Another good way, perhaps, of illustrating this doctrine is to follow the growth and perpetuation of the seed. The seed is in fact a concrete expression of karma. When a plant reaches a certain stage of development, it blooms and bears fruit. This fruit contains in it a latent energy which under favorable conditions grows to a mature plant of its own kind. The new plant now repeats the processes which its predecessors went through, and an eternal perpetuation of the plant is attained. The life of an individual plant cannot be permanent according to its inherent nature, it is destined to be cut short some time in its course. But this is not the case with the current of an ever-lasting vitality that has been running in the plant ever since the beginning of the world. Because this current is not individual in its nature and stands above the vicissitudes {205} which take place in the life of particular plants. It may not be manifested in its kinetic form all the time, but potentially it is ever present in the being of the seed. Changes are simply a matter of form, and do not interfere with the current of life in the plant, which is preserved in the universe as the energy of vegetation. This energy of vegetation is that which is manifested in a mature plant, that which makes it blossom in the springtime, that which goes to seed, that which lies apparently dormant in the seeds, and that which resuscitates them to sprout among favorable surroundings. This energy of vegetation, this mysterious force, when stated in Buddhist phraseology, is nothing else than the vegetative expression of karma, which in the biological world constitutes the law of heredity, or the transmission of acquired character, or some other laws which might be discovered by the biologist. And it is when this force manifests itself in the moral realm of human affairs that karma obtains its proper significance as the law of moral causation. Now, there are several forms of transmission, by means of which the karma of a person or a people or a nation or a race is able to perpetuate itself to eternity. A few of them are described below.