THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 153 



and multifarious mold, a preformed sieve with holes of differ- 

 ent sizes, a separator for sorting coins of various denomina- 

 tions, Darwin's idea would be,, in some degree, defensible, 

 but this would only transfer the problem of cosmic order 

 and intelligence from the organism to the environment. As 

 a matter of fact, the mechanism of the environment is far 

 too simple in its structure and too general in its influence 

 to account for the complexities and specificities of organisms, 

 that is, for the morphology and specific differences of plants 

 and animals. Hence the selective work of the environment is 

 negligible in the positive sense, and consists, for the most 

 part, in a tendency to eliminate the abnormal and the sub- 

 normal. On the other hand, the environment as well as the 

 organism is fundamentally teleological, and the environ- 

 mental mechanism, though simple and general, is neverthe- 

 less expressly preadapted for the maintenance of organic life. 

 Henderson, the bio-chemist of Harvard, has shown conclu- 

 sively, in his "Fitness of the Environment" (1913), that the 

 environment itself has been expressly selected with this final- 

 ity in view, and that the inorganic world, while not the active 

 cause, is, nevertheless, the preordained complement of or- 

 ganic life. 



Simple constructions may, indeed, be due to pure accident 

 as well as deliberate art, inasmuch as they presuppose but few 

 and easy conditions. Complex constructions, on the contrary, 

 provided they be systematic and not chaotic, are not pro- 

 ducible by accident, but only by art, because they require 

 numerous and complicated conditions. Operating individu- 

 ally, the unconscious factors of inorganic nature can produce 

 simple and homogeneous constructions such as crystals. Op- 

 erating in uncoordinated concurrence with one another, these 

 blind and unrelated agencies produce complex chaotic for- 

 mations such as mountains and islands, mere heterogeneous 

 conglomerates, destitute of any determinate size, shape, or 

 symmetry, constructions in which every single item and detail 

 is the result of factors each of which is independent of the 



