Foreword.

I confess that I have taken some hesitation in bringing up the very dreamy subject
in the most peaceful natural area, which I will treat in the following, at a time when
the great urge and gait of each, even the most peaceful, Attention and interest so
predominantly and in relation to objects of so much greater importance claimed. Do I
not demand that the whispers of the flowers, which have hitherto never been heard in
the most quiet times, now begin to be heard in the rustling of a wind capable of
overthrowing the oldest-rooted tribes, believe in it, learn to learn at a time when the
loudest human voice finds it hard to be valid or to assert such. Also, this font has
been finished for a long time and idle.
In the meantime I read, as in many deafness, quiet voices are heard the better, the
louder a drum is stirred at the same time. The shock that stuns an alert ear awakens
the sleeping one. Now I know well that the drum of time is not stirred in favor of the
soft voices of flowers; but could not she help the hearing of these voices? How long
has our ear been deaf, or rather, how long has it been since it turned deaf? and will it
not be easier to be stirred again by these lost voices of an early youth, the more
foreign and new they are to slip into the noise or to die away from it? Yes, I am too
bold if I think it possible that the unfamiliar, quiet play that will unfold here,
To this consideration, by which I tried to encourage myself, came the thought that,
after the first urge of the unruly spirit of the times, if not appeased, some of its
tension subsided, and the longer duration of the movement itself here and there The
need for change and moments of rest caused, a return to quieter interests could appear
here and there acceptable. Will not some of them, even of those who have taken a
hard time in the world of human activity, gladly seek a point of rest in another world,
among creatures who quietly content themselves at their feet, none of whom pushes
him, no one else , and they only talk so much when he himself wants to let her
speak? I want to lead the reader into such a world, and I myself want to advance the
little creature and make its interpreter, so that, after all the people have found their
representatives, this voluble will not be without it. Only those who are welcome need
to accept the invitation.
Maybe you find the title word of this font sought; but it is indeed merely found. As
I wished to give them a proper name for the shortest possible term, I chose Flora and
Hamadryas for a while. That name seemed to me too botanical, this a bit too old-
fashioned, going only to the life of the trees. At last Flora was on the title, when in
Uhland's myth of Thor (pp. 147-152) I encountered the following passage, which
seems to me to contain so much grace, that I do not refuse to make it quite, especially
since it has some contains a closer reference to the content of our font.
From Hels' home (the Underworld), where Nanna is with Baldur, she sends gifts to
the goddesses Frigg and Fulla, the former a woman's cloth, the latter a golden finger
ring. Frigg is the goddess who rules over conjugal love, so she gets the veil, which
otherwise appears as a badge of the housewife. Fulla, Friggs servant and confidante,
with the virgin fluttering hair, is the full-grown bridal virgin, so befits her the
engagement ring. The veil and gold ring, which Nanna sends up to memory from the
dark underworld, are nothing but flowers of the late summer. How to put Thiassis
eyes and Orvandil's toe under the stars and named after Frigg's maiden rocking a
constellation Swedish Friggerock, so also flower or plant names were taken from the
divine world: Baldur's brow, Thy's helmet, Thor's hat, Sif's hair, Frigg's grass, to
which Friggs Schleier and Fulla's finger-gold may now line up. The colorful game of
Norwegian meadow flowers is famous; a short but hot summer makes them bloom in
rare abundance and variety ... - Just as Thor is a friend of the other goddesses of the
beautiful and fertile season, Freyja, Idun, Sif, and accepts them actively, so does
death Nanna, the loveliest adornment of the earth he protects, and he expresses his
defiant displeasure by throwing the dwarf Lit, who is at his feet, into the fire. Lit
(Litr), the color, the rich, fresh mellowness of the early summer must go down when
Baldur and Nanna turn to ashes. " Thor's hat, Sif's hair, Frigg's grass, where Frigg's
veil and Fulla's finger-gold may now line up. The colorful game of Norwegian
meadow flowers is famous; a short but hot summer makes them bloom in rare
abundance and variety ... - Just as Thor is a friend of the other goddesses of the
beautiful and fertile season, Freyja, Idun, Sif, and accepts them actively, so does
death Nanna, the loveliest adornment of the earth he protects, and he expresses his
defiant displeasure by throwing the dwarf Lit, who is at his feet, into the fire. Lit
(Litr), the color, the rich, fresh mellowness of the early summer must go down when
Baldur and Nanna turn to ashes. " Thor's hat, Sif's hair, Frigg's grass, where Frigg's
veil and Fulla's finger-gold may now line up. The colorful game of Norwegian
meadow flowers is famous; a short but hot summer makes them bloom in rare
abundance and variety ... - Just as Thor is a friend of the other goddesses of the
beautiful and fertile season, Freyja, Idun, Sif, and accepts them actively, so does
death Nanna, the loveliest adornment of the earth he protects, and he expresses his
defiant displeasure by throwing the dwarf Lit, who is at his feet, into the fire. Lit
(Litr), the color, the rich, fresh mellowness of the early summer must go down when
Baldur and Nanna turn to ashes. " The colorful game of Norwegian meadow flowers
is famous; a short but hot summer makes them bloom in rare abundance and
variety ... - Just as Thor is a friend of the other goddesses of the beautiful and fertile
season, Freyja, Idun, Sif, and accepts them actively, so does death Nanna, the
loveliest adornment of the earth he protects, and he expresses his defiant displeasure
by throwing the dwarf Lit, who is at his feet, into the fire. Lit (Litr), the color, the
rich, fresh mellowness of the early summer must go down when Baldur and Nanna
turn to ashes. " The colorful game of Norwegian meadow flowers is famous; a short
but hot summer makes them bloom in rare abundance and variety ... - Just as Thor is
a friend of the other goddesses of the beautiful and fertile season, Freyja, Idun, Sif,
and accepts them actively, so does death Nanna, the loveliest adornment of the earth
he protects, and he expresses his defiant displeasure by throwing the dwarf Lit, who
is at his feet, into the fire. Lit (Litr), the color, the rich, fresh mellowness of the early
summer must go down when Baldur and Nanna turn to ashes. " Sif, befriended, and
take care of it, must also be close to the death of Nanna, the loveliest ornament of the
earth he protects, and he expresses his defiant dissatisfaction by telling her the dwarf
Lit, who is at his feet into the fire. Lit (Litr), the color, the rich, fresh mellowness of
the early summer must go down when Baldur and Nanna turn to ashes. " Sif,
befriended, and take care of it, must also be close to the death of Nanna, the loveliest
ornament of the earth he protects, and he expresses his defiant dissatisfaction by
telling her the dwarf Lit, who is at his feet into the fire. Lit (Litr), the color, the rich,
fresh mellowness of the early summer must go down when Baldur and Nanna turn to
ashes. "
Since it is now the purpose of this work to make the plants appear again in part in a
generally god-like nature as an individual part of this animation and especially their
communication with the Light God Baldur to shield or, shorter and easier, their own
soul and their traffic to interpret psychically with the light; - as otherwise the German
being will now rejuvenate, become self-grown again, and want to strip it, alas, only
for beautiful, antique plait, then the old fake flora of the young German goddess
Nanna seemed to have to give way to me. In any case, the former has had its foot in
the grave of the herbaria for some time now, and soon the whole of foreign antiquity
will soon settle into the coffins of history. A native spirit world,
Given the possibility of a valid solution to our task, it may perhaps seem to some
that no great effort should have been made to do so here. In fact, I must still postulate
whether the interest of others will enable me to follow so far as my own love for the
cause has led me. In the meantime, since here it was the serious reasoning of a view
which is now completely opposed both to the vulgar and to the scientific opinion, and
the subject offers many different sides and points of attack, too short a treatment had
not served the purpose. Moreover, one soon finds that the question in question is not
as isolated as it may seem at first sight. Whether the plants are animated or
not, changes the whole view of nature, and it decides with this question many other
things. The whole horizon of the contemplation of nature expands with the
affirmation of it, and even the path leading to it brings out points of view which do
not enter into the ordinary view.
Schleiden says in the introduction to his work on the plant (p. 2):
"I tried to show how botany is almost intimately related to all the deepest
disciplines of philosophy and natural science, and how nearly every fact or larger
group of facts is fit for it, as well in botany as in any other branch of human activity
to stimulate important questions and lead people from the sensually given to the
divine supernatural. "
It will probably be believed that, if the contemplation of the material side of plant
life can boast of such a meaning, the contemplation of the idealistic side will demand
it all the more. I therefore permit myself to apply those words only to the alteration of
my handwriting, that, instead of pursuing the superfluous points of reference of our
subject to philosophy, I rather seek to meet it with the greatest possible restraint, if
only to a great extent will; since I believe, in fact, that moderation in this respect will
deserve more thanks. A few more words about this in the following input of
Scripture!
What has helped to broaden the scope of this paper has been the desire, with the
explanation of the reasons for our opinion, to combine a statement of the actual
circumstances which seem to be of any importance for the decision of our question. It
is not disputed that the point of view from which this compilation has been attempted
here, if it should be considered otherwise valid, will only add to the interest which the
facts involved here already possess; but even apart from this, the small collection of
them, as a material for any sensible consideration of plant life, may not be
unwelcome to many; and I have, in this interest, without passing the reference to our
subject matter, have given a somewhat richer material,
What will be the success of this writing last?
Let me turn to all the poetic illusions, I think, the following:
A young girl of my acquaintance does not have the most valid views on
everything. It is now difficult to teach them by the best possible explanation of
reasons they a more substantial. She or she does not listen to the reasons, and at the
end simply says, "if so!" and stay with their opinion.
My reasons may be good or bad; It will probably also say: "If so!"
But, albeit! If I did not have some hope that the feeling of the young girl could at
least be bribed, which, as young girls are, always precedes her with the intellect, I
would, of course, save all my trouble. But if this succeeds, then afterwards all the
reasons would sound excellent. But under the young girl I mean the young age.
d. August 24, 1848.

I. Position of the task.

If one adopts a simultaneously omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent God, who
asserts his omnipresence not only beside or above nature, just as common opinion
loves him in an unclear contradiction with himself, then an inspiration of the whole
nature is here through God, in a sense, already conceded, and nothing in the world
will fall out of this inspiration, neither stone, nor wave, nor plant. Or should God's
spirit be looser in nature than our spirits in our bodies, not just as directly govern their
powers as our spirit the forces of our body? Then he would be less master of the
same. In the meantime, if, of course, not all of you do, you allow such a divine
universal animation of nature, If one sees the souls of men and animals not
indistinctly absorbed in them, but faces within them the same individuality with other
souls, they see, connected as they are by the universal, highest divine unity, but also
their subordinate unity for themselves, equal to others have subordinate soul units
opposite; Instincts and sensations, indeed, more than that, thoughts and
determinations of will have in their own accord, in such a way that the omniscient
mind that lives, and is weaving and weaving in all, and in which all live and weave
and are, is immediately aware of this but they do not immediately know each other,
and thereby betray their individual divorce. And one can now ask whether the plants
have the same thing; whether they too, as inspired individuals for
themselves, Instincts and sensations, or even more to unity, are directly accessible to
the knowledge of the omniscient God, but inaccessible to the knowledge of every
other being, unless through mediating conclusions. If it were so, the plants would
form with humans and animals a communal opposition to stones, waves of water and
air, and other so-called dead things that know nothing about themselves, feel no
sensations and (perceived) impulses to one Uniting unity for themselves, but subject
only in the context of the whole of the divine soul determinations, as to act as a co-
carrier. unless through mediating conclusions. If it were so, the plants would form
with humans and animals a communal opposition to stones, waves of water and air,
and other so-called dead things that know nothing about themselves, feel no
sensations and (perceived) impulses to one Uniting unity for themselves, but subject
only in the context of the whole of the divine soul determinations, as to act as a co-
carrier. unless through mediating conclusions. If it were so, the plants would form
with humans and animals a communal opposition to stones, waves of water and air,
and other so-called dead things that know nothing about themselves, feel no
sensations and (perceived) impulses to one Uniting unity for themselves, but subject
only in the context of the whole of the divine soul determinations, as to act as a co-
carrier.
But it can be different too. Perhaps the divine soul works in the plants as parts,
members of the general nature only as our soul in some individual members of our
body. None of my members necessarily feels something for themselves; only I, the
spirit of the whole, feel everything that goes on in it. And so conceptually there could
be no question of a separate soul of plants, if only God knew what was going on in
them, not themselves.
Thus, after all, nature would like to be regarded as generally and divinely inspired,
and the question still remains quite undecided whether to respect the plants for
oneself as animated. But we always mean only such inspiration when we ask about
the vegetable soul.
Of course, the question of whether the plants are animated must be emphasized
more sharply, if one abstracts, or even denies it, as it is more convenient in the
ordinary way of thinking. Then, in the midst of the rest of nature, the animated
creatures only appear like islands in the general ocean of the soulless dead; and one
wonders even more resolutely than before: do we want to lift the plants with the
animals and humans over this nocturnal ocean into the light of the soul or sink into it
with stone and leg?
One already sees from these fleeting reflections, which touch our subject so deeply
that the preliminary discussions about it threaten to lead us very far. Discussions of
the most general relations of God and nature, of body and soul, seem to have to
precede, in order to lay the groundwork for understanding more exactly what is
meant by individuality, psychic unity, consciousness and its various stages to make
necessary. Only then does the task of attack seem thoroughly prepared. But who is
not already tired of such discussions, and who would ultimately win something with
them? In fact, much of what has been said so far in such discussions has served much
more to deepen its objects into darkness, to lift.
 With this in mind, I would rather forego such depth from the outset, and try to
descend to it, as far as it may go, than to build it out of it. One can indeed pick a
flower without digging it out with the root, and if the flower pleases, the spade, which
later raises it from the deep, is also found to be permanently transplanted into the
right bed of the garden.
And so, with reference to the pursuit of those first ailing reflections and all far-
reaching discussions in general, the following will only be an attempt to answer the
question by referring directly to technical considerations, which are in themselves
little controversial and easily accessible to the general view We can see how far it is
possible to think of a similar psychic constitution of the plants as the animals and of
the uneser itself, without wanting to be able to determine sharply and to what extent
the animals themselves have to think in this respect. A field of clear reflection can not
exist at all where we undertake to speak of the psychic of beings other than ourselves,
except insofar as we can presuppose them analogously. since no one else has
anything but his own soul to offer, and then to imagine how it may be in a
stranger. And if, in the case of animals, the circumstance comes to us that we, as at a
higher stage, may well believe that they include what belongs to them on the lower, it
is yet another, whether a lower degree, as the animally sensuous , concludes for itself
to the whole, or serves as the basis of a higher and only finds its conclusion in this.
So let us be humble from the beginning to be able to gain more than approximate
adequate ideas about foreign soul areas. Meanwhile, an attempt may be interesting to
bring it as close as possible in such rapprochement.
II. General attack of the task.
Usually one denies a similar psychic constitution of plants as humans and animals
in general, because one finds the physical organization and expressions of life of the
former not analogous enough to those of the latter. And indeed, the analogy of the
physical is the only thing we have at the end to command other than one's own
psychic, since it is a peculiarity of every soul to be recognizable to any other than
itself only through external or physical signs. for whose interpretation in the last
instance nothing else than the analogy with that on which we find our own soul is
commanded. Even general philosophical considerations by which one would like to
try to accomplish this object will always have to be based on this analogy; there,
I conclude that you have soul as I do, only from the fact that you look the same as I
do, that you behave in an analogous manner, speak, etc., of shape, construction, color,
movement, tone, all physical signs; what can I immediately see from your soul? I
only put it in all this; quite involuntarily, of course; but it always remains a bit
ingrained. The animals look different from humans, but they move, nourish, and
propagate, still screaming in much the same way as we do on similar occasions,
though not all of them do more of it. Accordingly, we also recognize a similar soul to
them; Only withdraw reason from the differences that are taking place. But in the
case of the plants we suddenly lose the whole soul; and, if we are right to do it,
 Of course, if one has to ask for and demand analogy in order to find a soul, then
one can not demand it in every respect and without restriction. Otherwise, I would
have every person who looks and behaves differently than I, already justified, to
consider inanimate. But he is just so different from me. How unlike in most of the
pieces is the worm, how different is it? but I think this too inspired, only for other
soul than me. It will therefore be important, if the plants do not miss the essential
signs of inspiration, are analogous to us and the animals in regard to this? But what
are these essential signs? Which is the crucial circumstance
I think you've made yourself comfortable and never discussed it enough. For what
has been put forward in this connection seems to me much more to have the meaning
of justifying the view, which is once preconceived, than to justify its right. In general,
one abandons oneself to the seemingly decisive impression of the eye-sight, which of
course leaves no soul to be found in the plants, since it can not find any at all. In such
a way, however, the sun has long walked around the earth, the direct evidence taught
it, who could doubt what everyone saw; but now the earth goes around the sun, after
you first decided to change the point of view in your mind. Well, it might just be
about changing our minds spiritually, to observe the soul of the plants on their
internal point of view; that escapes us on our external. But nothing more difficult than
to be able to man, to put oneself out of oneself completely in another place, and not
just to look for it, but also, what is due to this place. Where he does not find himself
again, he believes he can not find anything.
In any case, because nobody inquires into the evidence of the soullessness of the
plants, we can not yet prove that they are thoroughly proven. In the attempt, however,
to make our conceptions valid, we shall have to deal with two things, which, of
course, completely forget the ordinary view, but which thereby also abandons itself
completely to bias: first, as if from that of us The soul of the plants can not
immediately perceive the most peculiar things, but not the least of all follows against
a soul, because then just as much would obey the soul of my brother and of every
being other than myself: and secondly, if plants do so look and behave much
differently than humans and animals,
And in fact, in order to express in advance the view whose grounding is the task of
the following, it seems to me that upon closer inspection all that one might
reasonably require as essential to the expression of inspiration is to be found in plants
as well as in animals ; but all the differences between the two in construction and
phenomena of life are only apt to put them into a completely different field of
inspiration, supplementing the animal kingdom, but not beyond the general sphere of
inspiration. And if some deny the souls of the plants, because they do not know what
to do with them, I would demand them, because otherwise a large gap would seem to
remain in nature.
The plant is still so well organized, at first superficially, to look at some quite so
well-organized plans, organized as the animal, organized according to a completely
different plan ; If one does not even venture to deny life to the plant, why should one
reject it from the soul, since it would be so much closer to think of the other plane of
the bodily organization as belonging to another plan of organization of the soul on
this common basis of life? What is the meaning of the concept of a life without a
soul? If the modern plant seems dead, what makes the living different from it? Is it
just another kind of dead process, its growth and flowering, as her decaying? Is not
the contrast between living and dead plant very similar to that between living and
dead animals? Yet the meaning of this antithesis is said to be so widely different: the
process of the living plant a soul-less entanglement with respect to the equally
soulless disintegration in the decay; the process of the living animal suddenly
becomes a soulful entanglement with empty disintegration. And yet the entanglement
in the construction and the processes of animal and plant is so completely
analog. Even the basic structure of cells is quite analogously adhered to in both cases,
the cells only being differently combined, grouped, stretched, and melted into each
other, just as they are already different in every other animal, every other plant; the
mode of origin of the whole cell-building from a simple primordial cell by a similar
strange process of cell-augmentation is quite analogous in both; yes, what naturalist
does not know that a seed and an egg are but two different forms of the same
thing; also the way of propagating is so analogous in both1) that Linnaeus could even
base the whole system of plants on the analogy of their sexual relation; Even a play
of forces, which so far mocked every calculation according to the theorems of our
physics and chemistry, is found quite analogously in both.
1) Mr. Schleiden will hopefully not start me too hard because of this statement.
"The nutrient rises vigorously in the living plants, and its rise can not be compared
with the slow and gradual sucking out of the fluids in the dead plant tissue the living
leaves have a significant influence on evaporated water and, on the other hand, do not
appear to affect the same organs after their death: live the leaves decompose the
carbonic gas with the help of the light, they do not change dead, the chemical
transformations that take place during life in the plant-tissue are very different from
those produced by extinct growths, which are often the opposite of the former.The
development in length and breadth, the orgasm preceding fertilization, and the
awakening of active life in the embryo, as it were sleeping in the seed, are just as
many phenomena that can not be derived from any single purely physical cause, and
which we, partly by the analogy with the animal kingdom, partly taught directly by
the consideration of the plants, may only count on vital excitability. "(DecandolIe,
Pflanzen-Physiologie IS 19.)partly instructed directly by the consideration of the
plants, only to count on vital excitability. "(DecandolIe, Pflanzen-Physiologie IS
19.)partly instructed directly by the consideration of the plants, only to count on vital
excitability. "(DecandolIe, Pflanzen-Physiologie IS 19.)
But what is so completely analogous in the most general phenomena of
construction, life, and weaving, should be so completely un-analogous in the most
general, for which we can extract the signs only from this most general of
construction, life, and weaving. for we only remember that there is nothing other than
that external commandment to infer this inwardness. Instead of basing on this most
general agreement in the most essential points, we abstain from differences in
particular, and from saying the plant's soul, because it does not present all the details
of animal life; which could justify the conclusion that their soul does not offer all the
details of the animal soul. The general must stand for the general, and the individual
for the individual; but as we look at the plant now,
That souls can be organized according to the most varied plan or under the most
diverse forms is proved by the people with such different characters and characters,
the animals with such different instincts. So rich is the abundance of bodily
formations, so rich is the wealth of associated soul-forms: one thing depends on the
other. If nature has not yet exhausted the possibility of various plans of construction
and life in the body, but has added a whole new kingdom to the plants, what reason
can we then assume that in the transition to them all at once the possibility of such
being at all less great than in the body,
Do the phenomena of plant life itself perhaps resist by their nature of a psychic
interpretation? But why should it cry and eat to the souls who run there; Do not there
also be souls who blossom, smell, quench their thirst in the slurping of the dew, their
urge in the bud-shoot, and satisfy even a higher longing when turning against the
light? I do not know what in itself the running and shouting of blossoming and
scenting for a prerogative would have preceded being carriers of a soul activity and
sensation; not how the daintily built and decorated figure of the purest plant should
be less worthy to cherish a soul, as the shapeless form of a dirty worm? Does an
earthworm look more soulful than a forget-me-not? Does his dark burrowing under
the earth seem to betray us more of free impulse and sensation than her striving for
the earth into the serene realm of light, her restless rerouting and rambling? But in
vain the plants have been newly added, structured, decorated and cared for. Just when
we see the institution made to gain something completely new in the soul realm, and
an equally careful institution, we let this institution suddenly no more apply, throw
away a whole half, because it does not look like the other. Here are the plants like
countless empty houses. Nature probably had enough material to build these houses,
but not enough spirit to populate them. After having built her dwellings for all animal
souls, she did not know what to do with her abundance of cell bricks, and related the
rest to the empty greenhouses in mocking pastimes. But I mean, if she had ideas
enough to make the plant-forms, she also had ideas, souls enough to put them in these
figures; for one thing will last hang on the other.
It is perhaps said that, when the breath of God is spread through all nature, and
whatever opinion has been placed in the foreground, the plants are not yet soulless
that they have no soul for themselves. The general spirit then blows through them.
But how is it reconciled with such absorption in the general souls that every plant is
so individually worked out and brought into such a special form, as if something very
special in it, through it, for them, should happen? that their form and manner are so
determined and individually detached from the outside world; and such weight is laid
upon it to renew itself and to repeat itself, while otherwise in this outer world the
forms and sages flow and change indifferently. Does not this cause the plant to come
into contact with the wave that dissolves in the sea, with the stone pushed back and
forth in every form and every relation, much like the animal, where we can not
perceive any other signs of its detachment from the ground of the universal. Of
course, the omnipresent spirit will also pervade the plants; but just like all other
creatures, who are therefore not yet their individual independence bar. This is God's
most beautiful life, weaving in individual creatures. To let plants penetrate merely by
God's Spirit in general does not make them more alive than stone and wave, and robs
God himself of part of his liveliest work. Does not our spirit live most vigorously and
beautifully in its most individual creations? But it does not make it possible for what
to create the divine spirit, its self-conscious, self-feeling spirits. God is God in
that. who therefore do not yet become indifferent to their individual
independence. This is God's most beautiful life, weaving in individual creatures. To
let plants penetrate merely by God's Spirit in general does not make them more alive
than stone and wave, and robs God himself of part of his liveliest work. Does not our
spirit live most vigorously and beautifully in its most individual creations? But it
does not make it possible for what to create the divine spirit, its self-conscious, self-
feeling spirits. God is God in that. who therefore do not yet become indifferent to
their individual independence. This is God's most beautiful life, weaving in
individual creatures. To let plants penetrate merely by God's Spirit in general does not
make them more alive than stone and wave, and robs God himself of part of his
liveliest work. Does not our spirit live most vigorously and beautifully in its most
individual creations? But it does not make it possible for what to create the divine
spirit, its self-conscious, self-feeling spirits. God is God in that. and God himself robs
part of his liveliest work. Does not our spirit live most vigorously and beautifully in
its most individual creations? But it does not make it possible for what to create the
divine spirit, its self-conscious, self-feeling spirits. God is God in that. and God
himself robs part of his liveliest work. Does not our spirit live most vigorously and
beautifully in its most individual creations? But it does not make it possible for what
to create the divine spirit, its self-conscious, self-feeling spirits. God is God in that.
After all, I ask: if one sees both the expression of an ideal connection as an
individual variety of concise phenomena of life in the plants as well as in the animals,
what more is required in order to see in it the sign and expression of a living
individual soul? since you can not see the soul yourself? It is pronounced, but
clearly! In fact, the plant may not be able to give more signs; but is it even possible to
give more? Are not there all kinds of possibilities here, as far as they are
essential? Many things of the sort are not to be expected from the outset for the
simple basis of inspiration, since everything special must serve the expression of
special modes of inspiration.
I believe that the oak tree could easily turn back all arguments that we may apply to
its soul from a particular point of view. How free she drives out branches on all sides,
giving birth to leaf and decorating herself with new, self-born ones. We just put on
outer jewelry and have to leave our body as it once is. She also thinks that nothing
could tie in with this. We walk around freely in nature, not her; we are more
concerned with things other than ourselves; but does the irregular drifting of a downy
feather in the air speak more of its animosity than the constant action of a being from
a fixed point of view, the work of others more than the working in itself? But if we
know that we are not drifting about like the fluff-feather, How do we know it? But
only because we ourselves are these beings. And if we do not know from the plant
that it feels its urge to drive itself, why do not we know it? The answer is so close:
because we ourselves are not this plant. For the same reason, the plant could become
so meaningless in the world and keep your soul as that of the pen. True, if she had
reason and powers of observation, if she could notice our actions for certain purposes,
our behavior according to certain rules, she might find that it does not depend so
much on the accidents of external impulses as on the activity of the pen. But if you
bring that to an end, we have won; For does not the plant also drive according to
certain purposes, according to certain rules which are independent of externally
accidental influences? But one will be much more inclined to turn their behavior
against their soulfulness according to certain rules. Let's leave that now; I'll come to
that later (VII).
Is not it already the most common speech in the world that it is the soul that builds
the body for itself as its abode? But nothing gives a better example to this speech than
the self-building plant, in which, of course, we can recognize the creature that grows
inwardly only out of the externally visible plane of construction; as it is not different
in the construction of humans and animals. But she gives a better example even as
man and beast herself, whose soul builds its body only in secret darkness and only
comes to light with the almost finished structure; which is why we also think that it
only carries out the construction in the dark unconsciousness. The plant is completely
different. It does not finish anything, and it begins to build after it has entered the
light, and continues in the midst of it, indeed, as a result of all the changing life-
stimuli. even the highest, what she wants, the blossom. But that is why we must not
compare the life of the plant to an embryonic life, as some do. Rather, evidently, this
was the purpose of nature, there should be souls who led their lives more in creating
and shaping their own organs, and others who led their lives more outward in
working with them; a point of view of supplementing their lives, which later (VIII)
will give us further reflections, therefore I am breaking off from this. who led their
lives more in creating and shaping their own organs, and others who led their lives
more outward in working with them; a point of view of supplementing their lives,
which later (VIII) will give us further reflections, therefore I am breaking off from
this. who led their lives more in creating and shaping their own organs, and others
who led their lives more outward in working with them; a point of view of
supplementing their lives, which later (VIII) will give us further reflections, therefore
I am breaking off from this.
It seems to me that in our judgment of the position of plants in nature, we are no
wiser than the North American savages, who, instead of distinguishing male, female,
and neuter gender in language, distinguish living and inanimate objects, but now too
the animated creatures animals and trees, count to the inanimate herbs and
stones. How ridiculous, say, that we think ourselves so much smarter than the
savages, to set the dividing line of life between trees and herbs, just because the trees
lead a greater and longer life than the herbs. How ridiculous will a spirit say that is a
little higher than the Wise Men of the Indo-European linguistic tribe, to set the
dividing line between being and animals,
The children, when they are little, usually do not want a goose to be a bird. The
goose sings and does not fly. What are we different from such little children, if we do
not want to let the plants be considered as living beings, because they do not speak
and walk.
The peasants see ghosts at night, despite the fact that none are there, because they
have heard from childhood on of spirits who deal with the night; What are we
different from such peasants when we do not want to see the spirits by day who are
there in person, because we have heard from childhood that there are none? In fact, it
is the same superstition, only in the opposite direction, wanting to see ghosts at night
who are not there, and do not want to see ghosts by day who show themselves bodily.
To a philosopher who wants to prove against us that the plants have no soul will of
course never be difficult. Since most philosophical systems have themselves grown
on the premise that the plants have no soul, it will, of course, be inferred from most
of them. It is well known that, as much as the philosophers may appear, everything
is a priorito prove that they could have reached this point of view of the proof from
above only by ascending from below. But in the process from below they are much
more determined by the common views prevailing there, than they, having reached
the summit, may still confess themselves; and the correspondence of the
philosophical views on the point in question proves no more than the agreement of
the common views on what I shall speak in a moment. Of course, that any system
which, in order to be self-sufficient, must demand the absence of the plant-soul, must
find reasons for this in its connection; but what is proved by all these reasons at the
end, when another context can be established, who, for his part, demands the
inspiration of the plants, and accordingly knows how to find reasons for it. Lastly, it
will be wondering which system is more valid for other reasons. That now ours,
which is able to exist alive, by bringing a world of souls to life, will become more
beautiful than contrary systems, which bury this whole kingdom of souls in the night,
may be seen from the very beginning; and if beauty is certainly not the weapon with
which the common truths prevail, yet after the conjunction of the true and the
beautiful in the highest district, it belongs to those with whom the most general
triumph. which is able to survive, by bringing to life a world of souls, and to make
itself more beautiful than contrary systems, which bury this whole kingdom of souls
in the night, may be seen from the first; and if beauty is certainly not the weapon with
which the common truths prevail, yet after the conjunction of the true and the
beautiful in the highest district, it belongs to those with whom the most general
triumph. which is able to survive, by bringing to life a world of souls, and to make
itself more beautiful than contrary systems, which bury this whole kingdom of souls
in the night, may be seen from the first; and if beauty is certainly not the weapon with
which the common truths prevail, yet after the conjunction of the true and the
beautiful in the highest district, it belongs to those with whom the most general
triumph.
 After this, philosophical designs raised by foreign systems will have little weight
for us at all. An example may suffice to give a sample of such objections and to do
them as far as they can be summarized in a nutshell; for we do not want to be
unfaithful to our purpose of avoiding philosophical discussions rather than losing
ourselves in them.
The philosopher z. For example, on the basis of some preliminary considerations,
he draws up a kind of schema of how life force, soul, and spirit relate to one another,
which latter two he treats more severely than it happens in life. It seems to him this
relationship under the aspect of a certain step elevation, and by demanding a
representation of the different levels in the real nature, the plant world comes to him
on an intellectual and soul-empty level. Man as a summit represents the totality of all
lower levels, enclosing them and giving them up in a higher one. Accordingly, he has
the spirit or the reason over life force and soul. The animal, one level lower, has to
content itself with life force and soul; the plant, one step lower, with the mere life-
force; the crystal also lacks the life force; he is completely dead, just fallen victim to
the mechanical process. The scheme is clear and nice and looks very good, though I
do not say that's why it's all of the philosophers; everyone may have their own; but all
the same; it all comes down to one, nature obeys none of them, and one example is as
good as the other. If we hold to the given, I think that the schema of an inanimate life
force itself first arose from the presupposition of an inanimate plant world and
otherwise has no root in the real; So one can not prove from his assumption anything
backwards for an inanimate plant world. If one gives up this assumption, one loses
nothing; one only gains soul where one did not have before. The plants will no longer
subordinate themselves purely as soulless beings to the animals; but to subordinate
them as another kind of animated beings, or subordinate them only in the manner of
ensoulment, in which there are in fact still possibilities which are not exhausted in the
animal kingdom, as further shown; the scheme will be different from the one
above; and, if we just set it up, can look as good as the above. However, the
possibility of another schema will not mislead us into believing that it is right
immediately, without checking whether the real behavior of the plants corresponds to
this; since I believe, in particular, that there can be no question here of a strict
scheme, of a purely step-by-step arrangement and superordination. The comfort,
sharpness and niceness of the above scheme proves himself against his
correctness; for every day and every hour nature makes it plain to her researcher that
her comfort, sharpness, and niceness are different from those of hers.
Perhaps it is just some philosophers who most easily allow the plants a soul; but
then, of course, only by taking away from the soul everything that makes it a
soul. Because nothing more common than wooden iron in philosophy. For my part,
when I speak of the soul, the individual soul of plants, I do not explicitly understand
an idea or ideal unity which I recognize in the variety of its structure and life,
although it may and must point to the self-sensing and aspiring unity of its soul-
being; but I ask for it myself. A soul should not merely be a reflection of myself, be
thrown into another, but carry within itself the flesh and fullness of living feelings
and instincts. Not what I have of her, but what I do not have from her, makes her
soul. The idea of what someone else is looking for or wants to find in me does not
want to satisfy me as my soul. So, what does it help the plant, if anyone still wants to
find so much unity, idea in their construction and life phenomena and then say, so far,
it has soul, if they could taste, feel or smell it for themselves. So I do not mean it with
the soul of the plant, as some mean to her, it does not seem to me that meant well
with her. But not as if what we expect to be the life of the soul is indeed present in the
plants, but only potentia, as we say, latent, always dormant. Sensation and desire that
sleep are not sensation and desire; and if one can still call our soul in sleep
soul, because it still carries within itself the conditions of the reawakening sensation
and desire, this would never be called soul, where such an awakening would never
occur. So if I attribute soul to the plants, I may admit that this soul can sleep as well
as ours, but not that it always sleeps; then it seems to me even more abusive to want
to talk about the soul of plants than if I wanted to speak of the soul of a corpse, in
which sensation at least once awake.
In the meantime, not only the philosophical, but also the vulgar views turn in
unison against each other, and this agreement seems to us to have a much greater
weight for us than that of the philosophical, whose root we find ourselves partly to
find in the common although the influence is certainly reciprocal. For those of us who
think of a soul of plants, and if one is ascribed to them here, most will consider it an
idle attempt. Now, it is certainly not intellectually developed reasons on which this
agreement is based; it is rather a feeling that imposes itself on everyone, and no one
knows how it came from. But that seems to indicate that that it has come from nature
itself that reasons deep in the nature of nature itself have so involuntarily and
universally imposed upon man his views. There are many things one can say, and
from different sides it may indicate what we unconsciously summarize, without
clearly dealing with it in detail. But all the more surely we can build on a view in
whose justification nothing so preconceived has played into it. It must flow from a
higher source than human error, and if any, here will be the saying that the people's
voice is God's voice. Does not the belief in the onetime continuance of our own souls
appear to us to be all the more certain because he did not need the deceptive
mediation by reasoning in order to be generally accepted among all, even the
roughest humanity to spread? As surely as we believe that our soul will one day live,
so surely we must also believe that a soul of plants does not live now. For both faiths
are of a natural kind
This view has a great deal of illusion, and within its right limits, of course, its
justification; but one must exercise caution with her, otherwise much false beliefs
might be justified by it. One only has to read in Moses and the prophets, Job and the
Psalms, so it is found that the ancient Jews, who are regarded as the favored tools of
the revelation of God, for many centuries believed as little in the future life of their
own souls, as we now think of a soul life of plants; they were all tired of death; and
whoever wished to speak to them of a life after death, of a resurrection, would
probably have been considered even more foolish than who now speaks of the
psychic life of the plants. Was this God's voice for so long, when it was the people's
voice? But with them the soul later rose from the grave of Sheol; a more comforting
faith has developed and has become the voice of the people, and these we now
believe to be God's voice. Thus the soul of the plants, which according to our faith is
now still in Sheol, could one day be resurrected in a future faith, and this faith will in
the future become the voice of the people, and the more general faith in which it is
rooted will count as God's voice. Of course, that much more would have to change in
connection with it, which I also confidently hope; for nothing more desolate than our
present, blind and deaf to all soul in nature, and therefore self-soulless, natural
conception. a more comforting faith has developed and has become the voice of the
people, and these we now believe to be God's voice. Thus the soul of the plants,
which according to our faith is now still in Sheol, could one day be resurrected in a
future faith, and this faith will in the future become the voice of the people, and the
more general faith in which it is rooted will count as God's voice. Of course, that
much more would have to change in connection with it, which I also confidently
hope; for nothing more desolate than our present, blind and deaf to all soul in nature,
and therefore self-soulless, natural conception. a more comforting faith has developed
and has become the voice of the people, and these we now believe to be God's
voice. Thus the soul of the plants, which according to our faith is now still in Sheol,
could one day be resurrected in a future faith, and this faith will in the future become
the voice of the people, and the more general faith in which it is rooted will count as
God's voice. Of course, that much more would have to change in connection with it,
which I also confidently hope; for nothing more desolate than our present, blind and
deaf to all soul in nature, and therefore self-soulless, natural conception. and that faith
will in the future become the voice of the people, and the more general faith in which
it is rooted will count as God's voice. Of course, that much more would have to
change in connection with it, which I also confidently hope; for nothing more
desolate than our present, blind and deaf to all soul in nature, and therefore self-
soulless, natural conception. and that faith will in the future become the voice of the
people, and the more general faith in which it is rooted will count as God's voice. Of
course, that much more would have to change in connection with it, which I also
confidently hope; for nothing more desolate than our present, blind and deaf to all
soul in nature, and therefore self-soulless, natural conception.
The warning not to put too much emphasis on the agreement we have about the
soullessness of plants will be all the more valid if we notice that what is common in
this respect in this respect is by no means universal. Many millions of Hindus and
other rude peoples really consider the plants to be animated; because they emanate
from a completely different view of nature. Now, while we may be much wiser in
regard to all things that are beyond the natural, than the Hindus and those other rude
peoples, but whether it is not reversed as to what falls in the realm of natural life, the
question still remains his.
Sakontala says in the well-known drama: "I feel the love of a sister for this
plant"; yes she is saying goodbye to a plant.
In the ancient law of Menu 2) , which still enjoys an authority over all human
beings in India, positions are as follows:
 Cape. I., 49. (p. 11.) "The animals and plants, surrounded by multiform darkness,
have inner consciousness because of previous actions and feel pleasure and pain."
Cape. IV., 32. (p. 124.) "Every householder must keep something in law and in
equity, without harming his family, for all sentient, animal, and plant-like beings."
2)Hindu Law or Menu's Regulations after Culluca's Explanation, in
English. from Jones, from here into German von Hüttner. Weimar 1797.

