manhood in the Great War and
astonished the world by its strong individuality, its character,
intelligence, determination, and good comradeship.

In the same way these particles of the rose-seed, each acting of itself,
in their collectivity formed the rose-spirit. And each was in turn
imbued by the rose-spirit. They had in them unconsciously the ideal
of the rose-bush with its roots, stem, branches, leaves, flowers, fruit,
seed. In all their activities they were actuated by this ideal. It was
always constraining them in the given direction. By reason of the
working of it in the particles they could by no possibility arrange
themselves into a may tree or a lilac bush. There was an inner core
of activity which persisted through all the countless changes of the
process, which permeated the whole and which kept it directed to
the particular end it had all the time in view. That activity had, in
fact, a well-defined disposition, and that disposition was defined by
the ideal of the rose, and was to form a rose-bush bearing roses.

That the rose-seed developed into the rose was due, therefore, not to
the operation of any outside agent, but was due to the operation of
the rose-spirit that it had within it, and which was persistently
driving it to bring into actual being that ideal of the rose which was
the essence of its spirit. The ideal of the rose was the motive-power
of the whole process.

Where the rose-spirit derived from we shall later on enquire. Here
we must note a point of the utmost importance. The seed of this
_Rosa persica_ is imbued with the spirit of _Rosa persica._ It has
this ideal working within it. But it is not confined within the rigid
limits of that ideal. It has that ideal, but _something beyond also_
--something in the _direction_ of that ideal, but stretching on ahead to
an illimitable distance. The rose-seed developed riot only into the
rose-flower, but through the flowers into numerous rose-seeds. And
from the original _Rosa persica_ seeds have sprung roses of scores
of varieties. Roses of every variety of form, colour, habit, texture are
constantly appearing. By purposeful mating, and supplying
favourable conditions of soil, temperature, etc., almost any kind of
variety can be produced. So we have not only yellow roses of every
shade from gold and cream to lemon, but also white and red and
pink roses of every hue. We have single roses and roses as full as
small cabbages. And we have dwarf roses a