PLANT-LIFEASSIMILATION. 217 



to take a glance at that wonderful little crea- 

 ture creating itself and then building itself 

 into its own house through association. Ver- 

 ily the cell is the brickmaker and the brick- 

 layer, yea even the brick of Life 's edifice. It 

 is primarily a self-contained structure, yet it 

 associates itself into the organs of the Plant, 

 which organs do not halt in their associative 

 feat but constitute the total organism of the 

 Plant. And this is not the end of their asso- 

 ciation, which rises to forming Plant socie- 

 ties, of which recent Botany has much to say. 

 The Formative Process previously de- 

 scribed cannot live on itself, but must be fed 

 from the outside ; hence the Plant will attack 

 its environment and appropriate what it 

 needs thereof to its own use. Such are the 

 two sides of the conflict which now opens 

 the conflict between the Plant and the world 

 external to it, some of which it must internal- 

 ize and assimilate to its own working Organ- 

 ism. This process goes by various names 

 nutrition, metabolism, assimilation; on the 

 whole we prefer the last, as best indicating 

 the fact. For the Organism has now to take 

 up and make like to itself what is different 

 and outside; thus it continually is getting 

 back the strength which it spends to acquire 

 strength and something more. In the move- 

 ment of the Plant, accordingly, the present 



