UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



Science analyzes all the life-processes, and knows all 

 the mechanism of living beings; but it cannot find 

 the secret of life. Life, as such, it knows not; it only 

 knows its material elements. Literature alone can 

 grasp and interpret life; it names a vital force at 

 which science scoffs; it names spirit, but spirit does 

 not fall within the categories of science. The latest 

 biological science names a new force, "biotic en- 

 ergy," an old friend with a new name; and it 

 names a new substance, "plasmogen," which it has 

 not yet found, and which is just as hypothetical as 

 vital force. 



The scientific interpretation of the universe repels 

 a great many minds because it lays the emphasis 

 upon matter itself instead of upon something super- 

 material. It hesitates to name a creative energy, but 

 makes matter itself creative, and does not try to 

 help it out with teleological conception. Science 

 sees man arise out of the earth, as literally as it sees 

 the plants and the trees arise, and it is convinced 

 that if a moving picture could be had of man's long 

 and wonderful line of descent through the geologic 

 ages, we should see his development or growth from 

 unorganized matter up through hundreds of chang- 

 ing living forms during the geological ages, till we 

 behold him as he is to-day. Condense his history, 

 cut out the element of time, as the moving-picture 

 machine cuts it out of the changes in the growing 

 plant, and behold the protozoa mount and unfold, 

 180 



