LIFE AND CHANCE 



occur the slight local differences owing to differences 

 in environment. No doubt extraordinary men are 

 in a measure the result of happy accident. There 

 are determining or favoring factors race, climate, 

 family inheritance, and so on and there are modi 

 fying and fortuitous factors in the daily lives and 

 habits of the parents and in the social conditions. 

 The web of human life is so complex, so many influ- 

 ences and inheritances converge and unite in the 

 genesis of every life, that the elements of chance 

 or fortune inevitably play a part. The malformed, 

 the underwitted, the monstrosities, the still-born, 

 all afford evidence of how the plans of Nature are 

 thwarted or marred by accident. This factor of 

 chance invades even the life of the cells, and occa- 

 sionally some part is absent or defective. 



v 



The forms and distributions of bodies in inorganic 

 nature are not important; any other scheme or re- 

 arrangement would do just as well. The wonderful 

 monumental and architectural rock-forms in the 

 great Southwest are purely a matter of chance 

 that is, they serve no special purpose, though, given 

 the kind of rock, and the conditions, they are inevi- 

 table; they are fated to be thus and not otherwise. 

 But the men and women who make long journeys to 

 view the marvelous spectacle are not hi the same 

 way a matter of chance, and their going thither is 

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