The reversal of the sequence of functions leads to extermination,
degeneration, or, rarely, to stagnation.--Natural selection becomes
more unsparing as we go higher.--Extinction.--Severity of the
struggle for life.--Environment one.--But lower animals come into
vital relation with but a small part of it.--It consists of a myriad
of forces, which, as acting on a given form, may be considered as
one grand resultant.--Environment is thus a power making at first
for digestion and reproduction, then for muscular strength and
activity, then for shrewdness, finally for unselfishness and
righteousness.--An ultimate "power, not ourselves, making for
righteousness," a personality.--Our knowledge of this personality
may be valid, even though very incomplete.--Religion.--Conformity to
the spiritual in or behind environment is likeness to God.--The
conservative tendency in evolution.


CHAPTER VII

CONFORMITY TO ENVIRONMENT

Human environment.--The development of the family as the school of
man's training.--The family as the school of unselfishness and
obedience.--The family as the basis of social life.--Society as an
aid to conformity to environment by increasing intelligence and
training conscience.--Mental and moral heredity.--Personal
magnetism.--Man's search for a king.--The essence of
Christianity.--Conformity to environment gives future supremacy, but
often at the cost of present hardship.--Conformity as obedience to
the laws of our being.--Environment best understood through the
study of the human mind.--Productiveness and prospectiveness of