THE ELEMENTS.OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION, 77 
efforts, The effects of environment are practically rec- 
ognised in processes of education, of agriculture, the 
care and nurture of men and of horses and trees and 
wheat. Evil surroundings produce evil effects. Easy 
surroundings, reducing the stimulus to effort, tend to 
produce organic degeneration. In larger ways response 
to environment produces a long series of “ concessions.” 
A character or condition in itself of the nature of a re- 
sponse to outside stimulus may be called a concession. 
Among such concessions are the skin, the eyes, the 
brain, the sense of pain, in fact, in the ultimate analysis, 
every organ and every function of the body. For with- 
out environment all these would be unnecessary. Their 
existence would be inconceivable. 
The fitness by which organisms have been perpetu- 
ated is simply obedience or adaptation. Those which 
survive are fitted to the conditions of life. In other 
words, they are obedient to these conditions. Hence 
we may define the process as one of the survival of the 
obedient. The force which commands obedience is that 
of the environment, and the obedience demanded is 
that of such a reaction or relation to this environment 
as will not obstruct the processes of life. 
Every form or phase of obedience shows itself as 
adaptation. Every adaptation is a concession to the 
actual environment on the one hand, to 
the laws of lifeon the other. The func- 
tion of the eye, for example, is to give 
information as to the nature of objects more or less re- 
mote from the organism. The purpose of giving this 
knowledge is to enable the organism to act upon it. 
To be able to act demands that the action must be safe. 
If the creature could not act, it would have no need for 
such knowledge. If its acts were not in accord with 
knowledge, the knowledge would be useless. If there 
Concessions of 
life. 
