XI ADAPTATION AND MEANS OF DISPERSAL lo 



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capacities are then brought into play which have no connection 

 with the life-history of the plant. The care with which the mother 

 plant guards the maturing seeds, and the protection of the environ- 

 ment, are at a certain period withdrawn, and the seeds are left to 

 take their chance under strange conditions. It would be idle 

 to see anything purposeful in the waste that results. Rather 

 we would see in it the effect of one of the numerous limitations of 

 the determining or evolutionary power in Nature. Such a power 

 has to adapt its workings to the laws of the physical world, checked 

 here, frustrated there, at times, as in this particular case, losing all 

 control, but in the end prevailing. 



My general position may be thus summarised. As concerning 

 the distribution of fruits and seeds, the dispersing agencies take 

 advantage of characters and capacities that were never intended 

 for them, characters and qualities indeed that are often only 

 brought out in relation to another environment. Thus no question 

 of adaptation as regards means of dispersal can arise, since such 

 capacities for dispersal have no connection with the plant's life- 

 history. That seeds are dispersed at all is a blind result of the 

 ever-continued struggle between the opposing forces of evolution 

 and adaptation ; that is to say, between the determining power 

 that lies behind organic life and the physical conditions to which it 

 has to adapt its ends. 