Cape. V., p. 168. "Grass plants, cattle, large trees, amphibians, and birds that have
been destroyed because of the sacrifice, attain to sublime births in the next world."
Cape. XI, 143. (p. 420.) "If any one ever unintentionally tore down fruit trees,
many bushes, climbing plants, or those that grow again after cutting, assuming that
they were in bloom when they damaged them, so he must recite a hundred sayings of
Bede. "
145. "If any one, for wanton and useless reasons, should cut down grass which is
cultivated, or which grows by himself in the forest, he must serve a cow for one day
and consume only milk."
146. "Through these penances the human race can reconcile the sin of the sentient
creatures with prejudicial or unethical damages." 3)

3)The in XI. No. 143 and no. 145 penances are among a number of others
designated for the killing of animals. In particular, 144 refers to the killing of
insects that live in crops, fruits and flowers.

In Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen (IS 215), I read the following passage:
"The Talapoins in Siam extend the command: do not kill and do not injure both
plants and seeds or the germs of plants, as over men and animals, because they
believe that all that lives is also animated They eat a tree and break the branch of a
tree just as little as they mutilate a human being, they eat no immature fruit so as not
to destroy their cores, much less seeds themselves. With this strict austerity, it does
not seem improper to them enjoy what has died without their guilt, even the flesh of
animals. " (From Loubère, Descript., Du Royaume de Siam. Amsterdam, 1700. L p.
81.)
Here I only occasionally want to recall the Hamadryads of the ancients who,
although in later times they no longer meant a belief in the actual enlivenment of the
trees, surely could only proceed from the presupposition of such. The raw man is in
fact all animated in nature. The Egyptians also worshiped plants: "Quibus haec
nascuntur in hortis numina" says Juvenal (Sat. XV.).
 Carus is therefore wrong to say (Psyche, p. 113): "In our languages and in other
languages there has never been talk of a soul of plants."
Incidentally, even among us innovators we are not completely lacking examples of
those who believe in a soul of plants.
Percival considers the plants' ability to extend their roots to the place where they
find the most appropriate food to prolong their leaves and trunks against the light, an
act of the will that can not be thought of without sensation. (Transact. Soc. Of
Manchest.)
FE Smith, too, believes that a certain degree of bliss can not be denied to the plants
sensation, and, as the result of it, inasmuch as it stimulates movements, such as
stimulation. B. in their leaves and stamens, exercise. (Smith, Introd to botany, 2 ed.
Bonnet, Vrolik, F . Hedwig and Ludwig also tend to attribute sensation to the
plants.
Martius not only gives the plants a soul, but also an immortality of them. (Martius:
The immortality of plants, a type, speeches, Stuttgart, 1838.) - I do not know this
writing in any detail.
After so many and so loudly speaking voices of the peoples, how can we still
consider our negative voice as infallible? But it also adds that we even deny this
negating voice in ourselves by another affirmative voice, by a voice that can be
regarded much more than a natural voice than that, I mean the voice of poetry and of
an intelligent mind , While we deny the soul of plants, we still need pictures of the
plants in poetry as in life, as if they were animated, and we feel comfortably
addressed by their lives. Of course we do not believe in it intelligibly, but despite this
unbelief, much of us express involuntarily in the sense of this belief, and would
probably do even more if we did not always think it was a mistake. And now I say:
this is the nature that is constantly breaking with our educated ideas. For in fact these
ideas are something well-formed, and that is to say, because of a way of looking at
nature, which is far from the original and immediate way of conceiving it; but they
are not grown from such things themselves; as the objection wishes to show, since
otherwise they would have to emerge more clearly than among us peoples, who are
even closer to the natural state; but now it is the other way round. So much is to be
admitted that it was much easier to lose sight of the soul of the plants than the
animals in the removal of this natural state, for the analogy of the latter with us
remains much more direct and near; but this is only beneficial not crucial to the way
our feeling is now in this matter. The impression of the soullessness that the plants
seem so sudden to us, rather, comes at least as much from the way we have learned to
look at them as they really look; and it is with this mode of spiritual contemplation
that we take what we should give them; for it would be of the mind to find the mind
where the eye does not see it. and it is with this mode of spiritual contemplation that
we take what we should give them; for it would be of the mind to find the mind
where the eye does not see it. and it is with this mode of spiritual contemplation that
we take what we should give them; for it would be of the mind to find the mind
where the eye does not see it.
 In fact, how can we be surprised if we do not even think of thinking of a soul of
plants, since from the beginning we have heard the plants talk as though we could not
speak of a soul. We do not condemn the plants to death otherwise than the
Muhammedan Christians to hell. What is considered a foregone conclusion among
parents, teachers, in the mosque, in every street, how should the young Muslim doubt
this? He sees the Giaurs written damnation on the face. So we give the plants the
soullessness. In Raff's Natural History (p. 12) I immediately read as a definition of
the plant: "a plant is a plant that grows and lives out of the earth, but has no sensation
and can not move from one place to another."
Instead let the mother say to her little daughter, Look, my child, the little flower is
happy in his life too, given to him as you are, except in another way; all the flowers
have souls, though not as intelligible as men, but quite lovely; and you do not have to
tear off a flower out of sheer mischief. Although to the wreath or to bring someone a
bouquet, you can do it; because the animals have souls; but God has ordained them to
be eaten by men; so he has destined the flowers to give their lives to decorate man's
life with them; each must fulfill its purpose. - Let the teacher say to the boy in the
school: The animated beings divide themselves into the main thing into two classes,
those that are firmly established in the earth, these are the plants, and those who can
get over it are the people and the animals. The plants are more unlike the animals, but
since they grow as they are alive, they arise, disappear, and in nature just as much is
done for the purpose of their preservation and reproduction as it is for the animals,
and still more of these and those others For reasons we have to keep her as well as the
animals. But people have not believed that at all times; Look, you children, in this
regard, we are much further in the past. In general, among those under whom the
child grows up, let the soul of the plants be as little called into question as the soul of
the animals, and the child will never think of the question as to whether the plants
could not be innate; since they do not come to mind as far as the animals that are
most unlike us are concerned. Even the name animal is enough to prove the soul. And
what would never have occurred to people as a child would not come to their minds
even as adults, when the plants grow, blossom, smell, as in childhood. That's the way
man is.
So you're wrong, if. we derive our present and local unbelief from the inspiration of
plants from fundamental natural mediations, because one can not properly deduce it
for any reasonable reason, and it has come to us, we do not know how; one is
mistaken if one finds it justified by this. Probably many a thief comes in the night and
robs us of what we should have cheap, and therefore is not yet in the right. And let's
just take a closer look and find the opening through which he came in.
First, as we have said, are the influences of education to which we owe
unbelief; but the question remains, what has introduced him into this? In my opinion,
the deeper underlying ground of our present view of plants is to be found in the fact
that, on going beyond the initial state of nature, where, according to a boundless
analogy, he considers the whole acting nature to be divine and alive to be equal to
itself right target has gone out and now draws too narrow barriers of analogy. Where
all nature is still regarded as divine, it is much easier to recognize individual souls as
special offsprings of general inspiration, than where, as with us, the divinely-
inspiring spirit has risen out of nature, and she left her soulless. He also took the souls
of the plants with him; and if we did not feel our own souls, and not from us to the
monkey and from the monkey down to the worm, the thread of similarities drifted
away too much, we would deny our and the animal's soul as well as those of the
plants. For our present principle is to acknowledge as little soul as possible in nature
everywhere. Science, art, religion, teaching from the earliest youth have permeated
this view of nature, and all the spheres of faith and knowledge have experienced the
deepest intervention. Changing it means changing a world. Let us remember,
however, that the most developed cognition, only with consciousness, often returns to
the state with which the development of cognition has begun. In this way we shall not
add much weight to our present view of nature, despite the fact that it seems so
advanced to us. Maybe that's why it's so much closer to the point of distraction.
If man will finally learn to understand that God, without prejudice to his height and
dignity, is able to re-enter nature, from which he had not yet dissolved himself for the
rude man, without, therefore, becoming absorbed in the externalities and details of
them without, therefore, extinguishing the individualities of its beings in it; In the
same way, with the soul substance that has spread all over the world, it will be easier
to recognize individual designs from within their Borne. But we can not rest on such
prospects now; rather, it must first apply to open doors and windows, and such a
window should also be this writing, opening the view into a blooming garden of
roses.
Specifically, it is the foregoing considerations which give me almost greater
emphasis on points of view which are capable of attuning the warped feeling of men
to the position of plants in nature, than to rationally developed causes; since the view
directed against the soul of the plants, which we have to fight against, is itself
supported by emotional reasons rather than clearly developed. In the meantime we
shall not be allowed to refuse the latter; and, in particular, the consideration of the
counter-reasons, so as not to let them lose their apparent weight, which they gain only
by beating the already preconceived conviction of their weight.
Of all these reasons, I now want to pick out the coarsest one, which may be the
reason why most people might weigh the most. Otherwise, he would always be a
stumbling block to us at a walk we wished to keep as light as possible. Some
philosophers will easily fly over it; the more difficult some naturalists who go in
nature are not used to flying over it.
Here is a summary of the submissions to be done in the following sections:
1) The plants have no nerves (III).
2) You have no free voluntary movement (VII).
3) They lack a central organ and in general everything that would be required as the
expression of a uniting soul-unit (XIII).
 4) You can see them mercilessly depressed, mowed, hewn and exposed to any kind
of destructive intervention. But it is contrary to our feeling that this may be the fate of
sentient beings (VI).
5) They appear to be fully calculated for the purpose of fulfilling human and animal
purposes, put to the service of a strange soul world, so that one can not look for one's
own soul and end in it (X.XI).
6) Even if the plant-like animals give only ambiguous signs of soul, the actual
plants can no longer speak of the soul (XII).
7) It is impossible to conceive of any imaginable conceptions that are different
from those of the animals, even though they are still at a low level (XIV).
The main points of view, from which the completion of these objections emerges,
are briefly summarized in the concluding résumé.

III. The nerve question.

It is undeniable that, if one were to discover only those proteinaceous threads called
nerves in the plants, the difficulty of giving them soul would appear very diminished
to many. Now, of course, one concludes that nerves are necessary to the soul, and in
part only from the fact that the soullessly presupposed plants have none; but it is not
just this circular conclusion that comes into play here; mainly the following
consideration:
If one destroys the brain of a human or an animal, which is known to be composed
of the finest nerve fibers, it destroys at the same time all external conditions and
phenomena of its psychic life; Likewise, by cutting or destroying special parts of the
nerves, one can abolish the faculty of particular sensations. But if the animals no
longer give signs of soul and sensation after their nerves have been destroyed, the
plants will have from the outset no soul and sensation, since they have no nerves
from the outset. The nerves hereby prove that, at least in our earthly life on this earth,
they are essential conditions for animosity or tools which the soul needs to express
itself under the conditions of this world.
Nothing seems more conclusive than this conclusion, and nothing can be less
useful.
I suppose to him the following: If I tear down all strings or destroy them from a
piano, a violin, a lute, then it is over with the sounds of these instruments; I like to
hammer at it, knock it as I like: uncontrolled noises are created; an actual tone, even a
melodic or harmonic sequence or combination of tones, can no longer be produced
absolutely; Likewise, by tearing away special strings, the faculty of making special
notes can be abolished; it seems, therefore, that the strings are essential conditions for
the production of the notes; they are, so to speak, the nerves of those
instruments. And from this follows just as before, that the flute, whistle, and organ
from the outset of the sounds, especially the melodic and harmonic combination of
sounds, are incapable
To be sure, the comparison is quite fitting in that here we compare a means of
producing objectively sensations with means of producing subjective sensations,
whereby a certain agreement may presuppose from the outset. The violin gives
others, the body itself sensations through its play. The body is, so to speak, a violin
that feels the inner play of its strings itself.
But now, when I see that the flute really, despite my beautiful conclusion, sounds,
objectively produces sensations without having strings, I do not know why the plant
can not subjectively produce sensations without having nerves , The animals could
just be the string instruments, the plants could be flute instruments of
sensation. Then, of course, both feelings would have to differ just as subjectively as
the sensations which produce string and wind instruments differ objectively; but in
both of them there could be equally loud sensations associated with psychic unity or
melodic or harmonious.
Indeed, it is not foreseeable why nature should have fewer means at his disposal to
produce feelings of self-feeling than to be at the command of our art, to produce from
others felt feelings; since otherwise nature is richer and more varied in its means than
we are; we also see otherwise how nature loves to attain the same general purpose
through the greatest variety of means according to the most varied principles. In the
animals, quadrupeds, and birds, the breathing-tools form one inward, in the gills-
animals an outward-turned-tree; we proceed by continuing our legs; other creatures
proceed by contractions of the body, like leeches; others continue to cough, like
infusion animals, etc. what happens after totally different principles. The ideal
purpose of attaining through changes of place what is needed for life is the same
everywhere. Should nature really have stood still so stiff as to link mental
organization to bodily organization merely by means of neural gangs? On the
contrary, because it seems to me in this case, poorer and more helpless than usual, I
expect that besides the animals, where she has carried out the plan of the psychic
organization with the help of nerves, there will be another area where she will find
him has done otherwise. Should nature really have stood still so stiff as to link mental
organization to bodily organization merely by means of neural gangs? On the
contrary, because it seems to me in this case, poorer and more helpless than usual, I
expect that besides the animals, where she has carried out the plan of the psychic
organization with the help of nerves, there will be another area where she will find
him has done otherwise. Should nature really have stood still so stiff as to link mental
organization to bodily organization merely by means of neural gangs? On the
contrary, because it seems to me in this case, poorer and more helpless than usual, I
expect that besides the animals, where she has carried out the plan of the psychic
organization with the help of nerves, there will be another area where she will find
him has done otherwise.
 What is so wonderful about the protein matter of the nerves that made them
suitable only for carriers or mediators of mental activity? It seems to me that the
fibers of plants, if fibers are required, are just as well suited to them; it will only be
more suitable for the disposition of the plants, and the protein for those of the
animals. Everything wants to be considered in its connection. On the sun there will be
no nerves of protein or fiber, it would burn everything; maybe there are some of
platinum. Maybe there is no there at all; For the nerves are certainly only a means, in
a given context, to organize sensations in a special way, which can be represented
elsewhere by other means. A raw sound gives even the piano box without
strings; yes, every body gives it at the moment; So, every movement in the world
may carry something psychic; Now these are only the conditions for adding this so
that this contribution does not merely arise in the universal divine life, but also
benefits a creature in its own right. We will have special questions about the
conditions of this; but it is highly improbable from the outset that only nerves should
be fit for it; yes that even the thread form is essential. If it is really true that the whole
world is a bearer, an expression of the divine Spirit, then one will have to ask where
the nerves of God are going; and we see that the distant cosmic bodies, without long
lines between them, are nevertheless linked to a self-contained system of light and
gravity,
It is possible to put aside others who are of the same mind to the previous analogy,
and it may be useful to do so in some instances. Here we are essentially pointing to
analogies, and even if we can prove nothing with them alone, then a counter-proof
can be rebutted, and the manner in which this object wishes to be grasped can be
explained in various forms.
The flames of our lamps and lights burn with wicks, twisted with threads. Our
soulflames too. The sun, a gas flame, burns without wick. So it will probably be able
to give soulflames burning without strings from threads. Of course, lights and lamps
with wicks have their comfort: they can easily be carried away to the side, gas flames
do not; but are they therefore burning less brightly, and do not they also have
advantages in their turn? Thus, the animals are portable, the plants fixed souls. Why
should the world be merely enlightened with portable lamps? Every great hall is lit
even more with fixed than portable lamps; but the world is the biggest room. And in
truth we can actually compare the souls with flames; because without them the world
would be completely dark. Again it is the comparison of the subjective with the
objective, as in the instruments of tones. How many means are there at all to apply
and maintain objective light, and now let us confine nature to the narrow means of
nerve-wallowing in the freedom to attach and maintain the subjective light of the
soul?
The spider-trap begins its robbery by means of a network of fine and long
threads; without the net she knows nothing to catch. Similar to our soul. Only with a
network of fine nerve fibers can it catch sensations by overhearing what touches these
threads from the outside world. But therefore all spiders need such a net to catch their
robbery? With not; there are those who seize him directly from an ambush. So also
the plants could know their sensations directly without nervous net. If we do not see
the spider in its hole, and see no net, we probably also think it is just a hole and no
spider. But the net does not make the spider; but the spider makes the net or does not
make a net and therefore can still be a spider.
If somebody sits in the car and drives, one only needs to cut the strands, whereby
the horses are connected to the car; so the car stops, but the horses run, who knows
where. But is therefore an intelligent mastery of the horses, which I here compare to
the mastery of the body by a soul, is possible only by means of long strands? Only in
this respect will it be necessary for the driver to sit in a separate box, just as our mind,
if only as it were, in the cerebral case. But let the driver sit on the horse himself, so he
needs only the short, not very eye-catching reins, yes, if he is right on the horse with
knees, whip and tongue, he needs no reins. So the plants could now be creatures,
Such analogies could still be brought like many! And why should they, exhausted
as they are from the general condition of nature, have to yield to the viewpoint of the
most limited analogy according to which one misses the soul in the plants, because
one misses nerves, a special means of the soul, in them? - But one can help these
analogies by a much more direct consideration.
We see that breathing, being a prisoner, metabolism, feeding in the animals is done
only by means of nerves, the so-called ganglia nerves; in the plants there are no such
nerves; but breathing, running of a prison, metabolism, and nutrition are as good as
they are in animals; yes, it is believed that the whole life of the plant exists only in
it. But can the plant breathe without nerves and nourish, why not feel it? Here one
sees in the clearest, even irrefutable, that in the plants much is placed in other means,
which is placed in the animals in nerve-effectiveness. The plants, of course, except
for the ganglia nerves, also remove the nerves of the brain and spinal cord
(cerebrospinal nerves), and it is only to the activity of these that it is customary to
keep the activity of the soul connected;
In approaching, we usually use the nervous system to be the container and
conductor of some fine, unpredictable material force-substrate or agent, which, so to
speak, forms the middle link between the soul and the coarser body, by means of
which the impulses from the soul to the body extend, and the To withdraw sensations
from the body. I do not want to defend or reject this idea here; but if we allow it to be
accepted, then it is no embarrassment to find the play of such an agent without nerves
in the plants. At first, we do not know how the plant does that, with its relatively
simple cell structure, cornstarch, sugar, tannin, various acids, alkaloids, odors, dyes,
poisons, fats, resins, mucus, etc., etc. to produce from inorganic matter; each plant
produces something different with another, without any understanding of how the
other arrangement of cells, fibers, and tubes could do so; a sure proof that something
more than just fibers, cells, and tubes are effective here. That this more is really at
least in one of its unpredictable agents is confirmed by the circumstance that even in
the case of the ordinary chemical phenomena which take place outside the organism,
such is involved; Electricity is thereby partly generated, partly the produced one has
an effect on the chemical process; and so there will be no difficulty, but rather the
greatest demand, even in the case of the unusual chemical phenomena in plants, to
presuppose such in the game, which (or its play) may differ only as much from the
agent (or game) that governs the ordinary chemical phenomena, as both appearances
themselves differ. There is reason to believe that the production of the nerve-agent,
whatever its nature may be, is connected in the animals with the chemical processes
preceding it, and reacts to it; so that the structure and arrangement of the nervous
system seems to be of importance only for its distribution and distribution. in the
animals is related to the chemical processes preceding it and reacts to it; so that the
structure and arrangement of the nervous system seems to be of importance only for
its distribution and distribution. in the animals is related to the chemical processes
preceding it and reacts to it; so that the structure and arrangement of the nervous
system seems to be of importance only for its distribution and distribution.
Thus the conditions of the production and the play of such a fine agent, which
could serve the soul as a central link, if one wants to demand such a thing, are
missing in the plant-body just as little as in the animal-body; only the conditions of a
regular distribution or distribution of the same, as required by the orderly action of a
soul, might seem to be absent with the nervous system. But since we do not know in
the least what makes the nerves themselves capable of directing any nerve agent in
isolation, even though this seems to us to be difficult to explain, spiral and other
fibers of the plant may be just as suitable, a similar one To lead an agent isolated, if it,
what we still very doubtful, should require such guidance in a similar sense as in the
animal.
Basically, the whole assumption of an imponderable agent in the nerves is only a
hypothesis, to which, of course, we can conclude with a certain probability from
phenomena; but here it has no interest to be based on it, but only to show that, if one
wants to base it, the plants have as well in themselves the conditions for an orderly
play of this agent, as may be required of the soul the animals; but if we want to
substitute that of any other forces for the play of such an agent, an analogous
consideration will always be transferred to it.
Instead of basing assumptions on something that we know nothing about, it would
be best to conclude from successes that are clearly visible. We see quite ordered
successes in the plants. The juices run in a certain direction, the flower rises above
the plant according to certain rules, the leaves begin according to some rule in the
circumference; certain rows of cells are properly filled with these, others with those
substances; On some colorful petals, look at the quite regular drawings, which prove
that the colored juices take very definite paths, or that the color processes specialize
in a certain way. All this speaks in any case for an orderly play of forces, may these
forces and their bearers be called as they wish; the plant gives nothing to the animal
in it; each plant also follows a different order than the other, just as every animal with
other nervous systems, regardless of the fact that it has no plant at all. Thus, instead
of the absence of nerves, to infer the lack of order of the forces governing the plant,
whatever their name may be, conversely one should infer from the existence of order
the ordering conditions of these forces, and then it can not be denied that you do not
know them yet of approaching. Only one proof of our ignorance, not their absence,
can be seen in it. Thus, instead of the absence of nerves, to infer the lack of order of
the forces governing the plant, whatever their name may be, conversely one should
infer from the existence of order the ordering conditions of these forces, and then it
can not be denied that you do not know them yet of approaching. Only one proof of
our ignorance, not their absence, can be seen in it. Thus, instead of the absence of
nerves, to infer the lack of order of the forces governing the plant, whatever their
name may be, conversely one should infer from the existence of order the ordering
conditions of these forces, and then it can not be denied that you do not know them
yet of approaching. Only one proof of our ignorance, not their absence, can be seen in
it.
I do not wish to argue that in some of the lower animals, especially the polyps, to
which sensibility and voluntary movement have not been attached, no one has yet
been decreed, and as yet no nerves have been discovered. It would undoubtedly be
answered: they will be discovered again; they are only too fine, transparent, isolated,
as if they had succeeded so far. It really may be like that. I have no reason or interest
in doubting it. The same excuse would then be found in the plants; but I am far from
using them; it does not need her; The view that sensation is possible only by means of
nerves rests in general only on an arbitrary hypothesis or on the fallacy: because
nerves are necessary in animals for sensation, they are necessary everywhere. What
can one have against it, if I oppose the other conclusion, because the plants have no
nerves to the sensation, they will have something else to it. One conclusion is worth
as much as the other, that is, no one is good for something; it depends on how one can
support him further.
One could think of it, and indeed, especially in the past, has thought much of
turning the spiral fibers (spiral vessels) of the plants into representatives of the
nerves. Oken says in his Philosophy of Nature II: 112, "Spiral fibers are for plants
what nerves are for the animal, they can be called plant nerves with full rights, and I
am glad to be allowed to use them in this right. they determine the movement and
excitement of the organic processes "etc . -For my part, I do not believe that in a
completely different kind of, indeed, as it later turns out, in some respects just
opposite organization plans of the plants against the animals of the true representation
of the nerves by any organs can be the speech; every analogy will remain very
incomplete. Since, in spite of all odds, there will now be one side to the agreement
between the two plans of organization, it may always be said that the spiral fibers are
that in the plants, which still most closely corresponds to the nerve fibers in the
animal; It may also be true that this corresponds to a lesser extent than between the
pipes of an organ and the strings of a piano, which in some respects seem to
correspond in two respects to each other as sounding bodies, but do not correspond
again from the other side, since the solid body of the pipe is not the self-sounding
organ in the organ, while it is the firm strings are in the piano; for they merely sound
something in the air, when the air is kicked in by the strings. Taking into account this
impossibility of pure analogy, it may always be of interest to follow it as far as it is
practicable, that is, as the data lies in experience itself. And so one finds in particular
the following comparison points between spiral fibers and nerves.
 The spiral fibers, spiral vessels, and plants, like the nerve fibers, are formed by a
fusion of juxtaposed cells, and, like these, are actually fine tubes, only that they only
conduct air in the formed state, while the nerve fibers or nerve-tubes appear to
contain a fluid being , The spiral fibers extend in a continuous relationship through
the plant, never branch, but the larger bundles only give off smaller bundles by
bending the fibers off. Their position is central to the other kinds of fibers and cells of
the plant, in that each spiral fiber bundle is surrounded by them, and preferably by
elongated cells (fibers), as in animals it is preferentially vessels running in the
vicinity of the nerves. The number and arrangement of spiral vesicle bundles is
characteristic and meaningful for each plant, in that the construction of the whole is
connected with it; they appear all the more powerfully on the whole, and the more
they gather together, the higher the step on which the plant stands, whereas in the
lowest plants, none of it has been discovered. An important function must be settled
for them according to their peculiar structure and their position in the plant; but, as
with the nerves of the animals, it does not express itself directly in any material
performance. Fach's plant physiologists disagree, and the most astute admits that we
know nothing about it. they appear all the more powerfully on the whole, and the
more they gather together, the higher the step on which the plant stands, whereas in
the lowest plants, none of it has been discovered. An important function must be
settled for them according to their peculiar structure and their position in the
plant; but, as with the nerves of the animals, it does not express itself directly in any
material performance. Fach's plant physiologists disagree, and the most astute admits
that we know nothing about it. they appear all the more powerfully on the whole, and
the more they gather together, the higher the step on which the plant stands, whereas
in the lowest plants, none of it has been discovered. An important function must be
settled for them according to their peculiar structure and their position in the
plant; but, as with the nerves of the animals, it does not express itself directly in any
material performance. Fach's plant physiologists disagree, and the most astute admits
that we know nothing about it. An important function must be settled for them
according to their peculiar structure and their position in the plant; but, as with the
nerves of the animals, it does not express itself directly in any material
performance. Fach's plant physiologists disagree, and the most astute admits that we
know nothing about it. An important function must be settled for them according to
their peculiar structure and their position in the plant; but, as with the nerves of the
animals, it does not express itself directly in any material performance. Fach's plant
physiologists disagree, and the most astute admits that we know nothing about it.
Goethe says of the spiral vessels in his advertisement of the Recherches sur la
structure intime, etc., par Dutrochet (Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. II): "We regard the spiral
vessels as the smallest parts, which perfectly correspond to the whole to which they
belong are the same and, viewed as homeomerries, communicate to them their
peculiarities and receive from them again property and destiny, they are credited with
a self-life, the power to move individually and to take a certain direction, the
excellent Dutrochet calls them a vital incurvation We do not find it necessary to come
closer to these secrets. "
 Also we find ourselves to get closer to these secrets here not further requested. At
any rate, it can be seen that the natural secrets present here, like all natural secrets, are
not lacking even in the whimsical interpretations.
Now, in the following two sections, let us compare with the anatomical point of
view some teleological and aesthetic points of view which, though already touched
on in the general preliminary discussions (under II.), Could not find their full
development there. Even though one finds little evidence in consideration of the
species, the more convincing it seems to me to be. In any case, it was as follows that
conviction first developed and decided for me.

IV. Teleological reasons.

I once stood at a pond on a hot summer's day and looked at an aquatic lily that had
spread its leaves smoothly over the water and was basking in the light with open
blossoms. How extraordinary it would be to have this flower, I thought, diving up
into the sun, down into the water, when she felt something of the sun and the
bath. And why, I wondered, should not she? It seemed to me that nature would not
have built a creature so beautiful and careful for such circumstances as to present it
merely as an object of idle contemplation, especially since a thousand water lilies
would wither without anyone looking at it; It seemed to me much more the thought
that she had built the water-lily so that she could summon up the fullest pleasure that
can be gained from the bath in the wet and the light at the same time.
How lovely is the life of this flower under such conditions? 1), If she has raised her
day over the open flower (sometimes up to several inches in height), she closes it at
night, when she has no more to look for in the light, she leans down and, as it is right,
what I read goes Put it back under the water with it, and emerge again from the damp
bed in the morning. The lotus flower should do the same, or even go so low at night,
that it can not be reached with the immersed arm in the water; In the morning it rises
again, and as the sun rises, it rises higher with the stem out of the water. We no longer
believe in water mermaids sleeping in the bottom of the water and rising in the
morning to bask in the light; but poetry itself has recognized that such a life wants its
charms; nature knew that, and made poetry a reality. To be sure, not all flowers are
rising and tilting in alternation, although many others do; but does everyone have to
do it? Are they not already satisfied in the flower and bud, in the enjoyment of dew,
air and sun, each in their own special way?
1) Linné (Disquis de Sexu Plantar, 1760) says the following about it:
N. alba qnotidie mane ex aqua tollitur, floremque dilatat, adeo ut meridiano
tempore tres omnino pollices pedunculo aquam superemineat. Sub vesperam
penitus clausa et contecta demergitur. Horam enim quartam post meridiem
contrahit florem, agitque sub aqua omnem noctem, quod nescio an cuiquam per
to mille annos notatum sit, id est inde a Theophrasti aevo, qui hoc obseryavit in
 Nymphaea Loto .... Scripsit autem Theophrastus, hist. Plant , IV. 10., de Loto
ea, quae sequentur: "In Euphrates caput floresque mergi referunt, atque
descendere usque in medias noctes: tantumque abire in old, ut ne demissa
quidem manu capere sit: diluculo your redire, et ademem magis Oriente jam
extra undas emergere, floremque patefacere: quo patefacto amplius insurgere,
ut plan ab aqua absit old - Idem prorsus mos est noatrae Nymphaeae albae.
(Decand. Phys. II. 86.)

