UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



and change. A static equilibrium is the tendency of 

 the one; a dynamic disequiUbrium is the aim of the 

 other. The boy's hoop stands up as long as he keeps 

 it running; it does not have time to fall, gravity is 

 defeated every moment. This is a type of living 

 matter; the life impulse keeps it from stopping and 

 falling down. 



It is easy to see that chance, or the law of proba- 

 bility, would have brought the world of dead matter 

 where it is, but the living world presents a different 

 problem. Here we strike the world of organization, 

 parts fitted to parts, and parts subordinated to 

 parts, the many organized into the one. Still there 

 is the same hit-and-miss method of the action and 

 interaction of bodies upon one another, the blind 

 inorganic forces taking a hand in the game of life; 

 the seeds are sown by the chance action of the winds 

 and the floods, the forests are planted and trimmed 

 by chance; the chance actions of squirrels and jays 

 and crows plant the heavy nuts, the grazing cows 

 plant the apple and red-thorn seeds, the fruit-eating 

 birds scatter and drop the many small fruits; there 

 is chance in the planting and trimming and weeding 

 of Nature's garden, and in its locality, but is there 

 chance in the production of her living gardener, in 

 life itself? It is in the reciprocal action of the living 

 and the non-living that life goes on. Chance, inside 

 of mechanical and chemical laws, rules in the one; 

 chance, limited and subordinated to specific ends, 



246 



