UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
I conceive that the appearance of life upon this 
globe was a matter of chance in the same way that 
fertilization or impregnation in the vegetable and 
animal world is a matter of chance. There is the 
possibility of fertilization to start with, and there is 
the inherent tendency, but unless conditions favor, 
— conditions that are contingent upon many things, 
— it does not take place. In the vegetable world, 
storms, frosts, rains, floods may prevent fertiliza- 
tion; or the part played by insects may be nega- 
tived in some way. In the animal world, external 
conditions, as well as internal, must also favor, and 
fortune certainly plays a part in the game. In cold, 
late springs the first birds’ nests contain fewer eggs 
than the nests do in warm, early seasons. One sum- 
mer there is an invasion of insect pests — grasshop- 
pers, or tent-caterpillars, or forest-worms; the chance 
conditions favored them. The next season the coun- 
try may be quite free from them, the conditions 
having been reversed. The slow or the rapid in- 
crease of the population of a country is contingent 
upon many things. Economic conditions play a 
part, climate plays a part, the geography and the 
geology play a part. What a part the Gulf Stream 
has played in the life of the British Islands! What a 
part a great river, an inland sea, or a much broken 
coastline plays in the life of the countries to which 
these belong! Life is expansive, tends to push out 
and develop, but it is at the mercy of external con- 
254 
