224 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



3. Growth. The Plant, having shown the 

 ability to release its stored energy and to dis- 

 tribute the same throughout its organism, can 

 now grow, push beyond its given bounds, and 

 thus manifest its limit-transcending impulse 

 as far as this extends. Some Plants keep on 

 reaching out beyond the preceding annual 

 limit, increasing in height and girth for a 

 millennium and more. Still the organism 

 cannot break over its typical form or charac- 

 ter ; a hickory nut will not spring up into an 

 oak tree, it assimilates itself to its transmitted 

 norm, even if this slowly changes from gen- 

 eration to generation, as Darwin has shown. 

 Of course there has evolved an enormous di- 

 versity of Plant-life in the many millions of 

 years that may lie between the Bacterion and 

 California's lofty Sequoia, which is prob- 

 ably not the latest vegetal evolution on the 

 globe. Still the individual specimen, be it 

 large or small, follows the norm of the spe- 

 cies.; in its growth it realizes its foregone 

 idea, so that we at once identify it as the 

 fulfilment of its type or ideal pattern. Growth 

 involves also the self -movement of Plants, 

 which, however, has many other phases. 



Out of the germ the organs grow, each of 

 which likewise attains its normal limit. The 

 plant, therefore, organizes itself through 

 growth, differentiates itself into its co-oper- 



