(4) Other objections, however many, must be set aside, as a fourth concept remains to be considered—that of environment. And this also has been reified. Or, in other words, even by the evolutionist it is given a static and entitive character which profoundly affects our interpretation of evolution in ethical theory.
Now "the canon of the principle of natural selection is on the face of it relative ... what is implied is simply a relation to one's surroundings,"[1] that is, it imports essentially a relation of the individual and of the species to the environment. But what does environment mean? Obviously (a) not the totality of all external conditions, but those only within the geographical range of the species, which will be relatively unchanging or variable according as the species is relatively fixed in its habitat or migratory or nomadic, etc. In any case climatic changes, the appearance and disappearance of rival species, and many other conditions render the environment, from an external point of view (b) only relatively stable. The life of the species is dependent upon the changing character of external conditions, among which are included competing species, while for the individual others of its own kind, with which competition takes place, constitute a part of its environment, and the latter is, therefore (c) not precisely that of the species.
Now it is generally admitted that "variations in the individual are produced by the influences upon him of varying environment. ... Of the influence of the environment upon the individual no one has any question."[2] And this influence is reciprocal. Even the evolutional ethicist, who in the end may derive ultimate concepts of Life, Health or Strength by reference to a static environment, says that "a species, indeed, does not simply adapt itself to absolutely fixed conditions, like wax poured into a rigid mould. In altering itself it alters to some extent its environment. By extirpating a rival race it sets up a whole series of actions and reactions, implying a readjustment of the whole equilibrium amongst all the races with which it is in contact, and to some extent an alteration in the inorganic world."[3]
