ADAPTATION IN THE LIVING AND NON-LIVING 1 



PROFESSOR BURTON EDWARD LIVINGSTON 

 The Johns Hopkins University 



The fundamental differences in concept and mode of 

 thought, which may be remarked between the sciences of 

 the Jiving and those of the non-living, are perhaps no- 

 where better exemplified than in the interpretations and 

 in the degree of prominence which they respectively give 

 to the idea of adaptation. A general survey of the nat- 

 ural sciences results in the somewhat startling discovery 

 that biology is the only one of these which deals conspic- 

 uously with this idea. I have, therefore, been led to take, 

 for my present paper, the somewhat bizarre title wh'ch 

 has been announced, and I shall here attempt partially 

 to set forth some characteristics and implications of the 

 biological concept of adaptation, and, in certain respects, 

 to compare these characteristics and implications with 

 those of similar concepts which have the place of adapta- 

 tion in the sciences of the non-living. The term adapta- 

 tion is used in a passive and in an active sense. I shall 

 consider the two sorts of adaptations in order. 



Passive Adaptations. — Adaptations are characteristics, 

 properties or qualities attributable to natural objects. 

 They imply, however., not only mere qualities, but also 

 the presence or absence, in the object considered, of po- 

 tentialities or capabilities to be or to do certain things 

 under certain conditions. The term always lays stress 

 on potentialities but it does not imply at all that these 

 are, or have been, realized. If they were actually real- 

 ized, it would amount to a redundancy to note the exist- 

 ence of the adaptations at all; an adaptation " caught in 

 the act," an already realized potentiality, is so self-evi- 

 dent that we do not need to mention it as such. In such a 



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