UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 



species, such as the ash, the maple, the elm, the lin- 

 den, give their seeds wings, or devices to hold grav- 

 ity in abeyance, and the wind scatters them. The 

 cedars, the oaks, and all the nut- and fruit-bearers 

 depend upon living creatures who feed upon their 

 fruit to scatter their seeds. In all cases the element 

 of chance plays an important part. 



Life is such a mysterious thing, — if it be a thing, 

 or an entity, at all, which so many later biologists 

 dispute, — its goings and comings are so incalcu- 

 lable; it is so involved in the material forces, and yet 

 seems so superior to them; it plays such a small part 

 in the totality of the cosmos, and yet appears to be 

 the one event upon which all things wait. 



If we use the word "chance" as opposed to "de- 

 sign," or "law" as opposed to "intelligence," — 

 which to me amounts to the same thing, — then, in 

 the last analysis at least, the conditions of life were 

 a matter of chance. 



There could be no life as we know it till the earth 

 was ripe for it, till the waters were gathered together 

 with the air swimming above them, and the crust of 

 the earth cooled and became comparatively stable. 

 And all these things were the result of the operation 

 of irrefragable physical laws — not of the order or 

 relation of parts that result from intelligent design, 

 but of the equipoise and adjustment that come from 

 the conflict of blind, irrational material forces. This 

 introduces us to the world of chance or of fate. Just 

 236 



