Zbe Social flovoets. 99 



two sets of workingmen, the ray-flowers which 

 serve to invite the attention of the passing collector 

 of sweets, and the disk-flowers whose office is to 

 furnish him with goods when he has been attracted. 

 The wayside daisy embodies two of the most vital 

 principles of progress, two of the laws of civilisation, 

 two fundamentals of the family and the state, namely, 

 association and division of labour, cooperation and 

 specialisation. After one comes to know that fact, it 

 is a trifle amusing to hear the modern movements 

 toward socialism in human life set aside as passing 

 fads. There is a pretty fair momentum to a tend- 

 ency which goes back to the foundation of the daisy 

 communities. We shall find it hard to check a law 

 so ancient. It is evidently a good deal involved in 

 the nature of things. 



'^But that bunch of flowers carries by implica- 

 tion another hint of what we have deemed a very 

 modern notion, a bright device of humanity to in- 

 crease human efficiency, enrich human life, and 

 foster human unity. Society in our modern thought 

 implies intercommunication, transportation, travel. 

 These are essentials of human life in its cooperative 

 stage. They are all provided for here in the life of 

 these flov/ers. The peripatetic insect, the restless 

 bee, the desultory butterfly constitute the vast trans- 

 portation system of this floral world. The business 

 which they do is immense. Their traffic is beyond 

 computation. Stop the wheels of their industry and 

 the tlowers would be annihilated. 



