"When the plant attains to the flower, the climax of its existence,--when it assumes its symmetrical outlines, its perfumes, its colours, and a certain degree of animal irritability,--it emerges from its condition of isolation, and connects itself more closely with the great Whole. But it remains fixed in one place, without any reciprocation of love. The animal, on the contrary, is movement itself, and manifests its joy in living by its capricious mobility. Then the captive plant casts a glance of amicable confidence on the animal's life of freedom, offers it the abundance of its substance, and for sole reward expects that it will achieve its fecundation. Then, too, as an elder brother might do, the animal assists the plant, and affords it in its dependent state the succour of liberty. But, for this purpose, the animal must be completely free, I would say winged, bound up with the vegetable life which was its kindly nurse. Behold the insect, love's messenger and mediator to the plants, their propagator, and the zealous instrument of their fertilization. "With a maternal care, the plant provides a place in its own body where the insect's egg may be developed. It nourishes the young larva which as yet is incapable of action, but which, in due time, emerging from its vegetation in the egg, will move freely to and fro, and seek its own sustenance. The creative fecundity of the plant easily replaces whatever the insect has extracted from it; and thus both animal and plant harmoniously attain to the climax of existence. "The animal, from its low sphere of nutrition, rises to a more elevated sphere, the pure need of motion, and the pursuit of love. The plant, it is true, does not soar so high; but its flower is a bright dream of a higher state of being,--a dream which, though fugitive, proceeds, by means of its fruits, to secure the conservation of the species. The blossoming plant and the winged insect reach, as if by concert, an analogous development, manifested by their colours, their beautiful symmetrical forms, and their refinement of substance. Papilionaceous flowers, for instance, might almost be called insects-become-plants. "This harmonic existence marches forward with the same rhythm as the moments of the day. Each flower to whose juice an insect is assigned expands at the hour when its life is most intense, and shuts at the hour of its repose. Thus they feel their unity; love attracts them one towards the other. Here the plant plays the part of the female, the fixed basis of creation, absorbed in nature. The insect resembles the tiny male who frees himself from earth and curvets in the air; recalled, nevertheless, by the plant to the oneness of the terrestrial whole. It is a winged anther, which diffuses life among the flowers."[R] [Footnote R: Burdach, bk. ii., c. 3.]