UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



obstacle intervenes; but the obstacle does not ac- 

 count for the new branch, but only for the form it 

 takes and the direction it flows. The four-toed 

 horse was evidently just as fit to survive as the one- 

 toed, as is evinced by the fact that it did survive 

 for millions of years, but it eventuated in a series 

 of progressive forms because of the push of life 

 meeting and utilizing the changing outward con- 

 ditions. 



Life got out of the sea upon the land and devel- 

 oped lungs instead of gills, and legs instead of fins, 

 not because the competition in the sea drove it out, 

 but because of this primal push and aspiration to 

 new forms. 



Life is so flexible and adaptive, the table which 

 Nature spreads for her creatures is so varied and 

 bountiful, that the most delicate and minute forms 

 survive as well as the large and powerful, and 

 finally outlast them. Size and strength count in 

 the arena where they are the determining factors. If 

 other things did not count, the vast army of lesser 

 creatures, with man at their head, would not have 

 been here. The early gigantic forms did not pre- 

 vail. The savage and powerful carnivorous ani- 

 mals do not exterminate the weaker herbivorous. 

 Professor Bailey well says that "the minor things 

 and the weak things are the most numerous, and 

 they have played the greatest part in the polity of 

 nature." "The whole contrivance of Nature is to 



280 



