UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



physical changes, though these are inseparable from 

 life. 



Behold the great tidal impulse rolling around the 

 world, heaping up the waters on this shore and on 

 that, and nullifying its tendency for the moment to a 

 dead equilibrium. In like manner behold the organic 

 impulse flowing through matter and lifting it up into 

 myriads of novel and beautiful forms and defeating 

 its tendency to settle back into a dead equilibrium. 



I would not say in the case of life that there is 

 anything analogous to the lunar and solar attrac- 

 tions, but would only suggest that there is some 

 primordial and inexplicable impulse in matter that 

 is not explained by its chemical and physical proc- 

 esses. 



Chance plays a greater part in vegetable life than 

 in animal life, and it plays a greater part in the lower 

 forms of life than in the higher. The fertilization of 

 plants is mostly brought about through the agency 

 of winds and insects, which are chance happenings, 

 contingent upon many things. The fertilization of 

 certain lower forms of animal life, such as fishes, is 

 brought about by the agency of water or outward 

 forces, and hence chance enters largely into the 

 problem. 



n 



It may help us to get nearer the truth of this 

 question of chance in its relation to the origin of life 



238 



