A BACKWARD GLANCE 295 



serve, and make permanent the characteristics 

 of each of her races or kinds best suited to their 

 environment. 



Third, that there is always present in all of 

 her creations the experimental tendency to break 

 away from fixed characteristics — to start new 

 races — to branch out into entirely new forms of 

 development. Through our intervention in the 

 case of the poppy, this tendency was crowned 

 with success; in ten thousand years, perhaps, 

 without intervention, the same result might pos- 

 sibly have occurred. 



From the fern at the water's edge to the apple 

 tree which bears us luscious fruit — from the 

 oyster that lies helpless in the bottom of Long 

 Island Sound to the human being who rakes it 

 up and eats it — every different forni of life 

 about us may thus be traced to the experiments 

 which nature is continually bringing forth in 

 order to better adapt her creations to their 

 environment. 



As to the question so often asked, monkeys 

 are no more turning into men than golden-yellow 

 poppies are turning into crimson, white or fire- 

 flame poppies. 



In monkeys, as in men and poppies — and 

 quartz crystals — there is ever present the tend- 

 ency to break away from the kind, yet nature 



