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INVOLUTION 413J 



of a tree roots ? Do they belong to the root- 

 order ? They do not. Their whole morphology is 

  different ; their whole physiology is different ; their 

 reactions upon the world around are different; 

 But it must be allowed that they are at least 

 contained in the root? No single one of them is 

 contained in the root. If not in the root, then in 

 the clay ? Neither are they contained in the clay. 

 But they grow out of clay, are they not made 

 out of clay? They do not grow out of clay, and 

 they are not made out of clay. It is astounding 

 sometimes how little those who venture to criticize 

 biological processes seem to know of its simplest 

 facts. Fill a flower-pot with clay, and plant in it a 

 seedling. At the end of four years it has become a 

 small tree ; it is six feet high ; it weighs ten pounds. 

 But the clay in the pot is still there ? A moiety of 

 it has gone, but it is not appreciably diminished ; 

 it has not, except the moiety, passed into the tree ; 

 the tree does not live on clay nor on any force 

 contained in the clay. It cannot have grown out 

 of the seedling, for the seedling contained but a 

 grain for every pound contained in the tree. It 

 cannot have grown from the root, because the root 

 is there now, has lost nothing to the tree, has itself 

 gained from the tree, and at first was no more 

 there than the tree. 