So I thought further, that nature had probably only built the mountain plant
differently and put it somewhere else, so as to preserve the freshness and purity of the
mountain air and whatever else the mountain may have otherwise than the pond, a
creature quite pure. to fully enjoy. It is, I said to myself, that the water-lily really is so
very peculiar only for the water, the mountain plant for the mountain; or did we want
to reverse it, could not we too, and say that the water was all for the water-lily, the
mountain for the mountain-plant? It is true, in butterflies, in fish, one already has
beings who enjoy life in air and water; you can ask, why others? But how differently
built, furnished! Several butterflies fly on the same mountain, already swim several
fish in the same water! Does one make the others superfluous? Each one gains
different sensations and impulses from the same element, according to his particular
arrangement and behavior. Now the aquatic plant behaves quite differently than all
other fish against the water, the mountain plant quite differently than all butterflies
against air and light; so there will be other kinds of sensations and impulses for
them! The fact that the plant has a butterfly and that the butterfly has a plant opposite
both makes them different in nature, and makes various sensations possible for
them; For if the butterfly drinks flowers of nectar, he can not bear the same sensation
as they do. Or you will want to say, the sensation of the plant becomes superfluous
and improbable because the butterfly already has sensation with it? It would be as
good as asserting that in the intercourse of the lover and the lover one's sensation
makes one of the others superfluous and unlikely, since we see that with the same
proportion of living interchangeability, every side bears the same living sensation , If
the latter contrast is narrower than that of the butterfly and the flower, this can have
nothing else to do with it than to induce for it another contrast of sensation. that in the
intercourse of the lover and the lover, the sensation of one makes the other
superfluous and unlikely, since we see that with the same proportion of living
interchangeability, every side bears an equally living sensation. If the latter contrast is
narrower than that of the butterfly and the flower, this can have nothing else to do
with it than to induce for it another contrast of sensation. that in the intercourse of the
lover and the lover, the sensation of one makes the other superfluous and unlikely,
since we see that with the same proportion of living interchangeability, every side
bears an equally living sensation. If the latter contrast is narrower than that of the
butterfly and the flower, this can have nothing else to do with it than to induce for it
another contrast of sensation.
 It is the greatest art of nature to make it possible for everyone to draw something
different from the same Borne by changing the potion with the cup. Each being
represents, as it were, a differently shaped sieve, which accordingly filters out other
sensations from nature; and what is left is for countless others. However, let the
animal kingdom have taken everything from nature for what it is susceptible to, then
an equally great half remains for the vegetable kingdom.
It does not seem to me difficult to guess at the point of view of the supplement that
holds sway.
Man, the animal runs here, there, dissipates itself between all sorts of pleasures,
experiences, touches everything, which is far apart. That has its advantages. But if we
look only at the human element itself, we also recognize the one-sidedness of these
advantages. In addition to hiking and traveling, home settling has its advantages,
which must not be lost; There are many quiet and constant spheres of activity that
also want to be lived through and felt through; but the advantages which depend on it
can not be attained at the same time with those advantages, and whoever wishes to
settle on one, can not at the same time do so on the other. That's why one is traveling,
and the other sticks to the flounder. As in the human kingdom, so in the realm of
nature. The people and animals are the travelers, the plants the individuals of the
world attached to the soil; those destined to gain possession of and to strive for the
distant relations of nature; this, feeling and striving to exhaust the circle of certain
relations in a given circle; but then they can not go through it, because every walk
leads beyond the fixed point of view, but only grows through. Let go of this second
side of life, and you have left out half of what is needed, so that everything in nature
is needed. because every run leads beyond the fixed point of view, but only grows
through. Let go of this second side of life, and you have left out half of what is
needed, so that everything in nature is needed. because every run leads beyond the
fixed point of view, but only grows through. Let go of this second side of life, and
you have left out half of what is needed, so that everything in nature is needed.
Let's see how nature does not let a lump of feces get lost; There are three beasts
bickering about it, using every trash and waste of rubbish, in short, seeking to exploit
it to the utmost; - Should not we also trust her that she will have to stand up to the
current conditions of use, because the standing usage with the running together will
give you all the use? An animal sticks its nose only once, where a plant always stands
firmly, runs superficially over the earth, in which the plant is deeply ingrained, breaks
down here and there once in the direction of individual radii into the circle, the one
Fills the plant completely and steadily; but in the same proportion less it will be able
to exhaust the circle of these relations with its sensation,
The other day I saw my wife lifting a plant out of the flowerpot with the bale of the
earth, and admired how the plant had so thoroughly rooted the earth's bale, trying to
savor every little piece of earth; and as under the earth, it was above the earth. At first
the plant had broken up into twigs, and then it had filled the interstices with twigs and
leaves, so that not a little air could pass through; and at the tips of the branches she
also held out the blue flowers to the light. So I praise it, nature, if only the plant really
benefits; but what a vain effort and idle dandy, when the flowers and the trees grow
like dumb flourishes. It would be pretty work for nothing; and that in so many woods
and fields over and over again and again.
Now it is only the right meaning for us that the plants crowd so closely in space,
while the animals only move back and forth between them. After all, space would not
be exploited if the standing spheres of action and sensibility wanted to leave empty
spaces between them; instead they even interlock with each other in
juxtaposition; but it would be just as little used, if the movable wanted to waste itself
the place for movement; even half of the animals eat the other, just to clean up again
and again; and this clearing is itself related to instinct and sensation. In this way
nature develops and uses, as much as possible, all her wealth, her fullness.
How scanty, after the plants have disappeared from the realm of souls, how
scarcely would the sensation be scattered in nature, as in isolated cases they roam
through the woods only as deer, as beetles fly around the flowers; and should we
really trust nature to be such a desert, the one through which God's living breath
blows? How different, if the plants have and feel soul; no longer like blind eyes, deaf
ears in nature, in her who sees herself and feels herself so many times, as souls are in
her, who feel her; how different for God Himself, who certainly hears the sensations
of all His creatures in an interplay and harmony, when the instruments are no longer
in wide intervals of each other? Where does this happen at a concert of poor
people? Now you want to find it with the rich God like that? Is not it more beautiful,
greater and more glorious, to think that the living trees of the forest itself shine like
torches of the soul against the sky, than that they only give light to our furnace in
death? And that is why they should first grow so prominently in height? The sun
itself can not make the world bright, without souls who feel its glow. How dreadful it
would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also shed souls of the trees. But if it is
capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living fire before God, which helps him to
illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really burned, it only escapes, as it were, in
an externally visible flame, which so long inwardly glowed for God and for
himself. greater and more glorious, to think that the living trees of the forest itself
shine like torches of the soul against the sky, than that they only give light to our
furnace in death? And that is why they should first grow so prominently in
height? The sun itself can not make the world bright, without souls who feel its
glow. How dreadful it would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also shed souls
of the trees. But if it is capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living fire before
God, which helps him to illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really burned, it
only escapes, as it were, in an externally visible flame, which so long inwardly
glowed for God and for himself. greater and more glorious, to think that the living
trees of the forest itself shine like torches of the soul against the sky, than that they
only give light to our furnace in death? And that is why they should first grow so
prominently in height? The sun itself can not make the world bright, without souls
who feel its glow. How dreadful it would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also
shed souls of the trees. But if it is capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living
fire before God, which helps him to illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really
burned, it only escapes, as it were, in an externally visible flame, which so long
inwardly glowed for God and for himself. than that they only shed light on our stove
in death? And that is why they should first grow so prominently in height? The sun
itself can not make the world bright, without souls who feel its glow. How dreadful it
would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also shed souls of the trees. But if it is
capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living fire before God, which helps him to
illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really burned, it only escapes, as it were, in
an externally visible flame, which so long inwardly glowed for God and for
himself. than that they only shed light on our stove in death? And that is why they
should first grow so prominently in height? The sun itself can not make the world
bright, without souls who feel its glow. How dreadful it would be in the sunlit forest,
if the sun can not also shed souls of the trees. But if it is capable of doing so, then a
forest is like a living fire before God, which helps him to illuminate his nature. And
once the tree is really burned, it only escapes, as it were, in an externally visible
flame, which so long inwardly glowed for God and for himself. How dreadful it
would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also shed souls of the trees. But if it is
capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living fire before God, which helps him to
illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really burned, it only escapes, as it were, in
an externally visible flame, which so long inwardly glowed for God and for
himself. How dreadful it would be in the sunlit forest, if the sun can not also shed
souls of the trees. But if it is capable of doing so, then a forest is like a living fire
before God, which helps him to illuminate his nature. And once the tree is really
burned, it only escapes, as it were, in an externally visible flame, which so long
inwardly glowed for God and for himself.
Of course we can only think this way; We do not immediately see anything of those
soul flames of nature; but since we can think it, why did not we want it? No one
forces us to open our outer eye to outer lights, to warm ourselves by outer
flames. Why are we doing it? Because we like it so much better than sitting in the
dark and cold. Well, in a dark and cold nature we also sit, if we do not want to open
the inner eye of the spirit before the inner flames of nature. Does someone like it
better not to do it, who can defend it? And yet, how much is what should stop us!
Let's take a close look at the whole life cycle of the plant: how the juices swell in it
so vigorously; how it urges them to drive eyes and branches and to restlessly shape
themselves; as she strives with the crown into heaven and with the root into the
depths, self-possessed, without anyone dragging her there or forcing her way
there; how she greets spring with young leaves, autumn with ripe fruits; sleeps a long
winter, and then begins to create something fresh; in drying leaves hangs and in
freshness it raises; refreshed at the rope; creeping around as a creeper looking for the
support; - how the flower rests quietly hidden in the bud and then comes a day when
it opens to the light; as she begins to emit fragrances and into alternate traffic with
butterflies, Bees and beetles occur; how the sex becomes active in her; she opens
herself in the morning; closing in the evening or before the rain; to the light; - and it
dawns on me that it should be difficult for us to think in vain, desolate, empty for the
sensation of this swelling and swelling circle of life so rich in inner and outer change.
 Of course, it is not a sign of the sensation of a man, a cat, a sparrow, a fish, a frog, a
worm, what we see here; they are signs of the sensation of a fir, a willow, a lily, a
carnation, a moss. But the psychic life of the plants should not repeat that of the
animals, but complement them. And is not there enough analogy in those signs of
life, even with our own, to regard the plants as our soulmates? If only we were not so
overly proud of our legs that we ran over them and trampled on them, as if it were
enough to have legs to give priority to a soul as well. Yes, the plants could run and
scream like us, nobody would talk to them soul; all those varied and tender and silent
signs of soul, that they give do not weigh us as much as those gross ones we miss of
them; and yet the plants are probably just dumb for us because we are deaf to
them. But let us say for ourselves of a plant that is in the drought, it looks sad, it
thirsts, languishes. But should we feel more of the mourning, the languor, the
languishing of that plant than she herself, whom we may perhaps look on happily
while she hangs the leaves and is about to pass away? It seems to be closer to her
after all signs than to us. And why do we never say of an artificial flower as well, that
it laughs at us like a living one, no matter how living it is? Why not because we
suspect only in this, not in that one really laughing soul? Christ scolded the
Jews, which required signs and wonders to believe; Are we not worse than the Jews,
who really see the signs and wonders of a living soul, yet do not want to believe in
them? What else do we want to see to believe?
Let's take a closer look at all moments of that cycle of life, where the flower bud is
just opening.
How was everything in the life of the plant before that moment urged on, and what
does it seem, except for a mighty, sudden, glorious surprise of the same, when,
breaking through what she first strove for in the dark, without quite knowing
Whatever it may be, in the open chalice as a gift from above, in full cast, a model of
what will be received in the future for our work for the higher from the higher, if the
soul will also break our body. Or let's compare it now only with earthly events! Does
the flower behave differently against the light than what appears in the human body
like a colorful flower, when the eye opens itself for the first time against the
light? Will she fold her locked, Leaves packed together differently in the bud than the
butterfly its first closed, packed in the doll wings? If one thinks that nature has given
us real sensation in the breaking-open eye and in the outbreaking butterfly, and in the
flower that breaks out and out, only external signs of sensation are given to us; Are
we the first to put sensation into it? As if nature were not more powerful and richer
and more profoundly poised than we, we could give her something she did not
already carry much more heartily, not all of our poetry itself would be a faint
reflection of her feeling, of course our own, but not alone received. Surely she has at
least, yes, certainly more, as much feeling as we may think in the blossoming
flower; everyone,
However, I do not think that it was only in the heyday that the sensation of the
plant awoke, which some of those who thought they were quite generous with it,
admitted to it. And, moreover, it was a rather dark thing, the little bit of sensation that
came to life, probably darker than our darkest dreams. But the strength and clarity, set
aside for now, why should not I believe that when the plant is in bloom, it also feels it
before flowering, if I do not doubt that the butterfly that feels as a butterfly already
does feels like a caterpillar? The plant before flowering is, so to speak, in similar
proportions to its future flowering state. It awakens only with the flower new senses
and life instincts in it, which overgrow all previous,
In order to make a small digression, flowers and insects, especially butterflies, are
at all odd enough parallel and reciprocal additions, except that the flower still retains
its former stage of life by exceeding it, while the butterfly retains its former stage of
life completely stripped off, or more correctly, with itself and within itself. The plant
soul builds its body as a staircase, the summit of which is the flower, which remain
below; the butterfly apparently flies above its former level, but at the very end carries
it into the air with it, making it a higher one, and therefore it disappears as a deeper
one. The caterpillar lives on the herb that is her image, the butterfly on the blossom
that is his image. So close both, Butterfly and plant, only together from their circle of
life. A reminder of the hereafter may tie in again. The caterpillar finds that which it
has employed in the lower state, elevated to a higher degree in a higher realm of
light; Thus man may one day find again the circle of life in which he lived here,
elevated to a higher state; but as the butterfly may then roam over a thousand other
flowers, it may one day be with us. The plant may hate it when the caterpillar gnaws
at its leaves. She certainly thinks: the evil caterpillar! But when the butterfly comes to
bloom, it may do it as sweetly as it does it. But if the plant had not previously
nourished the caterpillar with pain, the butterfly might someday not bring it
pleasure. So we can think that that, What we sacrifice in the present life with pain to
others, once in the future life in love of angels is brought back. But if we thought that
the flowers in the garden no longer felt like paper flowers, then of course there would
be nothing in these and other beautiful pictures; these pictures would be even paper
flowers.
How much in nature would like to remain unaffected, if not the seedling would be
the cup to draw it, we, who do not drink even from these goblets, certainly can hardly
suspect; but many things are also open enough for us to overlook from our point of
view. Let's take a few points closer from her sketchy circle of life.
What animal makes something of a dewdrop something; it shakes him off and hides
from the rain. Also we scold, we must wade in the rope, plant umbrellas to protect us
from the rain; the plants, on the other hand, are planted like umbrellas to catch
him; every leaf spreads out, makes itself hollow; only the flower, more destined for a
life in the light, is inclined to close against the rain, to reopen afterwards the more
beautiful; the whole plant gives the signs of refreshment after dew and rain. But we
do not care about all that. What we call the refreshment of plants is merely a
beautifying expression for the swelling of a spongy cellular tissue; Rain and dew just
be there to wet nasty.
Of course, the farmer is happy about the rain, because otherwise he comes for his
harvest, and we because the rain quenches the dust and gives nature a fresh look; but
that is only indirect pleasure; Do not spare us the question of beings who are also
looking forward to dew and rain. But now both fit together nicely. The farmer is
happy because the rain promotes the prosperity of his crops and thus becomes a
distant means of his pleasure; well, the crops will be pleased with their own
prosperity. We are glad when the dust is washed away by paths and fields; it is again
a distant means of promoting our desire; What grows on these paths and on these
fields will immediately be glad that the dust is being washed away by himself.
Nothing hinders one's thinking when, once in the morning, there is no need for
nerves to feel that when the dew drops on the plant in the morning, it feels like a ray
of cooling, and when the sun rises, it sees the sun's image in it like a beam feel the
heat, and then feel it gradually licking away the dew. A cute game of sensation that
just can not happen on an animal fur; That is why this fur shakes off the
dewdrop. that is why the plant makes her hands hollow against it. The splendor and
magnificence which the meadow in blossom externally has for us, is, I think, merely
an outward reflection of the soul-joy which it has internally. It's so much nicer to
think that's the way it is, but now I do not find the slightest obstacle to thinking it's so
true.
As with dew and rain, it may be with the wind. There would be a lot more of it in
vain if the plants no longer hear of his contractions as we do. Therefore, they protect
themselves by no houses, no coats, no haunts against it, but stand free outside, bend
and bend, sway and tremble in the wind. The fact that they have grown into the earth
gives them a very different attack on them than on us; the vibration reaches down to
the roots and every leaf trembles and rustles. I think that the plant may well feel
stronger than when the wind blows through our hair. Our hair is dead parts of
ourselves; the leaves of the plants but living; our soft, articulated parts are not so
suitable to absorb the shock and propagate through it, like her stiff trunk or stalk. We
have only a small eardrum in our body, which is firmly stretched and trembles from
the air waves. The plant is through and through such an eardrum, on which the wind
drums; and if we hear the sounds externally in the swoosh of the wind through the
leaves of the trees, how different the plant may feel inwardly. Remember that no one
else hears us chewing a hard crust of bread, while inwardly we hear it very
strongly. Even in seemingly calm air, when it's snowing, we see the snowflakes
pacing up and down, flying back and forth. What do we feel about this air
movement? We have no organs. The plant is probably quite organ; the slightest
movement of the air produces a slight vibration and bending in it, which works
through the whole; because not only the vibration, also the bending does it. If a leaf is
bent here, then at the same time a path is constricted, and the juices must go
differently through the whole plant, however little. If the wind rushes through the
forest more intensively, it even involuntarily seizes on us the feeling that the spirit of
nature is rushing through. And in truth, the trees and flowers have now become the
strings of a great soul harp played by the wind. Each string sounds different because
each is built differently, and God will hear the general play in it. At the same time, a
path is constricted, and the juices must go through the whole plant, however little,
differently. If the wind rushes through the forest more intensively, it even
involuntarily seizes on us the feeling that the spirit of nature is rushing through. And
in truth, the trees and flowers have now become the strings of a great soul harp
played by the wind. Each string sounds different because each is built differently, and
God will hear the general play in it. At the same time, a path is constricted, and the
juices must go through the whole plant, however little, differently. If the wind rushes
through the forest more intensively, it even involuntarily seizes on us the feeling that
the spirit of nature is rushing through. And in truth, the trees and flowers have now
become the strings of a great soul harp played by the wind. Each string sounds
different because each is built differently, and God will hear the general play in it.
Let's think about the fragrance. How sweet does he seem to us; but should all
fragrance be lost that does not come accidentally into one of our noses; this little part
of us, while the flower is all incense? Everyone feels good, it is something
indescribable Lovely, lovely in the flower scent; but it remains an indescribable
secondary matter for everyone; we are tasting more of its loveliness than we know
how to enjoy it, and not for a minute may we hold our nose over a flower, so we are
sick and go on; but the flower still smells, as if it has a steady business to fulfill. Is it
a smoke sacrifice, brought to God? But what can God serve a sacrifice that is not
brought to him by a soul? Inexplicable, more than half in vain, when the fragrance of
flowers is merely around others, not also for their sake, not much more for their
sake; when that which we, who are so outwardly facing the flower-life, enjoy of its
sweetness, is more than a distant echo of what is enjoyed in the flower-life
itself. Who ever heard singing a sweet song of which the one who sang it felt no more
than the one who heard it, especially if it is not a kindred soul? So will we not think
that the flower perceives with inner intimacy and effusion the sweet smell of its
interior with greater intimacy than our external influx? Moreover, a chalice pours this
fragrance into a thousand other chalices, and a chalice receives it again from a
thousand other chalices. As an invisible mist the scent moves from flower to
flower, and the wind blows him far beyond hedges and field marks. Is this too
futile? Does not this explain why the flowers are still smelling, while nobody is
walking in the garden? They themselves go with each other, while they seem to stand
firm. Every flower-soul, by what stirs from the other flowers at its window, may
receive a sensation of what is going on in every other flower-soul; how the words we
hear produce corresponding sensations in us, as are those with which they utter
others. Even words are only sensual messengers from within, why should perfumes
be less? Words for us, fragrances for the plants; those who are admittedly not so
knowledgeable will know how to transfer words like words; but is there but one
thought with and in other souls, not a feeling? Although there are also odorless
flowers, but not even dumb animals? Of course we do not see a special nose on the
flower for smelling; but as it is quite built as a cup to emit fragrance, it also appears
quite built to receive it again, so free and wide and open and simply it spreads to it. If
we only remember that we do not know in the least what enables our own inner nasal
surface to smell, why should not the inner flower surface be so well suited to it?
The odor organ is hidden in us and the animals; for it we have special devices in the
spiraling nasal conchae to enlarge the odor-receiving surface; In the plants such
artistry was not needed, just because the whole flower is open for the absorption of
the odors. What more independently fulfills a primary purpose, can always do it in a
simpler, clearer form than what must subordinate itself as a secondary part to others.
The smell leads us further to the taste, and why should we not trust this to the
plants in their own way, because so much would be tasteless in nature, if it did not
just taste the plants? Man, the animal itself only enjoys plants and other animals; the
plant enjoys everything that humans and animals do not like; yes, most of all what
they disdain the most. So here again we have something complementary, when,
besides the animal, the plant is still able to taste, and only half, if it is unable to do
so. Now we see, moreover, that every plant, depending on its nature, makes a choice
among the nutrients. From the same soil different plants pick up different things; the
doctrine of the change of crops proves it in the great; Experiments of the naturalists
have proved it on a small scale. Not every plant tastes the same, as not every animal
tastes the same. Of course the plant has its teeth again, no tongue; but is not every
root fiber, every leaf, with which it costs food and leaks, a tongue? For one knows
that it feeds as well through the leaves as it does through the roots. And why chew the
food when it knows how to handle those without teeth?
If one says, for example, that the plant nourishes itself on dead inorganic matter,
does it not speak so well that it can carry off a living sensation, like the animal that
already enjoys organic matter? The plants merely prepare the dead for the transition
into life; but this process itself is still at the intermediate stage between life and
death. On the other hand, I ask: does not it reveal any more vitality, that it makes the
dead alive, that it transforms the living? The plant makes beautiful shapes and colors
from raw earth, water, air and foul matter; the animal has only a little less to do to
transform the already fallen matter into life. Everywhere we see that the stranger
something comes to the organism, the more life-effort is needed to cope, the more
inclined it is to To raise sensation. So, I think, looking at the laws of our own
organism, we have no less, but rather more sensation in the plants to look for in the
relation of nutrients than in us.
Let's finally capture what the plant may be the highest, the light, again in the
eye. Our eyes too are receptive to the light; this does not remain inappropriate,
although the plant does not enjoy it. But how different is it to be enjoyed by the plant,
whose whole life culminates in the light-life? Who of us likes to look straight into the
sun? Not the sun, only what she looks at, we dare to look. Yes, if she shines on her
head, we put on hat or cap. It is similar to the animals on the whole. Even the eagle,
flying towards the sun, pulls its nosed skin over the eye. But the flower is wholly
against the light, yes, it is opened by the light; the more the light shines on her, the
more she opens, while we close our eyes against it all the more; and she grows
splendidly and joyfully in it, when only afterwards will she become again the
refreshment of rain and thaw. But we do not let it all again for enjoyed. It is merely to
give beings who are allowed to look away from the sun, to sunbathe in the waste of
the sunshine. On the contrary, those who only look away from the sun prove that their
splendor is more a minor matter than the one who wants to see right into it.
 It is true that the plant does not have an eye again, built like ours; not devices, that
a picture of the objects arise in and on her as in our eye. But why does she need
it? She just does not have to run after the objects, not too long like us. To do this we
must, of course, be guided by a picture of the objects. Everything comes to her on her
own, what she needs. But instead of the objects that the sun shines on, it rejoices in
the shining sun itself, and at the same time as the sunlit object. Instead of having a
colorful picture of the objects painted on itself, as happens on our retina, she paints
herself in the sun's rays in a colorful manner, as it were, in herself. Light becomes a
plant; she forces color from him; it cooks in her nectar and scent; it is
fermenting everything swells in her; in it it incites to an increased feeling of its own
illuminated existence, and at the same time it holds in itself the effect of a supreme
over itself. She looks, looking into the sun, so to speak, her face to face God in full
glory, and the sun is really a shining eye of God, in which she looks and with which
he looks at her again.
Schelling already said: If the plant had the consciousness that it would worship
light as its god. Well, it has no equally developed consciousness, as ours is, even
though in the ray of the sun it may gain a feeling which raises it just as well over its
formerly familiar sphere as does the absorption of the divine into the mind. I read the
following remark in Hegel's Naturphilosophie (p. 425):
"In the evening, when you step from the morning side into a flower-rich meadow,
you see few, perhaps no flowers, because all are turned towards the sun, and from the
evening side everything is full of blossoms, even in the morning in the meadow,
when it is early, If you see from the morning on, you see no flowers, and only when
the sun throws do they turn back towards tomorrow. " - Is not that quite as if the
flowers of the meadow shared communal evening service and then, with their faces
turned to God, fell asleep? But God does not want to let her sleep on; they keep
falling in search of his and in going with him find their joy. That's why he secretly
walks behind her at night and wakes her up in the morning with a general note and
asks: where am I? And everyone turns their heads until they find him,
It is true, not all plants with the flowers look directly into the sun; how many are
who incline; yes there are some that open in the evening and close in the morning or
before the morning. Think of the Queen of the Night. 2) But neither is it said that
every individual and every species in the flower-kingdom brings it to the highest peak
of the light-life; the highest in their kind reach even few people. How few are who
turn their souls to God, how few will deserve to see him one day. It is enough that in
the flower kingdom the opportunity is offered to reach the greatest and highest full
enjoyment of the light, but nowhere else. Some flowers may be too sensitive to light,
like some nocturnal animals; but the fact that every flower behaves differently and
peculiarly, just as every human being and every animal behaves peculiarly towards its
sensory stimuli, indicates that light is really such a stimulus to plants.
2)The Queen of the Night, Cereus grandiflorus, opens at 7 pm and closes at
about midnight; it is done away with this unique bloom. In contrast, the flower
of the Mesembryanthemum noctiflorum opens at 7 o'clock in the evening for
 several days in a row and closes at 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning. There are
other similar flowers. (Decand Physiol of Plants II, p.

How much more importance light has for plants than it is for us, apart from the
direction they take against it, is that it intervenes so much more powerfully in their
whole life-process than ours. We do not grow differently, we do not breathe
differently in the light than out of the light. The sunbeam glides over our skin without
a trace and without effect; only the eye is susceptible to fine stimulus. But the plant
feels the charm of light over its entire surface, like the lack of that stimulus. It is he
who green her, it is she who makes her blossom; because without light all the herbs
are pale, no flower wants to develop. Without light their fumes cease, the herb stops
to give life air, the sprouts become narrow and long and pale, instead of strong bitter
and bitter substances produce only bland and sweetish. Every other ray of color has a
different influence on the life process of plants. In the process, the flower leads a very
different life in the light than the green herb; she breathes differently in it3) , is
different in it, unfolds differently in it. Now we find in ourselves that the more
important and necessary a stimulus for the preservation and flourishing of life is, the
more depends on its mediocrity, lack, or abundance the normal feeling of life, or the
emergence of special feelings of need, which with want or abundance the life-
stimulus are related; the more definite is any change in the stimulus felt at all. Thus,
we can also assume that light will have the most important importance for the
sensation of the plants, a different one for flowering than the leaves.
3) The flower consumes oxygen in the light, while the herb develops such.

One might think that the fact that the flower presents itself so openly and safely to
the rays of the sun speaks most against a considerable sensitivity of the latter to
light; For the fact that we have to blindfold our eyelids blinded to sunlight is just the
clearest sign of a great sensitivity to it. But if we take a closer look, instead of a
greater insensitivity, it is only a greater protection of the sensitivity that we have to
recognize in plants. In fact, the lightening of the sunlight from the side of the plant
depends only on the fact that, in view of its widespread irritability to light, it is not
added to such a light-concentrating apparatus for a single spot as it is in the lens
apparatus of the eye. By concentrating the image of the sun with power on our retina,
the only place irritable to light, we feel a tremendous glare; The plant presents itself
to the light everywhere irritable without such a burning glass, but is therefore not so
easily subject to the over-excitement of a single place. In a sense, we are at a
disadvantage against them. For we have the faculty of feeling light, for the greater
part of us lost, only to a bit of an eye; The piece now had to come artificially to help,
so we received the lenses of our eyes; This help will over again easily too much, and
on the other hand it needed again artificial remedies. For the open, simple, free
movement of the plant with the light, on the other hand, there was no need for
artificial collection, still anxious protection and corrective measures. To be sure, that
feat of the eye is to gather us from values other than mere light, and to arrange it in
the picture; but only for us it is of this value that would be none for the plants.
After all, it will be said: but how, the highest thing to claim, would be only the
plant, which in any case will stand deeper than we, to settle an appeal of our
sensation; now she should feel so much stronger and richer than humans and
animals! So she would rather be taller than we; rather, we should be the ones who
only feel these and those echoes of what they feel fully, on all sides.
And indeed I believe that the plant stands higher than we do, only in a lower
kingdom. Precisely because she lacks a higher psychic life, the lower, the sensory
life, may have prospered to a degree of development which we lack. With us the
sensory life has to serve the higher life only, with the plant it drives independently its
business. It is mistaken to think that nature as such sets a creature in every respect
lower than another. If she does it all in all, it's only to raise the lower level to a
summit. Thus the turtle flies over the eagle in some respects; she smells the water
without seeing it; and the woodworm knows and feels much better than man; he is
just there, that the wood is tasted, whereas the tongue of man is dull. I mean, the plant
lives so steadily and incompletely with earth, water, air, and light, that it may well be
quite open to the sensation of all changes therein; Everyone is really involved in their
life process. But just as she does not reach far through space with all her actions, so
too with her feelings she does not grasp the passage of time, not thinking ahead, not
thinking about herself, not thinking at all, but living there in the present , receiving
and opposing sensual. Also, images in certain pictures may go away. I only indicate
this position of plants here; later (XIV) there will be more to say about it. Certainly, if
we just want to save a few traces of sensation for the plants, of the strongest and most
beautiful reasons left for her soul only traces; yes it would not be worth the effort to
talk about it. For we can well see that these strongest and most beautiful reasons lie in
the beauty and binding power of a coherent, rich, living view of nature, which arises
when we have a developed soul-life after all relationships, where human and animal
life is a gap To let empty and unfinished know to add to it supplementary. And how
big would this gap be if it did not fill the plant kingdom? Only then does nature
become a full flower; but we want to wrest from her the whole abundance of leaves
and leave only a few stamens. And even if we were looking for something too much
in the plants,

V. Character of plants.
Every plant appears to us to each other in the light of an individual, living variety
of character, which of course draws itself better in the immediate impression than in
words. Consider Auricle and Primrose; they are of one sex, and each one looks very
different. Ivy and wine seem related, and yet what different character! Far away: a
rose, a lily, a tulip, a violet; - an oak, a willow, a birch, a fir; - how does it all so
determined. And yet each one is so completely in the character with itself, so
completely from a cast. Everything delicate and fine in a plant; in another all lavishly
full; in one all strict and stiff; in another everything soft and flexible; the one splitting
and splitting again and always splitting and splitting again; the other is grad 'and
simply stretching; In some, although opposites exist, but these are well bound to a
general impression. But all words do not last at last; and how many plants there are,
for the character of which no word seems to suit us rightly, yet he expresses himself
in the intuition of our feeling.
There is something very similar in this to the expression of the character of
different people, so that the inclination for mutual comparison arises quite
naturally. So the rose is compared with the blooming girl, and the blooming girl with
the rose; The lily stands like a white angel among the flowers, and we like to compare
the pure angel-like girl again with the lily; so the vain lady and the tulip, a modest
child and a violet, a strong man and an oak, easily and happily cling together. (One
would think of Freiligrath's poem: The Revenge of Flowers.) It would be in vain, of
course, to find all plant-characters in human characters or vice versa; Flowers, trees
are not human; only here and there does we have a pre-eminent relation, which does
not fully express or cover the peculiar in the other; but that does not matter, but that
character-drawings of plants and men are to be compared in equal measure on the
whole and with such lively points of reference.
Now the expression of character in man is nothing else than the outward expression
of his inner soul-being. The unity and individual peculiarity of the human soul is
summarized in this expression, comes to the surface, is reflected in another soul. How
do we come to assume in the plants an analogous expression without something
analogous to what is expressed; to find the unity and individual peculiarity of
Nothing expressed here; a mirror image, where nothing behind it to see here?
It is said that it is the expression, the reflection of a divine idea, what appears
here. Well, but just a divine idea, where nothing is behind it. It is precisely the fact
that it is not just something that arises in the general sense, that there is a self, that
must be expressed through the self-vividly unfolding, creative, representational
character of the plant.
In fact, it is quite different in this respect to plants than to our artworks and
implements. Even in these, if they themselves should represent nothing but lifeless,
one can of course find something individually characteristic and what makes them
appear from a cast; something fine, delicate, heavy, bold, noble, vulgar, reminiscent
of a spiritual or mental of the same character. But we know it has transplanted from
the hands of man; it bears the character of man because it is based on his
character. But the plant has made itself or been made by God, as man; So her
expression of character can not refer to a foreign, but only to one's own soul, because
God is the creator of one's own souls.
This is related to the fact that the interest we take in the flowers in life and in poetry
is much more livelier, more comfortable than what we take in a statue, a painting,
which, after all, may claim a higher spiritual interest. With what care and love many
girls draw their flower in the potty by the window, and water it, and wash away the
dust, and turn it to the light, and ask the gardener how to handle it; An auriculidae or
pelargonium gives some a similar joy as another pigeon breeding. Statues, paintings
can decorate our room well, form our mind; but do not live that way with us. It is said
that the resemblance to what is actually living seduces us; Plants grow and
thrive; that looks like life; Pictures and statues do not do it. And indeed that explains,
but at the same time makes the difference; do not seduce us, but lead us. Precisely
because the plant grows and drifts out alive, the painting, not the statue, which grows
only by a foreign hand, one can presuppose it also in regard to the soul; the soul that
lies in the statue is merely a foreign one; which lies in the flower, its own. Nature has
the advantage over man that his works of art, animals, plants, are self-living. is just a
stranger; which lies in the flower, its own. Nature has the advantage over man that his
works of art, animals, plants, are self-living. is just a stranger; which lies in the
flower, its own. Nature has the advantage over man that his works of art, animals,
plants, are self-living.
Everyone readily admits that if the child were not as living and emotional as the
mother, the mother could not have a living love and joy in it. And so it seems to me
to be in the same connection that we could not be as interested in flowers as we are, if
they did not have so much soul themselves; but undoubtedly they have far more than
our interest in them reveals; for the flowers are only too distant to us to understand
the expression of their soul as easily as the mother does that of the child. But there is
still so much of it to be able to tie in the conclusion for the Several.
Does not the mind want to go into all that? Well, that's how we prove to him that he
involuntarily does it. Even philosophers, without giving in to the idea of a true soul of
plants, have explained, in their own way, the self-indulgent activities of the human
mind through the analogy of plants, and have thus found the expression of one in the
other. "Like the plant," says Lotze in his treatise on the conditions of artistic beauty
(p. 55.), "develops out of its germ all parts of its shape with its own inherent driving
force, and clouds and winds never make it anything else than their destiny was, so
also every single mind rests completely upon itself, a whole that has been cast out of
the whole, which, although it can tear external influences into its vortex,
And it is said (p. 38): "With the same inclination of its creative instinct, from which
the simple forms of the leaves sprang, only on a higher ground of its action, does the
plant unfold the more spiritual forms of the flower, and even the merged contours of
the flower Fruit, and every development must in general be regarded as a gradual
enrichment and deepening of an original thought in itself. "
It would be easy to find in other philosophical writings parallel passages to the
preceding ones, which only offered themselves to me, unsought, with present
reading. The fact that they originate from a writer who is accustomed to combine
intelligent and sensible contemplation with sharp results may, incidentally, be used to
suggest that here, too, reason and meaning meet each other more than accidentally.
In the case of man and beast, the characteristic physiognomy which belongs to
them also depends on a characteristically different internal structure, a characteristic
order and mode of life processes. A different theory of the soul generally requires
expression of a different body economy, or carrier, and the general trait of the figure
only externally indicates to the eye the peculiarly coherent and conclusive unity of
this internal economy. And just as with humans and animals it's the same with the
plant. A human draftsman, indeed, executes all his figures, as characteristically
different, with hatching in the same manner; every different plant-form, however, like
every animal-form, is internally hatched differently with cells, fibers, and
tubes; otherwise the juices run; the forces work differently. And not only between
different species, such as oak, willow, tulip, carnation, do such differences take place,
but even between different individuals of the same species; less distinctly than
between species, as negroes of Negroes, Mouse Mouse, differs less distinctly than
Negroes from white, Mouse from rats or lions.
Does the vegetable body have everything that the soul needs to represent itself
uniformly and at different times at the same time? why should the soul itself be
missing?
With regard to the difference in character of plant individuals of the same species,
the following remarks are of interest to me, inter alia, the following remarks by
Decandolle (Physiol II, p.
"Irrespective of the causes of changing the flowering time due to the nature of
species, there are others which appear to depend on the individuals themselves, much
in the same way as the animal kingdom perceives significant differences between the
individuals of the same species, which apparently in the table Adansons 1) we see that
certain lilac shrubs (Syr. vulg.) bloomed when the sum of the heat degrees was 620,
and that others needed 830 degrees; that, in addition, certain sainte-sarcophagus trees
(Hedys. onob. L.) flowered after 1100 degrees of warmth, and others only after 1400.
These differences are often disputed by differences in the location of the plants; such
as B. from a protected from north winds or even favorable location, by a flowing past
the roots waterway, etc .; in some cases, however, these explanations seem quite
inadmissible. So it is z. For instance, it is rare to find in a chestnut-groveed walkway,
where all the trees seem to be in the same position, not to notice certain individuals,
which each year sooner or later than the others, and sooner or later bloom. In my day
two chestnut trees stood close to each other in the botanical garden of Montpellier,
and therefore in as equal proportions as possible, yet one of these trees flourished
before all the others of the passage and the other last. I know a horse-chestnut tree
near Geneva (near Plainpalais), which leaves its leaves every month a month earlier
and flowers just as much earlier than all the others, without any peculiarity of its
location being able to explain this earlier development. I find a similar observation
laid down in a book which is not usually cited among the scientific works. A witty
stranger says in his souvenirs (printed to the Mémoires de Constant, Volume VI, p.
222): "I would blame myself all my life, if I did not take this opportunity to share an
observation which I repeat annually when I am in Paris at the beginning of
spring. Among the chestnut trees of the Tuileries, which are dome-shaped above the
statues of the Hippomenes and the Atalanta, is one whose foliage develops before that
of all the other trees in Paris. I've been paying attention to this tree for at least 25
years, and I never catch it on a carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I
spoke of this tree to a few persons, one of them showed me the same observation in
the manuscripts of her grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same
tree that I had observed. " to report an observation which I repeat annually when I am
in Paris at the beginning of spring. Among the chestnut trees of the Tuileries, which
are dome-shaped above the statues of the Hippomenes and the Atalanta, is one whose
foliage develops before that of all the other trees in Paris. I've been paying attention
to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it on a carelessness. Yes, what is
more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few persons, one of them showed me
the same observation in the manuscripts of her grandfather; The name of the site
showed that it was the same tree that I had observed. " to report an observation which
I repeat annually when I am in Paris at the beginning of spring. Among the chestnut
trees of the Tuileries, which are dome-shaped above the statues of the Hippomenes
and the Atalanta, is one whose foliage develops before that of all the other trees in
Paris. I've been paying attention to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it
on a carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few
persons, one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " when I am in Paris at the beginning of spring. Among the chestnut trees
of the Tuileries, which are dome-shaped above the statues of the Hippomenes and the
Atalanta, is one whose foliage develops before that of all the other trees in Paris. I've
been paying attention to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it on a
carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few
persons, one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " when I am in Paris at the beginning of spring. Among the chestnut trees
of the Tuileries, which are dome-shaped above the statues of the Hippomenes and the
Atalanta, is one whose foliage develops before that of all the other trees in Paris. I've
been paying attention to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it on a
carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few
persons, one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " is one whose foliage develops before that of all the remaining trees in
Paris. I've been paying attention to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it
on a carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few
persons, one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " is one whose foliage develops before that of all the remaining trees in
Paris. I've been paying attention to this tree for at least 25 years, and I never catch it
on a carelessness. Yes, what is more to say, as one day I spoke of this tree to a few
persons, one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " so one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. " so one of them showed me the same observation in the manuscripts of her
grandfather; The name of the site showed that it was the same tree that I had
observed. "
1) The calculation of the heat degrees is done in a peculiar manner (Decand., II.
16), which it is not necessary to discuss here, where it is merely a comparison
in general. to do.

Also here is the following remark by Fritsch in his essay on the periodic
phenomena in the vegetable kingdom, p. 62: "Not infrequently two germs of the same
plant species, which appear to resemble the external appearance, develop two
organisms, one of which weak and lapsing, faintly fading away after a short while,
while the other strongly and vigorously evolves and resists external influences,
notwithstanding that both germs developed under the same local and climatic
conditions and shared a similar care by the hand of nature or of men Deeply hidden
are the causes of these phenomena, and their exploration is so intimately connected
with the question of what life in plants is,that for a long time their influence on the
development of plants should go undetected. "
What I have said so far was only a fleeting glimpse of my soul as I stood looking
down at the water, giving the first reason for all these considerations. And it seemed
to me as if I saw the soul of the flower rise out of the flower in a quiet mist, and the
mist gradually became clearer, as the contemplation of certain things did, and finally
the fine form of the soul stood clear, indeed transfigured the flower. She wanted to
get on the roof of her blooming house to enjoy the sun better than in the house; Then
the unbelieving believer was surprised by a human child.
In truth, however, everything that I set forth here seemed to me; so much
institution, so much demand, and finally so much sign and symbol of soul and
sensation for the plant, that I seriously began to wonder where the reasons were,
according to which they could be denied her; and I was astonished to find her so
weak on the whole. It was true that one objection after another appeared; the familiar
idea always wanted to come to the right; everything so different in the flower as in
human and animal! It was as if evil beetles crowded around the flower and made an
attack on the alien figure who threatened to forfeit their usual place, and she
sometimes hesitated. Well of course, soul, inside is actually your place! Let
everything outside your house swirl around, ignorant of the resident; nobody can
harm you inside. But as long as I stand here, I want to keep you from the enemies.

