48 EVOLUTION AND ETHICS. n 



But no sooner has the edifice, reared with such 

 exact elaboration,, attained completeness, than it 

 begins to crumble. By degrees, the plant withers 

 and disappears from view, leaving behind more or 

 fewer apparently inert and simple bodies, just. like 

 the bean from which it sprang; and, like it, en- 

 dowed with the potentiality of giving rise to a 

 similar cycle of manifestations. 



Neither the poetic nor the scientific imagina- 

 tion is put to much strain in the search after analo- 

 gies with this process of going forth and, as it 

 were, returning to the starting-point. It may be 

 likened to the ascent and descent of a slung stone, 

 or the course of an arrow along its trajectory. Or 

 we may say that the living energy takes first an 

 upward and then a downward road. Or it may 

 seem preferable to compare the expansion of the 

 germ into the full-grown plant, to the unfolding 

 of a fan, or to the rolling forth and widening of a 

 stream; and thus to arrive at the conception of 

 " development," or " evolution." Here, as else- 

 where, names are " noise and smoke "; the im- 

 portant point is to have a clear and adequate con- 

 ception of the fact signified by a name. And, in 

 this case, the fact is the Sisyphgean process, in the 

 course of which, the living and growing plant 

 passes from the relative simplicity and latent po- 

 tentiality of the seed to the full epiphany of a 

 highly differentiated type, thence to fall back to 

 simplicity and potentiality. 



