288 THE LIFE OF THE PLANT 



most jealously defends those provinces of knowledge 

 into which faint rays of light have succeeded in 

 penetrating. 



The degree to which science is able to satisfy, in the 

 present case, the natural curiosity of the human mind, 

 and offer a key to what has been considered as the 

 essential feature of the organic world — its perfection, 

 harmony, or teleological finality ^ — will be studied in 

 our next chapter. 



• Zweckmdssigkeit of the German metaphysicians. 



