RESPONSIVE LIFE OF ORGANISMS 



59 



development of such organs of outlook as are capable of 

 giving knowledge of the outside world, and the maintenance 

 of such mutual responsiveness and adaptability of parts 

 within as will admit appropriate actions in response to 

 the things discerned. The watchman in the tower is as the 

 eye of primitive society ; and equally so are the explorer and 

 the investigator in later times. As the body is profited by 

 its distance receptors, so society is profited by its seers and 

 prophets of truth. It is natural, therefore, that with later 

 specialization, groups of individuals should have been set 

 apart from the ordinary avocations to serve society as 

 watchmen, devoting their energies to scanning the face of 

 nature and to the discovery of the principles of science. 

 The scientific centers are as the eyes of a nation.. 



But eyes are merely receptors; the effectors or rulers are 

 elsewhere in the body. Given good eyes, fitness of reaction 

 yet depends on the discriminative powers and the capacity 

 for correct coordinated responsiveness of the organism as a 

 whole. It is possible that the worst of actions may follow 

 upon the best of vision. Society is not bound to progress. 

 It may go forward, or it may halt, like a salamander that 

 stands blinking at the light, and then runs back to its hole. 

 So in our own time it seems to be blinking at the question of 

 international peace. 



Society makes progress as its constituent units become 

 clear in perception united and correct in discrimination and 

 inference, and concordant in action. The parts must not 

 only act together (harmony is not all that is necessary) ; 

 they must act together in profitable ways. 



Social conduct. The individual begins life as a single 

 cell, and has first of all to run over in ontogeny a course in 

 phylogenetic history that is enormously long. This, how- 

 ever, is quickly passed. A sound body and well organized 

 animal instincts are his by right of birth. He has yet to 