VI. Plant death and offense.

At first the idea of how all the grasses and flowers of the meadow, of all the ears of
the field, of all the trees in the forest hardly died of a natural death, how everything
that falls under the sickle, the scythe, the species, was hard to me. and I wondered:
should nature have gifted so many creatures with sensation only to let all die a cruel
death? Are they not merely for ornament and use for other things than to decorate
themselves and grow for their own purposes? The same objection came to me first
when I spoke to a friend of my belief in the vegetable soul. No, he said, that would be
too bad, if the plants as soulful beings had to put up with everything, and could not
even try to run away!
In the meantime, however, I looked at how, in the same countries where no grass
and tree dies more of a natural death, no hare, no deer, no sheep, no bovine, no horse,
almost no human dies of natural causes. For who will call it one when man is cruelly
tormented to death by disease? One may try to cope with this circumstance, which
arises with the preponderance of human culture, as one wishes, but one can not draw
an objection to the sentiment of the creatures which are subject to this fate. Nature
has created innumerable creatures with the power of unspeakably manifold pleasure,
but every ability to live with pleasure is accompanied by the danger of dying with
displeasure.
That the plant can not even make an attempt to avoid imminent mischief seems to
us terrible, but only from our point of view. If the soldier, spellbound in rank and file,
is drawing ever closer to the cannonballs and sees himself falling man after man as he
progresses, then that must seem bad to him. He feels the ball more, maybe even more,
than when it really hits him. But when the reaper goes through the field, the ear
knows nothing of its nearness and feels the cut only when he really hits it; not unlike
man, who is suddenly struck by so many fates imposed upon him by a higher being,
without his joy of life having been diminished even for a moment by his
foresight. This unconcernedness of the plant may even appear to itself as a beautiful
side of her life, given purely to the present, as a substitute for the fact that she must,
of course, forgo higher pleasures, which are of greater foresight and vision. Does one
believe then, that it is better for the mouse, when the cat kills her playfully, so that
she feels death a hundred times before she suffers him, as if she is killed by a blow of
her paw? And what is our ever running away from the dangers of death much
different than the repeatedly wegschuschen under the clutches of a big black cat, of
which we know that we will finally fall to her. Does one believe then, that it is better
for the mouse, when the cat kills her playfully, so that she feels death a hundred times
before she suffers him, as if she is killed by a blow of her paw? And what is our ever
running away from the dangers of death much different than the repeatedly
wegschuschen under the clutches of a big black cat, of which we know that we will
finally fall to her. Does one believe then, that it is better for the mouse, when the cat
kills her playfully, so that she feels death a hundred times before she suffers him, as if
she is killed by a blow of her paw? And what is our ever running away from the
dangers of death much different than the repeatedly wegschuschen under the clutches
of a big black cat, of which we know that we will finally fall to her.
Even otherwise one imagines the situation for the plants slightly too bad. How
countless trees and herbs still die the natural death in wilderness; how carefully fruit
trees and flowers are cared for by ourselves in the garden. And when all the trees of
our forests are finally crushed, it is after a much longer life than on average man
has. All the fields are finally mowed, but what else has the straw that has become
straw to lose? It has won from us before fertilization and good care. The grasses of
the meadow are cut in the mowing rather like the sheep, than slaughtered, because the
stick of the grasses does not come in, is irritated only to new stronger shoots. In fact,
when we tear off parts of the plant, it does not have the same meaning as if we were
tearing parts away from us, because unlike us, the plants are set up to push others
harder when cutting or tearing off individual pieces. If one takes some flowers of a
plant, the others, as well as the resulting fruits, are only the more fully
developed. How useful pruning can be for the portability of fruits is known. So you
will not have to take the picking of a flower or breaking a branch so much to heart. If
the plant at first suffers a part from it, it will be as with the suffering of man, which
serves to drive him to greater activity in a salutary manner, which often piously pays
him more through the consequences than the suffering directly harms. - For this one
must still consider it very questionable whether the plant, if she also feels The cutting
and the breaking off feel as painful as the animal, since quite different conditions of
the organization prevail here. The conditions of sensitivity to pain are not yet cleared
up. Even the animal does not feel the cut in some parts, which are just the main
carriers of his soul activities. One can cut away large pieces of the brain without
causing pain, while the sensory and other soul activities suffer. And even these do not
suffer, if one does not cut away too much, in that the remaining parts then represent
the function of those taken away. Thus one can destroy one eye, and man still
admirably sees with the other. And so you will be able to tear off a single flower from
a plant, without it probably feeling the plant very significantly neither directly from
pain nor other suffering, if only other equally beautiful flowers remain; the drive into
these will only increase all the more. Of course, if one wanted to take all the flowers
for her, it would be sad. But man often feels sad, and one will not demand that the
plant is better off than man.
The concern that we can no longer take a walk through the green, no longer look at
the mowing of a meadow, or pluck a flower without being disturbed by the thought
that a suffering will be done to sentient creatures, will be greatly diminished , But we
are not so sentimental in such a relationship as we would sometimes imagine; and if it
were only to spare ourselves uncomfortable feelings that we did not want to attribute
feelings to the plant - basically the whole meaning of the objection - we would have
expected something that was not really there.
Let us remember, as it does not bother us at all, that on every walk we baptize little
beasts on every walk; how we eat our roast without the slightest hint of painful
feelings; cook big pots of crayfish; Hunting deer, rabbits, deer; Shoot birds or lock in
the farmer; Insects spit for the sake of the collection; Frogs to experiment; blow in the
air with the stick for mosquitoes; Pour ants with boiling water; Cockchafer shake and
crush; Fly on sticks with fly glue to fidget to death. At the most, everyone is only
talking about what he himself is not used to doing in this respect. After this we shall
now be able to expect that the thought of the pain we wish to inflict on our plants in
the pursuit of our purposes, will not make a lot of discomfort. Man knows how to set
himself up in the same way. He spares his pity on animals in cases where he has no
use for killing or plaguing them, or for the benefit of others other than
himself. Sometimes compassion can become alive enough. And just as it would be
with the plants. Whether this is a laudable side of man does not need to be
investigated here; Enough, it is so, and after all so necessary to lie in the natural chain
of things. But should man really learn to treat plants more gently, where there is no
purpose to hurt them, would it be a disadvantage? I mean, rather the opposite! He
spares his pity on animals in cases where he has no use for killing or plaguing them,
or for the benefit of others other than himself. Sometimes compassion can become
alive enough. And just as it would be with the plants. Whether this is a laudable side
of man does not need to be investigated here; Enough, it is so, and after all so
necessary to lie in the natural chain of things. But should man really learn to treat
plants more gently, where there is no purpose to hurt them, would it be a
disadvantage? I mean, rather the opposite! He spares his pity on animals in cases
where he has no use for killing or plaguing them, or for the benefit of others other
than himself. Sometimes compassion can become alive enough. And just as it would
be with the plants. Whether this is a laudable side of man does not need to be
investigated here; Enough, it is so, and after all so necessary to lie in the natural chain
of things. But should man really learn to treat plants more gently, where there is no
purpose to hurt them, would it be a disadvantage? I mean, rather the opposite! And
just as it would be with the plants. Whether this is a laudable side of man does not
need to be investigated here; Enough, it is so, and after all so necessary to lie in the
natural chain of things. But should man really learn to treat plants more gently, where
there is no purpose to hurt them, would it be a disadvantage? I mean, rather the
opposite! And just as it would be with the plants. Whether this is a laudable side of
man does not need to be investigated here; Enough, it is so, and after all so necessary
to lie in the natural chain of things. But should man really learn to treat plants more
gently, where there is no purpose to hurt them, would it be a disadvantage? I mean,
rather the opposite!

VII. The question of freedom.

The plant has no arbitrary freedom of movement, it seems many already proof
enough that it has no soul and therefore sensation 1) . For, one says, both, sensation,
concerning one soul, and voluntary movement, starting from that, are essentially
related, where one is not, the other can not be. The plant, in all that happens to it,
follows pure laws of natural necessity. It may be more complicated than in the
inorganic sphere; but so necessary does the plant grow in the direction determined by
earth, water, air, light, and internal arrangements of the seed, as the planets go their
way. But a soul wants freedom, self-determination.
1) Thus Autenrieth says in his views on natural and psychic life, p.332: "There
lives a great organic kingdom, that of plants, without any trace of freedom or
choice in the utterances of its life, that is, without signs of the existence of a
 soul"; and p. 223: "Let us look at the plants, to which one can ascribe no
soulfulness in their complete lack of any trace of free-will."

Maybe not everyone makes this objection so sharp. The necessity with which the
plant grows, and with which the planetary system moves, will not seem to be of equal
value to many, without it, therefore, that keeps the plant sufficiently free for it to be
animated. But the more the objection to sharpness loses, it also loses its weight. What
does one last ask for a strange kind of freedom in order to find a soul? No matter how
one grasps the objection, we try to suffice in the following each way of the same.
In the process, we will have to guard ourselves above all from not letting our whole
object go astray, the confusion, the strife, in which the entire doctrine of freedom, the
notion of freedom at the top, is still preoccupied. The poor, simple, simple-minded
plant-soul wants to be badly offended, and probably will be lost herself, when so
many learned philosophers suddenly come upon her and, each in his own way, began
to examine whether and what she knows about freedom and possess, which he
himself just declared to be the sole soul-making. What should she answer? She does
not understand any questions. But I take her and carry her out of the learned circle,
out among the animals of the forest and field, with whom she gets on better, and ask
her a few simple questions.
In fact, it should be possible to keep everything clear and simple, and to spoil it
neither with determinists nor indeterminists, if we only remain sharp at the point at
which it may arrive after the whole arrangement of our reflections alone, to show that
the plant is less inferior to the animals with regard to any of the actual circumstances
which may be decisive in judging freedom, even if it is presented in a different
form. Who then declares the animals free will also have to declare the plants
free; Whoever does not declare them free, and how many are then, who may grant
true freedom to the animals, will of course not be able to attribute these to the plants,
but they will not be able to demand them from the soul, since he does not ask them
about the animals. Thus the plants are in every case as good a soul as animals; One
may define, deny, or concede freedom in its peculiar philosophical interest, as and as
far as one wishes; only enough that the signs usually associated with the words
freedom, arbitrariness in the animals, find themselves in the plants, if not in the same,
but in equivalent ones. But let us be careful not to take the experience as
interpreted; Rather, it is only a matter of drawing inspiration from
experience. Arbitrariness in the animals with respect to set signs can be found in the
plants, if not in them, but in equivalent ones. But let us be careful not to take the
experience as interpreted; Rather, it is only a matter of drawing inspiration from
experience. Arbitrariness in the animals with respect to set signs can be found in the
plants, if not in them, but in equivalent ones. But let us be careful not to take the
experience as interpreted; Rather, it is only a matter of drawing inspiration from
experience.
 From what do we conclude that freedom in the animals, which we tend to demand
again as essential to their animosity? From the fact that we see the animal running
back and forth, flying, screaming, looking for food, without sufficient external
motives; it works a bit from the inside, which we can not calculate. But now we see a
plant soon taking its buds, branches, and blossoms there, following this or that
direction, without our being able to find sufficient external causes or calculating any
internal ones. Who wants to prove to a plant why it drives leaves and branches in
such a different way? Freedom, of course, expresses itself here in a completely
different sphere of activity than in animals, but within the animal kingdom, there is
considerable room for maneuver here. It will not be possible to assert that there is
more to coercion in the plants than by animals, because we see different plants
behaving as well as different animals under the same external circumstances. Never
has a plant, in the same way, driven its branches, leaves and flowers as the other, even
though it was quite similar. Of course, each of them remains within certain general,
more or less definite rules connected with their nature; but also every animal; it can
only run, as his legs, only eat, how his beak has grown. Of course, in the movements
of growing, bending, folding of its parts, which it makes, the plant is determined by
external stimuli, light, air, moisture, earth; but also every animal. How much are his
movements determined by the seductive and repulsive nature of external stimuli; just
not alone, as well as not with the plant. Of course, one might think of the plant as
possible, that the action of the external stimuli, together with the conditions which lie
inwardly in the structure, of the establishment of the plant, determines its behavior
under all circumstances; but again just as with the animal. Does it have any less
complicated inner conditions than the plant, whose access to the outer world may
possibly explain all that, which can not be made dependent on the outer alone? On
the contrary, it has even more; which indisputably explains the possibility of even
more varied and complicated activities with him. If, therefore, one wishes to deny
freedom of the plant in this way, one certainly can do so, and I myself fully agree that
there is no obstacle to doing it; but it is quite the same way that leads to denying it to
the animal; and since the animal nevertheless feels sensation and instinct, the same
thing can be granted to the plant as well.
Nobody in the highest, in the moral sense, will undoubtedly want to enclose neither
the animals nor the plants; But whether everything else in the world is necessarily
conditioned, apart from this freedom, can all the more be asked for, since some know
moral freedom itself as an inner necessity. Certainly, at any rate, freedom,
arbitrariness in the ordinary lower sense, is not such an anxious thing that one could
think of its appearance without the danger of conflicting with higher interests, of
overpowering oneself in a past necessity. We also attach it to a madman who runs fast
in blind impulses, provided he is not bound, but nevertheless admit that basically
something that is necessary from within is what drives him, and does not deny him
feeling, sensation.
I think that what one must essentially demand in the matter of freedom for a
creature, in order to be able to give it soul, is only that it feels the impulse to certain
activities as his own. This is enough. It is still possible to examine whether this
feeling of impulse has arisen with necessity or not, but, as the answer turns out, there
is no proof against the existence of the soul. Only a double view of the nature of the
free-thinking soul can emerge from it. The hungry fox grabs the hen; that he does it is
perhaps due entirely to his institution and the existence of the hen; maybe
not; because I decide nothing here; although I am of the first opinion, but it does not
matter here. That he had the urge to grab the hen, as his feels, in a sense similar to
that of a man who is subject to a sensual desire, feels this desire as his own, always
makes his actions arbitrary, free in the lower, common sense, as it will be for a living
being to demand, but also sufficient. Even if the plant necessarily pushes its leaves
and twigs, without any higher freedom, wherever it drives them; so far as she feels
the impulse as well as her own, and feels the needy in him, as the animal, when it
stretches its claws when it is caught, sets its feet in running, it also releases its leaves
and twigs in the same sense, arbitrarily; and where would be a sign that this was less
the case with the plant; rather, the form of activity is accounted for, everything
analogous to that of animals. Yes, does not even the communality of the term drive
for us, the animals and the plants point to something like this? In the urge something
wants out of us; or do we ourselves want to go beyond our present state; The soul has
the feeling of this; but if the instinct carries away a being which has not grown to
reach the end, as we do, or, as in the case of the plant, which can not be completely
cultivated, drives it to extend beyond itself to all Pages where there is something for
them do not change the nature of the instinct, and the sense of them can be equally
strong and alive in both cases. One has the opposite of it, if one thinks that the plant,
instead of by a play of its own powers, extends itself to it, where a stimulus drives
them or the inner life force urges them, would be dragged or bent there by an external
force. Then, undoubtedly, there would be no feeling of proper drive in her. It is the
same difference whether our arm is stretched by a play of our own powers, or another
stretches it; the former case is connected with feeling of the own drive, the latter
not. Why should it be different with the plant? In addition, both cases may be subject
to the same need; incidentally, only the moment of coercion works from the inside
and otherwise from the outside. whether our arm is stretched by a play of our own
powers, or another stretches it; the former case is connected with feeling of the own
drive, the latter not. Why should it be different with the plant? In addition, both cases
may be subject to the same need; incidentally, only the moment of coercion works
from the inside and otherwise from the outside. whether our arm is stretched by a
play of our own powers, or another stretches it; the former case is connected with
feeling of the own drive, the latter not. Why should it be different with the plant? In
addition, both cases may be subject to the same need; incidentally, only the moment
of coercion works from the inside and otherwise from the outside.
These considerations do not place anything in artificial light, but in truth they only
clearly reveal the factual relationship, which in the ordinary view is clouded by the
compass, that we already regard the plants as soulless to the animals; that is to say,
from the outset they also take their activities from the point of view of a more
soulless necessity than that of the animals. On the other hand, when all preconceived
ideas are accepted, the necessity is not at all proved in plants, as in animals; as
probable as they may be with them, that this probability concerns the animal and the
plant alike; and even as they prove to be that nothing is proved against a soul-drive
by insofar as it does not depend on the categories of necessary or unnecessary
development. Finally, every being believes that it is free to act when it acts according
to its pleasure, because this is connected with the feeling of the drive to a thing. But
that it takes pleasure in this or that depends on its physiological and psychological
organization.
The most direct and decisive character of the act of free impulse or pleasure of the
animal is that it achieves, with an effort of inner strength, the favorable conditions of
life, and tries to flee the unfavorable. When it comes to food, it feels what it is doing
there. Why less believe that the plant, when it grows for food, feels what makes it
grow there? Outwardly attracted to it, it is as little as the animal. The animal drives
hunger, the pleasure of good taste; why should the plant starve less if it lacks food; it
tastes less, whether it finds suitable or not appealing food? In any case, efforts to find
the right food are not less in the plant than in the animal, and very analogous; only
that the animal moves away completely after the food, the plant shifts parts of itself
away from the food; that the plant is guided not by eyes and ears in its search, but by
threads of feeling, which it sends out in all directions.
In fact, how often does the plant stretch its roots; how does she crawl around with it
to find fertile soil? Wherever she finds such things, she opens her flat, as it were, and
the arid places leave her; Often it seems to smell the good soil over great distances,
and to find its way through narrow cracks in walls or rocks, while on the side of the
barren soil the rooting develops little. There are remarkable examples of this. There
are even cases where the whole plant has moved from the place and so to speak has
come on the jumps of the animal. They do not prove more than where they stop; but
they prove it quite clearly.
the original bush died, and the plant moved on to the better soil. On Lake Como, at
the Villa Pliniana, there are also hanging roots, which have crept down the face of the
rock and become tribes. "(Murray in Fror., Emergency, XXXVIII, p.278).
It is undeniable that the plant can scarcely sense the good soil so far from the
distance, as an animal can smell something from a distance, without anything coming
from the distance, be it only for the face or the smell; otherwise the animal will have
to run around groping until it finds what it pleases, then it stays that way. So will it be
with the plant; maybe it's a fashion fume that lures the plant to fertile soil, perhaps,
and more likely, it sends its root fibers so long after old sides until they hit good
ground; then they increase in strength, branch out; the others go in for it, and so it
may look as if the plant has smelled the good soil from afar. The thing is not
completely resolved yet. But whichever way the plant finds its food, so she knows
how to find such; There are also very different ways among the animals.
It may be said, however, that if a plant is seen to send its roots long and thin
through barren soil for nourishment, the physical charm of the barren soil on the
peculiarly counterproductive plant will suffice to account for this success in a purely
physical way; it is not necessary to seek a reason and impulse in the soul. But this is
just another twist of the objection to the lack of freedom, and the same answer
belongs to it. Of course one can say so, only that one can say it again just as well in
humans and animals, if one wants to interpret the phenomena according to it, and can
just as little prove with the plants, if it concerns even proof; in short, the state of
affairs remains the same for both. In my opinion, in a view which otherwise does not
appear so reprehensible, that every spiritual here immediately has its own physical
expression, the possibility of explaining something merely by physical or bodily
mediation must not at all afford the possibility of explanation on spiritual grounds
conflict; The spiritual reason then demands its expression in the physical. Anyone
who now adopts the standpoint of wanting to pursue the expression in the physical
everywhere, as is the standpoint of the naturalist, can then of course; but he must not
deny the soul, which also becomes aware of itself in the bodily expression for
others. Even my will to reach for a piece of bread must be accompanied by a bodily
process in the head, which stimulates the arm to move; we know, it is stimulated in
the act of the will from the brain. Now a physiologist may also wish to deny the
volitional act of the soul, because in his viewpoint he might make the arm movement
dependent on that physical process in which the will expresses itself directly in the
head, and he moves farther backwards from the physical one Appearance of the bread
and the physical state of hunger of the body and the particular state of the brain,
which took place before the will, As a physiologist, he may be quite right to take it
that way; but man has a different side than the physiologist, whom he must probably
leave unseen; why not the plant as well? Of course we can push everything
physiologically onto their inner bodily movements, but it should not, therefore, if
these movements show themselves as purposefully as they do in man. The material
reasons, which we may at least suppose to suppose the physiological connection to
love in such cases, can only then be regarded as expressions or carriers of psychical
reasons for a psychic connection which itself is supported by that physiological
connection. But, of course, a fundamental error of our present view of nature lies in
the fact that we believe that the spiritual can only always step in front of or behind the
physical, but not directly in his shoes; and by always putting one into the context of
the other, we lose the connection which each has both in itself and as one in total with
the other. But I know, that I will not change this here, nor will I improve it. No matter
what one thinks about it, it suffices to state here only the actual and decisive point for
us that all the presupposed possibility of explaining everything purely physiologically
to the plant can prove nothing against the working of a soul in it as the presupposition
of the same possibility exists in animals for quite the same reasons; Conversely, the
validity of this condition in plants is just as hypothetical as in animals. as the
presupposition of the same possibility exists in animals for quite the same
reasons; Conversely, the validity of this condition in plants is just as hypothetical as
in animals. as the presupposition of the same possibility exists in animals for quite
the same reasons; Conversely, the validity of this condition in plants is just as
hypothetical as in animals.
 The communication of some particular examples of how plants seek to put
themselves under the proper conditions of life through a play of inner driving forces
will serve to explain the above even more.
Professor Schwägrichen told me how he once received from Mansfeld the news
that a gigantic new cryptogam with a scaly stalk had been found in the mines there,
which had grown upwards of 30 cubits under the earth, but not at all Daylight can
penetrate. What was it on closer examination? The subterranean stem of a plant a few
inches tall under ordinary circumstances, a Lathraea squamaria, from which, by
chance, by chance, a piece had reached the great depth. Now the stem sought the light
and grew and grew, because he could not obtain it. Is not that how a person whose
whole endeavor is directed to a particular goal, if he can not reach it, progresses
indefinitely, until he finally reaches it, or becomes exhausted? Of course, the plant
will not have clearly projected what it wants; what did she know about the light? But
she will have felt what she does not want, not to stay underground, where she could
not bring leaves or flowers. To come out of this state will have driven her. Why, then,
why grow up? How did she know that that could benefit her from the earth? where
she initially stayed? But how does the caterpillar know that she has to weave herself
in order to get out of her present caterpillar condition, which she no longer
likes? Only we do not know how she knows. But if caterpillars and spiders can feel
the impulse to pull strings out of themselves in order to achieve the purposes set by
nature, how should they notLathraea, if she pulls herself upwards, can be trusted to
feel the same, on a cause which falls from the same point of view.
Mustel placed a jasmine ( Jasminuin azoricum ) in a flowerpot behind a board that
had several holes (each 2 inches square, each 6 inches apart). The stem first grew
through the next hole to the light. Mustel overturned the board and pot so that the
full-grown branch had turned away from the light; the stalk grew through the second
hole to the light again. Mustel repeated the procedure, and so the stem gradually
grew, loops from one side of the board to the other, through all the holes (Mustel,
Trailé de la vég., II. 101).
Trap an animal, a human; and surely he escapes through the first or most
convenient hole you leave open; lock him in again and he escapes again through the
most conveniently located hole; as sure as the plant here does, unless chains bind
it. Does not the plant do it less surely, perhaps even more surely, does that argue
against it, or do it feel as certain as the need of light and air as we do of freedom? If
she stays behind the board, I would much rather believe that she did not care about
the light; but now, because your emotions force you, should it be less feeling?
Glocker saw. like a stachys recta standing close to a forest in the bushes , after
having driven its stem barely a few inches vertically upwards, at one moment
distracted itself at an almost right angle, and turned horizontally to the spot where the
light passes through a small The opening of the bushes was stronger; and in this
horizontal direction she continued to grow until she had reached the border of the
shrubbery, where her outermost part, which now had the full light enjoyment,
resumed the vertical upward direction. (Glocker, author on the effect of light on the
plants, p. 25.)
Warren saw a potato stalk in a basement, which only got some light through a small
hole, dragging 20 feet over the floor to that opening. (Memo of the American
Academy of Arts and Sc. Vol. II. LI)
Tessier's observation, in particular, that the plant pursues the light and not the air in
these experiments, proves that when one places two openings in a cellar, one of
which is open and allows the air, but not the light, the other a glass window
permitting the light, the plants kept in this cellar constantly pull themselves against
the latter opening, not against the former (Lamarck et Decand, Flore Francis TI 198).
We call it instinct, which teaches every animal to set up its movements in such a
way that its right living conditions benefit it, we do not know how to teach. What else
do we have but all external manifestations of an instinct in those aspirations of
plants? Each animal acts differently because of its instincts, because it serves
others; every plant does it too. I bring some more examples.
All the plants that grow in the earth drive their roots straight down; the mistletoe
does not respond to this need. 2)What did she serve? It is rooted on other trees; and
not just on the top, but just as much on the side surfaces or the underside of the
branches; in which case it may even be necessary to drive the root upwards. And so
does she; Whatever the surface of the branch may be, it drives its root
perpendicularly to it. Yes, you hang a mistletoe on a string in a line distance to the
side of a branch; even from a distance, the little root can sense where the branch is,
and it can be directed against it, right or left, depending on the branch. Of course, it
now also grows vertically against a wall of stone or iron, in which it finds no food,
and if you put mistletoe grains over the surface of an iron ball, they all strive with the
rootlets to the center, as if they could find in this direction what serves them. Her
instincts deceive her here. But is it any different than when the hen wants to hatch
eggs of marble, and the quail follows the bird whistle instead of the call of the
female? The instinct is everywhere bound to let itself be guided by physical
influences, and thus to be deceived by circumstances. It is undisputed that the
Mistelwürzelchen knows the branch to find the wall from afar only by the fact that air
and moisture and light and heat now act differently from this side than from the
other; therefore it does not find it too far away. In general, and on average of
circumstances, instinct is properly guided by these influences, because its device is
calculated on them; but, as is the case with generally useful institutions, in some
cases where the normal circumstances occur, an inexpedience can sometimes arise. If
we now find this in the instincts of the animals, we certainly can not do otherwise
with those of the plants.
2) Dutrochet in s. Recherches
The mosses, a very different species of plant than the mistletoe, drive their roots in
any direction, always perpendicular to the surface on which they are rooted, because
they also grow on stems and branches; the other plants, however, are so stubborn in
the direction of their roots downwards, that, by repeatedly inverting the vessel in
which they have been sown, they divert the direction of the root shoots just as
often. Basically, the plants generally behave only against the big globe like the
mistletoe grains in the above-mentioned experiments against the small sphere from
which they are sown; by floating their roots around the earth against their
center. Now one sees that it is equal to nature whether the sphere is big or small, it
does not depend on the size of the sphere,
From the foregoing, one will be able to overlook how irrelevant it is, which
Autenrieth asserts in the following manner against the soul of the plants. (3) "To some
extent," he says, "the plant itself shows visible movements in some of its organs to
external stimulus, but only to those stimuli which have already affected them: it can
not, like the animated animal, also Picking out those that are not yet there for them, a
creeping plant extends their sprouting tendrils against a wet sponge, but only after the
vapors have already affected them, and a thirsty beast seeks out water where there is
none. "
3) Views on Nature and Soul Life, p. 332.

But now the Lathraea also sought out the light before it affected it, and the
mistletoe seeks the surface in which it will root before it reaches it. But that they are
determined by their internal nature and organization, and are determined by external
influences, is only quite analogous to the animals.
Perhaps one makes the remark: Many things are also useful in us, such as
circulation of the blood and movement of the digestive tools, metabolism and
nutrition, without our feeling anything there; Thus, in the case of plants, too, the
drifting of the roots and other things according to purposes without sensation of the
instinct could take place. It was. But the digestive movements, the blood
circulation. etc., if not felt by ourselves, then have only the purpose of making us sent
to other sensations and receiving; Indeed, it could not actually be the purpose of the
same for us if they merely served to preserve us as in general insensitive
institutions. So, even if there were no special sensations of the impulse connected
with the activity of the roots, we would have to assume that that this would then serve
the purpose of preserving otherwise sentient beings in the plants. It is possible that it
really is the case that all the activities of the plants under the earth in a similar way
only, so to speak, provide a soul-dark basis for the bright sensations which are
connected with the activity of the plants above the earth, as we also do to accept such
dark territory in us opposite to a bright region; but we must not deny these bright
sensations ourselves, in order not to accuse nature of having created suitable beings
without purpose for them. which attach themselves to the activity of the plants above
the earth, just as we accept such a dark region in ourselves in a bright area; but we
must not deny these bright sensations ourselves, in order not to accuse nature of
having created suitable beings without purpose for them. which attach themselves to
the activity of the plants above the earth, just as we accept such a dark region in
ourselves in a bright area; but we must not deny these bright sensations ourselves, in
order not to accuse nature of having created suitable beings without purpose for them.
But now it is not even good to say that we have nothing of our circulatory,
digestive movements and the like. feel like; only in distinctly separate sensations do
they usually make themselves unnoticeable; on the other hand, the general normal
feeling of power and life is essentially linked to the normal process of the
same. These events are suddenly allowed to stand still, and it is just as sudden with
all the feeling of life, not only in general, but also of every sensation in particular; for
as the basis of this feeling of life itself must enter into every particular sensation. If,
however, no particular sensations are associated with the ordinary course of these
processes, they occur immediately when something emerges from the familiar
track. We then feel heat, frost, anxiety, fear, Pain, spasm, hunger, thirst (the latter
even in normal recurrence), depending on how it goes in our guts and in the system of
our circulation. So also put, the plant did not feel anything special, if its roots always
find just the food for which the plant is averaged, this would not rule out that, if it
lacks some fulfillment of these conditions, it immediately in need feel.
Finally, the activity of the roots can by no means wholly be combined with the
motions of our digestive tools and blood, insofar as these are internal processes with
regard to substances already absorbed in us, but those activities are carried out by
means of obtaining external conditions of life into the external world. But all such
activities are under the control of certain instincts.
Everything, therefore, seems to me to be the most cautious, if the root-drive of the
plants under ordinary circumstances is more generally or more specifically involved
in the sensation of the plant, and I will not decide for sure; but everything indicates
that he is involved, and certainly the more, the more the plant has to seek its normal
conditions of life; so we see them making special efforts to find these living
conditions.
With regard to the drifting of plants above the earth, the following section will deal
with further discussions which intervene in the previous ones.

