THE COSMIC ADAPTATION OF THE SEED 449 



whilst, considered from the contracted standpoint of a single 

 planet, we interpret it as the result of heredity. The laws of 

 heredity as we frame them on our planet may be real enough 

 for us, yet they may eventually present themselves as part of 

 a much wider principle extending over the cosmos. The fact 

 that an organism must be true to its conditions may indicate 

 a principle that involves our laws of heredity and very much 

 more. With this digression I will return to my main 

 argument. 



We are not directly concerned here with any evolutionary 

 process, but simply with the effect of different degrees of 

 rigidity of the conditions of existence on the development of 

 the several stages of a plant's life, from that of the seed to that 

 of the full-grown organism. Under severe repression a pine 

 could be forced back into the cotyledonary state in which it 

 exists in the seed. Under conditions less severe or less 

 repressive it would develop into the ordinary pine tree ; and 

 where the conditions pressed lightly on the organism it might 

 acquire the size of the Sequoias. But we have here neither the 

 beginning nor the end of the scale of the stages of a plant- 

 organism, though, as will presently be shown, it is sufficiently 

 extended to be of some value to us in affording indications of 

 the line of possible extensions at either the beginning or the 

 end of the scale in other worlds. Between the two extremes 

 of indefinite contraction and indefinite expansion seem to lie 

 the average conditions of our terrestrial plants. 



But there is sufficient variation of conditions on our planet Extreme 



to enable us to perceive as through dimmed glasses the on the earth 



possible influence of extreme conditions in other worlds. For JJatVnormal 



instance, let us suppose that in very gradual fashion the earth conditions in 

 ,. ,. ^^ ^ . ^ J • other worlds, 



dries up, losing its water and its atmosphere and presenting 



conditions such as now seem to prevail on the lunar surface. 



During such changes the plants would be graduallly driven 



back to the seed-stage, until, when the earth approached the 



lunar condition, all surviving vegetable life would be reduced 



to that state. There are seeds, like those of Guilandina bondu- 



29 



