UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
physical changes, though these are inseparable from 
life. 
Behold the great tidal impulse rolling around the 
world, heaping up the waters on this shore and on 
that, and nullifying its tendency for the moment toa 
dead equilibrium. In like manner behold the organic 
impulse flowing through matter and lifting it up into 
myriads of novel and beautiful forms and defeating 
its tendency to settle back into a dead equilibrium. 
I would not say in the case of life that there is 
anything analogous to the lunar and solar attrac- 
tions, but would only suggest that there is some 
primordial and inexplicable impulse in matter that 
is not explained by its chemical and physical proc- 
esses. 
Chance plays a greater part in vegetable life than 
in animal life, and it plays a greater part in the lower 
forms of life than in the higher. The fertilization of 
plants is mostly brought about through the agency 
of winds and insects, which are chance happenings, 
contingent upon many things. The fertilization of 
certain lower forms of animal life, such as fishes, is 
brought about by the agency of water or outward 
forces, and hence chance enters largely into the 
problem. 
Il 
It may help us to get nearer the truth of this 
question of chance in its relation to the origin of life 
238 
