ORGANIC DEPENDENCE AND DISEASE 
9 
portance for our purposes. It is this : That the entire body , 
organism or creature and the entire race or stock to which 
it belongs may become abnormal through subjection to an 
abnormal or perturbed mode of life. Such body, creature, 
race or stock is therefore in a state of disease. 
This condition has so frequently entered upon the life 
modes of the animals and plants as to form an essential 
basis of their classification and it is the mightiest single 
influence in the separation of them into grades of excel- 
lence. We hesitate to call such animals and such entire 
races of animals and plants “diseased,” but their mode of 
life is obviously disordered and we have no choice but to 
term it abnormal and consequent upon a “perturbation of 
normal activities.” Illustrations of this will presently be 
given. 
WHAT IS NORMAL LIVING? 
With the help of the light drawn from a study of the 
early faunas of the earth, that is, the assemblages of ani- 
mals which were the first to people the salt waters of the 
ocean, we can find an answer to this question which I think 
would hardly be fully possible from the study of existing 
animals alone. Normal living, in the broad sense in which 
we desire to be understood, means full activity of an un- 
impaired physiology inclusive of the function of locomotion 
or mobility. This is not a very complete definition as it 
leaves out of consideration the primitive development of 
the locomotive function, which must have worked itself out 
gradually just as other organs have developed in response 
to the demands for their functions. Except for that, the 
definition does very well, and it implies that normal living 
means independent living; it means that every creature 
which is in itself a perfect physiological mechanism and 
has in itself the essential basis of progress in grade, in 
which lies any “hope of salvation,” must maintain to ma- 
