THE STABILITY OF TRUTH. 355 
if we are not confined to Balfour’s argument in a circle, 
we must look to the facts of organic evolution, of 
which the existence of man is a part. 
Each living being is a link in a continuous chain of 
life, going back in the past to the unknown beginnings 
; of life. Into this chain of life, so far as 
Each organism @ We know, death has never entered, be- 
link in the chain ‘ 2 
af lite, cause only in life has the ancestor the 
power of casting off the germ cells by 
which life is continued. Each individual is in a sense 
the guardian of the life chain in which it forms a link. 
Each link is tested as to its fitness to the conditions 
external to itself in which it carries on its functions. 
Those creatures unadapted to the environment, what- 
ever it may be, are destroyed, as well as those not 
adaptable. And this environment by which each is 
tested is the objective universe. It is not the world as 
man knows it. It is not the world as the creature may 
imagine it. It is the world as itis. Nature has no par- 
don for ignorance or illusions. She is no respecter of 
persons. Her laws and her penalties consider only what 
is, and have no dealings with semblances. By this ex- 
perience we come to know that reality exists, that there 
is an external world to the demands of 
which our senses, our reason, our powers 
of action are all concessions. The safety 
of each chain of life is proportioned to the adaptation 
of its links to these conditions. This adaptation is in 
its essence obedience. The obedience of any creature 
is conditioned on its response in action to sensation or ° 
knowledge. Sense-perception and intellect alike stand 
as advisers to its power of choice. The power of choice 
involves the need to choose right; for wrong choice 
leads to death. Death ends the chain of which the 
creature is a link, and the life of the world is continued 
Life deals with 
realities. 
