Chap, iv.] Metamorphosis and of the Spiral Theory. 



/.) 



working as an inner determination and force from the depth 

 of the inner nature.' A passage also from page in of his 

 treatise on polyembryony, published in i860, may be quoted 

 here ; ' Though the organism, in the process of realising itself, 

 is subject to physical conditions, yet the proper causes of its 

 morphological and biological characteristics do not lie in these 

 conditions ; its laws belong to a higher stage of development 

 of its being, to a sphere in which the faculty of self-deter- 

 mination is distinctly manifested. If this is so, the laws of an 

 organic being appear as tasks imposed, the fulfilling of which 

 is not absolutely necessary but only in relation to the attain- 

 ment of a definite end, as precepts, to which strict obedience 

 may possibly not be paid.' To return once more to the idea 

 of rejuvenescence, we find at page 18 the words, 'As regards 

 the idea of rejuvenescence, from the foregoing considerations 

 we draw the conclusion, that the surrender of growths already 

 accomplished and the going back to new beginnings, the com- 

 mencement of rejuvenescence, indicate only the outer side of 

 the proceeding, while the essential part of it is an inner gather- 

 ing up of forces, a new creating, as it were, out of the indi- 

 vidual principle of life, a fresh reflecting upon the specific task 

 or the gaining renewed hold upon the type which is to be 

 presented in the outer organism. By this means rejuven- 

 escence maintains its fixed relation to development, which can 

 and ought to present in gradually attained perfection that only 

 which lies in the nature of the creature, and is most intimately 

 its own.' And at the conclusion of the work (page 347) he 

 says, ' The way in which the inner spiritual nature of life is 

 specially manifested in the phenomenon of rejuvenescence may 

 be defined as reminiscence in the true sense of the word, as the 

 power of grasping anew in the phenomenon the inner destination 

 of life as contrasted with its daily alienation and decay, and apply- 

 ing it with renewed strength towards that which is without,' etc. 

 This conception of rejuvenescence is, then, applied to all the 

 phenomena of life in plants j not only the metamorphosis of 



