Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1054

Fragment — a single page numbered 11

This process of maintaining continuity under adversity by flowing of the life stream into increasing numbers of units and thus widening the field from which favorable modifications can be drawn seems to be the master technique upon which organic evolution depends. By its many repetitions the forms of life that most practice it are so changed as to improve their adaptive capacity and thus break down the limits otherwise imposed by adverse conditions in general and in particular by the relative insufficiency of food as their numbers increase rather by the postponement of death than by greater frequency of birth.