78 THE NATURE-STUDY OF PLANTS 
Naturalist, but, what is of infinitely greater import- 
ance, it will ensure an intelligent, sympathetic and 
appreciative realization of the great principle of 
mutual help upon which life and progress, individual, 
family, social, national, international and spiritual, 
depend, from moment to moment. 
Such realization of our absolute mutual inter- 
dependence should reveal to him, if not more fully, 
certainly as fully as anything else can, what is meant 
by losing one’s life in the attempt to save it, and how, 
with no thought of saving it, that life is preserved 
which consists not in self-seeking, display, pride and 
luxury, but in self-renunciation, modesty, humility 
and faithful service for the common good. 
