Grant a personality in environment to
which personality in man is to conform and gain likeness.
Environment can act on the digestive and muscular systems through
mere material. But how can personality in environment act on
personality in man except by personal contact or by symbols easy of
comprehension according to its own laws? Some method of attaining
acquaintance at least we should certainly expect.
But some of you may ask, How can any theory of evolution guarantee
that anything of the present shall survive in the future? It is
continually changing and destroying former types. The old order of
everything changes and passes away, giving place to the new. But is
this the whole truth? Evolution is a radical process, but we must
never forget that it is also, and at the same time, exceedingly
conservative. The cell was the first invention of the animal
kingdom, and all higher animals are and must be cellular in
structure. Our tissues were formed ages on ages ago; they have all
persisted. Most of our organs are as old as worms. All these are
very old, older than the mountains, and yet I cannot doubt that they
must last as long as man exists. Indeed, while Nature is wonderfully
inventive of new structures, her conservatism in holding on to old
ones is still more remarkable. In the ascending line of development
she tries an experiment once exceedingly thorough, and then the
question is solved for all time.
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