[1] I find a similar conclusion arrived at in Semper’s Animal Life, p. 52.

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speculation.  In the event of the former being the truth, it is evidently possible, in spite of a large finite number of habitable worlds, that life is non-existent elsewhere.  If the latter is the truth, it is almost certain that there is life in all, or many of those worlds.

EVOLUTION AND ACCELERATION OF ACTIVITY

The primary factor in evolution is the “struggle for existence.”  This involves a “natural selection” among the many variations of the organism.  If we seek the underlying causes of the struggle, we find that the necessity of food and (in a lesser degree) the desire for a mate are the principal causes of contention.  The former is much the more important factor, and, accordingly, we find the greater degree of specialisation based upon it.

The present view assumes a dynamic necessity for its demands involved in the nature of the organism as such.  This assumption is based on observation of the outcome of its unconstrained growth, reproduction, and life-acts.  We have the same right to assert this of the organism as we have to assert that retardation and degradation attend the actions of inanimate machines, which assertion, also, is based on observation of results.  Thus we pass from the superficial statements that organisms require food in order to live, or that organisms desire food, to the more fundamental one that: 

The organism is a configuration of matter which absorbs energy acceleratively, without limit, when unconstrained.

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This is the dynamic basis for a “struggle for existence.”  The organism being a material system responding to accession of energy with fresh demands, and energy being limited in amount, the struggle follows as a necessity.  Thus, evolution guiding’ the steps of the energy-seeking organism, must presuppose and find its origin in that inherent property of the organism which determines its attitude in presence of available energy.

Turning to the factor, “adaptation,” we find that this also must presuppose, in order to be explicable, some quality of aggressiveness on the part of the organism.  For adaptation in this or that direction is the result of repulse or victory, and, therefore, we must presuppose an attack.  The attack is made by the organism in obedience to its law of demand; we see in the adaptation of the organism but the accumulated wisdom derived from past defeats and victories.

Where the environment is active, that is living, adaptation occurs on both sides.  Improved means of defence or improved means of attack, both presuppose activity.  Thus the reactions to the environment, animate and inanimate, are at once the outcome of the eternal aggressiveness of the organism, and the source of fresh aggressiveness upon the resources of the medium.