156 THE NATURE OF NATURE 



actuating it — unconsciously, of course, but most 

 effectively for all that. The particles of that 

 original germ in their individual activities and in 

 their mutual influence upon one another were in 

 their togetherness actuated by a plant-spirit which 

 had in mind — so to speak — not only the reproduc- 

 tion of a plant precisely similar to the original 

 plant, but one with the possibilities of develop- 

 ment and of reproducing others with possibilities of 

 still further development. All that plant life has 

 so far attained and all that it will attain to in future 

 — perhaps also all that it might have attained to — 

 must have been present in the plant-spirit of that 

 original plant-germ. And it is through the work- 

 ing out — the realising — of this ideal which actuated 

 that plant-spirit, and through the response which 

 this spirit made to the stimulus of its surroundings 

 that all the wonderful development of plant life has 

 taken place. The plant-spirit had to keep within 

 the lines of plant life ; it could not stray beyond it 

 to develop lions and tigers. But within the lines 

 of plant life it could stretch out to illimitable dis- 

 tances. All that was wanted was the stimulus of 

 favourable conditions, and from its surroundings it 

 could select, reject, assimilate, all that would 

 further its end. 



In the Gobi Desert I also saw the wild horse — 

 Equus Prjevalshyi — supposed to be the original 

 horse. And as the rose springs from the seed, so 

 the horse develops from the ovum. And by virtue 

 of the horse-spirit, the horse-ideal, by which all the 

 innumerable particles of that ovum is actuated, it 





