PLANT-LIFE GENERATION. 227 



rehabilitates old tissues and organs, but re- 

 produces new ones of both sorts. Thus even 

 in #nd through Assimilation we begin to 

 glimpse the fresh-born individual. The an- 

 nual layer around the oak from top to bot- 

 tom is in a manner a new tree with stem, root, 

 and branch; still it embraces its maternal 

 body so closely that it cannot separate and be 

 an independent oak. Thus in Growth the 

 Plant is continually reproducing itself as a 

 part of itself; it re-bears its own form out- 

 wardly but not inwardly, and encloses itself 

 in this new external form of which it remains 

 the internal part. Assimilation has complet- 

 ed its round when it has assimilated the outer 

 world not only into the old given organism 

 but into a new one which includes the old. So 

 Assimilation of the Plant has largely re-made 

 what it started with, has re-embodied its first 

 body, yet as a part of that body. 



But the next step is the reproduction of the 

 new individual as free, completely individ- 

 uated, with his own organism distinct from 

 that of his parent. This is the act of Gener- 

 ation, which is now to find its place in the 

 ordering of the Plant-world. 



III. THE GENERATIVE PROCESS OF PLANT- 

 LIFE. The Plant has the power of reproducing 

 itself not only in parts observable in Growth, 

 but also as a whole the total individual re- 



