8 "fHE COMING OF MAN 



in this by dint of humility, by making itself very small and 

 very insinuating, bending to chemical and physical forces, con- 

 senting even to go a part of the way with them, like the switch 

 that adopts for a while the direction of the rail it is endeavor- 

 ing to leave. Of phenomena in the simplest forms of life, it 

 is hard to say whether they are still physical and chemical or 

 whether they are already vital. Life had to enter thus into 

 the habits of inert matter, in order to draw it little by little, 

 magnetized, as it were, to another track. The animate forms 

 that first appeared were therefore of extreme simplicity. 

 They were probably tiny masses of scarcely differentiated 

 protoplasm, outwardly resembling the amoeba observable to- 

 day, but possessed of the tremendous internal push that was 

 to raise them even to the highest forms of life. ... It suc- 

 ceeded in inducing an increasing number of elements, ready 

 to divide, to remain united. By the division of labor it 

 knotted between them an indissoluble bond. . . . Life is 

 tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the 

 form of a sheaf creating, by its very growth, divergent direc- 

 tions among which its impetus is divided. This we observe 

 in ourselves, in the evolution of that special tendency which 

 we call our character." 



Life is always sending its children out into the world to 

 seek a kingdom; to be fruitful and multiply and fill and pos- 

 sess the earth. It is still sending out its groups of bacteria, of 

 weeds, of insect pests, — usually small forms of intense vi- 

 tality, of great adaptability, if not already adapted, to a wide 

 range of climate and other conditions. Civilization often gives 

 them new opportunities and they seize upon and make the 

 most of them, and threaten to overwhelm us. 



The first or a very early great divergence, or setting out of 

 these pioneer adventurers, resulted in the establishment of the 

 two great organic kingdoms, plants and animals. We have 

 only lately begun to notice the experiments of bacteria and 

 similar forms in producing coloring matters, pigments, of va- 

 rious hues and chemical structure. Coloring matters may 

 have played a larger role in life and development than we 