VIII. Growth, curling, bending, turning of plants.

The considerations of the previous section led us to relate the growth and activity
of plants in roots, stems, branches, leaves, and so forth, as a means of satisfying their
needs, to an activity of their soul.
Against this there is an objection that seems important.
We ourselves have neither a definite sensation of our growth, nor do we feel a urge
to grow either way, but rather our growth process is quite apart from our
consciousness; How, then, should the same process suddenly gain in consciousness
among the plants?
 I reply: our growth and that of plants are in fact two incomparable things which,
although they have the word, but, as will soon become clearer, all the points in
common, which are decisive for the question of the attachment of phenomena of the
soul have to be. And even with us and the animals, the process of growth can not be
regarded as absolutely uninvolved in the psychic life, since the processes of nutrition
and of the cycle in which it depends are not uninvolved (see the previous
section). Rather, a sudden halt in normal growth would certainly be felt by us in a
changed and probably depressed mood of life. However, what the growth process
contributes to the normal feeling of life does not differ in any special sensation. If
but, As we have seen, the nutritional and circulatory processes, with special
modifications, turn into certain sensations, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, etc., so there is
no reason to keep the growth process connected with it less capable of doing so. It is
only with the animals that he is less prepared for such modifications; but for the
plants all the more; as will soon show. Thus, here something new and strange is not
connected with the growth process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and
peculiar development which he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly
salient and peculiar development of the soul-contribution, which he already
provides. If, however, the nutritional and circulatory processes turn into certain
sensations, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, etc., with special modifications, there is no
reason to keep the growth process connected with it less capable of doing so. It is
only with the animals that he is less prepared for such modifications; but for the
plants all the more; as will soon show. Thus, here something new and strange is not
connected with the growth process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and
peculiar development which he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly
salient and peculiar development of the soul-contribution, which he already
provides. If, however, the nutritional and circulatory processes turn into certain
sensations, hunger, thirst, frost, heat, etc., with special modifications, there is no
reason to keep the growth process connected with it less capable of doing so. It is
only with the animals that he is less prepared for such modifications; but for the
plants all the more; as will soon show. Thus, here something new and strange is not
connected with the growth process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and
peculiar development which he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly
salient and peculiar development of the soul-contribution, which he already
provides. to keep the related growth process less capable of doing so. It is only with
the animals that he is less prepared for such modifications; but for the plants all the
more; as will soon show. Thus, here something new and strange is not connected with
the growth process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and peculiar
development which he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly salient
and peculiar development of the soul-contribution, which he already provides. to
keep the related growth process less capable of doing so. It is only with the animals
that he is less prepared for such modifications; but for the plants all the more; as will
soon show. Thus, here something new and strange is not connected with the growth
process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and peculiar development which
he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly salient and peculiar
development of the soul-contribution, which he already provides. Thus, here
something new and strange is not connected with the growth process of plants; but
only to the particularly salient and peculiar development which he actually gains in
the plants, and also to a particularly salient and peculiar development of the soul-
contribution, which he already provides. Thus, here something new and strange is not
connected with the growth process of plants; but only to the particularly salient and
peculiar development which he actually gains in the plants, and also to a particularly
salient and peculiar development of the soul-contribution, which he already provides.
Let us remember that the plants should not repeat the animals, but supplement
them. Only the general conditions of the psychic life will always be the same for
both, but in particular one need not demand the agreement. Plants want to reach
through the free growth, what animals want to achieve by free movement of the
place, and so, naturally, analogous emotional moods and soul impulses are linked to
growth movements as well as to spatial movements. The end determines the means in
nature, and the different kinds of means have different feelings as to the attainment of
the purpose.
Now let us go through the main differences between the growth of animals and
plants, and we shall find that we are in fact dealing with much more diverse things
than might be believed in using the same name for both; and at the same time find
that the differences really lie in the direction we demand.
l) In the growth of the animals nothing is left free for the main figure. A dog has a
tail, four legs, two eyes, a tongue, all in the same place, in the same number; only
change finer conditions. So if the animal does not feel any urge to grow either way, it
is because it has none. An apple tree, on the other hand, soon bifurcates with two,
now with more main branches, which can start at different angles, at various
heights; every branch again drives, as it were, any branches, twigs, leaves, one way or
another; without number, order, direction to be prescribed by a fixed rule. This has
just been released for a drive that is to be lured in and out of it by external causes and
sensory stimuli; while in the animals instead of the possibility of different location
change is released. Through its growth, the animal fills out, so to speak, only a
prescribed form, which must then serve him for the further shaping of his life; in the
plant the shaping of life itself coincides with that of growth; and that is why it can not
keep itself in such a prescribed form. It still adopts prescriptions of the conditions of
occurrence with respect to which the plant has to behave. And yet not only of
these. For, as we have said earlier, an inwardly governing unity-principle, in spite of
all the freedom of its growth, inalienably acquires, for every plant, an even externally
visible basic character. That is the character of the soul,
2) According to the foregoing, the growth of the beast depends little on the season
and the time of the day, on the weather and on other external conditions; it always
grows in its prescribed manner; but it is different according to year and time of day
and weather and external conditions. The plant grows differently according to year,
time of day, weather and other external circumstances. So the plant behaves growing
like the animal's acting. Winter is her sleep time, she does not grow there at all; it
grows faster during the day than at night; faster with a good change of heat and
moisture than when it is always too hot or too humid. And not only faster or slower,
but also in every other weather; different in every other sunshine, different on every
other location.
Prof. E. Meyer in Königsberg has convinced himself that a rapidly growing stalk
grows almost as fast during the day as during the night. An Amaryllis
Josephinae lengthened its straight leafless flower stem within 12 days by 21 inches
Rheinl. The increase in length was measured exactly at 6 o'clock in the morning, 12
o'clock at noon and 6 o'clock in the evening, and amounted to 6 "9 '" during the 12
mornings, 7 "in the 12 afternoons, 13" 9 "in the daytime, in the 12 nights, however,
only 7 "3 '." "Very similar results were obtained by Dr. Palm on observation of the
hops and the bean (Fror. Not. XLI, p. 218)." See also the experiments of E. Meyer on
barley. and wheat plants in Linnaea IV, p. 98;Cactus grandiflorus in Treviranus'
Physiol. II. 145; of grasses on flower stalks of Littaea geminiflora in Flora, I. 1843. p.
35.
Carlina appears completely acaulis among dry rocks, on meager, sun-kissed
limestone cliffs : she finds herself on a barely loose ground, immediately she rises,
she no longer recognizes herself in the good garden-land, she has gained a tall stalk
and is called Carlina acaulis caulescens. "(Goethe, Metamorphose der Pfl. Ges.
Werke XXXVI, p. 126.) - The Georgine is a plant that is very inconspicuous in its
wild state, in which one hardly wants to recognize the stately ornamental plant of our
gardens. - The influence of garden culture on the growth of the plants is well-known
enough.
Eckermann in s. Conversation. (third volume, p. 101) tells Goethen about attempts
he made to find the most suitable wood for the making of a bow, the following
comments which are also interesting to us. "On this occasion I learned (from a
Wagner) that between ash and ash there is a great difference, and that in all kinds of
wood much depends on the place and on the ground where it has grown." I learned
that the wood of the Ettersberg was Lumber has less value, and that wood from the
neighborhood of Nohra has a special firmness, which is why the Weimar wagoners
have a very special trust in car repairs made in Nohra. that all wood grown on the
winter side of a slope is found firmer and of straighter fiber than that grown on the
summer side. It is also understandable. For a young trunk that grows up on the shady
north side of a slope has only light and sun to look upwards, which is why, inquisitive
to the sun, it continually strives upward and pulls the fiber up in a straight line. In
addition, a shadowy state is favorable for the formation of a finer fiber, which is very
precipitated on trees so free that their southern side was exposed to the sun for life,
while their northern side remained constantly in the shade. If such a trunk lies diced
in front of us, we notice that the point of the nucleus is by no means in the middle,
but considerably towards the one side. And this displacement of the midpoint is due
to the fact that the annual rings of the south side have developed considerably more
strongly by continuous action of the sun and are therefore wider than the annual rings
of the shady north side. Carpenter and Wagner, if they are concerned about a solid
fine wood, therefore prefer to choose the finely developed north side of a tribe, which
they call the winter side, and have a special confidence in it. "- Remember that not
the grown but the growth, while it takes place, is regarded as the life expression of
the plant The tree leaves behind its life path wooded behind it, only the wood, but the
activity, which let the wood take this way, is to be envisaged Tree grew differently, he
will have felt other instinct.
In the same discussions Tl. III. On the other hand, Goethe himself says on p. 146,
"If the oak grows in the thicket of the forest, surrounded by important neighboring
tribes, its tendency will always go up, always to the open air and light These trees
will wither and fall again over the course of the century, but once they have reached
the top of their summit, they will calm down and begin to spread out to the sides and
a crown But she is already beyond her middle age at this stage, her many-year-old
drive upwards has taken her freshest strength, and her desire to prove herself now
even in latitude will no longer have the right result. High, she will stand strong and
slender after perfect growth, but without such a relationship between trunk and
crown, to be indeed beautiful. If the oak grows again in damp, swampy places, and if
the soil is too nutritious, it will, with proper space, soon drift many branches and
twigs on all sides; but the resisting, retarding influences will be absent, the gnarled,
the stubborn, the jagged will not develop, and, seen from a distance, the tree will
acquire a weak, linden-like appearance, and it will not be beautiful, at least not as an
oak. If it finally grows on mountainous slopes, on a poor, stony soil, it will indeed
appear to be jagged and gnarled, but it will lack its free development. she will care
and stunt early in her growth, and she will never be persuaded to say of her that there
is something in her that can astonish us. Sandy or sandy soil mixed with powerful
roots in all directions seems to be the cheapest. And then she wants a stand that
allows her room to absorb all the effects of light and sun and rain and wind from all
sides. Having grown up in comfortable shelter from wind and weather, nothing turns
out to be her; but a hundred-year struggle with the elements makes them strong and
powerful, so that after their growth has grown, their presence inspires us with
astonishment and admiration. " to amaze us. Sandy or sandy soil mixed with
powerful roots in all directions seems to be the cheapest. And then she wants a stand
that allows her room to absorb all the effects of light and sun and rain and wind from
all sides. Having grown up in comfortable shelter from wind and weather, nothing
turns out to be her; but a hundred-year struggle with the elements makes them strong
and powerful, so that after their growth has grown, their presence inspires us with
astonishment and admiration. " to amaze us. Sandy or sandy soil mixed with
powerful roots in all directions seems to be the cheapest. And then she wants a stand
that allows her room to absorb all the effects of light and sun and rain and wind from
all sides. Having grown up in comfortable shelter from wind and weather, nothing
turns out to be her; but a hundred-year struggle with the elements makes them strong
and powerful, so that after their growth has grown, their presence inspires us with
astonishment and admiration. " to absorb all the effects of light and sun and rain and
wind from all sides. Having grown up in comfortable shelter from wind and weather,
nothing turns out to be her; but a hundred-year struggle with the elements makes
them strong and powerful, so that after their growth has grown, their presence
inspires us with astonishment and admiration. " to absorb all the effects of light and
sun and rain and wind from all sides. Having grown up in comfortable shelter from
wind and weather, nothing turns out to be her; but a hundred-year struggle with the
elements makes them strong and powerful, so that after their growth has grown, their
presence inspires us with astonishment and admiration. "
Hartingh says after experiments on the hop plant; "The growth of the solitary stems
of one and the same plant, though exposed to completely the same external
influences, is not alone not the same, but no regular behavior is observed in its daily
extension." At the beginning of growth there is a daily increasing acceleration of the
growth Growth, which is independent of external influences. " (Wiegmann's Arch.
1844. II. P. 41.)
3) An animal soon grows out, stretching its shape more than changing; instead of
always growing, it finally goes on. A plant keeps on growing throughout its life,
ceasing to grow and reshaping to grow, means to stop living; instead of stretching out
hands and feet again and again to create something new or to get something new, for
the same purpose it is constantly extending new branches and leaves; instead of
transforming others, she is constantly transforming herself. Let us consider an ear of
corn, as it grows incessantly upwards in the first spring, and when it diminishes in it,
its grains begin to grow; if nothing wants to grow, it withers; she becomes straw. Let
us consider an arum stick (Calla), as one leaf after the other grows out of the
middle; it is an inexhaustible funnel from which the leaves spring; he continues it to
the last moment, - Let's look at a tree, like every year he puts on a new annual ring,
and out of this new branches, new buds are driven; while the old leaves fall; not
having her, driving her seems to him the purpose of life. - Yes, we consider any plant
that sprouts with spring; it grows through the summer, up, sideways, over the earth,
under the earth; always makes something new. - Yes, we consider any plant that
sprouts with spring; it grows through the summer, up, sideways, over the earth, under
the earth; always makes something new. - Yes, we consider any plant that sprouts
with spring; it grows through the summer, up, sideways, over the earth, under the
earth; always makes something new.
Many plants have a tremendous amount of longevity in them, as many a man can
produce in his long life great and many works. Only the plant itself appears much
more than the work or the connection of the works to which it is designed, as
man; although he, too, at bottom, in all his external activities, changed himself more
or less with him; and also the plant, by shaping itself, even changing many influences
into the outside world, which is charged for their purposes. As everywhere in nature,
there are no absolute differences here.
Who does not know the examples of immense trees that have grown for millennia,
that boast of being of the creation of the world, and have not grown tired of referring
to a year-round ring each year?
"The famous Castagna dei cento cavalli ( Castanea vesca ) on Mount Etna must be
a thousand years old, and the Baobab trees ( Adansonia digitata ) on the green
promontory are estimated by their thickness and the number of annual rings on some
branches to 4,000 years and over. The giant cypher ( Cupressus disticha ) at Santa
Maria del Tule, two hours east of Oaxaca in Mexico, has a circumference of 124 feet,
or 40 feet in diameter, assuming each annual ring to be 2 lines, the tree is nearly 1500
years old; historically safe, it is older than the Spanish conquest of Mexico The age of
the great dragon tree ( Dragaena Draco) of Orotava on Tenerife is even more than
5,000 years determined, and he would then, according to the usual method of
calculating the Jewish myth almost witnessed the creation story. "(Schleiden,
Grundz. II. p. 629.)
Some plants grow slowly, others fast, as there are sluggish and fast among the
animals.
"An alga, the everlasting bladder thread , has been found by sailors 1500 feet long,
and Mr. Fanning, the owner and curator of the botanical garden at Carracas, states
that he did not set up a kind of convolvulus within six months a few years ago less
than 5,000 feet, giving an average of 24 feet per day and night. " (Murray in Fror.
Emergency XXXVIII, p.
One known attempt in that strips of a flowering ear of rye, the dust bag and
presents the upper part of the straw in the water, where in a few minutes emerge other
dust bag and the filaments up to 1 / 2 extend inches.
"According to an approximate calculation, a very fast-growing fungus, the giant
bovist ( Bovista gigantea ), produces 20,000 new cells every minute." (Schleiden, the
plant, p.
4) In men and animals the summit of life falls into the time after the finished
growth or complete development of all organs; in plants the summit of life coincides
with the development of a new organ, the flower itself, and the whole growth
undergoes remarkable changes. What can prove better than that in the plant, unlike in
animals, the activity of growth and the development of the organs are not merely
means of attaining the purpose of life, but are to be means of attaining the end itself?
Some (though not all) plants show a strangely increased growth instinct around the
heyday. The so-called centennial aloe ( Agave americana) z. B. brings about three or
four years in southern Europe, and often 50 or 60 years in the greenhouses of the
temperate regions, before it begins to shoot and flower; but then, in a few months'
time, she suddenly drives a flower stem, which is 15 and 18 feet long. After
flowering, the main plant is left and only saplings remain. Thus, all life force in the
bustle and flowering is exhausted. If one pours the earth, in which the plant roots,
while it drives the stalk, it draws the water so strongly in itself, that one wants to see
it disappear with an audible hiss. However, if the plant does not drive a flower stem,
then the infused water, which is superfluous for moistening the soil in the vessel,
remains on the surface. - One knows, that the plants need more water than usual
during the flowering season; yes many that otherwise need to be kept very dry, like
the cactus, want to be soaked at the flowering time. - TheAgave foetida or Fourcroya
gigantea had been cultivated in the Parisian Garden for almost a century, and had
shown only a slow and moderate development when, in the summer of 1793, which
was quite warm, it suddenly began to skyrocket in 77 days 22 1 / 2 feet, on average
daily for 3 1 / 2 inch; but on some single days almost a foot. (Decand Physiol II, p.
5) In the animal, once fully developed, the organs remain in the liveliest
metabolism, always being composed of new substances, even the bones, while
remaining in the same form. The functions are most effective in the fully developed
organs. In the case of plants, on the other hand, the organs, as they are formed, come
out more from the metabolism and the living activity; the new substances are only
used to form new organs; the old organs remain more like residues of the former life
activity, new ones left to settle for themselves or themselves; or they fall off. Thus, as
it is formed, the wood body of the trees more and more emerges from the living
exchange with the outside world; the tree may even become hollow internally, and
still carry on living on the outside; The leaves show all the signs of life the weaker
the older they are, and finally fall off to make room for new ones. The organs of the
animal are aging and, of course, withering; but only by the whole animal aging,
wilting, wilting forever. Not so with the plant. This difference, as all considered here,
is only relative; for no organ of the living plant certainly falls out of living
activity; but it is characteristic on the whole. Not so with the plant. This difference, as
all considered here, is only relative; for no organ of the living plant certainly falls out
of living activity; but it is characteristic on the whole. Not so with the plant. This
difference, as all considered here, is only relative; for no organ of the living plant
certainly falls out of living activity; but it is characteristic on the whole.
Duhamel said on stems of a seed plant of the Buckeye of 1 1 / 2 In inches height a
certain space by attached fine silver wires into 10 equal parts. In the autumn, all of
them had distanced themselves from each other, and the closer they had been attached
to the upper end. In the second year, when the new shoot had 4 to 5 lines in length, it
was designated in the same way, and the success was the same, while in the shoot of
the first year the signs indicated no further extension. So this part was finished, so to
speak. Similar observations were made by Hales on Weinstocke. Duhamel also dug a
post beside a young tree, with a pointer, the point of which corresponded to a sign
attached to the bark of the tree. The pointer always went exactly to the character to
match, although the tree had grown considerably in height. - Once completely woody
parts stretch at all no longer in thickness or length. The growth always affects the
younger fresh parts. Duhamel drew silver threads through roots which vegetated in
plain water, or designated them from the outside by means of colored varnish, so that
he could easily recognize the features. In general, the result was that all the signs had
kept their distance from the neck of the root, however much they might have
lengthened; a proof that the root grows only at the top; although, as other experiments
have shown, this does not happen only through outer cell attachment at the apex, but
rather elongation occurs within a small distance at the top. Still some interesting
about the growth of different plant parts s. in Treviranus, Phys. 11. 152 ff. An excerpt
from new investigations on different ratios of the growth of Bravais, Hartingh,
Münter, Grisebach and Gräfe can be found in Wiegm. Arch. 1844. II. 38.
 6) If one cuts the tail of a lizard, one leg, it replaces it again; a snail replaces her
head, her feeler horn. Where an animal can not replace something, the figure remains
mutilated. Growth of the animal is only calculated to maintain a prescribed shape
and, if necessary, to supplement it again. But a plant never produces a cut branch, a
leaf cut away in its place. But she is doing something else, and probably different,
elsewhere; their growth does not serve to make certain organs work, but to be
themselves. What has grown is a past; if it is to survive on its own, it must itself
grow.
7) The plant generally shows a tendency to develop and set its parts in a spiral
shape; the spiral, however, is an incomplete form in its nature, while animal design is
based on more self-contained forms. This, too, proves that the growth of the plant in
its plant is less likely to be completed by a definite end result than that of the
animal. The difference, though, is only relative again, for there are also spiral shapes
(in spiral snail shells, horns, etc.) in the animal kingdom, which in the meantime do
not depend on any unlimited growth; and even in plants the spiral tendency does not
penetrate everywhere and through everything; yet it is comparatively rare in the
animal kingdom, but much more abundant in the vegetable kingdom than it would
seem at first sight.
In the winding plants, the whole stem winds spirally around a support, in some
trees the whole trunk spirals in itself (see below); The position of the leaves usually
runs in a spiral around the stem, which has recently led to extensive investigations
(see XV.); the warts of the mammillaria have a spiraling position; some flowers
are spirally wound before blossoming ( aeativatio contorta ); some fruits, such as
sword beans, or parts of fruits, such as the scales of pine cones, show a tendency for
spiral rotation or position; the ferns roll in a double direction, once from a spiral of
the rib, then from the inflected springy lateral direction; the whole existence of the
oscillators is spiral; older thread branches of Lycium Europaeum are prone to spiral
winding; the petioles of the Italian poplar turn, stung by an insect, spiral; On a long
potato all eyes were seen in a spiraling order from the left to the right; some plant
hairs are occupied by warts, which are clearly in spiral lines occupied. - Inside the
plants we have the system of spiral vessels (see p. 35); in the mosses, liverworts,
chares and ferns, the spiraling spermatozoa; in the cells of the chara even the starch
globules take on a spiral position; Also, the fluid flows found in the cells
of Charanumerous spiraling tendencies in plants can be found in Goethe's treatise,
"On the Spiral Tendency of Vegetation" (Ges. Werke, vol. 55, p. About the law
spiraling of some flowers before unfolding ( aestivatio coutorta ), as well as of some
fruits, in particular: Brown in the flora or general. offered. Time. from 1839. p. 311.
8) In its growth process, the plant is able to draw in inorganic substances and to
cope with them, while the animal is able to nourish and grow only from organic
substances; it rebuilds a living figure, which only rebuilds it. It is also shown
otherwise that the assimilation of the substances plays a very different role in the
growth process of the plant than in animals. On the whole, the various plants offer a
fairly similar nourishment, but they are able to produce in them the most diverse
substances, which presupposes all special acts of life activity, which may well be
connected with peculiar determinations of the common feeling. Conversely, while the
various animals enjoy a wide variety of food, but all produce quite the same and, on
the whole without comparison, fewer substances in themselves than the plants. The
substances which contain the same plant, as well as the external phenomena of
growth, are very variable according to season, location, age, and other
circumstances; the best medicinal plant works, at the wrong time, collected from the
wrong point of view, nothing; while the animals do not make much difference. There
are even plants that change their constituents very noticeably during the day during
the day, sour in the morning and bitter in the evening. at the wrong time, collected
from wrong position, nothing; while the animals do not make much difference. There
are even plants that change their constituents very noticeably during the day during
the day, sour in the morning and bitter in the evening. at the wrong time, collected
from wrong position, nothing; while the animals do not make much difference. There
are even plants that change their constituents very noticeably during the day during
the day, sour in the morning and bitter in the evening.
"The leaves of cotyledon calycina Red ( Bryophyllum calycinum Salisb .) In India
are by Hayne morning as acidic as sorrel, tasteless noon, bitter evening. Link to
confirm this situation and noticed the same with Cacalia ficoides L ., Portulacaria
afra Jacq . And Sempervivum arboreum L. " (Gmelins Theoret. Chemistry 1829. B.
II., P.
Cases are known where the simple displacement made an almond tree carry sweet
almonds that previously provided bitter almonds. (Liebig, Chem. Letters, p.
The most similarity to plant growth is likely to be the growth of the fetus in the
womb; if the same as the plant builds its organs itself from the beginning. This
similarity, understood on the surface, has, of course, immediately led to an equally
superficial objection to the sensation of the plants. Fetusleben equal plant life, so
plant life equal to fetus life. The fetus does not feel; So not the plant. So you're done
quickly. As if there were not one aspect of diversity to be considered in every analogy
besides the side of similarity.
The fetus forms under the influence of foreign vitality, draws its substances from
foreign life, grows as a product and part of another body under the most uniform
influences according to a strictly observed plan; the plant grows out of its own power,
prepares itself for its living substance, grows in freedom under the most varied
influences of the outside world, though not without plan, but in the most free
development of the same. Instead of denying the plant, by analogy with its growth,
with that of the fetus, one should rather not accept such an analogy from the outset.
The comparison of plant life in general with the life of the fetus can be all the less
valid, as a special part of plant life claims with far greater rights this comparability; I
mean the life of the seedling in the seed, while it is still carried by the mother
plant. For here the whole plant-plant develops in little leaves, stems, and leaflets,
which is as analogous as possible to the development of the fetus in the egg while it is
still contained in the mother-body. Of course, this seedling in the seed may as well
lack its own sensation as the fetus; but if, after leaving the mother's body and
breaking through the egg, the fetus gains such in free exchange of air and light, why
less seedling under such analogous circumstances?
Perhaps it is not improper to counter the premature conclusion in this field with the
following remark. Suppose the analogy of the life of the adult plant with the life of
the fetus were so radical that something could really be built on it; Would one have a
right to infer from this the absence of independent sensation in the plant? - Not at all
yet; but just as well could one infer from it on the self-sufficient sensation of the
fetus. The presupposition that the fetus has no independent sensation is in itself
nothing but a presupposition, which, however probable it may seem, yet, as yet quite
unproved, can not serve to prove or disprove anything else. It is said that experience
provides us with proof; we no longer remember any sensation from the fetus. But
which person remembers only what he felt during the first weeks after birth? Has he
therefore felt nothing? The less we can expect that man remembers what he felt
before birth; but also the less a proof from the lack of memory of this sensation
against the act of the same. The memory itself only develops at birth; and unless we
give the plant proper remembrance, as discussed later (XIV), it would in fact be on
the same footing with the fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus and the fetus
that of the plant. What did he feel in the first weeks after birth? Has he therefore felt
nothing? The less we can expect that man remembers what he felt before birth; but
also the less a proof from the lack of memory of this sensation against the act of the
same. The memory itself only develops at birth; and unless we give the plant proper
remembrance, as discussed later (XIV), it would in fact be on the same footing with
the fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus and the fetus that of the
plant. What did he feel in the first weeks after birth? Has he therefore felt
nothing? The less we can expect that man remembers what he felt before birth; but
also the less a proof from the lack of memory of this sensation against the act of the
same. The memory itself only develops at birth; and unless we give the plant proper
remembrance, as discussed later (XIV), it would in fact be on the same footing with
the fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus and the fetus that of the plant. what
he felt before birth; but also the less a proof from the lack of memory of this
sensation against the act of the same. The memory itself only develops at birth; and
unless we give the plant proper remembrance, as discussed later (XIV), it would in
fact be on the same footing with the fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus
and the fetus that of the plant. what he felt before birth; but also the less a proof from
the lack of memory of this sensation against the act of the same. The memory itself
only develops at birth; and unless we give the plant proper remembrance, as
discussed later (XIV), it would in fact be on the same footing with the fetus; the plant
led the psychic life of the fetus and the fetus that of the plant. in fact, it would be
quite on the same footing with the fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus and
the fetus that of the plant. in fact, it would be quite on the same footing with the
fetus; the plant led the psychic life of the fetus and the fetus that of the plant.
However, I am far from wanting to build something on the assertion of a true
independent sensation in the fetus; I merely assert that one can not so much build
anything on the contrary assumption, since every assumption must first be justified
by other considerations.
Apart from the growth movements considered so far, there are many other
movements in the folding and unfolding, uplifting, bending, and turning of their
parts, which are not to be confused with growth movements, although, of course, as
everything is related to organic processes related to it. Can we also distinguish a
double in animals, to which the double form of plant movement corresponds, so to
speak. The animal can completely change its location, but also bring individual parts
of its body into different positions, turning, bending, while keeping the whole in
place. The former analogously appears when the plant grows around itself, below
itself, into the room, without, of course, as the animal is able to get rid of the starting
point altogether; last, if it, without extending itself by new approaches, brings the
already won in new situations. All parts of the plant above the earth are capable of
such movements; the whole stem, the whole crown turns on many according to the
light; in others the stem winds around pillars; the leaves are fresh and lower in
fatigue; the petals unfold in the morning and collapse in the evening: the stamens of
some flowers, when the time of fertilization has come, tend towards the pestle; there
are leaves that catch flies by shooting them together. Some such movements take
place only under the influence of special stimuli; others without such, when the
period of development of the plant presses for it; every plant behaves differently in
it; some are so sensitive that they fold the leaves with every touch; here are these,
there those parts more articulate, irritable and mobile. There is an inexhaustible
diversity in all of this. Let us now highlight the more interesting of where the
relationship is closest to instinct and sensation, or the resemblance to animal
movements is greatest, always with caution that we have no boundless similarities to
expect.
The plant is a light-thirsty creature, and so it is not enough for it to direct itself by
growth to the light, of which we have seen examples above; she uses all the means at
her disposal to bring herself into the right position and position. Even the most sober
explorers have found similarity with the instinct of the animals, though in most cases
nothing but similarity.
So says Decandolle in his Pflanzenphysiol. II. 874: "Everyone has perceived that
the branches of the plants grown in hothouses or even in rooms turn to the windows,
that the branches of the forest-trees aspire to the light-places, that the plants growing
on walls make the effort to break away from them to turn away, and that in general,
as a result of a special instinct, the plants seem to seek the light. "
Of the leaves, it is especially the top that seeks the light. If a plant or a branch is
given such an artificial position that the leaves now turn their underside towards the
light, then the petiole, or, failing that, the base of the leaf makes a rotation, whereby
the natural position is established ( Bonnet). This tendency is so powerful that Knight
saw a vine leaf, the underside of which shone the sunlight, and which he had blocked
every way to get into the natural situation, making almost every possible attempt to
turn the light to the right side. Several times after trying to approach it for a few days
in a certain direction and covering it by covering its rags with almost its entire
underside,
Dutrochet tells in s. Rech. P. 131: "I have seen that if one covers the upper surface
of the leaf of a plant standing in the open air with a little board, the leaf seeks to
escape this screen by means which are not always the same, but always of the kind,
The easiest and quickest way to accomplish this was by bowing the petiole laterally,
sometimes by bending the same petiole toward the stalk, and if the plank was too
large for the leaf to get underneath, it bowed the petiole sticks to the ground, so that
the light reaching under the board at the side could hit the leaf. "
The same naturalist covered the end leaflets of a bean leaf (from Phaseolus
vulgaris), which is known to have 3 leaflets, with a small board. Since, on account of
the brevity of his special stalk, this leaflet was unable to escape the covering of the
tablet by bending it, this was done by the flexion of the common petiole. "If one
sees," says Dutrochet, "how much means are employed here for the same purpose,
one is almost tempted to believe that in secret there is a mind which chooses the most
appropriate means of attaining the end. " Incidentally, the fact that it is really an
addiction to light, not an escape of the board, which comes into play in these
experiments, is proved by the fact that when it is repeated in the dark, there is no
desire to avoid covering it with the board.
In young leaves turning is faster than in older ones - even whole tree branches can
be brought out of their position by the tendency of the leaves to turn around. (Dassen)
in Wiegm. Arch. 1838. II. P. 159.)
According to Bonnets and other experiments, if one fixes a leaf so that it can not in
any way turn its upper surface towards the light, but is forced to turn the lower to the
light, the leaf is spoiled; yes, the corruption spreads from there over the branch. So it
is really a life condition that appeals to him, which seeks to gain the leaf by its right
position in the light.
Dassen (Fror N. Not., VI, p. 51) has recently made experiments in which he
believes that he can prove that the movements of the leaves, which were previously
attributed to the influence of light, do not depend on but that the leaves in general
have the tendency to turn one of their surfaces upward, and to strive to occupy this
position again and again, whatever circumstances prevail with regard to light, heat,
moisture. In fact, it appears from his experiments that such a tendency, apart from the
influence of light, takes place; however, the above experiments of Dutrochet and
others are not entirely explainable. For us the discussion about this subject is less
important; since these attempts are only intended to show us
Of the flowers, the sunflower certainly deserves its name, not least because of its
inclination to follow the course of the sun, but by its sun-like appearance. After all,
Athannsius Kircher even suggested setting up a sundial for this purpose.
The device is said to be the following: In the middle of the bottom of a large,
partially filled with water, Zuber attached an iron tip and attached to this a handsome
piece of cork so that it can rest on the water and rotate freely around the top. Attach a
sunflower with the root in a vertical direction to this disc (you can also let the stem go
through the cork). From the stem itself, some woolen ribbons are lowered into the
water to refresh the plant. The flower is then surrounded by a metal ring, on the
inside of which the hourly numbers are correctly recorded according to the pole
height of the place, so that the pointer in the center of the clock can properly indicate
such. Put this device in the open air in the morning, that the north side of it was swept
towards the sun. The flower should turn now after the course of the same and thereby
indicate the hours.
Of course, this is just a gimmick; for the sunlight is not alone, which determines the
position of the sunflower; one also sees sunflowers enough that do not look at the
sun; how an animal is determined in its positions and movements not only by a
stimulus. However, the sunlight remains a major stimulus, which has an influence on
the position of this flower as on many other flowers. (For the remark communicated
by Hegel, p.
Very many herbaceous plants move their trunk and their branches reasonably after
the course of the sun, such. B. Lupinus luteus , Reseda luteola, Sonchus arvensis , etc.
(Van Hall. Elem. Bot. P. 28).
As clearly as the tendency of the parts of plants to the light is in the cases given
above, there are cases in which the light is rather fled, just as in the animal kingdom
some animals and under certain circumstances the same charm that the others are fled
looking under most circumstances.
Thus Mohl (on the construction and the winding of the tendrils, p. 26) writes: "The
tendrils of the vine and, according to Knight (Philos., Transact., 1812, pp. 314) a
special peculiarity are also those of Cissus hederaceaby not turning to the incoming
light like other green parts of plants, but turning away from the side where the light
comes in. This appearance is all the more striking, as the flower clusters of the vine
from which the tendrils emerge do not show this flight from the light. This bending
back in front of the incoming light is shown not only when the vine shoots are in a
room receiving its light only from one side, but also in a very conspicuous degree of
vines, which are grown outdoors, where the tendrils more or less show a direction to
the north, or if they are pulled against walls, are executed against them. , , It is easy to
see that this circumstance makes it easier to include supports, but that this direction is
only the result of the influence of light. It can be seen that the tendrils turn away from
the incident light on the freestanding shoots of vines, that when one places a shoot of
a vine under an open window, the tendrils turn backwards towards the empty space of
the room, not sideways the wall of the window, the only body standing nearby. - This
fleeing from the light only seems to be the tendrils ofCissus and Vitis , at least I
(Mohl) could never notice on the tendrils of Passifloren, of Cobaea , which were
grown in greenhouses into which the light came from only one side, that they either
turned to the light or fled the same. I also noticed the same thing in Passiflora
coerulea , Pisum sativum, Lathyrus odoratus , on pumpkins, which I drew in my
room; although the stems of this plant bent strongly against the light, the tendrils
stood out uniformly on all sides. "
 After Dutrochet meanwhile also flee the stems tips of the hop ( Humulus lupulus )
and the Zaunwinde ( Convolvulus sepium ), likewise the Würzelchen of the
germinating Mistelkorns the light. According to Payer, the same thing is done with
the roots of cabbage and white mustard, as one notices when sowing the seed of this
plant on cotton floating in a glass full of water. As the stalks bend to the light, the
roots turn down the light so that the plant an S represents. The roots of Sedum
telephiumdo not turn away from the common but direct sunlight. On the roots of the
cress, however, neither the diffused nor the direct light, but where the light acts on the
roots, the angle of inclination of the roots is always smaller than that of the
trunks. (Comptes Rendus., 1843. II. 1043.)
Among the most interesting instinct-like manifestations of life of the plants are
those which show the winding plants in the search of their supports, about which
especially Mohl has given good information (in the book on the wind of the tendrils).
A plant, which has been designated by nature to wind itself around a prop, stretches
out of the earth, first a little vertically, but then, as it grows, it bends over the upper
part, so that it is level Direction approaches more, while the lower remains
upright. Now this vertical part begins to turn about its axis, so that the fibers assume a
spiral position. It's like a twine held at the top and turned around with the other
hand; only that in the plant the attachment is rather down through the rooting in the
earth, and the rotation is done by the own vitality of the plant. Of course, the bent
over against the horizon part in circles, and by means of this groping movement the
plant seeks the support. If it has not been possible to find one with a single circle, it
may repeat it several times, while it keeps advancing the organ of touch by
continuing to grow. It could stand in a circle of larger radius a support that was
missing in the smaller circle. But if the plant does not find such a way, it gives up the
attempt; it becomes too difficult for her to keep the long-felt organ above the ground;
she lies down from the ground and crawls on it until she finds a support. Once she
has found one, she immediately realizes it, because now she suddenly ceases to crawl
on, and now runs around the support in the air. Did she not notice, and did not she
like to run up the support,
As you loop around the column, the rotation of the twisting stem around itself
(which lets the fibers describe a spiral line) also stops, as you can see when you draw
ink strokes along the twisting stem; these remain parallel to the axis (Mohl p. 111).
Of course, one can present the success again in this way, and is used to present it in
such a way that the physical attraction of the prop on the plant drives it to run
upwards; Sensation is not behind it. But it's the old story again. Equally right, the
squirrel's upward motion on the calibration stem may be regarded as a more
complicated play of the stimulus of the rays of light falling from the scepter into the
eye of the squirrel, and of the standard itself on the more complicated apparatus and
movements in the squirrel; After all, it seems less understandable how a dry stick can
make the spiraling plant run upwards than the light that comes from a tree, and the
living tree itself can excite the squirrel. And if one can hypothesize success
successively in one case or another, one does not have to regard it as one in the other
case. But I refer here to earlier discussions.
The plant now winds up to the summit. Has she reached the top, what will she
do? The support is over; the need for it renews itself and the plant starts again, as it
was at the beginning, to search for it. It only grows up again a bit, then bends over
and begins again to grope in the circle to find another support.
Some of the writhing plants have the peculiarity of being just to the right, and yet
others, merely to be left in the circle, and then they always wind in such a
direction. Put a stick to the left next to the button of a right-worming plant looking for
its support, and it will not find it, rather it will move away from it. This has been
argued against the existence of an instinct. For, one says, instinct would make the
plant notice the nearby stick; instead, she moves away from it. But the case merely
proves what we already know, that the instinct is bound in its utterances to natural
devices. Of course the button has no eyes, and even the most hungry one does not see
a piece of bread, which one holds behind his back, the blind man does not, if you
hold it in front of him. But if an instinct told him there could be something to eat
around him, he would also touch the ground to find it, and thereby easily miss the
bread as the plant misses its support, provided it is well founded not by movements of
the nose, but the arms, to seek what he needs.
Many plants wind dead, like living pillars; the shallow silk ( Cuscuta ), just
emerging young, distinguishes between the two; she only covers living
things. 1) Why does it have such an instinct as other plants? Their living conditions
are different. The other spiraling plants, when they are upturned, still remain rooted
in the soil and suck food from it, even without the support. But the sheath, after
germinating in the soil, loses itself of it completely, by dying off its roots adhering to
it, and now it is only able to nourish it from the living growth by the roots that it
drives into it; what would you think of a dead stick? The live stem, on the other hand,
is enveloped by her in tight turns, she sucks it, often dies of it. How does the plant
help now? She can not find any more food for the dead. She is now starting to expand
her coils, whether she may be able to capture another crop by doing so.
1) Mohl (On the Construction and the Winding of the Ranken S. 127. 131) says
that the Cuscataabout lifeless bodies, eg. B. dry rods of fir wood, glass rods,
silver tubes, as well as winds as for living (stems, but it concerns this indication
older specimens, which have already rooted on other living plants and then
suckle from this progress food, on the other hand, found Palm, (On the
Winding of Plants, p.48) that the sheath never wraps around dead bodies, it
offered her a lot of dead or inorganic bodies of various kinds as supports, and
she never wanted to be around the same loops, as opposed to living stalks The
apparent contradiction between the two is likely to be resolved by assuming
that Palm experimented with very young plants, for in this connection Mohl's
(though not numerous) experiments are in agreement with those of
Palm.Cascuta Europaea makes an exception (by the wind around all kinds of
both dead and living stems), I do not know for certain; some attempts I made
 with her seem to speak for it; but I did not have the opportunity to hire them in
proper numbers, as all the seeds of Cascuta,which I repeatedly saw, did not go
up, and because the young specimens that I raised out in the open all perished,
except for the one with which I made the experiments. Next to this specimen,
which was still in the seed-coat, and which was about two inches long, I stuck
a brass wire so that it touched the plant; after three days it had not wriggled in
the least, nor did it wrap around a thin stick of fir wood. But as soon as I put
her beside a living nettle, so that she touched her stalk, she wound herself
around it within nine hours. "

