The pear tree, therefore, seems to us cultivated because the work of the gardener really only develops potentialities inherent in it but unawakened in its natural state—brings it to the most complete unfolding of its own nature. By contrast, when the trunk of a tree is made into a mast, this, too, is a work of culture, but not a “cultivation” of the trunk; because the form which the labor of the shipbuilder gives it is not inherent in its nature. … To use the word appropriately, then, all cultivation is not merely the development of a being beyond the morphological stage attainable through its nature alone, but development in the direction of an original inner core, a fulfillment of this being according to the law of its own meaning, its deepest dispositions.

DEFINE: Clarifies the distinction between cultivating a being's inherent potential and merely shaping it toward external purposes, as with a tree made into a mast.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 550