LIFE AND CHANCE 



water upon the globe would have made a vast differ- 

 ence in the distribution of life upon the globe, but 

 not to the non-living bodies.) A natural bridge in 

 the rocky strata, the rude architectural and monu- 

 mental forms in the rocks of the Southwest, are 

 purely matters of chance, in the sense in which I am 

 using the word. But the forms of vegetation and 

 of animal life are not in the same sense accidental; 

 they are purposive. All the parts of a living body 

 are subordinated to the whole. Hence it possesses a 

 unity in the sense that a non-hving body does not. 

 The unity and subordination of parts of a machine 

 are given to it by the builder, and are not an evolu- 

 tion from within. 



The question whether the beginning of life upon 

 the globe was itself accidental — a fortuitous chem- 

 ical reaction — is a question upon which our natiu-al 

 philosophers are divided. In this whole problem the 

 accidental and the purposive seem so blended that 

 it is a difficult matter to find our way between them. 

 The mechanistic conception of life, which is winning 

 more and more acceptance among scientific men, 

 looks upon it as accidental, as truly so as are the 

 sparks struck out by two colliding bodies. In this 

 view man himself is as much the result of the action 

 of the blind, irrational forces which we see in the 

 inorganic realm about us as are the rains and the 

 dews, the winds and the tides. Given the elements 

 and the physical laws about us and these things are 

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