before appearing at the next. The greater the creative power required
at a certain stage, the more nearly complete must be the withdrawal
from outer appearance. This is why the most extreme withdrawal of the
plant into the state of being takes place in the seed, when the plant
prepares itself for its transition from one generation to another. Even
earlier, the flower stands towards the leaves as something like a new
generation springing from the small organ of the calyx, as does the
fruit to the flower when it arises from the tiny organs of
reproduction. In the end, however, nothing appears outwardly so unlike
the actual plant as the little seed which, at the expense of all
appearance, has the power to renew the whole cycle.

Through studying the plant in this way Goethe grew aware also of the
significance of the nodes and eyes which the plant develops as points
where its vital energy is specially concentrated; not only the seed,
but the eye also, is capable of producing a new, complete plant. In
each of these eyes, formed in the axils of the leaves, the power of the
plant is present in its entirety, very much as in each single seed.

In other ways, too, the plant shows its capacity to act as a whole at
various places of its organism. Otherwise, no plant could be propagated
by cuttings; in any little twig cut from a parent plant, all the
manifold forces operative in the gathering, transmuting, forming of
matter, that are necessary for the production of root, leaf, flower,
fruit, etc., are potentially present, ready to leap into action
provided we give it suitable outer conditions. Other plants, such as
gloxinia and begonia, are known to have the power of bringing forth a
new, complete plant from each of their leaves. From a small cut applied
to a vein in a leaf, which is then embedded in earth, a root will soon
be seen springing downward, and a stalk with leaves rising upward.