THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



herent in the worm; but extrinsic conditions must 

 have favored and guided the development of the 

 higher form. 



The moisture and the warmth do not determine 

 the kind of plant or tree that shall arise from the 

 seed you sow, but without them there would be no 

 tree and no plant. Huxley's phrase, "the predes- 

 tined evolution" of all forms of life, constantly 

 comes to my mind: some inherent primordial bias 

 or impulse or force that made the tree of life branch 

 thus and thus and not otherwise, and that now be- 

 fore our eyes makes the pine branch one way, the 

 oak another, the elm another. 



We say that Nature is blind, but she has no need 

 of eyes, she tries all courses: she has infinite time, 

 infinite power, infinite space; and so far as our 

 feeble minds can see, her delight is to play this game 

 of blindman's buS over and over to all eternity. 

 Her creatures get life, and the joy and pain that life 

 brings, but what is augmented, or depleted, or con- 

 cluded, or satisfied, or fulfilled, — who knows? 



Could the appearance of man have been a fortui- 

 tous circumstance, something like an accident? 

 Only in the sense that the appearance of anything 

 else in nature is a fortuitous circumstance. Things 

 in nature are not planned and provided for as we 

 plan and provide for things. They all seem fortui- 

 tous when tried by our standards, like the storms. 

 It seems like a sort of haphazard business; the 

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