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- 
