CHAPTER XXI 
THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS 
OOKING backward over the achieve- 
ments of Mr. Burbank, one might natu- 
rally be led to ask, What of the inner life of 
the man; has it, too, shown marked lines of 
development ? 
The physical life of the world has been 
changed by him as perhaps no other man 
who has ever lived has changed it. In his 
study of the subtler life of Nature he has 
arrived at conclusions and developed theories 
and disproved so-called laws in so significant 
a manner as to entitle him to consideration 
among the foremost thinkers of his generation. 
No man, however prosaic by Nature, could 
share Mr. Burbank’s life-long series of ex- 
periments in plant improvement and plant 
creation without being more or less attracted 
to and influenced by the inner life of Nature— 
the subtle, intangible, but none the less real 
life upon which man has been building 
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