Natural system

“ The old problem of Nature versus nurture that meets us in studying the life history of any organism becomes especially interesting in dealing with the biography of men of eminence. Are their achievements the inevitable expression of the natural forces innate in them at birth, or the product of environmental influences, or some resultant of these two factors? And how much may we in each case assign to one factor or to the other? ”

“ In the progress of connected natural phenomena, from East to West, that great law of nature is plainly revealed which has so often and evidently manifested itself in the earth’s organism, as well as in the state of nations dependent upon it. ”

“ Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimensions of the earth and the whole solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred, and may yet occur, in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built—the foundation-stones of the material universe—remain unbroken and unworn.
They continue this day as they were created, perfect in number, and measure, and weight, and, from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them, we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, truth in statement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours, because they are essential constituents of the image of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist. ”

“ The relation between physical conditions and history in its wider acceptation being thus fundamental, it may be well to consider in somewhat greater detail the special reactions of a single tolerably definite portion of the natural environment upon human development. ”

“ L’établissement et le progrès des sociétés humaines, l’action des forces naturelles, peuvent changer notablement, et dans de vastes contrées, l’état de la surface du sol, la distribution des eaux, et les grands mouvemens de l’air. ”

“ And just as he followed out the development of the plant-form from the leaf, 26the birth of the vertebrate type, the process of the geological strata—the Destiny in nature and not the Causality—so here we shall develop the form-language of human history, its periodic structure, its organic logic out of the profusion of all the challenging details.
In other aspects, mankind is habitually, and rightly, reckoned as one of the organisms of the earth’s surface. Its physical structure, its natural functions, the whole phenomenal conception of it, all belong to a more comprehensive unity. ”

“ Its flora and fauna have been described, and thereby its capacity for supporting human life approximately calculated. The other physical conditions which govern the development of man, such as temperature, rainfall, and the direction of prevalent winds have been examined. Thus we have acquired a treasury of facts relating to the causes and conditions which help the growth of civilisation and mould it into diverse forms, conditions whose importance I shall presently discuss in considering the relation of man to his natural environment. ”

“ If, as we maintain, natural selection is the great active cause which has produced the whole wonderful variety of organic life on the earth, all the interesting phenomena of human life must also be explicable from the same cause. ”

“ Darwin’s views aside, the whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of all the phenomena of the universe; that, in view of the intimate relations between Man and the rest of the living world; and between the forces exerted by the latter and all other forces, I can see no excuse for doubting that all are co-ordinated terms of Nature’s great progression, from the formless to the formed—from the inorganic to the organic—from blind force to conscious intellect and will. ”

“ Physical Geology is full of such selections—of the picking out of the soft from the hard, of the soluble from the insoluble, of the fusible from the infusible, by natural agencies to which we are certainly not in the habit of ascribing consciousness.
But that which wind and sea are to a sandy beach, the sum of influences, which we term the "conditions of existence," is to living organisms. The weak are sifted out from the strong. ”

“ More to the point, at this stage of our inquiry, than a formally precise definition of Nature, is a consideration of the motives which lead us to acknowledge as real the facts that we all call physical, — viz. to acknowledge the existence of matter, the laws of natural processes, and the dependence of our own mental life upon these processes. To this aspect of the problem of Nature we accordingly at once proceed. ”

“ The most common things are the best examples of this adaptation, and of the agency of environment in effecting the Lord's purpose concerning us. Take the atmosphere as an example. We live in an ocean of air as fishes in an ocean of water. It presses upon us on all sides; we breathe it every moment. It contains the substances we need to purify and vitalize the blood and give us natural sensation and consciousness. It is the universal symbol of life, because it is the material medium by which physical life is given to us. Notice its adjustment to our physical organism and to all our needs.. ”

“ It is this perpetuation of advantageous changes, originally induced by the circumstances of environment, that is indicated by the term "natural selection." Nature chooses out the form best suited to the circumstances which surround it, and this form lives while the others die out. ”

“ It is what one may speak of as the Biological Course. Just as the conception of Energy will be the central idea of the Natural Philosophy course, so the conception of Organic Evolution will be the central idea of the Biological Course. ”

“ Here we have the indications of causes for a progress in the purification of the atmosphere and in the diffusion of light during the earlier ages of the earth’s history, with which the progress of organic life may have been conformable. ”

“ Let us only for a moment consider how various are the external physical conditions in which animals live—climate, soil, temperature, land, water, air—the peculiarities of food, and the various ways in which it is to be sought ”

“ The study of nature in its details presents itself to the mind in a twofold aspect—as historical and as philosophical. The first of these gives rise to a General Physiography or description of nature, which we commonly call Natural History as applied to each of the three great divisions designated as the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms. ”

“ That low, and even the lowest, forms of life should survive and abound all down the ages, and be the most widely diffused over the earth, seems also the most natural result, being simple adaptations to simplest conditions of air and water, so nearly the same the world over. ”

