MAKING A HOME FOR LIFE 219 



planet and a greater depth and refinement of soil 

 than a dinosaur? " 



The old lady saw providential design in the way 

 so many fine rivers flowed through so many large 

 towns. Are we making the same sort of mistake 

 in discerning that the constitution of the inanimate 

 is in many unique ways eminently favorable to 

 the interests of living creatures? If it be true 

 that primitive living creatures arose by processes 

 of natural synthesis upon the earth, and are in a 

 deep sense bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, 

 it is not surprising that the mother should be 

 friendly to her children. One would expect systems 

 thus arising to be, as it were, at home among the 

 conditions which gave them birth. But what 

 strikes one is that the callous earth has been so 

 conspicuously friendly, supplying not merely a 

 shelter, but a stimulating and educative home. 

 Such a multitude of " preparations " seem to 

 conspire together to facilitate life the making of 

 the atmosphere and hydrosphere, the properties of 

 water and carbonic acid gas separately and together, 

 the properties and abundance of carbon, hydrogen, 

 and oxygen, the ready assumption of a colloidal 

 state by complex carbon compounds, the character 

 of the porous soil, and the meteorological cycle. 

 The whole aspect of life would have been different 

 if fresh water had not the anomalous property of 

 expanding near the freezing-point, just as the whole 

 aspect of human history would have been different 

 if our atmosphere had been too cloudy to allow us 



