LIFE AND CHANCE 



chance. There is no chance in the workings of the 

 Mendelian law; it is mathematically exact. 



If a hybrid which results from the crossing of two 

 varieties that differ from each other only in one spe- 

 cific character, as in color, or tallness, or shortness, 

 be planted, we know that one fourth of the seeds 

 will take on the character of one grandparent, and 

 one fourth take on the character of the other, and 

 that the other two fourths of them will take on the 

 character of the hybrid, and that this order will 

 repeat itself endlessly. Chance takes no part in the 

 result. The dominant characters are constantly 

 separated from each other in the second generation 

 to the extent of one half, while the other half re- 

 mains hybrid. 



The element of chance enters into all the opera- 

 tions of outward nature. Not a flower blooms, not 

 a fruit forms, not a drop of rain falls, not a child 

 is born, but is more or less contingent upon the 

 changes and fluctuations of the natural currents and 

 forces. But the capacity of matter itself to produce 

 life we cannot think of as accidental; only its devel- 

 opment is subject to the law of chance in a world 

 of conflicting forces. 



If the seed did not possess an innate tendency 

 to grow and unfold under favoring conditions, the 

 flower, the fruit, could not appear, nor the child be 

 born. And if matter did not possess potential life* 

 life could never have appeared in the world. 

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