The latter remark, which I do not find in Mohl's work, was communicated to me by
Prof. Kunze.
On the right and left winds of the spiraling plants neither sun, nor moon, nor
position to the light express an influence. That one species was turning right, now
left, Mohl had never occurred. As far as his observations are concerned, the species
of a genus, but not always those of a family, wind in the same direction. Most of the
creepers wind on the left.
According to the light, the creepers are generally less sensitive than other plants
(see S, 142). Even at night and when the light is completely excluded, they make
their circular motions, or they wind around their supports (Mohl, p. 122).
The already noticed influence of the youth also asserts itself during the wind of the
plants. The circular motions which the stem of a creeper makes are merely in its
young condition; afterwards it becomes firmer, lignified, and can no longer wrap
itself around supports, even if they are brought into direct contact with it.
The trunk of some trees can wind around themselves even without support in the
straight upgrowth, although these turns are always drawn only long and usually do
not even make a complete orbit. Unless there is anything special to look for here, one
will not see in it either utterances of an instinct as determined as in the efforts of
writhing plants to find a support. But there are also points of interest here, insofar as
they recall the semi-legal, semi-free way in which human and animal develop and
express themselves. The wood, it can be said, does not behave like this wooden, but
rotates and huddles, inward and outward drives, as one may well consider the organic
basis for the development of a soul.
Take a walk around Leipzig through its avenue, which consists chiefly of lime trees
and horse chestnuts, and look attentively at the horse-chestnut trees in it; thus, on
almost all deep rinds of the bark, and raised rind ridges of some length, the signs of
spiraling rotation will be clearly seen. (Of particular note, among others, at several of
the trunks standing between barefoot wickets and theaters, where there are no
significant cracks or bulges, traces of the spiral twist are often still in the direction of
the small cracks inclined against the axis of the trunk.) The spiral twisting increases
everywhere Left to right (for the opposite observer) in the air. The direction of
rotation is so firmly determined in the horse chestnut tree as in the case of a
herbaceous plant winding around a stalk. But the degree of rotation is very different
for the same, though adjacent, trunks. On the linden trees of the same avenue, on the
other hand, nowhere are decided signs of rotation noticed. If you go further into the
Rosental and consider the trunks of hornbeam (Carpinus Betulus), which are
numerous in it, most will not betray a definite sign of rotation; but in some it appears
very clearly, but in such a way that there are also trunks, where the turn is from left to
right, as it rises from right to left. On a long walk I counted twenty stems of the first
against fourteen stems of the second kind. The preponderance of the former against
the latter, however, was due to the fact that in a certain district only tortuous stems
occurred, where the development of this direction was particularly favorable; whereas
otherwise I met tortuous and tortuous on the left and right, and twice had the case of
two oppositely wound trunks standing side by side, apparently grown under similar
conditions. The oaks of the Rosental show nothing of rotation. If one combines these
different cases, one will find in them the following result valid for the development of
animal and human systems. If an investment in a particular direction is very difficult,
there is no longer any power to trade it; but where the arrangement is not decided, it
proposes this or that direction of development, according to the differences in
external circumstances, without these being able to be calculated on the basis of
external circumstances alone. so there is no power to turn them around; but where the
arrangement is not decided, it proposes this or that direction of development,
according to the differences in external circumstances, without these being able to be
calculated on the basis of external circumstances alone. so there is no power to turn
them around; but where the arrangement is not decided, it proposes this or that
direction of development, according to the differences in external circumstances,
without these being able to be calculated on the basis of external circumstances alone.
According to Goethe's statement, the birch invariably spirals from left to right to
the summit; which one does not recognize both by heart and by splitting the
trunk. Free-standing birch trunks show the spiral turn much more conspicuous than
those that stand in the thicket. He mentions that, according to forestry information,
there are also cases under pines, where the trunk assumes a twisted, winding direction
from bottom to top; it was believed that such trees were found on the brane, an
external effect by violent storms was the cause; but we find the like even in the most
dense forests, and repeating the case after a certain proportion, so that l to about
1 1 / 2pC, as a whole the occurrence could count. Also on old chestnut trees and
trunks of Crataegus torminalis , according to Goethe, the spiral twist occurs
(Goethe's ges. Works Volume 55, p. 123). I myself found a Maßholderstamm ( Acer
campestre ) rather strong. Many species and individuals of trees, however, at least
show nothing of rotation.
Among the movements of folding and bending, which the plants naturally
undertake in the course of their development, the development of the corolla during
flowering and its closing or other change of position of its parts in the so-called plant
sleep is of primary interest. But do not forget to pay attention to the pedicels and the
leaves as well. There are quite graceful circumstances in this case, which, of course,
only give us an idea of a meaning for the psychic life of plants, than that we could
really pursue them. Let us remember the up-and-down movement of the water lily
and lotus flower from night to day, related to the sunrises. How it makes the water
lily in the water, according to Linné, makes it the hoofed ass ( Tussilago Farfara)
except the water; ie he closes the flowers at night and lowers them down, similar to
the sleeping human, who closes his eyes and lowers his head. In general, lowering of
flowers at night is not rare, though not everywhere with closing of flowers; how, on
the other hand, many flowers close without sinking. Everybody does it their way.
For many, the type of flower stem position is related to the flowering period. The
poppy bears the bud deeply lowered, as long as it has not yet blossomed, but stiffly
erect when it has blossomed; notwithstanding that the flower is heavier than the bud,
as a maiden modestly inclines her head, to take it proudly as a woman, and to boast of
her ornament. - At the hyacinth, which wants to bloom, all the flower buds crowd
tightly around the mother trunk as if in a closed fist and look as green as the
leaves; as if even the slightest idea of what is to come should be discouraged. But
when they blossom, one bends off as much as possible from the other, to be able to
enjoy air and light on their own, and whatever else is there, and the green turns into
lovely color. - TheEuphorbia oleaefolia Gouan has her head overhanging during the
winter and announces the return of spring by her self-erection (according to
Draparnaud) (Decand 11, 628). In the genus Phaca and some other leguminous
plants , the flower stalk rotates during the maturation of the pod, so that the upper
fruit sap, which opens on its own, becomes lower, thus making it possible for the seed
to precipitate. (Decand II, 623.)
Of special interest is also the protection afforded to some plants in the state of sleep
by the position of their leaves on the delicate parts, forming either a kind of funnel,
by raising the leaves around the stalk or the tip of the branches, among which the
young flowers or Leaves are protected ( Malva Peruviana ), or also in that the
uppermost leaves descend and form a vault over the young shoots ( Impatiens noli
me tangere ), or in that the leaves of a composite leaf fold up so that they intersect the
flowers to lock myself in. ( Trifolium
resupinatumand incarnatum , Lotus tetragonolobus andornithopodioides, etc.)
More about the so-called plant sleep, s. in the additions to this section.
One has wanted to explain such bends as they make the plant parts by uneven
moistening, or uneven heating of the fibers on different sides of the stem. How little
that is sufficient in the meantime is proved not only by the unequal behavior of
different plants under the same circumstances, which is quite analogous to the very
different behavior of different animals under the same circumstances, but also quite
strikingly by the case of the Vallisneria spiralis , whose stems are even under Water
spirals up and down.
All movements of growth, bending, turning, and winding of the plants mentioned
so far take place only slowly in relation to the movements which humans and animals
can make. Man, the animal quickly reaches out his arm, the claw, seizes what seems
to him to be good, and pulls it back so quickly. Which fast changing movements in
handling, running, jumping! None of this in the plant. She slowly stretches her roots,
slowly raises her stem, only creeps up a support gradually, follows seemingly
sluggishly the stimuli that affect her, and persists steadily in the postures she once
assumed. Yet, there is no reason here to infer weaker sensations and impulses from
her, insofar as strong sensations and impulses can express themselves both in strong
internal changes and movements, and in a great extent or great rapidity of outward
movement, into which the latter to strike out had little occasion in the firm and
narrow sphere of activity of the plant. Consider a man who thinks deeply, how he
works in his head; Of course, although we can not see it, it flows back and forth in
the innumerable fine channels of nerves and vessels that make up its brain, what else
would they be there for; but outwardly you can not see anything. How deep the
woman often feels inwardly, and how little does she often show externally; not that
there was nothing in it physically; rather, the tears may want to reach the eye by
force, you may go through a cramp in all your limbs, you may want to shatter your
heart, yes, there are cases when it has really jumped in inner emotions, through the
tremendous urge of the blood; but all this can be done without externally visible
movement. Such inner changes are in fact a much more essential expression of
sensation and perceived urge than all external changes can be, insofar as the
expressions themselves are only extensions of them. When someone angrily strikes
one another, it is not the movement of his arm that expresses bodily emotion directly
bodily, but something that is stirred up by the anger in the brain and, by mediating the
nerves emanating from the brain, first sets in motion the arm , One can hold one's
arm, and anger only increases; could one keep the movements in the brain, Thus,
after the alternating condition of mind and body that takes place here, one would
hereby hold the anger itself; It proves itself at once when, for example, the excess of
anger brings about the flow of the beating, with all the movements in the brain and all
passions at the same time stagnating.
So it does not matter to see quite strong external movements, in order to infer
strong impulses and sensations, but rather to consider the internal movements, which,
however, may turn into external motions according to demanding occasions and
purposes, but it by no means always do.
By the way, it is less the magnitude of internal movements per se than the size of
the changes in which they are self-conscious, or in whose production they are
conceived, and thus the strength of the sensations and sensations sensed shoots
together. If everything goes on in the ordinary track, where blood and nerve-spirit
may run fast enough, we carry nothing but a general feeling for life, but any
particular change or striving for what, be it through an external sensory stimulus or
through it Inner events, we feel immediately the more lively, the greater force proves
itself in evoking the change. Consider this, which is certainly valid in general, even if
there is a great deal of lack of thorough clarification, Thus we shall not miss the signs
of lively sensations and lively instincts, even in the externally so slight movements of
the plant, for these externally minor movements are connected with a manifold play
of inner changes and a great urge to such changes. It is known that any voluntary
bending and twisting of the parts of plants is related to changes in the number of
prisoners and probably even more subtle, chemical changes. And what an inner urge
may be to change the shape of the plant from the inside in all directions and
constantly, as is the case in the growth of the stem, in the bud and flower shoots. Yes
the experience directly proves the power of this urge. The juice which rises to it, can
by the force, with which he does lift large columns of water and mercury; and the
root which descends, may penetrate into heavy mercury, and penetrate through solid
earth, through germinating peas, couchets, & c. Like. Solid soil is often repealed in
lumps. Now we see that the juice, which rises or falls by force, does not quite break
through the light sheaths of the bud or root-impulses into which it penetrates; so this
power is used to further drive the bud or root shoots, developing the leaves and
flowers themselves. so violently ascending or descending, juice does not violently
break through the light envelopes of the bud or root-impulses into which it
penetrates; so this power is used to further drive the bud or root shoots, developing
the leaves and flowers themselves. so violently ascending or descending, juice does
not violently break through the light envelopes of the bud or root-impulses into which
it penetrates; so this power is used to further drive the bud or root shoots, developing
the leaves and flowers themselves.
in a second, mercury poured in from above was raised 38 inches high from the
water which penetrated the vine. In this case, the force driving the raw food juice
must suffice, the pressure of 21 / 2 withstanding atmospheres. According to Hales'
calculation, she is 5 times stronger than the force that drives the blood in the thigh-
artery of a horse.
"Senebier raises doubts against Hales's experiments, which are based on the fact
that if the nutritive juice really rises with the force given to it after the experiment
quoted, it is extraordinary that it could pass through the faint cover of a bud Now,
however (says Decandolle), it is evidently not the bud cover alone that holds it back,
but the circumstance is added that the juice is used for the development of new parts,
and that, since it does not flow out to the plant, there is also one so large an amount
penetrates through the root (Decand Physiol I. 76.)
If a seed of the sweet-smelling pea ( Lathyrus odoratus L. ) is allowed to germinate
over a shell filled with mercury, and held firmly by an imaginable device, Pinot's
experiments show that the root of that seed is perpendicular to the ground and
penetrates in the mercury one, although the latter is much heavier than that "(Journ de
pharm 1829. T. XV p 490;..... annals of greenhouse customer band IV H. 4. S. 408th
409th . Comp Ann.. of the sciences nat. 1829; Revue bibliographique 129. 130.).
"When hyacinths are grown in small pots, the onion is often seen to be raised
considerably above the ground, borne by the small rootlets that seem prolonged
against it, and the palms also have this peculiarity of growth." In Martynezia
caryotaefolia HBK the stem is sometimes 2 Feet raised high above the ground and
resting on the crumbling roots as on supports, the same can be seen in Iriartea
exorhiza and I. ventricosa Mart(Treviranus, Phys., II, 157.) These phenomena depend
on the fact that the roots, when they strive to extend downwards in their effort to
strike down an obstacle, help themselves by lifting the growth that the combined
power of rooting is sufficient to lift whole plants.
 "If one uses a vertically stretched string as a support, the creepers, whose stems are
not too thin, have the power to direct the straight direction of the string through the
pressure they exert on it by nestling against it so that he also takes the direction of a
spiral line like the stalk around him. " (Mohl, On the Winding of the Vines p. 113.)
Dassen laid freshly cut branches of Faba vulgaris , Oxalis stricta,
Lupinus albus and Robinia viscosaat 6 o'clock in the evening on water, so that at least
some of its leaves (which sought to collapse on account of the plant's sleep) drifted
completely with the rear surface on it. "The leaves soon seemed to exert their forces
to take the nocturnal direction, so that the leaves of the former kind bent to break
loose from the surface of the water, but could not quite break away." The second
species made the same motion, through which the The leaflets of the third kind could
not detach themselves from the water, but pressed the point where they were attached
so far down that they received almost the same direction as out of the water because
of the resistance of the water, do not move the leaflets down, Faba vulgaris can pick
up 3 grains more than needed for the movement to close the leaf. (Wiegm. Arch.
1838. I. 218.)
Even externally, the changes which a plant undergoes in the course of time through
growth are not at all as insignificant as it may seem to some. A tree that drives out in
the spring works on baptismal leaves at the same time, each one growing in every
moment; Of course, the great change due to its equally great distribution does not
make itself felt in the eye, because it is very little for every point. But the large sum
of small changes is something very significant on the whole. Imagine that the tree
always uses all the material it absorbs, and all the power that spreads to grow
throughout, to produce one leaf at a time; If this sheet was finished, another
elsewhere would start to grow as well. That would be much more like arbitrary
expulsion, Forming appear; and yet there is only the formal difference that the plant,
instead of at one point, at the same time exerts the same freedom at all points,
distributes force and substance to all sides instead of preferentially concentrating it in
one place each time.
The soul of men and animals, even without being constantly stimulated by new
external stimuli, is conceived in a game of continuous changes, which, of course, are
inaccessible to our eyes but restlessly playable through bodily processes Brain
expresses. I only briefly recall that one game with the other falters, just as on the
other hand it grows in vivacity with it. But this restless moving game also leaves
constant changes. The mind is expanding itself more and more through its activity,
organizing itself ever finer and richer, but it can not do otherwise than by doing its
physical foundation. Of course, we must pursue it more with spiritual than bodily
eyes, as, so to speak, ever finer leaves, To form flowers into the organization of the
brain, as directed by the mental organization; they go so fine that they can not follow
the microscope; but when a disease destroys it, it destroys the spiritual leaves and
flowers with the physical ones for this world.
What we see here in our spiritual realm most clearly through our self-
consciousness, but in the corresponding physical realm, in the most secretive way,
can be hidden from our own senses, we see this in the case of the plants in the
spiritual realm for the most secretive, by virtue of Conclusion of our consciousness
against theirs, in the physical but the most open go. The plant unfolds before us the
bodily creative process to which the continuous, voluntary flow of its soul-life
attaches itself, unfolds it clearly in front of us, drives the leaves open, blossoms
outwardly, and our brain, of course, in full form hidden inside drives. It is undisputed
that a higher spiritual is linked to the latter activity, to that one more sensual soul
process; but in terms of the continuous progress both are equal. And this is a matter
of importance. A soul always wants to have something to do. Thus the vegetable soul
is not lacking in constant pastimes.
In a sense, nature has only distributed the ocular in the expression of the soul
movements between the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom in different
ways. Human beings and animals hide in themselves the whole immediate bodily
expression of their soul-movements, but in strong, lively, individual movements (in
the play of limbs and expressions) they point outwards, which indirectly count us as
the clearer sign of their soul-activity. In the plants, such isolated, lively extensions of
inner movements recede, but in a continuous silent play on the surface, they unfold
much more of the immediate expression of their soul life and life. Of course, the
difference, like all in nature, is only relative. You never have to forget this.
In fact, the plant kingdom of comparatively rapid and obvious movements, which
occur especially as a result of stimuli (of which the speech which follows), is not
entirely lacking. But even without irritation, in some plants and in some
circumstances, movements occur with the appearance of voluntariness. This
subheading includes certain movements of the sexual organs of plants, of which we
shall speak in the 11th section, various movements in the range of the lower plants to
be mentioned in the 12th section, and the movements on Hedysarum gyrans , of
which at last the additions which follow (P. 127) will be the talk.
About the plant sleep.
Here is the most interesting and important about this item. For details, see s. in the
textbooks of plant physiology, such as Treviranus II. 750; Decandolle II. 25. -
Particularly detailed is a Dutch work about it by Dassen, in Ausz in Wiegm. Arch.
1838. I. 214. 358. II. 159. - From recent papers compare Dutrochet in Comptes
rendus 1843. 11. 989. and Fror. N. Not. no. 13 and 14 of the first volume. - Foe in
Comptes Rendus 1846. T. XXIII, no. 12. (Fror., Emergency No. 13, XL) .- Fritsch in
the Abhandl. the boehm. Gesellsch. of the Sciences 1847. 5th episode. 4th volume.
The phenomena of so-called plant sleep generally consist of a change in the
position of the leaves or flower parts or both from day to night.
The phenomenon of such alterations is not manifested in any particular order or
species, or bound to a particular structure of plants, but rather occurs in the most
diverse plants, but more in certain families than in others; but in the nature of the
plants and parts of plants occur here in different positions. In general, it may perhaps
be said as a rule that the parts of plants, in the absence of light, return as far as
possible to the position which they had in the bud state, and that this position is
assumed the more accurately the younger and more delicate the leaf is; in the older
and rougher, the deviations between day and night are less, with perennials and
leathery ones they fall away altogether.
Sleep of the leaves.
By far the most common and most conspicuous are the phenomena associated here
with plants with compound leaves, especially from the legume and oral genus in
front. The time in which the transition from the daily to the nocturnal direction and
vice versa depends on the rising and setting of the sun and is generally much more
regulated than the opening and closing of the flowers. However, one must not
disregard the fact that plants which have been brought into our own from foreign
climates generally continue to open and close their leaves at that time, to which they
were accustomed to do so in their native country. Therefore, in our greenhouses, at 6
o'clock in the middle of summer, some plants close their leaves, although then neither
light nor heat is changed, while in winter they open the same morning at their usual
time, although it is still completely dark. Our patriotic plants, however, are directed
towards the sun. Exactly the changes in the direction of the leaves are related to the
health of the plants, and especially to the leaves themselves; the stronger a plant is,
the more regulated and less dependent on external influences the daily movements
take place. When the leaves become old in the autumn, the movements change, stop
altogether, or lose touch with the earlier ones. In particular, this also applies to the
plants that are kept in houses during the winter, where then their leaves usually show
no or a barely noticeable difference between day and night. Young leaves, before
their perfect development, have consistently the direction which they later assume
only at night. In the first time after their development they show the difference of the
movement in the highest degree,
As the leaves reach sleep state, simple leaves sleep either so that they stand upright
from the horizontal position, as the most natural, or (more rarely) approach the stalk
backwards, which, incidentally, differs greatly in different plants Grade happens. The
former is to a greater extent found in Sida abutilon , Oenothera mollissima, Atriplex
horteusis, Alsine media,and several Asclepiadees , to a lesser extent Mandragora
officinalis, Datura stramonium, Solanum melongena, Amaranthus tricolor, Celosia
cristata u, a. The latter can be found in Hibiscus sabdariffa, Achyranthes aspera,
Impatiens noli tangere , aTriumfetta and a few others. Some of the plants with
compound leaves sleep some in such a way that the leaves from opposite sides of the
main petiole fold upwards ( Lathyrus odoratus, Colutea arborescens, Hedysarum
coronarium, Vicia faba ), or lower and collapse downward, so that either the
Touching upper sides ( Phaseolus semierectus, Robinia pseudacacia,
Abrus precatorius ) or the lower surfaces (all cassia). Finally, the leaflets may overlap
one another according to the length of the main petiole, and this again occurs either
forwards, so that the upper surface of the posterior leaflet partially covers the lower
of the anterior ( Tamarindus lndica, Gleditschia triacanthos , several mimosa), or
backwards, so that the leaflets bend back against the base of the petiole, and each
anterior is approached with the upper side toward the posterior ( Tephrosia
caribaea ).
 Depending on the composition of the leaves, compound movements may also
occur. Thus at leafless leaves the leaflets and the common petiole, at double-feathered
leaves also special petioles can move especially. However, only a few examples of
leaves are known that have more than one moving part.
The movements of the leaves and leaflets of many (although by no means all)
plants, especially those with compound leaves, is carried out with the particular
participation of a small swelling (leaf pillow, pulvinus ), which is located at the base
of the stems or stems. The very interesting experiments and results of Dutrochet and
Dassen on the mechanism of this effect, however, have found no valid confirmation
by the experiments of Meyen and Miquel. (Wiegm. Arch. 1839. II. 88. Meyen,
Physiol. III. 538). Dassen thinks he has determined (Wiegm. Arch. 1838, 1, 223, 325)
that the movement is connected with changes in the number of prisoners and the
formation of carbonic acid.
Moisture generally carries the nocturnal direction (Dassen). The influence of light
and heat has been varied according to the nature, strength and duration of their action
or deprivation and the nature of the plants. In most cases, the mobile leaves do not
seem to assume the state of sleep by mere deprivation of light; but it happened in
some cases. (Experiments in Wiegm. Arch. 1888. I. 225.) It has even been observed
that the leaves closed in strong sunshine (in Robinia and Mimosa pudica after
Sigwart, Reils Arch. XII, 33, in Oxalis - and lotus species after Dassen, Wiegm. Arch.
1838. II. 216.), which have called some afternoon nap.
The leaves of some plants are still particularly sensitive to certain weather
influences, so that they even proposed to weather indicators (see below plant
barometer). The sensitivity of some blades to mechanical and other stimuli is
discussed in the following section.
Sleep the flowers.
No signs of sleep have been observed in irregular flowers, especially
the scitamineae , orchids, labiata, persons, papilionaceans .
In some flowers, sleep manifests itself only in the fact that, while they are raised
during the day, they turn towards the horizon at night, or even against the earth, with
their mouths. ( Euphorbia platyphyllos, Geranium striatum, Ageratum conyzoides,
Ranunculus polyanthemos, Draba verna, Verbascum blattaria, Achyranthes
lappacea, Thlaspi bursa pastoris, Alyssum montanum, Monarda punctata,
Heracleum absinthifolium , especially precipitous Tussilago farfara.) This sinking is
now not based on relaxation; for one tries to raise the lowered stems, then they return
again as if they were in a tense state. Most often the flower-sleep manifests itself by
the flowers, which are open during the day, closing or collapsing at night; also some
flowers occur, where inclination of the flower stalk enters in connection with closure
of the flowers (so Nymphaea alba and Tussilago farfara ). Radiant flowers sleep in
such a way that the ray either approaches the flower stalks in reverse (common
chamomile, dog chamomile, etc. species of Anthemis and Matricaria ), or that the
edges of the ray roll inwards at the top ( Gorteria pavonia). Certain plants exist
where the closing or curling of the petals takes place instead of at night rather in the
bright sunshine, and spreads in the evening (the species of mirabilis ,
of Silene and Cucubalus , especially the large-flowered of the latter two). The rarest
occurrence is that the whole hem of the flower crown becomes frizzy, as if it had
withered, so that when one sees such a flower in the waking state, it should no longer
be considered the same ( Commelina coelestis, Mirabilis jalappa, and longiflora ,
Oenothera tetraptera and others).
Some flowers are significantly dependent on their opening and closing of external,
especially atmospheric, influences and do not observe a very fixed time in these
movements. Linnaeus, who has studied the plant sleep particularly carefully, called it
meteoric (see below plant barometer). Others open in the morning and close in the
evening; but the time of their rising and closing changes with increasing and
decreasing days. Such he called tropical. Still others finally open and close at certain
unchanging times. He called these equinoctial flowers and brought them, as far as he
had the opportunity to observe them, into a table, to which he placed his flower clock
( Horologium florae) founded (see below). If one compares the observations made
with Upsala to those which Decandolle employed in a number of plants near Paris, it
can be seen that the aquinoctial plants, e.g. B. Papaver nudicaule, Nymphaea alba,
Mesembryanthemum barbatum, Anagallis arvensis in Paris for same hour opened
their petals as in Upsala. Likewise, R. Pulteney found the same except for a few
deviations when reviewing Linnaeus' observations in England. Even in a hothouse,
where the same degree of heat is maintained, and even when the shutters are closed,
the equinox flowers open and close around the ordinary time.
Flower Clock.
For the purpose of setting up a flower clock, it has been proposed to plant the
plants serving for this purpose on a circular bed, arranged according to the time of the
opening and shooting of the flowers (with the entrance to the north side). Here the
necessary information (after Reichenbach); Of course, one should not keep the hours
to the point correctly.
I. Plants whose flowers open in the mornings: From 3-5 o'clock Tragopogon
pratense L. - From 4-5 o'clock Thrincia tuberosa DC (Leontod, tub L.); Helminthia
echioides gardening. (Picris echioides L.); Cichorium intybus L .; Hemerocallis fulva
L .; Crepis tectorum L. - From 4-6 o'clock Picridium tingitanum Pers. (Scorz., Tingit
L.) - 5-6 pm Sonchus oleraceus L .; Leontodon taraxacum L .; Barkhausia alpina
monk. (Crepis alpina L.); Tragopogon crocifolium L .; Rhagodiolus edulis
Gärtn. (Lapsana rhagod, Scop.); Convolvulus sepium L. -After 6 o'clock Hieracium
sabaudum L .; Hierac. Umbellatum L. - From 6-7 o'clockHierac. murorum
L .; Barkhausia rubra (Crepis see Hostia rubra Mnch.); Sonchus arvensis
L .; Sonchus palustris L. - from 6-8 o'clock Alyssum sinuatum L .; Leontodon
autumnaiis L. - After 7 o'clock Lactuca sativa L .; Nymphaea alba L .; Anthericum
ramosum L. - From 7-8 o'clock Geracium praemorsum Schrbr. (Hierac praem
L.); Sonchus alpinus L .; Hypochaeris maculata L .; Hedypnois rhagodioloides W.
(Hyoseris hedypn L.); Mesembryanthemum barbatum L. - After 8 pm Hieracium
piloaella L .; Anagallis arvensis L .; Dianthus prolifer L .; Hypochaeris glabra L.
- From 9-10 o'clock Calendula arvensis L .; Portulaca oleracea L. (At another eleven
o'clock.) From 9-12 o'clock Drosera rotundifolia L. - After 10 o'clock Alsine rubra
Whlnb. (Arenaria rubra L.); Mesembr. crystall. L. - From 10-11
clock Mesembr. Linguiform L .; Papaver nudicaule L. (at another 4-5
o'clock); Hemerocallis flava L .; Hemerocallis fulva L. - After 11
o'clock Ornithogalum umbellatum L .; Calendula chrysanthemifolia Vnt. - from 11-
12 o'clock Tigridia pavonia Pers. (Ferraria tigr.).
II. Plants whose flowers open in the evening: At 5 o'clock Mirabilis jalapa
L .; Pelargonium triste Ait, - From 6-7 o'clock Cereus grandiflorus Mill. - From 7-8
o'clock Mesembr. noctiflorum L. (After another 10-11 o'clock.)
III. Plants whose flowers close in the morning: At 8 o'clock Leontodon taraxacum
L. - At 10 o'clock Picridium tingitanum L .; Lactuca sativa L. - from 10-12
o'clock Cichorium intybus L .; Sonchus arvensis L. - After 11 o'clock Tragopogon
crocifolium L. - From 11-12 o'clock Sonchus oleraceus L. - After 12 o'clock Sonchus
alpmus L.
IV. Plants whose flowers close in the afternoons and in the evening: 1-2
o'clock Hierac. umbellat. L .; Barkhausia rubra Dec. - After 2 o'clock Helminthia
echioides L .; Hierac. murorum L .; Hypochaeris maculata L .; Geracium
praemorsum Schrbr. - From 2-3 o'clock Alsine rubra Whlnb. - After 3
o'clock Thrincia tuberosa DC; Anagallis arvens. L .; Calendula
arvens. L .; Calend. chrysanthemifolia Vent. - From 3-4 o'clock Anthericum ramosum
L. - After 4 o'clock Alyssum sinuatum L .; Nymphaea alba L. - After 5
o'clock Hieracium sabaudum L, - After 7 o'clock Leontodon autumnalis L. - From 7-
8 o'clock Papaver nudicaule L. -At 12 o'clock (midnight) Cereus grandiflorus
Mill. (Reichenbach, the Plant Clock, Leipzig, Voigt and Fernau 1846.)
Plants barometer.
Rain is expected when Hibiscus trionum L . does not open; when the calyces
of Carlina acaulis L . close; if Porliera hygrometrica L ., Oxalis acetosella L . and
most other species of this genus, folding their (composite) leaves; the clover erects
the stems; Lapsana communis L . the blossoms at night does not close, Draba
verna L ., Ranunculus polyanthemos L . to turn down the leaves; Anastatica
hierochuntica L . the branches spread; Ranunculus repens L. ,Caltha palustris L . to
contract the leaves; the birches smell very strong; the conferences relate to green
skin; the flowers of Asperula odorata L dried in the shade, sewn in linen . give off a
strong smell; Galium verum L. inflates and also smells strongly; the stalks of the
capsules of Funaria hygrometrica Schreb , which, when dry, are wound up and bent
back and forth (especially when the capsules are deflated). - Stellaria media dill.at
about 9 o'clock in the morning, raise its flowers in the clear weather, unfold the
leaves and remain awake until about noon; in the upcoming rainy weather but this
does not happen; The plant then hangs down and the flowers remain
closed. - Calendula pluvialis opens between 6 and 7 o'clock in the morning and tends
to be awake until around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. If this happens, it can be expected
that the weather will be stable, but if she still sleeps after 7 o'clock in the morning,
rain is expected before the night falls. Some species of the genus Sonchus indicate
bright weather for the following day, when the flower head closes at night, rain when
it remains open. - Pimpinella saxifraga L. behaves in this regardStellaria media
dill. - Anemone ranunculoides L . opens its flowers in rainy weather; Anemone
nemorosa L. bears its flowers nodding in dull weather, upright in serene weather, - If
the color of the elders appears lighter than usual, then cold and frost must be
feared; on the other hand, if they look darker, there is a thawing wind. (Reichenbach,
the plant clock, p. 12.) Robinia pseudacacia , some Lupinus species, Mimosa
dealbata, and Caesalpina pulcherrima have been known to close the flowers in bad
weather. (Dassen.)
Movements of Hedysarum gyran .
The Hedysarum gyrans ( Desmodium gyrans), whose movements I mainly here
after Treviranus Physiol. II. 765. is a small shrub with broad leaves; the end leaflet is
petiolate and oval, the opposite side leaflets but linear or lanceolate, almost stalkless
and many times smaller than the end leaflet. Only these side leaflets show a striking
movement, while the end leaflet shows only the usual movements of so-called
sleeping and waking. This movement of the lateral leaflets manifests itself in an
almost continuous alternating rise and fall of the same, and the more lively the greater
the air-heat and the stronger the plant; is therefore interrupted in a considerably cool
weather; but otherwise it lasts in the shade, as in the light, day and night, also Winters
in the hothouse. If cold water is poured over the branches of the plant, the movement
ceases immediately, but can be readily restored by warm water vapor. The plant, too,
is as it were paralyzed, when exposed to the ordinary temperature of the warm
house. If you put a plant in the dark for two or three hours, then, according to
Humboldt, an acceleration of the movement occurs, when you afterwards expose it to
the light. If the end leaf is moved by the wind, the movements of the lateral leaves
stop. Mechanical stimuli, electric sparks, the magnet, fleeting ghosts, oiling the
leaflets, ligature and truncation of the stem have no effect on the movement. It is
strongest after Broussonnet at the time of fertilization. The ascent of the leaflets is
slower than the descent; but the movement is not uniform at all, but at times stops,
and then, as if accelerated by a shock, progresses for a few moments to a greater
extent. Usually, when one leaflet ascends, the opposite sinks, but this is not always
the case, and very often there is no connection between both movements, so that one
leaflet can rest while the other is moving. The movement does not depend on the
integrity of the plant; for even if the main petiole detached from the stick, even if the
top of the leaflet is cut away, it lasts for a while, and it is asserted that a leaflet is still
moving when it is fixed by its stem with the tip of a needle. (Mirbel.
The Hedysarum gyrans seems the way not to stand alone with respect to these
movements. Mirbel notes that if leaves of Hedysarum vespertilionis , instead of being
simple, consist of three leaflets as usual, which is not uncommon, the two side
leaflets have a similar movement, but infinitely weaker than that of Hed. gyrans ,
have; However Hedysarum cuspidatum W. and H. laevigatum
Nutt . and H . gyroides seems to be something like that.
 Except for those voluntary, light-independent movements, hedies come. gyrans but
also movements dependent on the influence of light, which, however, do not concern
the lateral leaves but the main stems and main leaves, and are not directly related to
the previous ones. This movement consists of raising in the light and sinking in the
dark. It happens in the joints, whereby the leaf is connected to the stem and this to the
branch. The sensitivity of the plant to the light is so great that, according to
Hufeland's observations, even the reflection of the sun from a wall about twenty
paces clears up, such as keeping sunlight from an opaque body and a cloud passing
from the sun the leaves made. Hufeland noticed a trembling movement of the main
leaves and the whole plant in the full midday sun and the sunlight concentrated
through a burning glass. (Dassen also says that no plant is known to him whose
leaves turn to the light so quicklyHed. gyrans and gyroides .) Moonlight, artificial
light, chemical and mechanical stimuli had no effect on that movement; but electric
sparks did cause a lowering of the leaves.