“ It is sufficient, if any steps, so far as we go, are supported by experience and observation." Now, that vegetation and generation, as well as reason, are experienced to be principles of order in nature, is undeniable. ”

“ To summarize the foregoing facts, we have learned that variation is universal throughout the living world, and that the primary factors causing organic difference—the counterparts of human ingenuity in the case of dead mechanisms—are the natural influences of the environment, of organic physiological activity, and of congenital inheritance. ”

“ On the morphological side we have the doctrine of evolution applied to living forms, and especially as definitely put forward by the theory of the origin of species by natural selection; while on the physiological side we have the doctrine of the conservation of energy, and its extension to the play of forces in living organisms. ”

“ Finally, I wish to call attention to the fact that natural selection is constantly acting through the law of the survival of the fittest, in such a way as to bring each organism into more and more perfect harmony with its environment; that is, it is constantly bringing about a more and more exact, definite, and perfect adjustment between external and internal relations. ”

“ It is only by continually keeping in our minds all the facts of nature which I have endeavored, however imperfectly to set before you, that we can possibly realize and comprehend the great problems presented by the "World of Life"—its persistence in ever-changing but unchecked development throughout the geological ages, the exact adaptations of every species to its actual environment both inorganic and organic, and the exquisite forms of beauty and harmony in flower and fruit, in mammal and bird, in mollusc and in the infinitude of the insect-tribes ”

“ But, when the variation in the behaviour of the organism becomes conscious and designed, there is thereby produced a preliminary indication or determination of the lines on which natural selection is to work. ”

“ And we shall soon find to our surprise that this is accompanied by another and parallel process. The action is not all upon our side. The Environment also will be found to correspond. The influence of Environment is one of the greatest and most substantial of modern biological doctrines. Of the power of Environment to form or transform organisms, of its ability to develop or suppress function, of its potency in determining growth, and generally of its immense influence in Evolution, there is no need now to speak. ”

“ Can one deny that if we were to take our clue from the present empirical situation, including the scientific notion of evolution (biological continuity) and the existing arts of control of nature, subject and object would be treated as occupying the same natural world as unhesitatingly as we assume the natural conjunction of an animal and its food? ”

“ The various grades of life on our planet are the natural consequences of certain physical processes involved in the gradual transformations of the earth. Conscious life is viewed as conditioned by physical (organic and more especially nervous) processes, and as evolving itself in close correlation with organic evolution. ”

“ His studies lead him to investigation of the whole field of nature, the rocks, the formation of deposits, the action of the elements, the conditions of life, the forms of organism, their functions and habits, the laws of growth, their adaptation to environment, the changes of events in time, the efforts of association and struggle for life, the principles of evolution and development—the migration and origin and extinction of organisms on the globe. Nothing in nature is without interest to him. ”

“ Thus we have the term ‘natural history’ and the French term ‘les sciences naturelles’ limited to the study of the more immediate and concrete forms of animals, plants, and crystals. There is some justification for separating the conception of Nature as specially concerned in the production and maintenance of living things from that larger Nature which embraces, together with this small but deeply significant area, the whole expanse of the heavens in the one direction and Man himself in the other. ”

“ It is the interaction and resultant of all the forces of Nature, both favourable and unfavourable to life, that determine the development and growth of every individual organism. And so the form and characteristics of every living being depend on the nature and strength of these contending forces. ”

“ Every department and sub-department of Nature, whether it be the solar system or the earth, or the organic kingdom, or human society, or the human body, is such a system of correlated parts, and is therefore subject to evolution. We can best make this thought clear by examples:
1. Take, then, the human body. This complex and beautiful system of correlated and nicely-adjusted parts may be studied in a state of maturity and equilibrium, in which all the organs and functions by action and reaction co-operate to produce perfect stability, health, and physical happiness. ”

“ In the supremacy and increased intelligence acquired by the ruling race, we see an illustration of the natural tendency of the organic world to grow more perfect; and, in their influence in repressing the advance of others, an example of one of those disturbing causes before enumerated, that force of external circumstances which causes such wide chasms in the regular series of animated being. ”

“ Therefore the explanation, which is given of the different phenomena of the earth, must be consistent with the actual constitution of this earth as a living world, that is, a world maintaining a system of living animals and plants. ”

“ The structures of organic beings have come about as a result of the action and reaction of environment upon these structures. Every being—and not only every being, but every species, the whole organic world—has come to be what it is as a result of the incessant hammerings of its surroundings, the hammerings not only of the present, but of the long-stretching past. By surroundings is meant, of course, the rest of the universe. ”

“ The more remote conclusions which are drawn from our perceptions, by reason, make what we commonly call science in the various parts of nature, whether in agriculture, medicine, mechanics, or in any part of natural philosophy. When I see a garden in good order, containing a great variety of things of the best kinds, and in the most flourishing condition, I immediately conclude from these signs, the skill and industry of the gardener. ”