448 



STUDIES IN SEEDS AND FRUITS 



Cosmically 

 viewed, the 

 laws of 

 inheritance 

 may lose 

 their validity. 



itself as the result of an increase in the repressive influence of 

 the conditions, or, in other words, as above suggested, it would 

 indicate a tendency, to return to the primitive cosmic state as 

 presented in the seed. There is a profound significance in the 

 notion of the gardener that if he gives a plant " a bad time " 

 it is more likely to flower and mature its seed. From plants 

 which have received exceptionally favourable treatment, or, in 

 other words, plants with their existence specially favoured at 

 his hands, he would look for " size," an increased tendency to 

 vegetative reproduction, and but little seed. (See Note 30 of 

 the Appendix.) 



It will thus be seen that we are here concerned with the 

 expansion of the life-conditions and not with their diversifica- 

 tion. The seed on this view may represent the minimum of 

 life's possibilities under extremely contracted conditions of 

 existence ; whilst the fully developed plant, as we know it, 

 points in the direction of the maximum growth of the organism. 

 The seed indicates the cosmic side of the conditions of plant-life 

 in all the planets ; and it would follow that the same seed 

 exppsed to expanding life-conditions very different in their 

 character would develop in very different fashions. It is 

 probable that under conditions far more expanded than those 

 familiar to ourselves plant development would follow lines 

 strange and inconceivable to us, conditions capable of extension 

 in a multitude of ways, and favouring the production of plant- 

 forms utterly different from any with which we are acquainted, 

 though recognisable for us in the seeds. 



I am inclined to consider that the laws of heredity as we 

 formulate them on this planet may become very shadowy when 

 applied to the life of the cosmos, and that with a knowledge 

 of the life of other worlds we would attach far more importance 

 to the determining influence of conditions. What we call the 

 working of the laws of heredity here may be the only response 

 that the organism could possibly make to terrestrial conditions. 

 This response, as viewed from the broad field of the cosmos,, 

 we would regard as determined by the conditions of existence ; 



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