Plants as inventors / by R.H. Francé.

  • Francé, R. H. (Raoul Heinrich), 1874-1943.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Plants as inventors / by R.H. Francé. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the blood-red gilly-flowers, the bell-flowers, the whispering honey-grasses have something to tell me every day in the long hours of watching and thinking. A bud, which yester- day was not stirring, or a leaf withering awayi, a little ebbing life which is leaving us: these have their meanings to convey; anywhere, the bright procession of the clouds takes my thoughts with it, over and over again, far away, above all men, countries, wishes, cares, above instinct and petty ambition to the quiet ever-resting universe. The little sand-wasps, which fly here and there to their mysterious homes on the pale sand- hills, are my brothers, as are, also, the dark shadowy dragon- flies which sit down noiselessly beside me, and the confiding blue butterflies which are like a kind smile looking at the industrious writer and then tumbing away until they too disappear in the universe like myself. From this philosophy of sunny days I brought with me the pale last abstraction of the personality who says: I know nothing. Nothing is anticipated, nothing given; nothing is sure for me except that there is that universe, that immense plurality of my existence. And upon this thought only, as on a corner-stone, logical thinking can be constructed. Is existence uniform? My mind asks. No, my experience proves it. It is a construction of different parts. With me, one became two. We may proceed with our thought. We can oppose the whole to its parts and we are sure that there must be a regular proportion between them. What proportion? This, that the whole influences the parts, each part the other, and they all together every part again. If, therefore, the part itself shall endure, it must have its own qualities, must be unlike the other parts and the universe. Or a bit more significantly and therefore more comprehensibly: each part must “be”, must have its own nature and qualities, must be an individual. Everything either can dissolve in the universe or “be”. But besides this quality of perseverance another quality inheres in things. The universal is a construction of different parts. That is expressed heavily; you would say more exactly and simply: It is a complex system. Parts of that complex system are removed and they are all endangered, for this threatens to destroy their original qualities. They disturb and influence each other, lose