s. Viewed from any other standpoint it
appears to be a myriad, almost a chaos, of interacting, apparently
conflicting, forces. The resultant of some of these is shown by the
animal at any stage of its development. And as the animal advances,
the resultant determining its new line, or stage, of advance,
includes new forces, to which it has only lately become sensitive.
And thus the human mind, as the last and highest product of
evolution, mirrors most adequately the resultant of all its forces.
If we would know environment we must study ourselves, not atoms
alone, nor rocks, nor worms.

Extremely sensitive photographic plates, after long exposure, have
proven the existence of stars so dim and far-off as to be invisible
to the best telescopes. Man's mind is just such a sensitive plate;
it is the only valid representation of environment.

The truth would appear to be that the law is present in environment,
but hard to read; but it is stamped upon our structure and being so
deeply and plainly that the dullest of us cannot fail to read it. We
learned the fact of gravitation the first time that we fell down in
learning to walk, long afterward we learned that its law guided
earth and moon. And it is the presence of this law within us, and
our own knowledge that we are conscious of it, that makes man
without excuse. But conformity to that which is deepest in
environment often, always, demands non-conformity to some of the
most palpable of surrounding conditions.

There is no better statement of the ultimate law of conformity than
the words of Paul: "Be not conformed to this world; but be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is
that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

And this difference is exactly what I have been trying to put before
you. The mollusk conformed, but the vertebrate conformed in a very
different way, and was transformed, "metamorphosed," to translate
the Greek word literally, into something higher. And let us not
forget that man conforms consciously and voluntarily, if at all; he
is able to read in himself and environment the law to which lower
forms have been compelled unconsciously to conform.

These facts merely illustrate a great law of life. No man's eye,
much less hand, can grasp the whole of the present and at the same
time the future. Rather what we usually call present advantage is
not advantage at all, but the first step in degeneration. If one
will be ri