AUTUMN FRUITS 269 



digest the seeds. (3) Not less important is the part the 

 fruits play in seed-scattering which we propose to discuss 

 by itself whether by explosion, or by adhesion to animals, 

 or by the formation of parachutes, or otherwise including, 

 of course, by being themselves eaten ! (4) But even when 

 the seed has been successfully scattered and sown it may 

 require the fruit's protection in the ground. It may 

 not be ready to germinate, or the season for germination 

 may be many months ahead. The enclosing fruit, or its 

 innermost wall in many cases, may protect the seed from 

 the frost and from the appetite of many small animals 

 that work underground. 



It is almost impossible to avoid using phrases which 

 suggest foresight on the plant's part, or some deliberate 

 fashioning of the fruit which is of no use to itself so as 

 to secure seed-scattering and seed-protection. But, while 

 the fact of adaptation is certain and becomes more and 

 more impressive the more we penetrate into its details, 

 and while it may be necessary to postulate a certain 

 primary adaptiveness in living creatures a capacity for 

 effective response to stimuli and of effective creation of 

 what is new we cannot, of course, imagine that the plants 

 take thought for the morrow or for the future of their 

 race, even in the most figurative sense. We must look 

 at the matter in a different way. Those plants that, for 

 constitutional reasons of their own, varied in the direction 

 of having effective fruits were the plants that survived. 

 Those plants that, for constitutional reasons of their own, 

 did not vary in the direction of having effective fruits 

 were eliminated from their place in the Earth's Flora. It 

 is a useful biological dictum that nothing succeeds like 

 success ; for when a plant, aiming at no mark (save, perhaps, 

 its own organic equilibrium and self- increase), made a 

 hit in the direction cf an effective fruit, it would have 



