the conditions in which he finds himself,
trying to adapt himself to his surroundings--to his physical
surroundings, such as the climate and soil, and to his social
surroundings, consisting of his plant and animal neighbours and
rivals. We shall probably notice, too, that he seems to be driven by
some inner impulse (which in its turn is a responding to the impress
of the totality of the individual's surroundings) to strive to do
something more than merely adapt himself to his surroundings. He
is urged on to rise superior to them.

So the course of the individual's life is continually being affected by
surroundings which compel him to adapt himself to them on pain of
extinction if he fails. On the other hand, he is himself, in his own
small way, affecting his surroundings and causing _them_ to adapt
themselves to _him._ Even the humblest plant takes from the
surrounding soil and air what it needs as food and changes it in the
process of assimilation, so that the surroundings are, to a slight
extent at least, changed by the activity of the plant. And we already
have noticed how a plant's insect surroundings have to adapt
themselves to the plant. There is reciprocal action, therefore--the
surroundings forcing the individual to adapt himself to them, and the
individual causing the surroundings to adapt themselves to him.

Here we have reached the point where, besides the struggle for
existence among the individuals of an abundant, varied, and intense
life, there is adaptation among the individuals to their surroundings
and of their surroundings to the individuals.

* * *

We have now to note how with the adaptation goes selection. Set
amid these physical and organic surroundings, some helpful, some
harmful, the individual has to spend his life in selecting and
rejecting what will further or hinder his natural development. He has
to reject much, for there is much that will harm him. He has to select
a little--for that little is vitally necessary for his upbuilding and
maintenance. From among the elements of the soil he has to choose
those particular elements that he needs. Thus a plant selects through
its roots from the elements of the soil, and through its leaves from
the elements of the air, those elements and in those quantities that it
needs for nourishment and growth. But it has also, by means of
thorns or poison juices or other device, to protect itself from being
itself selected by some animal for that animal's o