300 THE ASCENT OF MAN 



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-oper- 

 ation, 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 re-state it. What interests us anew in these 

 novel enterprises, nevertheless, is that they are 

 directly connected with the Reproductive Struggle. 

 For it is not for food that the plant-world voyages 

 into foreign spheres, but to perfect the supremer 

 labour of its life. 



The vegetable world is a world of still life. No 

 higher plant has the power to move to help its 

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

 moment of its life. And it is through this very 

 helplessness that these new Co-operations are called 



