As long as it endures, it struggles to use surrounding energies
in its own behalf. It uses light, air, moisture, and the
material of soil. To say that it uses them is to say that it
turns them into means of its own conservation. As long as it is
growing, the energy it expends in thus turning the environment
to account is more than compensated for by the return it gets:
it grows. Understanding the word "control" in this sense, it may
be said that a living being is one that subjugates and controls
for its own continued activity the energies that would otherwise
use it up. Life is a self-renewing process through action upon
the environment.
In all the higher forms this process cannot be kept up
indefinitely. After a while they succumb; they die. The creature
is not equal to the task of indefinite self-renewal. But
continuity of the life process is not dependent upon the
prolongation of the existence of any one individual.
Reproduction of other forms of life goes on in continuous
sequence. And though, as the geological record shows, not merely
individuals but also species die out, the life process continues
in increasingly complex forms. As some species die out, forms
better adapted to utilize the obstacles against which they
struggled in vain come into being. Continuity of life means
continual readaptation of the environment to the needs of living
organisms.
We have been speaking of life in its lowest terms -- as a
physical thing. But we use the word Life" to denote the whole
range of experience, individual and racial. When we see a book
called the Life of Lincoln we do not expect to find within its
covers a treatise on physiology. We look for an account of
social antecedents; a description of early surroundings, of the
conditions and occupation of the family; of the chief episodes
in the development of character; of signal struggles and
achievements; of the individual's hopes, tastes, joys and
sufferings. In precisely similar fashion we speak of the life of
a savage tribe, of the Athenian people, of the American nation.
"Life" covers customs, institutions, beliefs, victories and
defeats, recreations and occupations. |
