340 CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



of nature that no organic being fertilises itself for a perpetuity of 

 generations ; but that a cross with another individual is occasionally 

 perhaps at long intervals of time indispensable." Remarking 

 the strange feature of the stamens and pistil of most flowers being 

 placed closed together, " as if for the very purpose of self-fertilisation," 

 and yet being " mutually useless to each other," Mr. Darwin says, 

 " How simply are these facts explained on the view of an occasional 

 cross with a distinct individual being advantageous or indispensable ! " 

 Thus, from the common ground that cross-fertilisation effects the 

 greatest good in nature namely, the efficient increase of the race 

 we may find many roads and ways for the recognition of further 

 effects of such action in favouring the operation of the conditions 

 that increase the species by variation and modification. The full 

 bearing of the subject may not be completely investigated for years to 

 come. Sufficient, however, is our present recognition of the fact that 

 in the work of flower-fertilisation lie the beginnings of those activities 

 and processes which herald now, as of yore, not merely the increase, 

 but the variation of species and the evolution of new forms of plants. 

 Certain matters bearing the same relation to our present subject 

 that the inevitable moral bears to the fable albeit that they may 

 perchance be regarded as of somewhat superfluous nature may fitly 

 be touched upon in closing this paper. Our notions of special ends, 

 aims, and contrivances in nature may in one way be enlarged by the 

 considerations which the phenomena of flower-fertilisation present to 

 notice. Under the operation of laws and conditions most of which 

 are as yet beyond our ken, we see insect acting upon flower, and 

 flower in turn reacting upon insect, until the interdependence in 

 some cases proceeds so far that the extinction of the insect means 

 the disappearance of the flower. But, whilst viewing the beauty of 

 form and hue exhibited in the plant- world as wrought out by laws of 

 development, and as accessory, or even primary, conditions in the 

 evolution of living beings, the new and higher aspects of the subject 

 bid us regard floral beauty as subserving other and higher uses than 

 those commonly assigned to it, namely, of ministering to the often 

 dull and inappreciative senses of man. We may detect a higher 

 purpose in plant life than is included in the yet too common idea 

 that man's delight and human interests exclusively determine and 

 rule through what some are pleased to call "the beneficence of 

 providence " the concerns of nature at large. The utilitarian 

 cry of " use " and " no use " is by no means extinct, even in these 

 latter days ; and the consideration of the ways and means in- 

 volved in the fertilisation of flowers must devolve a strong argument 

 against the homocentric idea that the beautiful in nature exists solely 

 for the behalf of man. Darwin says, " Such doctrines, if true, would 

 be absolutely fatal to my theory." But there is little fear that the 



