UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
where it listeth, the success of the organic forces, so 
far as they draw upon these things, is fortuitous also. 
Aristotle seems to think that organisms are under 
the same rule of necessity as prevails in the inor- 
ganic world. The rain, he says, does not fall in order , 
to make the corn grow any more than it falls to spoil 
the corn when it is threshed out in the field. This is 
the modern scientific view. The weather-system is 
indifferent to crops; the rain falls by reason of the 
laws of physics, which always acts the same under 
the same conditions. The rain is not designed for 
the corn, but the corn avails itself of the rain be- 
cause it has organic needs. The rain has no needs; 
inert matter has no needs; it is ruled by necessity, 
but living things are ruled by a different order of 
necessity — the necessity arising from their internal 
spontaneity, of which Aristotle speaks. Aristotle 
thinks that the teeth and other organs of an animal 
have a merely accidental relation to its body, and to 
all the parts to which we attribute design; they con- 
tinue, and are perfected because they are useful. 
This is natural selection before Darwin. But it is 
more in agreement with the thought of to-day to 
regard all the parts of a living body as the result of 
an inherent demand of the organism — the “‘inter- 
nal spontaneity” which Aristotle had in mind. All 
parts of living bodies are appropriately constituted, 
but the word “appropriate” does not apply in the 
same sense to winds and clouds. 
248 
