e conformity of the bivalve mollusk. The clam has abundance of
food, enormous powers of reproduction, almost perfect protection
against enemies, and lives a life of almost absolute freedom from
discomfort, and the clam is really lower than most worms.

If an animal is to progress, it must keep such a conformity ever
secondary to a still more important element, namely, conformity or
obedience to the laws of its own structure and being. This second
element the mollusk and every creeping stage neglected, and the
result of this neglect was stagnation or degeneration. Activity was
essential to progress from the very structure and laws of
development of the animal, while a great abundance of food was not.
A life of ease, for the same reason, necessarily results in
degeneration.

But you will ask, What becomes of Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution,
if obedience to the laws of individual being is more important than
conformity to external conditions? Both are evidently necessary, and
they are not so different as they may seem at first sight. They are
really one and the same. Bringing out the best and highest there is
in us, is the only true conformity to that which is deepest and
surest and most enduring in our environment. That in environment
which makes for digestion is almost palpable and tangible, that
which makes for activity less so perhaps; but that which makes for
brain and truth and right is intangible and invisible. We easily
fail to notice it; and, unless we take a careful view of the course
of development in the highest forms of life, we may be inclined to
deny its existence. But it is surely there, if man is a product of
evolution.

Each successive stage of animal life is not the preceding stage on a
higher plane, but the preceding stage modified in conformity to the
environment of that from which it has just arisen. Says Professor
Hertwig[A]: "During the process of organic development the external
is continually becoming an integral part of the individual. The germ
is continually growing and changing at the expense of surrounding
conditions." Every stage thus contains the result of a host of
reactions to a ruder and older portion of environment. And the
higher we go the more has the original protoplasm and structure been
modified as the result of these reactions.

[Footnote A: Hertwig: Zeit- und Streitfragen, p. 82.]

We have seen clearly that environment must be studied through its
effect upon living being