UNDER THE MAPLES 



by even numbers, and in the organic world by 

 odd?*' I immediately went down to the edge of 

 a bushy and swampy meadow below our camp and 

 brought him a four-petaled flower of galium, and 

 a plant-stalk with four leaves in a whorl. In 

 another locality I might have brought him dwarf 

 jornel, or the houstonia,- or wood-sorrel, or the 

 evening-primrose. Yet even numbers are certainly 

 more suggestive of mechanics than of life, while 

 odd numbers seem to go more with the freedom 

 and irregularity of growing things. 



One may make pretty positive assertions about 

 non-living things. Crystals, so far as I know, are 

 all even-sided, some are six and some eight-sided; 

 snowflakes are of an infinite variety of pattern, but 

 the number six rules them. In the world of living 

 things we cannot be so sure of ourselves. Life 

 introduces something indeterminate and incommen- 

 surable. It makes use of both odd and even, 

 though undoubtedly odd numbers generally prevail. 

 Leaves that are in lobes usually have three or five 

 lobes. But the stems of the mints are four-square, 

 and the cells of the honey bee are six-sided. We 

 have five fingers and five toes, though only four 

 limbs. Locomotion is mechanical and even num- 

 bers serve better than odd. Hence the sk-legged 

 insects. In the inorganic world things attain a 

 stable equilibrium, but in the living world the 

 equilibrium is never stable. Things are not stereo- 



164 



