LIFE AND CHANCE 



occur the slight local differences owing to differences 

 in environment. No doubt extraordinary men are 

 in a measure the result of happy accident. There 

 are determining or favoring factors — race, climate, 

 family inheritance, and so on — and there are modi- 

 fying and fortuitous factors in the daily lives and 

 habits of the parents and in the social conditions. 

 The web of human life is so complex, so many influ- 

 ences and inheritances converge and unite in the 

 genesis of every life, that the elements of chance 

 or fortime inevitably play a part. The mafformed, 

 the underwitted, the monstrosities, the still-bom, 

 all afford evidence of how the plans of Nature are 

 thwarted or marred by accident. This factor of 

 chance invades even the life of the cells, and occa- 

 sionally some part is absent or defective. 



V 



The forms and distributions of bodies in inorganic 

 nature are not important; any other scheme or re- 

 arrangement would do just as well. The wonderful 

 monumental and architectural rock-forms in the 

 great Southwest are purely a matter of chance — 

 that is, they serve no special purpose, though, given 

 the kind of rock, and the conditions, they are inevi- 

 table; they are fated to be thus and not otherwise. 

 But the men and women who make long joxuneys to 

 view the marvelous spectacle are not in the same 

 way a matter of chance, and their going thither is 

 257 



