THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 359 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE FLOWER. 



WHEN we brush a flower with our fingers, when its color 

 attracts our* attention and its perfume intoxicates us, it 

 seems as if we knew all about it. But this is a mistake. 

 Nothing is more difficult than to conceive an exact idea of 

 what a flower is. Famous botanists, like Haller and Adan- 

 son, have given it up ; others have said nothing of value on 

 this head. 



" When I am not asked what time is, I know it very well ; 

 I do not know it when I am asked." These words of St. 

 Augustin, which J. J. Rousseau repeats, are perfectly ap- 

 plicable to the flower, the nature of which every one thinks 

 he knows, and which, nevertheless, no one ever previously 

 succeeded in describing well. This honor was reserved for 

 the philosopher of Geneva, who admits having found so 

 much happiness in the study of botany. 1 



Difficult as it may be to define the flower with precision, 

 it is not less so to unravel its mysterious, genealogy. 



While prying deeply into its primordial essence, Goethe, 

 triply illustrious as a naturalist, poet, and philosopher, ar- 

 rived at a discovery which was quite unexpected. He has 

 scientifically proved that, however sumptuous the beauty of 



1 The only author who has described a flower well is Rousseau, who at one pe- 

 riod of his life occupied himself with botany, and even wrote several volumes on 

 this science. " It is," he says, u a local and fleeting part in which, or by which, 

 the fecundation of the plant is effected." J. J. Rousseau, Dictionnaire de Bo- 

 tanique, art. " Fleur." 



