LIFE THE TRAVELER 
knows what it wants from the first, as the architect 
does when he begins his building, or as the breeder 
does, say, when he sets out to produce a pouter or 
a tumbler pizeon. 
In his work on “Heredity,” Weismann proceeds 
further to illustrate his conception of the positive 
character of natural selection in originating new 
species, by comparing it to a traveler on a journey. 
His traveler proceeds from a certain point on foot by 
short stages at any given time and in any direction 
— the direction being determined by the lay of the 
land, and by its features of mountain, wood, and 
stream, and other obstacles. He will take the lime of 
least resistance. But if he is a real traveler, and not 
a vagrant, an aimless wanderer in the wilderness, 
will he not be going somewhere, aiming at some pre- 
determined goal? Some purpose, and not the lay of 
the land, set him traveling: he will keep, in a general 
way, a given direction. His course will be modified 
more or less by the obstacles he encounters, but 
these obstacles will not keep him going, nor deter- 
mine his goal. 
Will the organizing impulse, set aimlessly wander- 
ing in the wilderness of inert matter, and taking only 
the line of least resistance, finally attain to all the 
beautiful and wonderful living forms that people 
the earth? Will it evolve the fish, the bird, the 
mammal, and finally man’ Do we find anything 
in the constitution of the primary elements that 
263 
