248 THE LIFE OF THE PLANT 



many that science has been causing the pride of man 

 from the moment it proved that it is not the sun that 

 revolves round him, but he round the sun — namely, 

 that this variegated carpet of flowers, glowing with all 

 the colours of the rainbow and emitting the most delicate 

 perfumes, has never existed for his sake — the king of 

 Nature — but for midges and insects, and, above all, for 

 the sake of the plant itself. 



But with every new achievement of science, although 

 it has involved his parting with unjustified claims, 

 man has only been gaining in real importance. So is 

 it in this case : if he has to admit that flowers were not 

 created for his sake, he can surely console himself with 

 the thought that they are partly created by him. We 

 have only to compare the plants in our flower gardens, 

 kitchen gardens, and cultivated fields with wild plants to 

 agree with this statement. A glance at any cultivated 

 plant, at any garden flower, or any vegetable reveals in 

 them the guiding hand and thought of man. His 

 claims, sometimes even only a passing whim of 

 fashion, have changed natural things in accordance 

 with those claims and whims. Fancy demands, for 

 instance, that a small irregular, pale, three-coloured 

 flower of heart's-ease should become big, of one colour, 

 almost black, and round ; and here, before our very 

 eyes, as if by some magic power, we see it actually 

 becoming bigger, darker, and rounder. The question 

 arises, by what means has man attained this result ? 

 how has he obliged Nature to contribute to his ends, 

 to follow obediently his indications ? 



The procedure is very simple : man has been working 

 on these lines for ever so long without realising it ; and it 

 is only recently, after having grasped the treasures of 

 knowledge accumulated during centuries of practice, 

 that science has presented in their true light the sim- 

 plicity and universality of the method employed. 

 This procedure is as follows. Seeds obtained from one 



