Disquisition by Scripps, E.W., Production, September 21, 1921

              Ohio University Libraries, E.W. Scripps Papers, MSS 117, Series 4, http://bit.ly/scripps_mss117
- - - ~ - -- - - - monJOTIOJI.
Aboard l:5.S. :Suoke.~ State,
San Pedro to Jrew York,
September 21st, 1921. -- - - - - ~ - -~ - -
Ulllions ot acorns develop and pariah tor every one acornwhioh develops into
a living oalt tree. WBl'!
A wlse me.u may know much of what is ooourring in mturebut only· a tool
presume s to know why anything oocurs in nature.
Judging trom appearances OIle might believe that :cature 1s always owr-prodigal.
Supposing that nature wa.s an individual and had an individual mind and that
the nature mind was similar to the human mind. We would be bound. to suppose that
nature was purposive, directed or self-direoted.
Then we might be competent to disoover from nat1ll"e i s a.ot'!vities Dature's
~ent -- disoover nature's reasons.
If the oak tree yields ~ millions of acorns that. never germinate, it
oonjugating an1l1lals produoe thousands of millions of oells, potentially capable ot
praotioally
germil3ating into adult animals/all doomed to perish without any f'Ullotioning in order
that om pair of suo.h oells shall result' in t.he eXistence ot an animal, in all t1t
her aotivities she appears to be equally over-produotive.
Every human being is equipped with brains, so oalled, oontaining individual
cells numerioally so abundant that it is impossible tor a human being to use and
e~roise more than an infinitely small proportion ot these oells.
Given Suffioient initial animal vigor and given a greatly extended dvaUoD. .
of hmnan life, the potential menta.l oa.pacities of man might be recJame4 a.1I limited
by something approaohing infinity. '
:But wasteful (appa:rently) as nature is in her potentia.lities in the way ot
reproduotion, :nature produoes hundreds of millions of human. beings apparently
purposelessly_ 2·93