity, may 

 be more truly said to struggle with the plants of the 

 same and other kinds which already clothe the 

 ground. . . . When we reach the arctic regions, or 

 snow-capped summits, or absolute deserts, the strug- 

 gle for life is almost exclusively with the elements.* 



The "social Darwinists" claim to find the basis 

 of their theories in biological facts, but the bio- 

 logists follow Darwin in refusing to disregard 

 completely the most fundamental facts of life. 

 Thus, Felix Le Dantec says : 



The life of a living being results from two factors: 

 the being and the environment. At each instance 

 the. vital or functional phenomena do not reside in the 

 being alone, nor in the environment alone, but in the 

 actual relations which exist between the being and 

 the environment. ^ 



The same author says in another place : 



It was considered formerly that the living being 

 existed by itself within its limiting surface independ- 

 ently of the surrounding environment, but this idea 

 contains a manifest error derived from the old vital- 

 istic theories, in which it was supposed that a vital 

 principle animated the living body and was localized 

 jin it. In reality the living being is the result of a 

 struggle between two factors: the substance localized 



» The Ortgtn of Species, pp. 56, 61. .^i^ ' 

 ^ Revue scientifique, 1908, November 14, p. 610. 



