INVOLUTION. 323 



they are at least contained in the root ? No single one 

 of them is contained in the root. If not in the root, 

 then in the clay ? Neither are they contained in the 

 clay. But they grow out of clay, are they not made 

 out of clay ? They do not grow out of clay, and they 

 are not made out of clay. It is astounding sometimes 

 how little those who venture to criticise biological 

 processes seem to know of its simplest facts. Fill a 

 flower-pot with clay, and plant in it a seedling. At the 

 end of four years it has become a small tree ; it is six 

 feet high ; it weighs ten pounds. But the clay in the 

 pot is still there ? A moiety of it has gone, but it is 

 not appreciably diminished ; it has not, except the 

 moiety, passed into the tree ; the tree does not live on 

 clay nor on any force contained in the clay. It cannot 

 have grown out of the seedling, for the seedling contained 

 but a grain for every pound contained in the tree. It 

 cannot have grown from the root, because the root is 

 there now, has lost nothing to the tree, has itself gained 

 from the tree, and at first was no more there than 

 the tree. 



Sigillaria, then, as representing the ethical order, 

 did not grow out of Stigmaria as representing the 

 organic or the material order. Trees not only do not 

 evolve out of their roots, but whole classes in the 

 plant world — the sea- weeds for instance — have no roots 

 at all. If any possible relation exists it is exactly 

 the opposite one — it is the root which evolves from the 

 tree. Trees send down roots in a far truer sense than 

 roots send up trees. Yet neither is the whole truth. 

 The true function of the root is to give stability to the 

 tree, and to afford a medium for conveying into it 

 inorganic matter from without. And this brings us 



