88 FLOWER-FIELDS OF ALPINE SWITZERLAND 



of interesting Alpines which are succeeding capitally 

 on his rockery." This will also be called coin- 

 cidence ; but there is, I believe, far less justifica- 

 tion for doing so than for calling it sympathy. 

 Personally, I have more liking for design in these 

 matters than I have for luck. Surely it were a 

 poor world — nay, an impossible world — that were 

 governed by chance in whatsoever degree. Evolu- 

 tion may know no " categorical imperative " and 

 yet be a stranger to aimless drifting. The 

 law of cause and effect seems to guarantee this. 

 And is it not also guarantee of a universal 

 sympathy, since the prime essential of this law 

 is that all things are linked up in one continuous 

 chain ? 



My own experience among the flowers biases 

 me in favour of this sympathetic rule and causes 

 me to believe there is some means by which our 

 several beings can communicate. On many occa- 

 sions I have been led, with seeming intention, 

 to some rare white form that I was wishing to 

 find. Apparent purposelessness and lack of deci- 

 sion have filled my mind, and yet, time after time, 

 have I taken the very path, or have scrambled 

 up the precise trackless slope which has brought 

 me to the whereabouts of the rarity I have been 



