228 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



creates itself as total. Thus Growth from its 

 movement of expansion, turns back to the be- 

 ginning and starts the Plant over again in a 

 new individual. Such is in general, the sweep 

 out of Assimilation into Generation; the lin- 

 ear tendency we may conceive bending around 

 to the circular. Or we may consider the pre- 

 ceding transition as that between the two 

 sorts of vegetal reproduction: the one re- 

 produces the organism already given, the 

 other reproduces it new-born ; or we may say 

 reproduces its reproduction. Assimilative is 

 the one sort, generative the other. The liv- 

 ing individual (here as Plant) recreates its 

 life and starts over again, transmitting its 

 creative energy, of which it becomes the ve- 

 hicle and which has continued through all 

 Plant-life, yea all Life in the Universe. This 

 persistence of genetic energy passing from 

 individual to individual through many gen- 

 erations is the germinal or reproductive con- 

 tinuity which the biologists are now specially 

 investigating. Assimilative reproduction dies 

 with the death of the individual, generative 

 reproduction may be deemed relatively im- 

 mortal, being transmitted in the cell or cells 

 (as has been supposed) of the primal creative 

 life-stuff of the planet. 



We are also to see that the Generative Pro- 

 cess of the Plant returns to the Formative, 



