II.
The earth slept.
Age upon age came and went. The light grew stronger. Great green growths shot heavenward, lived their appointed time, fell back to earth and mingled with its mold. The rain fell and covered the heated world, and its vapors steamed up and fell back in rain again. The seas heaved and dashed, and approached and receded, age upon age.
“Brothers! Brothers!” cried one amœboid cell to the rest, “I feel a strange impulse within me—a stirring as of power. Brothers, I believe that we have a wonderful destiny before use. I believe that we shall have power of motion.”
“Nonsense,” replied the others. “Why do you trouble us? We are at rest. We never have moved. We never shall move. There is nothing to move for if we did move.”
And all the cells breathed their assent to this, and grew more closely around their brother and pressed upon him and smothered him into silence.
And the ages rolled by, and presently motion came to the cells and they darted to and fro in the water, saying to each other: “We knew that we should move, in time.”