LIFE AND CHANCE 
chance. There is no chance in the workings of the 
Mendelian law; it is mathematically exact. 
If a hybrid which results from the crossing of two 
varieties that differ from each other only in one spe- 
cific character, as in color, or tallness, or shortness, 
be planted, we know that one fourth of the seeds 
will take on the character of one grandparent, and 
one fourth take on the character of the other, and 
that the other two fourths of them will take on the 
character of the hybrid, and that this order will 
repeat itself endlessly. Chance takes no part in the 
result. The dominant characters are constantly 
separated from each other in the second generation 
to the extent of one half, while the other half re- 
mains hybrid. 
The element of chance enters into all the opera- 
tions of outward nature. Not a flower blooms, not 
a fruit forms, not a drop of rain falls, not a child 
is born, but is more or less contingent upon the 
changes and fluctuations of the natural currents and 
forces. But the capacity of matter itself to produce 
life we cannot think of as accidental; only its devel- 
opment is subject to the law of chance in a world 
of conflicting forces. 
If the seed did not possess an innate tendency 
to grow and unfold under favoring conditions, the 
flower, the fruit, could not appear, nor the child be 
born. And if matter did not possess potential life, 
life could never have appeared in the world. 
253 
