48 ALPINE FLOWERS AND GARDENS 



recognize them for what assuredly they are — useful, 

 even necessary, but ultimately unscientific and 

 untruthful. Although Dr. Ovenden finds a diffi- 

 culty in sharply dividing vegetable life from the 

 lower forms of animal life, yet further on he has no 

 difficulty in speaking of organic and inorganic life ; 

 and this, I think, is an apt illustration of our 

 growing recognition of what will, some day, be a 

 general difficulty. The difficulty with regard to 

 animal and vegetable life did not exist for us a 

 little while back, and presently we shall recognize 

 difficulties in the way of scientifically dividing 

 organic from inorganic life. 



Let me quote another author on this point — Mr. 

 Edward Step. In the introductory chapter to his 

 * The Romance of Wild Flowers,' he says : ' It 

 may be fairly claimed that during the last half- 

 century our prevailing notions respecting plant life 

 have been greatly modified, and, concerning flower- 

 ing plants, have been entirely changed. Fifty years 

 ago there could be found very few botanists who 

 were not satisfied with the generalizations crystal- 

 lized in the Linnsean axiom : 



* " Stones grow, 



Vegetables grow and live. 

 Animals grow, live, and feeU 



