18 ORGANIC DEPENDENCE AND DISEASE 



started so many millions of years ago that a half of the 

 whole period of life on earth has passed over their degra- 

 dation and the whole race to which the barnacles belong, the 

 entire class of cirripede Crustacea, have taken this course. 

 With a thousand like cases, they speak only of extreme 

 adaptation of their physiology to their adjusted require- 

 ments. Substantially protected, their longevity has been 

 thereby ensured. We do not need to raise the question as 

 to whether these protected and adjusted creatures have 

 been the source or starting point of any progressive de- 

 velopment in the animal world, for they are, as we have 

 said, the most obvious degenerates, out of which nothing 

 better has been derived and from which nothing can be 

 hoped for ; on the contrary, which are moving slowly under 

 their protection into an ever more hopeless state. Exam- 

 ples quite as explicit in their teaching permeate the more 

 progressed groups of life. Here we are dealing with the 

 simple and less specialized because in them the laws of life 

 can be read most clearly. 



It would be trite to say that a perfectly adjusted life is 

 an unprogressive one. The adjusted life makes for con- 

 servatism and reduces the chances of variation to its lowest 

 terms. It stabilizes the organism in all its physiology; it 

 anchors the type. Speaking for the moment in higher terms 

 for the individual the adjusted life is likely to carry with 

 it the highest content of happiness. To progress in or- 

 ganic development it is the undeniable foe, but to the con- 

 servatism of intellectual and spiritual ideals the undoubted 

 friend. In the reading of this law of adjustment we must 

 estimate its worth in terms of the end subserved. 



Today the world is rattling with uneasiness; it has en- 

 tered a period of explosive evolution in human ideals di- 

 rectly comparable to the compulsions which again and 

 again in the history of life have brought quick climaxes 

 and acute outbursts of culmination after slow ages of ac- 



