Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/290

 tree, causing the trunk to put forth branches; the branches, leaves; and these produce flowers, and the flowers, fruits or seeds. Thus the life of the plant from first to last enters into the seed.

For general illustration take the acorn. It is the last thing of the tree that is formed. It is the ultimate end for which the tree exists. At first the acorn is a little vessel of pure, milky fluid. In it the life of the whole tree, roots, trunk, branches, leaves, and flowers, flows, gathers and terminates. The plastic fluids of the seed, being responsive to delicate forces, are shaped by plant life into a form that clothes, as it were, its forms of activity, and corresponds to it. So while the seed is in the milk, the forces of tree-life act into the acorn, gently and gradually weaving and shaping the interior and purer essence of the seed so as to make it a form in which tree-life can terminate and abide. The tree, from first to last, puts itself into the seed by forming the seed a receptacle of tree-life. The activity of tree-life having disposed the milky substance into a form receptive of its forces, the venous system of the seed is filled with solid substances, which gradually harden as the whole of the tree's life as a complete unit enters it, reforms in it, and weans it from the tree. Before the acorn is matured, it receives