SERIAL ORGANIC EVOLUTION 249 



John Gerard puts the matter well thus : " It is 

 not simply because iron is hammered and filed that 

 a railway-engine is produced ; nor is it sufficient 

 that a block of marble be chipped with mallet and 

 chisel in order to obtain a statue of Apollo. Unless 

 some influence comes in to direct the forces in 

 such cases to their respective results, the results 

 will never by any possibility be secured. And in 

 the processes of Nature such direction or deter- 

 mination must be exercised in particulars incon- 

 ceivably intricate, to which the works of man 

 furnish no parallel." 



" If a tree," writes Mr Croll, " is to be formed, 

 the lines of least resistance must all be determined 

 and adjusted in relation to the objective idea of 

 the tree ; of the root, of the branches, of the leaves, 

 of the bud, of the fruit, and of every part of the tree. 

 But this is not all : the tree is built up molecule by 

 molecule, each of which requires a special deter- 

 mination, and beyond all this we have the structure- 

 less protoplasm [protoplasm is not structureless], 

 which must be differentiated according to the 

 objective idea of the whole. What produces this 

 marvellous adjustment of means to ends ?'' 



And Mr Croll insists, in another passage : " The 

 determinations which take place in nature occur 

 not at random, but according to a plan — an 

 objective idea. Thus the question is not simply 



