REJUVENESCENCE IN NATURE. 323 



It is true that the common origin and the historical con- 

 nection among the links of the more comprehensive 

 divisions of the Vegetable Kingdom, cannot be so readily 

 demonstrated as is the case with the history of the 

 individual in Cell-, Leaf-, and Sprout-formation, and the 

 history of the Species, the formation of the Individuals 



(morphological) individuals, which sometimes are developed in permanent 

 connection, as compound family-stocks, as in the " stock" formation of the 

 zoophytes and plants, caused by sprout-formation, sometimes separate com- 

 pletely, as in the Entozoa, Aphides, Medusae, and in the case not unfrequent 

 m the Vegetable Kingdom, of natural separation of the buds. Indeed 

 Nature goes still further in plants, for it gives to the smallest circles of 

 formation subordinate to the morphological individual, usually called the 

 cells, such an independence of the vital functions, that these may be 

 regarded in a certain sense as individuals, which, in the higher plants, lead 

 a life interwoven in the totality of the organism, but in the lower, separating, 

 often acquire an isolated individual existence, (pp. 124, 125, et seq.,) in 

 both cases representing an alternation of generations of subordinate kiud in 

 their succession and multiplication, effected by a process analogous to repro- 

 duction. According to the axiom that merely the individual really exists, 

 those who recognise the individual of the plant in the cell, must interpret 

 the cells of the plants as alone real beings, and the stock, the sprout, the leaf, 

 &c., as inessential aggregates. But where remains the individuality of the 

 cell, as external appearance, when we see that even this has its transforma- 

 tion, its successive renovation, so that, externally regarded, it does not 

 remain the same, but constantly becomes another, so long as the vitality 

 endures in it, (pp. 176 et seq., 226 et seq.) ? The reality, therefore, can- 

 not be immediately conceived, not even the smallest circle, in the detached 

 phenomenon, but in every case only mediately in the recognition of essence 

 on which the continuity of the phenomenon depends. Now just as the 

 individual is realised through a chronological succession of formations and 

 material division into subordinate links, this is likewise realised in a 

 complex of a higher order, represented by the individuals, by means of which, 

 just as in the individual, it runs through its circle of forms in chrono- 

 logical succession and material extension ; in like manner the genus, as a 

 more highly generalised whole, is realised through the circle of the species, 

 the family through the genera, &c. ; so finally Nature, as a whole, is realized 

 through the process of development, which brings into existence all the 

 links of its organism, successively and contemporaneously, and the totality 

 of each system of links in all these circles certainly cannot be called less 

 real, in its representation through the links, than the parts which, without 

 the whole, would not exist. For the assertion that merely the individual is 

 real to have any meaning, the species, genera, families, classes and kingdoms, 

 must be regarded as individuals of a higher order : a view which may be 

 considered well founded, in so far as all these complexes depend upon 

 special practical destinations of natural life, just as Nature, as a whole, as 

 shaped out upon our planet, is to be regarded as an individual, which, 

 although created according to the same eternal primary type, certainly 

 possesses its own mode and way, different from the Nature of the other 

 celestial spheres. 



