60 THE PHENOMENON OF 



large-leaved Coccoloba pubescens. These cases lead to 

 the individual leaf, as a link of Rejuvenescence, the in- 

 vestigation of which, however, must be preceded by the 

 consideration of one point more. 



The rejuvenising force and activity of vegetable life 

 does not display itself merely in the particular cases of 

 periodical, retrogressive, or alternately advancing and 

 receding metamorphoses, such as we have just examined ; 

 it shows itself also in the ascending metamorphosis, in the 

 advancing series of formations, such as occur as the 

 universal types in the higher divisions of the vegetable 

 kingdom. Here occurs, in the closest connection with 

 the progress from stage to stage, an alternation of 

 vigorous advance and checking retraction, an increase, a 

 decrease, and a renewed rise of the energy of the outward 

 representation, a Rejuvenescence in the truest sense of 

 the word, since here with every new onward flight of the 

 old being, the plant appears not in mere repetition of the 

 old form, but by deeply grounded renovation, in a more 

 perfect and more expressive shape. This it is which, 

 since Goethe's time,* has been called the metamorphosis 

 of plants, a term borrowed from the transformation of 

 insects, which has however given rise to mistaken views, f 

 but is capable of being made the basis of a more pro- 

 found conception of the phenomenon. Goethe himself, 

 although his theory of metamorphosis is mixed up with 

 various obscure elements, pointed out many features of 

 the more profound side of the question. He speaks of 

 the metamorphosis of plants not merely as of a series of 

 outward phenomena of transitions between the different 

 structures, but as of an inward principle of the formative 

 process advancing from one modification of form to 

 another. In his eyes the metamorphosis was a force which 

 might be observed ever acting with a graduated power 



* * Versucli die Metamorphose derPflanze zu erklaren,' Gotha; 1790. 



f That Goethe was not even free from the erroneous notion that, one organ 

 of a plant might be actually transformed into another, e. g. stamens into 

 petals, or ovaries into leaves, is evident from the very first paragraph of his 

 Introduction. 



