The Chines philosopher

Agnès Arber, The Mind and the Eye, Londres, Cambridge University Press, 1964.

The Chines philosopher, Mencius-who was almost exactly contemporary with the first great European botanist, Theophrastus- voiced the same idea when he said, « Having-it-in-self is called true ».(1)A truth, even if derived originally from an external source, when rethought, can become organically one with the thinker ; if, however, he merely appropriates it, without working it into the texture of his mind, it bears as little living relation to this thinking as the bizarre, alien bits ans scraps, with which the caddice-worms be decorates its case, bear to the creature itself. Since what is true for a man is thus inseparable from the whole personality, the « truth », even of a relatively simple object, may seem entirely different to two different observers.