234 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE LIFE OF OTHERS 



and the time arrives when from cryptogams the plant- 

 world bursts into flowers. A flower is organized for 

 Co-operation. It is not an individual entity, but a 

 commune, a most complex social system. Sepal, 

 petal, stamen, anther, each has its separate rdle in the 

 economy, each necessary to the other and to the life of 

 the species as a whole. Mutual aid having reached 

 this stage can never be arrested short of the extinction 

 of plant-life itself. 



Even after this stage, so triumphant is the success 

 of the Co-operative Principle, that having exhausted 

 the possibilities of further development within the 

 vegetable kingdom, it overflowed these boundaries and 

 carried the activities of flowers into regions which 

 the plant- world never invaded before. With a novelty 

 and audacity unique in organic Nature, the higher 

 flowering plants, stimulated by Co-operation, opened 

 communication with two apparently forever unrelated 

 worlds, and established alliances which secured from 

 the subjects of these distant states, a perpetual and 

 vital service. The history of these relations forms the 

 most entrancing chapter in botanical science. But 

 so powerfully has this illustration of the principle 

 appealed already to the popular imagination, that it 

 becomes a mere form to restate it. What interests 

 us anew in these novel enterprises, nevertheless, is 

 that they are directly connected with the Repro 

 ductive Struggle. For it is not for food that the 

 plant-world voyages into foreign spheres, but to perfect 

 the supremer labor of its life. 



The vegetable world is a world of still life. No 

 higher plant has the power to move to help its neigh 

 bor, or even to help itself, at the most critical 