IX. Stimulus of the plants.

Touch a stamen of the Berberis flower (sourthorn, Berberis vulg. L. ) on its side
facing the pestle down with a needle point or the like; Immediately, one sees him
approaching the tip, making a quick movement against the pestle, and after some
time, returning by himself to the first position.
One irritates the gaping lobes of the scar (the final part of the pestle) of a Martynia
annua or Bignonia radicans or of some species
of Gratiola or Mimulus (eg glutinosus , aurantiacus, guttatus ) on the inner side with
a needle, a spring, or drop a drop of water on it; The scar then immediately closes and
after some time opens itself again.
Touch the genital column of Stylidium
graminifolium , adnatum or corymbosum, formed from the growth of pestillos and
stamens, which is naturally curved downwards . At the slightest touch she straightens
the lower part of the curvature, and then jumps up almost to the opposite side, after
which she slowly returns to her previous position.
Touch the feathered leaf of a sensible plant ( Mimosa pudica ) on the thickened
stem end, or shake the leaf (or the whole plant); So it puts its leaflets together
immediately and inclines itself backwards against the stem, (A sensitive sensory plant
drew the leaves as if frightened by a passing rider.) Gradually, the natural situation
also returns here by itself.
There are more such examples (of which later); these are enough for now.
For those who are only able to grasp the soul of the plants by rough resemblances
to the animal kingdom, these will always appear to be of great importance for the
stimulatory movements of animals. Even the most superficial analogy suggests that it
is sensation. On the other hand, let the weight of this analogy go far back against
what more general considerations must have for us, and admit to opponents that they
alone could prove little or nothing. If, on the one hand, you do not want to have a soul
in the plants, then you can apply all sorts of mechanical explanations to these
movements, just as well as those that occur analogously in animals, or if they make
them dependent on a so-called dead life force, which, of course, only one dead term
is. More importantly, that such stimulus movements are on the whole only exceptions
in the plant kingdom; and the soul should not be merely an exception in this
kingdom. But the reasons for the plant-soul need not be considered individually at all,
but in connection with each other; and if more general considerations make such a
one seem probable, then little proving particulars can serve for suggestive
support. So, I mean, is it with those stimulus movements of the plants. in that way,
little proving details can be used to suggest effective support. So, I mean, is it with
those stimulus movements of the plants. in that way, little proving details can be used
to suggest effective support. So, I mean, is it with those stimulus movements of the
plants.
41.), when the Gauls saw the old senators sitting silently in their chairs in the
marketplace, they did not seem to be living beings at all; they sat so still; until one
tugged Papirius by the branch, he struck him with the staff. Now no Gaul doubted
anymore. So, si licet magnis componere parva , it is with the plants. Basically
nothing is lacking in the essential signs of inspiration, only sitting still makes us
questionable. But if we pluck or stab one, and it suddenly fails, then that should just
as convincingly convince us.
Do not beat everyone, now we have to remember that, even where it happens, it is
basically more than we can desire. In general, the plants are not prepared to announce
their sensations in striking movements; they react more quietly to their stimuli of life
and sensation by the way they arrange their growth, their color, their formation of
substance, of which we have come to know examples enough, and will know more of
them. But now nature has the plan of what they want to allocate to the animal and
plant kingdoms, with all the differences in the main thing, unfamiliar and unwilling to
draw strict boundaries, also entangled again after some relationship, of which later
(XII) will give many more examples; and so we find basically only one more proof of
this in the way the plant behaves sometimes against sensory stimuli. Moreover, these
movements give a very good confirmation of the earlier remark that the plant has no
need of nerves for many, to what the animal needs them. In fact, in all stimulus
movements of the animals, the nerves are essential and necessary in the game. But if
the plant of the nerves does not require stimulus, it will not require the sensation of
stimulation. - So these movements are important to us in many ways. What the
animal needs it for. In fact, in all stimulus movements of the animals, the nerves are
essential and necessary in the game. But if the plant of the nerves does not require
stimulus, it will not require the sensation of stimulation. - So these movements are
important to us in many ways. What the animal needs it for. In fact, in all stimulus
movements of the animals, the nerves are essential and necessary in the game. But if
the plant of the nerves does not require stimulus, it will not require the sensation of
stimulation. - So these movements are important to us in many ways.
 Of course, someone can say that the fact that these movements take place without
nerves, as well as without muscles, is the best proof that they are to be interpreted as
the sensory motions of animals of very different natures, and therefore also those of
sensation , And certainly both are very different in the means by which they come
about. But shall I again repeat what I have already said in discussing the question of
the nerves, that nature loves to attain analogous purposes by various means? After all,
even the stimulus movement of the polyps without anywhere detectable muscles and
nerves; But if there is something like that in them, it is of what happens in higher
animals in the stimulus movement, very different (see Siebold, Verat. Anat.
I.31). Finally, nerves and muscles are originally made up of cells, as are the structures
involved in the irritability of plants. So not even the means are very different.
What must be more important than the comparability of the remedies is that the
excitatory movements of the plant in any case show all the essential vital properties
of the animal. If, then, analogy applies at all, and what else should apply here, then
the sensation which attaches itself to the stimuli of animal stimulation must also be
demonstrated in the case of the plants analogous to it. Let's take a closer look at this
match.
1) A peculiarity of animal irritability lies in the fact that it is similarly addressed by
stimuli of various kinds. It is true that a machine moves when it is touched, but not
when it is burned, dabbed with sulfuric acid, it is given an electric shock; on the other
hand, a limb of an animal twitches in about the same way, which stimulus influences
it; and the optic nerve feels light, real light may shine on it, or a blow in the eye. It is
the same with the plant irritability. A sensory plant is formed by mechanical
vibrations, burning by means of fire, chemical stimuli of various kinds, electric
sparks, sudden access of full sunlight after previous stay in the semi-darkness, rapid
transition to both the heat and the cold. sudden release of free air after prolonged
occlusion causes the same movements, except that they are stronger or weaker,
depending on the strength of the stimulus and the sensitivity of the plants, and more
or less extend. Similar to other irritable plants (see below).
2) One can not expect a consistent agreement in the mode of action and strength of
the same stimuli between plants and animals, since even in the animal kingdom even
differences in this relation occur. But examples of meaningful partial agreement are
not lacking. In this respect it seems especially important that galvanism, this peculiar
vital stimulus to animals, plays a similar role (even as to the difference in the effect of
both poles) in irritable plants, and that strong electric shocks here and there irritability
destroy.
The irritation of plants by galvanism is, of course, made more difficult by the poor
conductivity of the plants; therefore, nothing to do with simple chains; and even as to
the effects of the pillars, the observers contradict each other; but Nasse has shown
(Gilberts Ann. XLI, 392) how Berberis' experiment succeeds, with complete
exclusion of all mechanical stimulus, namely, by bringing a berberis flower through a
needle inserted into its stem with the positive pole of a pillar of about 40 couples or
place them with their stems in a glass of water, into which the wire from the positive
pole of the column depends down, and then pushes on the petal of the irritation
auszusetzenden filament a piece of damp paper, and, if you only every thrust and
avoids pressure, everything still remains calm. Then you put the wire of the negative
pole quietly on this piece of paper. Immediately, the associated filament jumps over
to the pestle, often the adjacent stamens at the same time or in the next few
moments. The direct soft contact of the petal's upper end, even with the negative
polydrhite (at the end of the chain), without the intermediary of the paper, has the
same effect on irritable stamens; The success is less constant if the area of the petal is
touched directly. Also the introduction of the flower by scar and stalk into the chain is
usually fruitless. A reverse application of the poles, where the negative affects the
stem, the positive affects the petal, is less effective; if then flowers, which are already
attacked by experiments or by long standing of the stems in water, sometimes after
closing the chain, the movement one or a few times fails, or probably only a few
moments after closing occurs. This is analogous to animal muscular irritability, and,
in the case of the usual irritability of frog legs, the twitches are more lively and
persistent, when the negative metal touches the moving part, the positive one the
nerve. A movement with separation of the chain could not be observed similarly as
with frog legs. If the berberis flower had been freshly picked, at least not attacked by
repeated irritation, then the galvanic stamens needed only 2 to 2 sometimes after
closing the chain, the movement fails once or a couple of times, or probably only a
few moments after the closure occurs. This is analogous to animal muscular
irritability, and, in the case of the usual irritability of frog legs, the twitches are more
lively and persistent, when the negative metal touches the moving part, the positive
one the nerve. A movement with separation of the chain could not be observed
similarly as with frog legs. If the berberis flower had been freshly picked, at least not
attacked by repeated irritation, then the galvanic stamens needed only 2 to
2 sometimes after closing the chain, the movement fails once or a couple of times, or
probably only a few moments after the closure occurs. This is analogous to animal
muscular irritability, and, in the case of the usual irritability of frog legs, the twitches
are more lively and persistent, when the negative metal touches the moving part, the
positive one the nerve. A movement with separation of the chain could not be
observed similarly as with frog legs. If the berberis flower had been freshly picked, at
least not attacked by repeated irritation, then the galvanic stamens needed only 2 to
2 as well as in the ordinary irritability of frogs' legs, the twitches are more lively and
lasting, when the negative metal touches the moving part, the positive one the
nerve. A movement with separation of the chain could not be observed similarly as
with frog legs. If the berberis flower had been freshly picked, at least not attacked by
repeated irritation, then the galvanic stamens needed only 2 to 2 as well as in the
ordinary irritability of frogs' legs, the twitches are more lively and lasting, when the
negative metal touches the moving part, the positive one the nerve. A movement with
separation of the chain could not be observed similarly as with frog legs. If the
berberis flower had been freshly picked, at least not attacked by repeated irritation,
then the galvanic stamens needed only 2 to 21 / 2 min., To remove from the pestle
again and be irritable again.
 Humboldt observed the extermination of plant irritability by strong electric shocks
on the stamens of Berberis (Ed., M. and N. II. 195.), and perceived a similar
influence of water and alcohol on the irritability of them Frog legs. The debilitating
effects of narcotic poisons were to be decided upon after many attempts (for example,
by Miquel and von Dassen on Mimosa in Fror.Ent., 1839 May 207, Wiegm. Arch.
1838, II, 358, by Gartner on Mimulus, etc.) But the attempts of Göppert (in Pogg.
Ann. XIV.) seem even more decidedly opposed to this; although he has little
influence on Mimosaadmits. Certainly, according to the experiments of Marcet, Jager,
Goeppert, Dassen, the plants are killed by hydrocyanic acid, arsenic, mercury,
camphor, and others (applied in dissolution or vapor form in various
ways). Treviranus, Physiol II, 724. Bouchardat's experiments in particular, where,
among other things, the great harmfulness of all mercury compounds is shown even
in the smallest amount, see in Comptes Rendus, 1843. 11. p.
3) An irritated animal part gradually returns by itself to its former state when the
stimulus ceases, but slower than the state of irritation. Thus, an oyster irritably closes
its shells quickly, but opens them only slowly; the green polyp quickly contracts
irritably, but stretches only gradually. The same is true, and quite consistent, in all
stimulus movements of the plants. The rapidly moving parts return by themselves,
but much more slowly, to their previous position when the forward movement took
place.
4) In animals, the irritability is dulled or exhausted by repeated or prolonged
irritation, restored by rest, unless the irritation has been exaggerated. Likewise with
all irritable plants. Even phenomena of habituation to stimuli have been observed
in Mimosa et al.
A Berber stamen is not irritable until about 5 to 8 minutes, the sex column
of the Stylidium 12 to 15 minutes after the irritation; but repeated irritation completely
destroys irritability. Even in the case of a sensible plant, the more often one after the
other, the more such movements are made, the slower and more incomplete.
What can be interpreted as habituation are phenomena such as the following:
Desfontaines observed from a plant of meaning which he carried with him in the
carriage, that she at first closed herself by the shock, but at last, in spite of the
constant movement of driving, remained open; as if she had gotten used to it. After
the car was held for a while, and then continued again, the leaves closed again and
then opened again while driving. Dassen repeated this experiment by a sensitive
plant 3 / 4 brought long hour in a rocking motion, wherein the blades closed, but
after 1 / 2 Hour opened again. After completion of this experiment, the leaves were
immobile for over one hour. All the leaves began to sink suddenly, and when they
straightened up, the irritability was restored. In Dionaea muscipula , this habituation
does not seem to occur, as the lobes do not open as long as the trapped insect remains
in between. Morren observed from the irritable stylus of the Goldfussia
anisophylla that when the plant was brought from the warm hothouse (25 ° R.) to a
cool room (+ 2 ° to 10 ° R.), longer tent irritability seemed to disappear altogether.
after 12 to 48 hours, however, the plant had become accustomed to the cool habit of
having the same irritability as in the warmth.
5) The degree of irritability of the animals depends partly on their state of health, so
that it increases (apart from many nervous illnesses) with the vitality of the latter. In
part, age, sex relations, season, weather, and other factors have a great influence on
them. And again with the irritable plants.
Hegel (Naturphilosophie p. 480) says that in order not to interpret the stimulus
movements of the plants as feeling: "The outward appearance of the causes of this
irritability is especially proved by the observations of Medicus that several plants of
the colder climates fail at all in the afternoon and in hotter dry weather In the
morning, after heavy dew, and all day long, with mild rain, are very irritable, that the
plants of the warmer climates express their irritability only in clear skies, and that all
plants are most irritable, when the seed-dust is just ripening, and the pestle is ripening
covered in shiny oils. " In the meantime, I do not understand well how one can find
here reasons for the argument against a meaning of the stimulus movements for
feeling or sensation; because in all of this the plant irritability is only the, certainly
with sense-related, irritability of the animals (in particular the lower ones) is
analogous. Remember z. As to the different behavior of the frog preparations
depending on the season and other circumstances in galvanic experiments.
One might, therefore, be persuaded to take objections to the psychic significance of
the stimulus movements of the plant, that they too openly bear the character of
physical necessity, and that they themselves still cling to severed parts of plants (for
example, cut branches of the sensible plant, truncated scars from Mimulus) are going
on; if not, apart from what has been said earlier in dealing with the former objection,
then here too there are only resemblances to animal stimulus motions which are
certainly related to sensation. An unforeseen ray of light or a pinprick, for example,
forces a twitch and sensation on our extremities as well as the point of the needle on
the Berber stamen. The will, where it comes into action, can of course suppress that
movement, but it does neither make it nor its sensation.
In young children, where the actual will does not yet come into effect at all,
stimulus movements take on the character of involuntary movements. And plants also
behave very similarly to children (compare XV). "With the slight rubbing of the back
of the hand, in the case of young children, the fingers stretch out, the arms rubbing
against the back of the forearm, and the legs on the tibia, while the tickling of the
inner hand causes a momentary curvature of the fingers." (V. d. Kolk in Fror. And
Schleidens Distress Oct. 1847. No. 75. p.
The stimulus movements on cut parts of plants on the other hand are only
analogous to the stimulus movements, which can also be observed on cut frog legs,
salamander tails, and so on. If one presupposes, of course, that there is no sensation
left in the cut-off animal parts, one could turn this against us insofar as it was said
that stimulus movements, if they can occur without sensation at all, can not at all
interpret sensation. And, indeed, stimulus motions on plant fragments will be as
indistinct on the sensation of these pieces as they are on animal specimens; but then
certainly as much of whole plants on sensation of these plants, as it is the case with
whole animals. You just do not have to compare wrong. We do not claim that the
stimulus-movement in itself makes sensation, but only that it serves in the connection
of the organism of the sensation or a related impulse. Of course, the mechanism can
still be left in the separated parts.
Here are some additional notes on the hitherto known examples of herbal stimulus:
Stimulus movements on stamens.
Except for the common Berberisstrauche one has perceived an irritability of the
stamens: in the North American Berberisarten with pinnate leaves, Berberis
humilis and canadensis (Mahonia Nutt .); but not with other Berber ideas, such
as Epimedium, Leontice, Nandina; - in some plants of the Cactus and Cisten family,
namely: Opuntia vulgaris, ficus indica, tuna D.C. (Cactus opuntia, ficus indica,
tuna ), according to Medicus also in Cereus grandifl. hexagon . and peruvian., which,
however, Treviranus found unconfirmed; also Cistus helianthemum,
apenninum and ledifolium (Helianthemum vulg .,apenn . and ledifol .); in the
hermaphrodite flowers of some Centaureen, namely Centaurea spinosa, ragusina,
cineraria, glastifolia, eriophora, salmantica. Isnardi, pulchella Led . (in the latter
Treviranus found the result especially striking); - finally to Sparmannia afrioana (a
Titiacee). On some very interesting phenomena on stems of various plants, which,
however, instead of irritability, on which they have been pushed, depend on
mechanical or other causes (on Parietaria, Chenopodium, Atriplex, Spinacia, Urtica,
Humulus, Morus, Forskalea, Genista, Spartium, Indigofera, Medicago, Kalmia, etc.)
Comp. Treviranus, Physiol. II. 739. (Against Nasse's
experiments Parietaria and Urtica in particular, see Wiegm. Arch. 1836. II. 100.)
The stamens of the common Berberisstrauch can still be set in motion, even if they
have cut off the upper part or taken away from the flower the pestle, the sepals and
petals. If, at the moment when they are irritated, they are prevented from expressing
their movement, they remain unchanged in their first position.
In the plants of the Cactus and Cistus families the irritability is such that when
stroking with a straw or the beard of a feather across the filaments or blowing on
them, they make a slowly revolving and curving motion, which always follow the
opposite Direction than the one the shock gave them. This movement is the livelier
the warmer to a certain extent the atmosphere is, but it does not have the same
rapidity as Berberis and is not produced by mere shock. - The irritability of
Centaureen shows most vividly on disc florets, which have just blossomed. The
filaments contract here at the touch of the anthers; not always the same, but only one
or several seconds after the touch, and after some time, but quite gradually, they
return to their previous position, after which the irritation can be repeated with
success. Here, too, warmth of the air favors irritability. (Treviranus, Physiol.)
which happens one after the other, and so it is the fifth. In all these cases, therefore,
it is the stamens which produce the movements by their irritability. "(Wiegm. Arch.
1844. II., P. 128.)
 Stimulus movements of the pestle.
On the bare scar of the pestle stimulus movements have been observed especially
in several genera of the family of individuals with a two-lipped scar, of which above
( Martynia annua, Bignonia radicans , and the genera Gratiola and Mimulus (in most
species) are given a brief description of the apparitions I should like to note this
irritability in the two-lobed scar of lobelia syphilitica, crinoides, and crinus , to which
observation, however, as he himself confesses, a more than ordinary attention
belongs.And irritating movements are still on the scar of Goldfussia
anisophylla and Goodenia,on the genital column of S tylidium and the cap-shaped
appendages on the ovary at Pinus larix (larch tree) have been observed. Everywhere
this irritability seems to be related to the act of fertilization. This is not the case with
the two-lobed scars of the individuals, when the pollen, reaching the scar, causes it to
be closed and held in place, which, according to Don, is to add pressure to the liquid
content of the pollen growing from the tube To bring oaks down (?).
About the irritability of the scar of MimulusGärtner has recently made particularly
careful experiments. (Gardener, Experiments and Observations on the Reproductive
Organs in the Complete Worlds, Stuttgart, 1844.) Cut off and preserved in moist
sands, she behaved as if she had been cut off. Shaking does not affect it, but chemical
stimuli such as sulfuric acid. Morphine oil or strychnine oil (mixture of morphine or
strychnine with oil) weakens the irritability and finally destroys it. Castration had no
further influence on irritability, except that it prolonged the duration of the flower,
and so did the scar. An influence of the own pollen on the irritability takes place only
at the time of the conception ability; But chemical stimuli also work outside of this
time.
At Goldfussia anisophylla (otherwise Ruellia anisophylla), when the flower opens,
the end of the stylet, which has the shape of a pointed wire bent over at the top of the
hook, is seen to curve beyond the stamens so that the scar, which extends only on one
side of the stylus, is of a certain length from the top, stretched forwards, directed
convexly towards the sky, and the concavity of the hook turned against the
stamens. But if anything touches the stylus, or blows on it, or shakes the plant, or
brings it quickly from warm (25 ° R.) to cold (-2 ° R.) air, the curved end of the stylus
straightens straight up, now as straight as an arrow, now a little curved like a
Flamberg; sometimes (but rarely) the stylus also shows a lateral movement, to the
right or left, to the front or to the back. In the case of great heat, the irritated stylus
even bends in an arc to the opposite side, so that the stylus with its fine scar surface
lies almost directly on the corolla. Until the return to the voluntary original situation
is probably over1 / 4 hour. The experiment can often be renewed. The sensitivity of
the stylus does not start earlier than when opening the anthers and lasts until the
flower has withered. It shows itself on cut flowers, even on isolated pencils, as well
as if they are still on the plant, brightness or darkness makes no difference in the
success of the experiment. The purpose of the stimulus movement is apparently the
execution of pollination, as discussed later (XI). A voluntary movement could not be
perceived. (Nouv. Mém. De l'Acadé de Bruxelles, 1839.)
 In the genus Stylidium, whose stimulating motions are so briefly cited above, the
column, which terminates with two anthers and the scar, is to be regarded as an
adulteration of two filaments, including a stylus. It has a double S-shaped curvature
and is bent down in the natural state on the lower side of the flower edge. Morren's
research on styling. graminifoliumThe movement of the pillar takes place merely by
virtue of the mobility of the curvature at the base of the pillar. In the bud state the
irritability does not show yet; it does not begin before the opening of the anthers, and
it does not become fully effective until they begin to fight back at the sides, which
they do during the fertilization period. When the anther apparatus withers, irritability
ceases. As a rule, the movement is only after irritation; but on very hot days,
especially at lunchtime, Morren also saw several times that the pillars of free will
straightened (slowly, in about 1 / 2 Min., While very quickly when irritated) and also
returned to its previous position by itself. Once the pillar has been set up, it is sought
in vain to return it to its low position; it jumps by elasticity by itself back into the
air. Irritability also persists unchanged on cut columns, and even on the curved
portion of the base cut out of the column. (Nouv. Mém. De l'Acadé de Brux., 1838.)
About the irritability of the cap-shaped appendages attached to the base of the
ovaries of the larch tree ( Pinus larix), Don reports as follows: "I picked a twig with
unfertilized flowers, shook out the pollen dust of the male kitten of another twig, and
then found the stigmata completely pollen filled, and could now easily notice how the
walls of the stigma gradually contracted to perfect union, which apparently has the
purpose of pressing on the liquid contents of the pollen-bubbles and driving them
through the narrow passage to the oak the walls of the stigma widen again, soon
afterwards it withers and appears filled with the empty pollen-bubbles If one cuts off
a branch with female flowers before fertilization, one is astonished to seehow long
the stigma remains open and in perfect condition. "(Ann. des sc. nat. 1828. XIII. 83.)
Stimulus movements of other flower parts.
When, with Stylidium to a natural family belong also neuholländischen
genus Leeuwenhoekia is that joint, whereby the fifth corner of the crown articulates
with the tube, irritable, so that it contacts, or otherwise irritated, leaving its natural
lowered position, fast- straighten up and cover with his hollowed out plate the
immovable genital column. Also in the genus Caleya the lip seems to possess some
irritability, as well as in some species of Pterostylis and Megaclinium falcatum
Lindl . - In several species of Mesembryanthemum , the petals align themselves when
you bring a drop of water on the stamens. - AtBellis perennis can also bring about a
sudden alignment of the radiation leaflets; but only after the stronger impression of
the ether. The bell-shaped flower of Ypomoea sensitiva closes immediately after
Turpin by folding at the slightest touch of her nerves. At Oenothera tetraptera ,
Hedwig watched a sudden withering of the flower crown near its breaking point,
when he had carefully slashed the part of the cup which had enveloped her with a
knife.
Stimulus on leaves.
 From plants with simple irritable leaves only Dionaea muscipula is known
so far . Plants with compound irritable leaves, so far as we know, occur only under
the oxalids and legumes. From 33 to 36 of the plants belonging to it, which are
known, so far only the motive symptoms of Oxalis sensitiva , Averrhoa
carambola, and most carefully those of Mimosa pudica or the sensible plant have
been studied. For some, the irritability is only lethargic. Here is a list of the so far
known:
I. Oxalids: Averrhoa Bilimbi L., A. carambola L., Oxalis sensitiva L., 0. stricta, 0.
acetosella, 0. corniculata, 0. purpurea, 0.carnosa, 0. Deppei (the latter six after
Morren) . - Legumes II: Aspalathus persica Burm. - Nauclea pudica Desc. -
Aeschynomene sensitiva Swartz, A. indica L., A. pumila L. - Smithia sensitiva
Ait. Mimosa casta L., M. peruambucana L. (Desmauthus diffusus Willd.), M.
asperata L., M. pigra L., M. quadrivalvis L., (Schrankia aculeata Willd.), M. pudica
L., M. sensitiva L., M. viva L. Willd. - Desmanthus lacustris Dec., D. natans Willd.,
D. stolonifer Dec., D. triquetris Dec., D. plenus Willd., D. polyphyllus Willd. - Acacia
acanthocarpa Willd. For this, according to Schreber, two unspecified types
of Aeschynomeneand after Decandolle an Acacia from Senegal. (Wiegm. Arch. 1838.
I. 347. 1840. II. 162.) - According to Mohl, also in Robinia pseudacacia,
viscosa and hispida, the leaves close to each other by shaking the branches. He
believes that this irritability of the plant tissue is more general than previously
believed. (Botanical period 1832. II. 497.)
In general, all known plants with irritable leaves love the wettest places; some, like
the Desmanthus species, are almost aquatic plants. All, with the exception of
the Dionaeaoccurring in the warmer areas of the temperate zone belong to the hot
zone. Most are herbs, few bushes and trees. All stimuli produce only a closing, never
an opening at the irritable leaves. In compound irritable leaves, the same directions
that can be caused by stimuli, even in the sleep state of free pieces occur.
Dionaea muscipula Sparsely used in the swamps of North America. The leaves are
in the form of roses spread around the flower stem on the ground and have at the
front end a roundish, reddish-colored appendix divided by an incision at its end into
two semi-oval lobes, which is connected almost exclusively by the midrib with the
remaining leaf. It is densely covered with small, somewhat fleshy glands; moreover,
the lobes are not only bristly with eyelashes on their margins, but each of them has
three upright, very small spines in the middle of its surface. The surface of the lobes
sweats out of the glands a sap that attracts insects, some of which appear very eager
for it. No sooner has an insect landed on the commonly spread leaf appendages or
lobes of thedionaea set, they work together (in a few seconds) upwards; The lashes of
their edges intersect, and the spines help to hold the creature. The more the insect
repels, the more the flaps close together; only when it behaves motionless, they
reopen, and it becomes free again, though it has not died. However, the same effect
produced by the attraction of an insect is also produced by contact with the finger, a
straw or the leaves of neighboring plants. Curtis sometimes found that the trapped fly
was enveloped in a slimy substance, which appeared to act as a dissolving agent,
suggesting that the trapped insect was used to nourish the plant. The irritability of the
plant is related to the temperature of the air. Also atDrosera
rotundifolia and longifolia are said to have observed similar events as Dionaea ; only
much slower movements; but others could not find confirmation of this phenomenon
here.
Oxalis sensitiva is common in Amboina among other parts of India. The abruptly
feathered leaves of this plant, about 12 pairs of ovate leaflets, collapse upon contact
or with the addition of a few grains of sand so that the lower surfaces of both sides
collide, whereupon they cease to erect after some time. They close when you
approach the plant and shake the ground. They are also closed at night and on rainy
days. In the morning they are in the state of the strongest erection, and not so
sensitive to mechanical stimuli, as at noon, where they are already merging on mere
breath.
Averrhoa carambola is a tree planted in Bengal, in the Moluccas and
Philippines. The irritability of the feathered leaves is here of a sluggish nature, so that
it usually takes place only a few minutes after the stimulus. The leaflets descend
when touching the petiole, so that from opposite sides they almost touch each other
with their lower surface.
Mimosa pudica, Sensory plant, with double pinnate leaves. The leaflets, the leaf-
ribs, the main petiole, even the twig, each have its own particular movement, which
occurs as well as that of ordinary plant-sleep, as a result of stimuli. That of the
leaflets is that they lay one above the other in the form of a roof tile, that of the leaf
ribs, that they approach each other, that of the petiole, that it leans backwards on the
stem, and that of the branches, that they incline with the tip. In this state of
contraction the plant is at midnight by itself; in the state of highest expansion, on the
other hand, where all parts are separated, on the hot summer days of the morning in
bright sunlight. Each of these movements may occur as a result of stimuli without the
others, however, this is preferably due to the movement of the leaflets and leaf ribs, in
that the petioles rarely move without bringing them into action. The contraction
proceeds from the immediately mechanically irritated part, and propagates the greater
or lesser the greater the irritation. The time it takes a leaf to establish the state of
propagation varies from less than 10 minutes up to1 / 2 hour; This opening does not
involve such a regular sequence of parts as closing. The irritability is preferably in the
joint, whereby each leaflet of the leaf rib, each of the leaf ribs is connected to the
main leaf stalks and this the branches; a soft touch of it, in particular a white point on
the articulation of each leaflet with the leaf rib, suffices to produce the effect; on the
other hand, contact with the leaves causes the contraction only when it is connected
with a shock that propagates to the joints.
Cut branches, especially with the cut surface set in water, retain their
irritability. Even in nocturnal sleep the plant is still irritable; even under water, it
opens and closes, though slower. In the air and of the day, however, it moves most
vigorously, and more so, the stronger it is and the higher the temperature of the air.
 That (as Decandolle claims) the seed-lobes of the germinating M. pud. Dassen was
not confirmed; also, young leaves, before adopting the dark green color of the older
ones, possess little agility. Yellowed leaves are not very irritable, but this is less
noticeable when using mechanical than chemical stimuli (Dassen). In the
development of new leaves and in flowering, the mobility in the next leaves
diminishes noticeably; when the fruit ripens, the movements stop.
Applied stimuli often extend their effect far beyond the place of their application,
which is particularly evident when a leaf is lightly burned; because much further than
the heat is enough, the leaves collapse. This propagation of the effect takes time, as
the leaves removed from the stimulus later collapse than the near ones. According to
Dutrochet, the propagation velocity in the petioles is 8 to 15 mm in 1 sec., In the stem
at most 2 to 3 mm; after Dassen however no so exact determination is possible.
On the manifold stimuli to which the sensible plant reacts, s. above. But the
influence of one and the same stimulus differs to a great extent according to the
different state of the sensory plant, hence the often divergent statements of the
observers. Mechanical stimuli from wounding do not cause any movement (after
Dassen), unless they are associated with loss of juice or vibration, as one often sees
movement when cutting into a leaf, but not with a sharp pair of scissors Chlorine,
ammonia liquid, nitrous acid, sulphurous acid, sulfur ether, ethereal oils, as vapor or
liquid with the leaves of the Mimosa pudica , have been recognized as effective
chemical stimulibrought into contact. They can extend their influence very far. Thus,
by carefully placing a strong acid on a leaflet without causing a shock, one can cause
all nearby leaves to close. Camphor destroys the sensitivity and kills the plant without
the leaves closing. - Burning by fire is one of the strongest stimuli. Dassen used to, as
particularly expedient, thinner, soaked with wax cotton threads. With the very small
flame of the same, he could make young leaves to move, which could not be moved
in any other way. After the sudden admission of a cold, which was below freezing, to
a branch of a sensible plant you saw Fay and Duhamel this with his leaflets only
more than before open, then close very quickly and open again. - Galvanism seems,
because of poor management of the plant, difficult to influence, so the observers
contradict each other in this respect.
If the roots are burned with concentrated sulfuric acid or with a flame, not the
slightest movement in the leaves (Dassen) will be produced, but it will be by dilute
sulfuric acid (Dutrochet), where absorption is still possible.
Everything that is detrimental to the life of the plant, eg. As the immersion of the
same under water, the brushing of the leaves with oil or alcohol, the diluted air of an
air pump, too cold as too warm atmosphere, prolonged deprivation of air, poisons of
various kinds, the carbonic, nitric acid and nitrogen, weaken or destroy also the
irritability. Through poisons, the mimosa is killed before the leaves are reached by the
poison, and thus one can (Dassen says) explain its effect only from its effect on the
whole plant, which is different from the poisons, as at narcotic limbs limp "Getting
stiff with corrosive poisons". Everywhere one notices that the natural movements (by
sleeping and waking) disappear later than the stimulus movements. (See recent
experiments onMim. pudica : Meyen in S. physiology III. 473; Dassen in
Wiegm. Arch. 1838.1. 349; Miquel in Fror, N. Not. no. 9 of the Xth volume. Göppert
in Pogg. Ann. 1828. XIV. 252.)

X. Teleological counter-reasons.
We used to argue for many considerations of purpose in favor of the plant soul. But
in the end all considerations of this kind will be suppressed by the simple
consideration that the plant serves far too much and visibly for other purposes than
that it may equally speak of its own end in itself.
Let us first develop the objection according to its full weight.
The construction, the furnishing, the life and dying of the plants are all in the
purposive relationships for the human and animal kingdoms, and this is entirely up to
them. Everything would starve to death without plants, would put everything in
helplessness; If man had not bread, not potatoes, not linen, not wood; and hereby not
house, not ship, not barrel, not fire; and hereby not heat in winter, not heat for the pot,
not embers for the metals; and hereby not ax, not plow, not knife, not money. Without
the plant he would not even have meat, not milk, not wool, not silk, not feather, not
leather, not tallow, not lard; because from where did this animal first have? And
without all this he would not have trade, not craft, not art, not writing, not books, not
science; short,
Man therefore needs the plants and for this use they are created, and what the
human being does not need, needs the animal, which itself is partly used by humans,
but also has its purposes for itself. Any plant that does not serve humans directly will
surely provide food and shelter to one or more animals at the same time; and even in
disintegration feeds every million infusoria. The plant accomplishes enough of the
purpose by doing all this; and that explains why she is there. The whole infinite
multiplicity of the plant-world and its products simply means to work in part on the
equally great variety of specially-made needs in the human and animal kingdoms, and
in part to provide direct satisfaction.
Soon we see a plant impose many, often intersecting, benefits for animals and
humans, and soon calculate a plant entirely for one main achievement for humans or
animals. But both prove in the same way that the determination of the plant has to
work for other purposes only. Often on the same plant the root for the worm, the leaf
for the caterpillar, the flower for the butterfly, scent and color for man, the fruit for
his palate and stomach, the herb still for his cattle. No less than 70 different species
of insects are said to live alone on and off the oak. The bird still sings in its branches
and climbs the squirrel; the pig reads the falling fruit, the dormouse looks for shelter
under its root, the man tainted with its bark, from their tribe builds the keel of his
ships like the beams of his house, and warms up in the house at their branches. So
completely this one tree dissolves, so to speak, in purpose for others. On the other
hand, one looks at the flax, the wine, the hops, as many medicinal plants as they are
specially calculated for a definite main purpose, which benefits man. Even the vain
pleasure of man is still high enough to subordinate the construction and life of
particular plants to their own satisfaction. Because nature created women vain, she
also created a plant for the special service of this vanity. As it is, the mulberry plant
had to be mixed so that silk could be spun out of it; and that it is precisely to do this
purpose with her, proves the silk worm only added to their destruction and rewarded
with a taste of sensation. Tea and coffee would certainly not have so mixed
substances, if not so humorous people had been planted after the people. And
everywhere, when the plant prepares it, it accomplishes what it has to do to men or
animals, it is ruthlessly destroyed, the grain is mowed at once, the potatoes are torn
out, the tree is struck, the flax is roasted. Nowhere does it seem like a pity to nature to
fulfill a purpose for humans and animals through it. when the plant prepares it and
manages to do what it can to humans or animals, it is ruthlessly destroyed, the grain
is mowed at once, the potatoes are torn out, the tree is struck, the flax is
roasted. Nowhere does it seem like a pity to nature to fulfill a purpose for humans and
animals through it. when the plant prepares it and manages to do what it can to
humans or animals, it is ruthlessly destroyed, the grain is mowed at once, the potatoes
are torn out, the tree is struck, the flax is roasted. Nowhere does it seem like a pity to
nature to fulfill a purpose for humans and animals through it.
After all, only this can be the meaning of the relationship between animal and
plant. Man and beast were destined to bring soul, idea, purpose into nature; this, of
course, demanded matter for the carrier and for realization. But so that the ideal
would not be too self-absorbed in material matters, it would burden the by far greater
part of material and labor, which is necessary for the purposes of the ideal, into a
separate world in which the material burden and effort become easy is worn because
it is not felt in it. If man and the beast have to prepare all that is purely earthly,
material even with their own organs by their own actions and from the beginning,
which is already given to them in advance by the plants, then a view of the higher
will never develop freely in man can, and even the animal's free wail will be stunted
over the earth. But now man and beast sometimes enjoy the same pleasure as they
otherwise would have had to laboriously manage; in the meantime only the last
treatment has to turn to that which has already been prepared from the hands of the
plant, and at the same time find the most favorable conditions for activity of their
ideal factor.
The whole existence of the human and animal kingdoms is thus based on those of
the plant kingdom as if they were based on a substructure; but one can not demand
from the bearer that he himself still contains in himself what is higher, what he is
destined to elevate above him to a free, effortless being, ie here the soul. Shall the
candelabra still shine by carrying the light? Yes, does not it mean, after the plant
shows itself to be subordinate to the purposes of animated beings, at the same time
demanding an abundance and an impossibility that it now also has purposes for
itself? Does it not have to be the most favorable for them, as well as for the animal
and human worlds, that they do not even know the value of a life, that they do not
even sense the lust of a life that would only be determined? to dissolve in sacrifices
for others? Just as it is, it surrenders without resistance to the purposes it is destined
to fulfill, and thus best serves this fulfillment, and it needs nature and we are not
sorry to use it for it.
I have given so much play to the development of this objection, because in doing so
unfolds a truly wonderfully beautiful and great side of nature, the exceptionally
precise, careful, and in the most individual extending convenient device of the one
organic kingdom to the pious of the other, but of course also just one side, and here
lies the non-drivenness of the objection, and hereby he lets us forget and lose a
wonder about that miracle. For the greatest miracle of nature lies in the fact that every
one of its beings in every district, by appearing entirely made for other beings, is at
the same time completely devoted to its own purposes, one always serving the other,
and only after another relationship, than another is used; and everything weighs
together in such a way that the whole thing is durable and alive. So let's let the plant
be so carefully built, set up, to fulfill purposes for humans and animals, and even
calculated for such a purpose, what does it do! The whole premise is fundamentally
false, as if this did not support an equally careful, completely accurate calculation of
the structure, of the establishment of the plant, for its own purposes. Any look at the
chain of natural beings, which does not purposely end in one-sided consideration, is
enough to show this chain of purpose.
Dog and cat must serve the pleasure or the advantages of man; but do they
therefore have less desire and longing for it? The cat eats the sparrow; but the
sparrow is not just there for the cat; the sparrow eats the caterpillar, but the caterpillar
is therefore not just there for the sparrow; the caterpillar eats the plant; Why should
the plant suddenly be there for the caterpillar and what is behind it? I find nothing in
nature, which forbids the pleasure that descends these ladder, even descend into the
flowering plant; Does this look like a step out of stone and iron? The plant serves
other purposes, it is true; righteousness demands that others serve their purpose
again; and nature exercises this righteousness, as it will be seen. But then the plant
must have purpose; and this can only be a being with soul; I do not mean straight
purposes in the sense of Hegelian purpose-categories, but if only purposes, just as
they now have a being that feels something for something, and has well, if it achieves
such.
If a plant can do so many things at the same time to so many others, as we have
seen in the case of the oak, there is not an excess of purposefulness in it but the surest
indication that one has not even thought of the main purpose. For if she can do so
many things at the same time to so many others, then the next thing to believe is that
above all she will be able to afford herself something. But because she herself is the
next one, she will be able to afford it best and in the best possible way. So this is
where the main purpose is to be found. All those purposes which it fulfills for others
only splinter; attach to individual externalities, foothills of their lives. However, the
oak is a self-contained celebration, whole, something, has itself together. And should
not this self-contained organic sphere of action correspond to a coherent purpose? It
was missing when the oak itself did not have any purpose. Who does not believe that
when a star sends forth rays on all sides, something in itself sheds light and
collected? But we let the oak send rays out of a dark core.
In any case, if some plants appear merely made to satisfy the small, perhaps even
the most flawed inclinations of men, that should best prove that what they appear to
be made of can only be the least and least essential of what they really did is; or our
contemplation of nature becomes a very unworthy one.
If, however, one thinks that nature has for the most part intended to transfer
material labor to the soul-less beings in order to facilitate the soulful ones, then one
should consider that, according to the universal nature of nature, material activity is
only that in which action is done can express the souls. So not work would be spared
the soul, but soul for the work would be saved, if the objection was right, if, what
could still proceed with soul, but should proceed without such. Every work and effort
will be rewarded with a reward of labor, a retribution of effort. The king and scholars
themselves still have to work with brain and pen; Meanwhile, the farmer and
craftsman works more with arm and plane. But he feels as good and strong as the
effort of his work and so enjoys the reward of his work. Feeling and enjoyment is
only there finer and more developed, here coarser and simpler, as it is the work and
the substance of the work and of the worker himself. But if the farmer can nourish the
king and still feel what he is doing to feed him, then the plant will be able to nourish
the animal and still be able to feel what it is doing to nourish it. All the reasons
according to which the plant-life the soul was denied in favor of the state of men and
animals, would in fact just as well be compelled to deny it to the peasantry for the
benefit of the learned men and gentlemen. how it is the work and the stuff of the
work and the worker himself. But if the farmer can nourish the king and still feel
what he is doing to feed him, then the plant will be able to nourish the animal and still
be able to feel what it is doing to nourish it. All the reasons according to which the
plant-life the soul was denied in favor of the state of men and animals, would in fact
just as well be compelled to deny it to the peasantry for the benefit of the learned men
and gentlemen. how it is the work and the stuff of the work and the worker
himself. But if the farmer can nourish the king and still feel what he is doing to feed
him, then the plant will be able to nourish the animal and still be able to feel what it is
doing to nourish it. All the reasons according to which the plant-life the soul was
denied in favor of the state of men and animals, would in fact just as well be
compelled to deny it to the peasantry for the benefit of the learned men and
gentlemen.
It is said, on the other hand, that our tools are also things that merely serve
purposes without purpose, why not plants as well? But it is precisely this combination
with our tools that, as with earlier considerations, can best serve to show that the
plants fall from another point of view.
Our tools do not live, weave and grow out of themselves like plants, they have
everything, their existence, their form and their purpose, so they can not demand
anything of purpose for themselves; the work done with them is not done by them, it
is we who do them; So only we can demand the wages of labor; however, plants, if
they are tools, are self-living tools, working in and with and on and of themselves, as
we do, can make similar demands as we do; are tools of God like us; but in God's
workshop no tool has one-sidedly to serve the other, but each one reciprocally to
serve the other.
Hereby we come to the second side of our subject, which the objection has
completely overlooked, or has unilaterally regarded as intertwined by the first, while
on the contrary it is most intimately entwined with it. And hereby the argument
against the soul of the plants will turn completely in their favor.
The plants serve humans and animals; conversely, humans and animals have to
serve the plants; and if that made the plants soulless, it would also make people and
animals soulless. It is only because we are accustomed to measuring everything
according to ourselves and our needs that we do not serve the plants in the same way
as they do us, that we do not consider it as a service at all.
With the same right as it is said that men and beasts eat and eat the fruits of the
field, it can indeed be said that the fruits of the field eat the people and animals
again; because everything that goes away from humans and animals, goes back into
the plants, and must pass into them, so that they grow and thrive. They just do not
tear man so alive, as we do with them. They wait for what comes from us until it
comes to them, awaiting our death before they take over our very own. This patience
is now interpreted as sluggish insensibility and dead passivity; but wrongly, because
they are really not insensitive to all this, they prove just by the fact that they greedily
embrace all that when it comes to them and grow joyfully through it. It is only this
patience with their love of the plaice and their, so to speak, female character to the
animals together. But wait for a queen to bring her what she needs; she is sure she
does not need to wait; a lot of hands are busy for them by themselves. So now the
whole plant waits, that the animal's body dissolves to build its body; the flower waits
until the insect comes to her to help her with the fertilization; the seed waits for the
sower to seize him and sow him in the land; the insect and man do it for sure, first of
all because of it; but nature has arranged insects and men in such a way that for their
sake it becomes at the same time one of yours. female character facing the
animals. But wait for a queen to bring her what she needs; she is sure she does not
need to wait; a lot of hands are busy for them by themselves. So now the whole plant
waits, that the animal's body dissolves to build its body; the flower waits until the
insect comes to her to help her with the fertilization; the seed waits for the sower to
seize him and sow him in the land; the insect and man do it for sure, first of all
because of it; but nature has arranged insects and men in such a way that for their
sake it becomes at the same time one of yours. female character facing the
animals. But wait for a queen to bring her what she needs; she is sure she does not
need to wait; a lot of hands are busy for them by themselves. So now the whole plant
waits, that the animal's body dissolves to build its body; the flower waits until the
insect comes to her to help her with the fertilization; the seed waits for the sower to
seize him and sow him in the land; the insect and man do it for sure, first of all
because of it; but nature has arranged insects and men in such a way that for their
sake it becomes at the same time one of yours. So now the whole plant waits, that the
animal's body dissolves to build its body; the flower waits until the insect comes to
her to help her with the fertilization; the seed waits for the sower to seize him and
sow him in the land; the insect and man do it for sure, first of all because of it; but
nature has arranged insects and men in such a way that for their sake it becomes at
the same time one of yours. So now the whole plant waits, that the animal's body
dissolves to build its body; the flower waits until the insect comes to her to help her
with the fertilization; the seed waits for the sower to seize him and sow him in the
land; the insect and man do it for sure, first of all because of it; but nature has
arranged insects and men in such a way that for their sake it becomes at the same
time one of yours.
Should nature also let the plants and the animals argue about what one needs from
the other, since they already do so much among themselves? She has preferred to let
give and take in peace and harmony, so that not everything dissolves in discord. So
she allowed us to use the plants arbitrarily for our purposes, without the plant even
being able to defend itself; but even against our will we must serve the plants
again; and can we fight something more against it?
The fertilizer and the rotting corpse are not alone, which benefits the plants as food
for humans and animals. In a secret traffic that is unknown to most people, they have
to do the most important things to the plants with the most important things they have
themselves. In fact, how do you think that a plant that grows in the pot or outside
grows so big? The soil does not seem to diminish. Also, a plant leaves little ash on
burning. Of course, the water that is taken in does a lot, but little earth and a lot of
water do not make a plant by far. However strange it may sound, it is certain that it is
chiefly the breath of men and animals from which the plant is built, which creates its
solid framework. Noticeable all solid material, which remains when burning the
plants as coal, the plant draws from the carbon dioxide of the air (and the
impregnated water), the same essence, which also escapes as a foam of
champagne. This carbon dioxide is exhaled by humans and animals, taken up by the
plants, the carbon is separated from it and transformed into its substance, but the
oxygen (whose combination with the carbon dioxide forms the carbonic acid) of the
atmosphere.
"Certainly," says Dumas, "contained the patch of soil on which the glans
germinated centuries ago, from which the massive tree before us emerged, not one
millionth of the carbon that the oak now possesses 'Carbon, she's gotten out of the
air.' (Dumas, Statics of the Organ. Ch.)
Boussingault found that the manure, which had been consumed on an estate for one
hectare of soil, only 2793 kilograms. Carbon contained, but the harvest made by 8383
kilograms. On another estate, the harvest even contained 7600 kilograms. Carbon
more than the fertilizer. So the surplus had to come from the air.
He made an attempt to show that peas that had been placed in pure gravel and
poured with distilled water, and therefore had to receive their food only from the air,
nevertheless developed, bearing leaves and seeds. (Just that.)
 How eager the plants absorb the carbon from the air, proves the following attempt
Boussingaults. He found that "vine leaves, which were introduced into a balloon,
soaked up all the carbon dioxide contained in the air passing through it, even if the air
flow was swept so quickly through." Likewise, Boucherie saw from the rootstocks of
trees felled in full sap Carbonic acid escaping in huge quantities. " (Just that.)
In winter, our breath froze to flowers at the window, in summer the vibrant flowers
of the meadow shoot from it. God, it is said, breathed the soul into mankind,
conversely, one can say, humans breathe the body into plants.
Humans and animals must breathe and live so that the plants grow and live; indeed,
the lungs of men and animals can be regarded as organs, which have to prepare the
plants for this most essential need of life. We hold cows to prepare the milk in their
udders, the plants are kept by God humans and animals, to prepare the carbonic acid
for them in the lungs. The cow herself, eating the grass, helps to build new grass
through her breath; it eats only the old leaves, that is, the products of the earlier life-
activity of the plants, and, as formerly recalled, the finished matter does not mean
much more to the plants; For this purpose it exhales the material to new life activity,
for in the transformation of that semi-spiritual substance into physical life, the main
task of the life of the plants consists; That's what makes them grow, green, live. If it
were not possible to say here that nature has, as it were, unloaded from the plant most
of the material preparatory work, the whole process of crushing and digesting coarse
matter, the plant has remained merely the beautiful, light, cheerful task from which
ghost-like being, which emerges as the last product of that coarse process of
constantly rebuilding and decorating the most delicate, loveliest body, artist and
painter in one, and she does not even have to resort to it. Is not the ideal in the
vegetable kingdom hovering here, and is not the rude base entirely in the animal
kingdom? the plant has been discharged, as it were, into the whole process of
decomposing and digesting the coarse matter into the animal; the plant has merely
remained the beautiful, light, cheerful task of continually rebuilding the most
delicate, loveliest body out of the ghost-like being, which is the last product of that
coarse process and decorate, artist and painter in one, and she does not even have to
resort to it. Is not the ideal in the vegetable kingdom hovering here, and is not the
rude base entirely in the animal kingdom? the plant has been discharged, as it were,
into the whole process of decomposing and digesting the coarse matter into the
animal; the plant has merely remained the beautiful, light, cheerful task of continually
rebuilding the most delicate, loveliest body out of the ghost-like being, which is the
last product of that coarse process and decorate, artist and painter in one, and she
does not even have to resort to it. Is not the ideal in the vegetable kingdom hovering
here, and is not the rude base entirely in the animal kingdom? and she does not even
have to resort to it. Is not the ideal in the vegetable kingdom hovering here, and is not
the rude base entirely in the animal kingdom? and she does not even have to resort to
it. Is not the ideal in the vegetable kingdom hovering here, and is not the rude base
entirely in the animal kingdom?
Although the breath does not make it alone; much to the carbonic acid of the air
also contributes to the burning of the wood; for what the plant drew from the spirits
of nature in life goes back in the death of the plant as a fiery breath; but only to the
growth of new plants, to rejuvenate the plant world. The whole plant has to die
once. In this respect, we can help people understand the meaning of death angels for
the plants. We paint death with the scythe; for them he goes bodily with sense and art,
a higher being, destroying for the individual, yet serving the renewal of the whole.
Of course, as the plant derives its nourishment from the breath and products of the
fire, it has to make a return for it. If it did not take the carbon dioxide out of the air, it
would spoil it more and more, because carbonic acid, as the product of breathing or
burning, can no longer serve to stimulate and sustain breathing or breathing, but
suffocates both where the air is too much carbonic acid loaded. But now the plant, by
extracting its carbon from this gas, produces from it again the life-air (oxygen), which
originally served for breathing and burning, and, by returning it to the atmosphere,
always keeps it fresh and lively for the purpose of entertaining life and life
Fire. Thus, plant and animal life complement each other in their purpose. The plant
inhales the carbonic acid, which exhales the animal, and the animal inhales the
oxygen exhaled by the plant; the plant decomposes the carbonic acid and takes the
solid matter, the carbon from it, to build its body; the animal combines the oxygen
with carbon of its own body and releases this compound in the form of a gas in order
to get rid of a used substance. Both, however, are necessary for the maintenance of
their lives.
After all, it will of course always be possible to say: yes, so that man could have
wood, the tree first had to grow and reproduce, and in order for man to have bread,
the grain had to blossom and bear fruit, and with it man should Air would always be
pure to breathe, had the herb in it green. But it will always be equally possible to
reverse it and say that in order for the tree, the crop, the herb to grow, to blossom, to
blossom, to bear fruits, man and the beast must first produce the fertilizer and the
carbon dioxide of the air man always burn the old wood again; Man and beast had to
grow and nourish themselves in such a way that they could do it all in life, and still be
able to supply suitable decomposition products for the plants at death. Now, of
course, everyone would find it very stupid to believe in earnest that the beautiful and
artistic arrangement of man and beast is only for the sake of their waste, ancillary and
destructive products; but is it not seen that it is quite as silly to believe that the plants
are so beautifully and artistically furnished and built merely for the purpose of
ensuring that the waste, byproducts, and products of destruction of this beautiful
structure benefit the animals, especially those far away most of the same is in destruct
products. In fact, this is the way of looking that is usually satisfied. The vine is there
for us to crush its grapes; the tree is there to chop it into pieces and put it in the oven,
the cabbage to feed it the caterpillar and we cook it. Or do we want to give much
weight to the aesthetic impression that the plants make us alive? After all, the plants
delight in the human eye through their greenery and flowering. But how many plants
pass without making any impression on a human eye; and for many millennia, before
mankind was born on earth, plants had grown on the earth, the green of which
certainly did not arouse any aesthetic feeling in the mammoths and cave bears. And
what else is the explanation for the plants than for polished corpses or whitewashed
tombs, by adding to their living external appearance the purpose of pleasing us
through outer plaster, while their whole content is dedicated to destruction? This
approach seems so pointless to me, that for her sake alone I would consider the plant
not soulless; Also, our natural feeling is far from attuning, as discussed several times
before.
If man, by cultivating himself, thinks that the whole world had nothing to do but to
participate in it, he is certainly right in some respects. But the rose, Georgine, which
in the course of this cultural evolution has grown from a crude, simple plant to a
splendid flower in a thousand varieties, is just as right when she thinks that
everything and man himself is concerned only with hers Culture development
turned; Without the human being it would never have been possible for her to have
such beautiful abundance, such rich variety; man had to cultivate to cultivate it. The
grain of the field may also be right, if it means that everything was only intended to
bring it to its well-ordered society; man only a tool prepared by nature, to guide the
plow and to cultivate the field in his favor, so that in the smallest space the largest
number of ears could be preserved undeterred by foreign invaders. Yes, perhaps man
himself will not be sown and drawn by higher spirits like the Georgine and the field
of wheat; is not death the breaking off of a flower, a battle the mowing of a field?
I think there is nothing different with human and animal and plant than with sun,
earth and moon. The Moon appears as the most subordinate in the planetary system,
as the plant is in the system of our earthly organic world. But who sees on the moon
sees the earth and the sun revolve around the moon, sees itself in the center of the
whole. Whoever stands on the sun says: you are mistaken; you, together with the
earth, turn around me. But they are both wrong, or are both right, as one
wants. Basically, each one turns on the other as one takes the point of view on one or
the other; but in absolute terms one is as little about the other as the other, but about
the common focus that represents the totality of the whole system. So all life revolves
around God; but God himself represents in his unity the life and weaving of all his
creatures. A focus is just nothing without the force that pulls all parts of the heavy
against each other.
Many base their belief in the former continuance of the human soul on the fact that
God would not have built the human body with such extraordinary art and furnished
it with such purest purposefulness, if not in favor of an eternal soul; strange, if one
can think that he has furnished the body of the plant with such great care and
expediency in favor of even no soul.

