The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry Into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Fitness of the Environment: An Inquiry Into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter

Darwinian fitness is compounded of a mutual relationship between the organism and the environment. Of this, fitness of environment is quite as essential a component as the fitness which arises in the process o' organic evolution; and in fundamental characteristics the actual environment is the fittest possible abode of life. Such is the thesis which the present volume seeks to establish, This is not a novel hypothesis. In rudimentary form it has already a long history behind it, and it was a familiar doctrine in the early nineteenth century. It presents itself anew as a result of the recent growth of the science of physical chemistry.

About fifteen years ago I first became interested in the connection between physical and chemical properties of simple substances and the organic functions which they serve.

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