To understand the sustaining influence of Environment in the animal
world, one has only to recall what the biologist terms the extrinsic or
subsidiary conditions of vitality. Every living thing normally requires
for its development an Environment containing air, light, heat, and
water. In addition to these, if vitality is to be prolonged for any
length of time, and if it is to be accompanied with growth and the
expenditure of energy, there must be a constant supply of food. When we
simply remember how indispensable food is to growth and work, and when
we further bear in mind that the food-supply is solely contributed by
the Environment, we shall realize at once the meaning and the truth of
the proposition that without Environment there can be no life. Seventy
per cent. at least of the human body is made of pure water, the rest of
gases and earth. These have all come from Environment. Through the
secret pores of the skin two pounds of water are exhaled daily from
every healthy adult. The supply is kept up by Environment. The
Environment is really an unappropriated part of ourselves. Definite
portions are continuously abstracted from it and added to the organism.
And so long as the organism continues to grow, act, think, speak, work,
or perform any other function demanding a supply of energy, there is a
constant, simultaneous, and proportionate drain upon its surroundings.
This is a truth in the physical, and therefore in the spiritual, world
of so great importance that we shall not mis-spend time if we follow it,
for further confirmation, into another department of nature. Its
significance in Biology is self-evident; let us appeal to Chemistry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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