SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 209 



provided the number of times be sufficiently large, 

 the probability is that the number of heads will 

 be the same as the number of tails. If, however, 

 there is some other force operating, the element of 

 chance may be greater for one than for the other, 

 as, for instance, if a piece of wax or crumb 

 adheres accidentally to one side of the coin ; and 

 this apparently directive tendency would of course 

 be consistent with the forces of nature. The 

 tendency for one rather than the other to occur 

 is merely the result of some accident, and we do 

 not know all the conditions in the remote past 

 under which right-handed and left-handed atoms 

 have been produced. There remains the possi- 

 bility, therefore, not to say the probability, that some 

 such directive force, as natural as any other force 

 we have to deal with, took part in producing one 

 eflfect rather than the other. And we have no 

 reason to suppose that the mode of production of 

 right-handed and left-handed enantiomorphs was, 

 strictly speaking, the result of mere chance, but 

 that there was some accidental force which tended 

 to produce one instead of the other. 



Now, guidance frequently attributed to ultra- 

 materialistic or spiritualistic sources seems to us to 

 be based somewhat on a misapprehension. These 

 directive phenomena, whatever they may be, if they 

 can exert force upon matter, do concern us so long 

 as in the study of nature they form part of the 

 dynamical connections of the Universe. If it is 

 stated or implied that they can exert some action 



p 



