HUMAN LIFE 



volition, by which he makes effective a 

 scientific method or technic of success- 

 ful struggle with nature, seems to insure 

 him against species death, at any rate in 

 any geologically near future. Cataclys- 

 mic world change would wipe him out 

 easily, so specific is his biological adapta- 

 tion to present conditions; but slow 

 change, and that seems the geologic rule, 

 finds him well protected, so developed 

 is his power of conscious adaptability 

 and his partial control of the conditions of 

 life. "What a plastic little creature man 

 is!" said Emerson. "So shifty, so adap- 

 tive! His body a chest of tools and he 

 making himself comfortable in every 

 climate, in every condition!" 



But it is not human species death but 

 human individual death that most of us 

 look on as the problem of death. It is 

 here, as always, in individuals, including 

 our individual selves, not in species, that 

 most of us are principally interested. 

 And when we ask the biologist about 

 what he can tell us of death we are not 

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