Development there certainly has been as estimated by
an outsider, an onlooker, but not as perceived by the tree itself. It
has not known where it was going. Out of the unknown earth the seed
pushes its way into the still less known air. But in doing so it is
devoid of purpose. Nor, if we endow it with consciousness, can we
suppose it would behold its end and seek it. The forces driving it
toward that end are not conscious forces; they are mechanic forces.
Through every stage it is pushed from behind, not drawn from before.
There is no causative goal set up, alluring the seed onward. In
speaking as if there were, we employ language which can have
significance only for rational beings. We may hold that there is a
rational plan of the universe which that seed is fulfilling. But if
so, the plan does not belong to the seed. It is imposed from without,
and the seed does its bidding unawares.
VII
But we may imagine a different state of affairs. Let us assume that
when the seed sprouted it foreknew the elm that was to be. Every time
it sucked in its slight moisture it was gently adapting this
nourishment to the fulfillment of its ultimate end, asking itself
whether the small material had better be bestowed on the left bough or
the right, whether certain leaves should curve more obliquely toward
the sun, and whether it had better wave its branches and catch the
passing breeze or leave them quiet.
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