XI. Examples from the teleology of the plant world.

The purest and at the same time the most correct rejection, that in the position of
the animal and plant world a one-sided purpose-consideration obscured against each
other, indisputably grants the relation of teleological reciprocity between insects and
plants at the fertilizing business of the latter. 1) Whoever does not resent to follow us
through some detail will find in the following some interesting circumstance in
relation to it. The discussion of this material may, according to all that has already
been said in the previous section, be brief, but nevertheless also offers many peculiar
points of view.
1)Comp. especially on this subject: Conrad Sprengel, the discovered secret of
nature in the construction and fertilization of flowers. Berlin 1793.

As is known, the most essential condition of plant pollination is that the flower dust
(pollen) from the anthers (Antheren), di the end portions of the stamens (filaments),
on the scar (stigma), ie the end portion of the pestle, get. The dust bags are always
attached at a certain distance from the scar, 2)Also in some plants special
circumstances take place, which complicate the transfer of the flower dust on the
scar. In order to accomplish such, nature has made manifold and strange events,
among which the establishment of the instincts and way of life of many insects plays
a major role. Wherever the fertilization business by the plant itself could not properly
be accomplished by virtue of the construction and position of its parts, insects are
ready to help by transmitting the dust from the stamens to the scar by their
movements in the flower , Not only bees and butterflies, but also many beetles (from
the genera Cetonia, Elater, Chrysomela, Curculio and others), beetles and webs
participate in this process.
2)Most of this applies to the so-called monoecists (monoecious plants) and
dioceses (dioecious plants), as far as the stamens and pistils are contained in
various (male and female) flowers. The difference between the two is that in
the monocots the male and female flowers are on the same plant, in the
dioceses even on different plants. Among the monoecists include corn, melon,
pumpkin, castor, larch, hazelnut, etc. to the diocesan spinach, hemp, broom,
juniper, etc.

In many flowers, several species help insects to fertilize, z. B. in the umbrella

flowers, the euphorbia; in many, however, only a kind of insect does this business,
"because," as Conr. Sprenggel expresses, "the rest are either too stupid to know where
the juice is hidden, and how to get to it, or, if they know it, are either too big to crawl
into the flower, or too small for them to touch the anthers and the stigma as they
crawl in. " Thus, according to Sprengel, Nigella arvensis is fertilized only by the
bees, Iris xiphiumbut only of bumblebees, both in a very definite way. - In
Pensylvania, a very small species of hummingbird, called a bumble-bee, performs the
same service as insects for the fertilization of some plants, nourishing themselves by
the nectar of flowers in their tubes He sinks his long and pointed beak deeply, flying
from one flower to another every now and then. (Kalm, maturity in the North
America II. 354.)
 The following circumstances intermingle strangely with regard to this purpose.
In order to induce the insects to visit, the honey vessels (juice containers, nectaries)
are added to these; Also, some insects, like bees, have the instinct to collect flower
dust themselves. The flowers sweat most of the honey juice, if their stamens and
stigmas are good for the pollination business, as Schkuhr (Handb II 84)
in Tropaeolum, Delphinium, Helleborus and L. Ch Treviranus (Physiol II, 390)
in Anemone , Chrysosplenium and Saxifragahave specially observed. The honey juice
is commonly found in the deepest, most hidden places of the flower, so that the
insects can not reach it without touching the insemination parts and bringing the
flower dust on the scar when crawling in and out. By small hairs of suitable position,
the nectaries are usually protected against the rain, and thus the dilution of their juice,
without the hairs blocking the insects. A sticky texture or threadbare texture of the
flower dust favors very much its attachments on the body of insects. On the other
hand, one finds in the insects living on flowers everywhere either a fur-like hairiness
of the whole body or brush-like spits, brush-like or brush-like hair tufts on the feet, or
a peculiar organization of certain parts, for the purpose of shedding the pollen more
easily. Consider z. For example, the hairy, thick body of bees and bumblebees and
other bee-like insects, and at the same time the violence with which they move in the
flowers. Among the nymphs among the day butterflies, who often visit flowers, but
do not dwell on them for long, instead of trained forefeet, one finds brush-shaped
paw-paws, whose active movement, while the butterfly sits on the flower, easily
succeeds that on its hairy breast To abrade the hanging flower dust, so that it falls on
the flower again. Not unintentionally is the circumstance already noted by Aristotle
and confirmed by newer observers (Mitteil, kk schles, Gesellsch., 1823, 174), that the
bees usually only visit one kind of flower during their excursions; the flower-dust
being easily transmitted even between different, but as it is necessary for the purpose
of fertilization, similar plants.
As supportive one can state that the peculiar color, partly also the smell of the
flowers and the developed facial organ of the insects makes the finding of the former
easier for the latter. Often the paths to the nectaries are also indicated by more
specific stains (juice marks) on the petals as indicated by signposts. Although I hardly
believe that this circumstance and many other things have such great weight as
Conr. Sprengel attaches to his discovered mystery of nature, but his portrayal of this
object has her interest because of the love with which he understands it.
so the juice mark, which starts in front of the opening, runs through it to the juice
holder, thus serving as a safe signpost for insects. If a flower has several entrances to
the juice holder, it also has as many juice stains. If a flower has several juice holders,
which surround the ovary, or only one, which in the shape of a ring surrounds the
ovary, and whose juice can not consume the insect otherwise than when it circulates
around it and its The proboscis is often inserted; so the juice has a ring-shaped shape,
and leads the insect around in circles. " So she also has as many juice monuments. If
a flower has several juice holders, which surround the ovary, or only one, which in
the shape of a ring surrounds the ovary, and whose juice can not consume the insect
otherwise than when it circulates around it and its The proboscis is often inserted; so
the juice has a ring-shaped shape, and leads the insect around in circles. " So she also
has as many juice monuments. If a flower has several juice holders, which surround
the ovary, or only one, which in the shape of a ring surrounds the ovary, and whose
juice can not consume the insect otherwise than when it circulates around it and its
The proboscis is often inserted; so the juice has a ring-shaped shape, and leads the
insect around in circles. "
"On the occasion of the sap, I must speak of the variety of the juice-flowers, which
are based on the time of day in which they flower, just as there are insects that swarm
around by day, and those who only eat at night, as well there are also day flowers and
night flowers. "
Many of them close in the evening, or lower themselves as they stand up during the
day, or there is another change with them, from which one can conclude that they are
for daytime insects only. Some close on the first night and do not reopen the
following morning, so they only flower one day, most of them blooming for several
days. "
"The day flowers are adorned with a juice mark, though not all."
By day most of them are closed, or withered and unsightly, from which it is evident
that they are not meant for daytime insects, some bloom for several nights, the
common evening primrose ( Oenothera biennis ) flowers for two nights. "
"The night flowers have a large and brightly colored crown, so that they fall in the
dark of the night the insects in the eyes.If their crown is unsightly, this deficiency is
replaced by a strong smell.A juice jar, however, does not take place with them for
example, the white crown of a night flower a juice of another, but also bright, color, it
would not cut off in the dark of the night against the color of the crown, hence be of
no use. that would not be so obvious, and therefore useless as well as that. "
Almost ridiculously naive is the exam, which the author of the utility facilities
at Nigella arvensis with himself (S, 285 f., writing), in which he seeks to interpret the
smallest details teleologically. He asks, "Why is the flower just as big as it is, not
bigger, not smaller?" Answer: "Because nature wanted it to be fertilized only by the
bees, and consequently had to take the measure of it from the bee's body." If the
flower were larger in diameter, the anthers and the stigmata would also be there Once
again, the bees would run around without touching them, but if they were half as
large, the anthers and the stigmata would be half as high, and the bees would not
touch them properly In both cases, therefore, fertilization would be impossible or
highly distressing. that the bees can walk around almost, but not unhindered, among
the anthers and the stigmata. It is highly probable that nature intended these flowers
merely for the bees and only allowed them to be fertilized by them. I have often gone
to the field on which the plant grows in fine weather, but have never seen other
insects on the flowers than bees. "
" Stapelia hirsuta, " he says on page 148, "stinks like a bitch, so that the flesh-and-
bitch flies, to whom this smell is most charming, visit and fertilize it." Bees and
bumblebees will certainly not visit it, because they have one Detest odor. "
 Here are some special details about the purposefulness of Reichenbach's writings
on the preservation of the world, taken from the position of the nectaries (p. 27):
and then sit directly on the dust-bags and scars, often enough to fill the whole
flower. In the umbelliferous plants, the nectaries are of a glandular nature, not very
hidden, and their flowers placed in a plane, so that a moderately large body can touch
many at the same time, therefore, there are already larger insects, long-footed
leaptures, bees with hairy bodies and beetles formed like bees, which, hairy all over
the body, act on a large part of the flowers of an umbel at the same time; therefore,
the petals are small and flat, but the scars and anthers are long and protrude over the
area. But where the nectaries are more hidden, the construction of the flowers is
appropriate for the insects whose body is to come into contact with them. The lip-
flowers and tubular flowers also have their honey-vessels deep inside, at the base of
their tube, the stamens sit against the inner wall thereof, and the anthers come to lie
where the tube widens, and thereby it becomes possible for the especially on the front
part of her body, hairy insects with their tongue touch the nectaries, while their fur-
covered chest piece strips off the dust of the dust from the anthers, and brings them to
creep out on the higher stigma. By this it is also possible that even the Bombayans,
who visit these kinds of flowers, the primroses, pulmonaria, lamas, and the like,
while floating in front of the flower, without sitting on them, suck the honey, carry on
the mating. " at the base of its tube, the stamens sit against the inner wall of the tube,
and the anthers come to rest where the tube dilates, and this makes it possible for the
insects hairy on the front of their bodies to nectaries with their tongues touch while
her fur-covered chest piece strips the pollen from the dust bags, and brings out the
stigma elevated to the crawl. By this it is also possible that even the Bombayans, who
visit these kinds of flowers, the primroses, pulmonaria, lamas, and the like, while
floating in front of the flower, without sitting on them, suck the honey, carry on the
mating. " at the base of its tube, the stamens sit against the inner wall of the tube, and
the anthers come to rest where the tube dilates, and this makes it possible for the
insects hairy on the front of their bodies to nectaries with their tongues touch while
her fur-covered chest piece strips the pollen from the dust bags, and brings out the
stigma elevated to the crawl. By this it is also possible that even the Bombayans, who
visit these kinds of flowers, the primroses, pulmonaria, lamas, and the like, while
floating in front of the flower, without sitting on them, suck the honey, carry on the
mating. " and this makes it possible for the insects hairy on the front of their bodies to
touch the nectaries with their tongues, while their fur-covered chest piece strips off
the dust of the dust from the anthers, and brings them to the stigma, which is elevated
above it. By this it is also possible that even the Bombayans, who visit these kinds of
flowers, the primroses, pulmonaria, lamas, and the like, while floating in front of the
flower, without sitting on them, suck the honey, carry on the mating. " and this makes
it possible for the insects hairy on the front of their bodies to touch the nectaries with
their tongues, while their fur-covered chest piece strips off the dust of the dust from
the anthers, and brings them to the stigma, which is elevated above it. By this it is
also possible that even the Bombayans, who visit these kinds of flowers, the
primroses, pulmonaria, lamas, and the like, while floating in front of the flower,
without sitting on them, suck the honey, carry on the mating. "
It is true, as is the custom of nature, not to rely on one remedy alone, and to have
this soon prevailed among several remedies for the same purpose, fertilization in
most plants is diminished even without the help of insects the remaining facility
possible; but this assistance remains useful everywhere, and for some who are
focused on the means, it is essential. Some foreign flowers, therefore, remain
unfertilized with us because they have come to us from the southern hemisphere, and
now their time of flowering, which is our winter time, is still observed in our
greenhouses, where there are no insects that help to fertilize them could. Some may
be fertilized by an insect in their native land, which is not in our areas. (E. Sprengel,
Entd. Geh., P. 44.) Even with native plants, observations can be made here. Attentive
gardeners note that in melon and cucumber beds that are kept closed, they are not
likely to produce fruit, because the insects are kept out and the heavy pollen can not
reach the scar for themselves. Also with the Irisarten, Malvazeen, the Hollunder
(Sambucus ), violets ( Viola odor .), The mistletoe ( Abroma augustum ), the
Osterluzei species ( Aristol, Clem ., And sipho ) fertilization should be able to happen
only with the help of insects. (Kölreuter, Vorläuf. Nachr. 21. 32. Second Fort. 70.) In
particular, however, the Asklepiadeen and orchids are to be expected here.
and so the pollen is brought to its place. Often one sees crawling on the silk plant
flies, which have a large number of such club-shaped pollen masses attached to their
legs, and in some areas the bee fathers know their own disease of their industrious
animals, the crawl disease, which consists in nothing more than that so many Pollen
masses of the orchids have been attached to the forehead of the bees, that they are
unable to fly and they perish. (Schleiden, The Plant, p.70.) which consists in nothing
other than that so many pollen masses of the orchids have attached themselves to the
forehead of the bees, that they are unable to fly and that they perish. (Schleiden, The
Plant, p.70.) which consists in nothing other than that so many pollen masses of the
orchids have attached themselves to the forehead of the bees, that they are unable to
fly and that they perish. (Schleiden, The Plant, p.70.)
In some flowers, the process is still in a particularly strange way; such as the
Osterluzei ( Aristolochia clematitis ). Here the flower is a bulbous below, at first
narrower at the top, and then again opposite the blunt tongue-shaped edge of the
mouth, which, before fertilization, is internally filled with hairs, all directed
downwards. The anthers sit underneath the fruit knot without stamens, and no seed
dust could come from them on the scar. After Conr. Sprenggel creep, however, as
soon as the flower has opened, small Schnaken with feathery feelerhorns ( Tipula
pennicorais) in the flower tube; the downside hairs block their way back. So they
rave about in the bulging parts of the tube until they have with their feathered feeler
horns the seed dust from the dust bags stripped and brought to the scar. Often they
appear to be quite powdered, if you cut the flowers in time. As soon as the
fertilization has been done, the shoot of the juice stops against the corolla, the hair
dehydrates and falls off, and the little flies are released from their prisons again.
 Consider this case seriously; is it really possible to believe that sentient creatures
are captured here in favor of the insensitive, to remain locked up until they fulfill
their purpose for the latter?
In the genus Eupomatia , all communication between the anthers and the scar is
abolished by the inner, infertile, flower-like stamens, but it is produced by insects that
eat those that leave perfect stamens uninjured. (R. Brown, Verm, bot., Schr. I. 140.)
The establishment of the irritable stamens of Berberis is undoubtedly calculated by
the contact of insects or the like causing the stamens to move to the pestle. In another
way, stimulus movement of the genital column of Stylidium or of the genus of
Goldfussia, which is also easily caused by insects, serves the purpose (see above). In
the case of Stylidium the anthers sitting on the column of the genitalia, in the state of
maturity, move away from the scar instead of approaching it, and pour out their
pollen on certain hairs which grow abundantly on the top of the column but submerge
in the bent-down state of the column the scar are located. If the column now
accelerates by touching an insect or the like, not only can the dust be easily thrown
from the hair to the scar, but the hair is also later in a favorable position to drop the
flower dust from above on the scar. (Morren in Mém., De l'Acadé de Brux., 1838.) In
Goldfussia, the movement of the stylus serves to bring the scar into contact with
certain hairs of the corolla, on which the pollen of the anthers, unfavorable to the scar
itself partly falls by itself, partly brought by insects. Morren often saw small ants
penetrate these flowers, put pollen on their hair and cause the movement of the stylus
(ibid., 1839, p. 17). The relation of stimulus-to-sexual function in both plants is
particularly evident, especially in the fact that irritability exists only during their
time. Drop the flower dust from above onto the scar. (Morren in Mém., De l'Acadé de
Brux., 1838.) In Goldfussia, the movement of the stylus serves to bring the scar into
contact with certain hairs of the corolla, on which the pollen of the anthers,
unfavorable to the scar itself partly falls by itself, partly brought by insects. Morren
often saw small ants penetrate these flowers, put pollen on their hair and cause the
movement of the stylus (ibid., 1839, p. 17). The relation of stimulus-to-sexual
function in both plants is particularly evident, especially in the fact that irritability
exists only during their time. Drop the flower dust from above onto the scar. (Morren
in Mém., De l'Acadé de Brux., 1838.) In Goldfussia, the movement of the stylus
serves to bring the scar into contact with certain hairs of the corolla, on which the
pollen of the anthers, unfavorable to the scar itself partly falls by itself, partly brought
by insects. Morren often saw small ants penetrate these flowers, put pollen on their
hair and cause the movement of the stylus (ibid., 1839, p. 17). The relation of
stimulus-to-sexual function in both plants is particularly evident, especially in the fact
that irritability exists only during their time. to bring the scar with certain hair into
contact with the corolla, on which the pollen of the anther, which is unfavorably
placed against the scar, falls partly by itself, partly by insects. Morren often saw small
ants penetrate these flowers, put pollen on their hair and cause the movement of the
stylus (ibid., 1839, p. 17). The relation of stimulus-to-sexual function in both plants is
particularly evident, especially in the fact that irritability exists only during their
time. to bring the scar with certain hair into contact with the corolla, on which the
pollen of the anther, which is unfavorably placed against the scar, falls partly by
itself, partly by insects. Morren often saw small ants penetrate these flowers, put
pollen on their hair and cause the movement of the stylus (ibid., 1839, p. 17). The
relation of stimulus-to-sexual function in both plants is particularly evident,
especially in the fact that irritability exists only during their time.
The same equality of plants with animals as in their mutual teleological relations,
we find in the peculiar expedient arrangements of plants for themselves again. In this
respect, the preservation and propagation of plants is taken care of as well as those of
the animals. The fact that the animals, on the one hand, as an aid, on the other hand,
but only as an aid, which even under certain circumstances withdraws very much in
the process of propagation of plants into play, points to an independent importance of
this process for the plants. Under several means to fulfill the stated purpose, the
animals are only just one. And the other means for the same purpose are in part no
less ingenious arranged than the help of insects.
While someone might say, is not it still empty gambling in any case? Is not
everything what we call appropriate here, but only half the improvement of a whole
inexpedience, which had to be all the greater, the more artificial means it would take
to eliminate them? If it were not the easiest and the most convenient, if the
pollination of the pestle of the pestle for fertilization would be necessary, grow the
pollen immediately on the scar or immediately near it, instead of placing it in separate
anthers and often even the difficulties of transference to accumulate, only then to be
needed special tools, yet to bring them about?
He who speaks thus proves that he has at all misjudged the spirit of the teleology of
nature. In the same way one could say that it would not have been simplest and most
appropriate for nature to let apples grow in our mouths, instead of giving us hands to
reach them from afar; or put the houses down, instead of providing us with senses
and minds to build ourselves? Why did she leave us anything to do ourselves? The
answer is this, because in the yearning and aspiration of all that which is not
immediately thrown to us, our soul should express and express itself feeling and
striving; and so many things there are that we must have without still having them, so
many ways of feeling and striving the soul become possible. By this consideration,
and by it alone, the manifold means which nature has employed to put the purpose of
fertilization in the plants in the distance, and yet to achieve it by intermediate effects,
receive a rational interpretation; At the same time, however, they also prove to be true
for the control of a soul in plants; for if no soul is active in the plants, then in fact that
shifting and then, nevertheless, artificial achievement of the fulfillment of the purpose
is entirely without sense and earnestness; but if they have soul, every other kind of
postponement and subsequent attainment of the end will also indicate a different need
and a different kind of satisfaction for the soul. To put the purpose of fertilization far
away in the plants and yet to achieve it by means of intermediate effects, a sensible
interpretation; At the same time, however, they also prove to be true for the control of
a soul in plants; for if no soul is active in the plants, then in fact that shifting and then,
nevertheless, artificial achievement of the fulfillment of the purpose is entirely
without sense and earnestness; but if they have soul, every other kind of
postponement and subsequent attainment of the end will also indicate a different need
and a different kind of satisfaction for the soul. To put the purpose of fertilization far
away in the plants and yet to achieve it by means of intermediate effects, a sensible
interpretation; At the same time, however, they also prove to be true for the control of
a soul in plants; for if no soul is active in the plants, then in fact that shifting and then,
nevertheless, artificial achievement of the fulfillment of the purpose is entirely
without sense and earnestness; but if they have soul, every other kind of
postponement and subsequent attainment of the end will also indicate a different need
and a different kind of satisfaction for the soul. indeed, that shifting, and then the
artificial attainment of the fulfillment of purpose, is quite without sense and
earnestness; but if they have soul, every other kind of postponement and subsequent
attainment of the end will also indicate a different need and a different kind of
satisfaction for the soul. indeed, that shifting, and then the artificial attainment of the
fulfillment of purpose, is quite without sense and earnestness; but if they have soul,
every other kind of postponement and subsequent attainment of the end will also
indicate a different need and a different kind of satisfaction for the soul.
From this general point of view, the following examples will become more
meaningful to us; Of course, it can not be demanded that we should be able to specify
in detail the meaning of these things for the psychical.
In general, we see that, under certain circumstances, the plant behaves more
passively in the fulfillment of its purpose, and more actively participates among
others; similar to satisfying the needs of people share happiness and skill in different
proportions. Happiness includes chance; but it happens to rain every harvest.
Wind and gravity are taken into account in such a way that they must throw the
flower dust to the scar. The success can be partly missed; but if not all the pollen of
the flower reaches the scar, it is so abundant that it would not be necessary or even
contrary to the purpose.
In Hibiscus Trionum Kölreuter counted 4863 pollen grains in a flower, of which 50
to 60 in the best season suffice for fertilization. In Mirabilis Jalappa , of all the 5
anthers of the pollen, 293 were grains; in M. longiflora 321; in both cases, however, 2
to 3 pollen grains were sufficient for complete fertilization.
The effect of gravity can be found in the following way. In the case of upright
flowers, the pestle is usually so short, but in the case of hanging flowers it is so long
in relation to the stamens that the anthers must pour out the pollen from above onto
the scar (if necessary slightly turned over). Although it is not everywhere like
that; but nature likes to follow this relationship. The aloes, which belong to the plants
where the pestle towers over the stamens, show quite well the use of this
remedy. With them, the flower rises before it blooms as it does after it has withered,
but it is hanging over at the time of fertilization. Similar things can be found
in Asperifolia , such as Cerinthe, Borago, Symphytum, Onosma, Pulmonaria , in
many Liliazeen , z. B. Galanthus, Erythronium, Lilium, Hemerocallis, Fritillaria,
Convallaria and others
 The same is true when, as is often the case with monoculture plants, the male
flowers are at the upper end of the ear, such as, for example, B. in the genus Arum , or
the male ears (kitten) are located above the female, as in sedation ( Carex ), cattail
( Typha ), inter alia
It will not be doubted that the wind participates in the fertilization business, if one
remembers how it often continues in immense quantities of pollen, which then, in the
event of sudden rain, is reflected in the so-called sulfur rain. In many plants, the
transmission by wind or insects is made even easier by the fact that the flowers are
arranged to a flower head, an ear of wheat or umbel neighbor. So not too much pollen
is lost on the way.
Blooming fields of corn are seen at sunrise, when a gentle breeze blows, wrapped
in a thin mist, the pollen of the broken flowers, which, driven by the collapse of the
ears from its containers, causes this phenomenon. Attentive farmers have also noticed
that the crop does not produce abundant fruit, does not form fuller grains than when a
brisk wind blows at flowering time. Pines, tax trees, juniper and hazel bushes,
poplars, willows, when they are loaded with shaking kittens, shaken or moved by the
wind, fill the air with a cloud of dust, which the slightest wind continues. The help of
the wind is especially important for monocesists and (even more) for dioceses, in the
former, as mentioned, the male parts are separated from the female ones on the same
plant, in the latter even on different plants. In one
ofTreviranu's experiments with mercurialis perennis did not produce any fruit if the
females were 220 paces away from the males and were also separated from them by
buildings and bushes; however, it occurred when the distance was only 30 feet. (The
same thing was observed by Jussieu on two pistachio trees.) In the experiments of
Spallanzani, all the ovaries of Mercurialis annua were fertilized when the female
plant was close to the male, less so when removed from it, and not at a considerable
distance ( Treviranus, Phys., II, 391, 393).
Since the wind proved to be a helpful element in fertilization, it could be
remembered whether not even the water was used by nature. And indeed, although
the use of water carries with it particular difficulties, of which we shall speak later,
nature has in some cases been able to overcome them; and so we see
in Ambrosinia the rain of fertilization, filling the flower-sheath, lifting the flower-dust
produced below the scar to the right height; in Vallisneria, however, the water in
which the plant grows supplies the male organs to the female. It can be seen that the
effect of the water has been taken from above and below, in the vertical and
horizontal directions. The process at theVallisnerie also offers otherwise interesting
conditions, which it is worth the effort to get to know.
"The Spatha of Ambrosinia is designed like a barge and floats on the water.The
spatha is divided into an upper and lower space by the piston, whose wing-shaped
appendages with the Spatha are fused to a small hole, in the lower are exclusively the
Anthers, in the upper one single ovary, the pollen can not otherwise reach the scar, as
rain fills the lower and the half upper chamber, whereby the floating pollen is raised
to the level of the scar and can drive hoses here. " (Schleiden, Grundz. II. 450.)
 The Vallisnerie is a segregated sex (diocesan) aquatic plant growing in the bays and
channels of southern Europe, living at the bottom of the waters and anchored to the
ground by numerous roots. In the female individuals, the flower bud sits on a long,
helically wound stalk in youth, but which subsequently stretches so that the flower
unfolds on the surface of the water, and thus the fertilization can proceed over the
water. After the fertilization has happened, her stalk shortens again, putting its threads
together again. This brings the young fruit back to the bottom of the water and brings
the seed to maturity there.
The behavior of the male plant in the fertilization of the Vallisneria was once
decorated a fairy tale, and one finds such representations even in new writings
repeated. "The flowers of the male plant, it is said, are retained on short stems at the
bottom of the water as long as they grow, but at the time of ripening they themselves
are freed from their stalks, floating on the surface of the water, floating up you open
yourselves and pollinate the female flowers that they meet there, "(Autenrieths Ans.,
p. 254). It is even said that this secretion of the male flowers takes place from the
stems by a violent movement (Goethe's Ges Vol. 55, p. 129). According to recent
research by the curator at the Botanical Garden of Mantua, Paolo Barbieri, but the
real behavior is as follows: the male individual has a straight stem which, as soon as
it reaches the surface of the water, forms at its tip a four-leaved (perhaps three-
leaved) flower sheath, in which the male reproductive organs (stamens) are attached
to a conical flask sit. As the flask and inseminating organs grow, the vagina becomes
inadequate to envelop them; it is therefore divided into four parts, and the fertilizing
organs, detaching themselves from the flask by the thousands, spread floating on the
water, looking like silver-white flakes, "which strive and strive for the female
individual, as it were." But this rises from the bottom of the water, as the spring force
of its spiral stalk subsides, and then opens on the surface a tripartite crown, in which
one notices three scars. The flakes floating on the water scatter their staminal dust
against those stigmata and fertilize them; If this is done, the spiral stem of the female
retreats under the water, where the seeds, contained in a cylindrical capsule, reach
finite maturity. (Goethe's Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. 127.) The obvious "effort and
endeavor" of the male parts towards the female flower, incidentally, may well have
been only in the imagination of the observer. I do not think that one needs to add
anything to the plant's natural expressions of life in order to recognize soul
expressions in it. The flakes floating on the water scatter their staminal dust against
those stigmata and fertilize them; If this is done, the spiral stem of the female retreats
under the water, where the seeds, contained in a cylindrical capsule, reach finite
maturity. (Goethe's Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. 127.) The obvious "effort and endeavor"
of the male parts towards the female flower, incidentally, may well have been only in
the imagination of the observer. I do not think that one needs to add anything to the
plant's natural expressions of life in order to recognize soul expressions in it. The
flakes floating on the water scatter their staminal dust against those stigmata and
fertilize them; If this is done, the spiral stem of the female retreats under the water,
where the seeds, contained in a cylindrical capsule, reach finite maturity. (Goethe's
Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. 127.) The obvious "effort and endeavor" of the male parts
towards the female flower, incidentally, may well have been only in the imagination
of the observer. I do not think that one needs to add anything to the plant's natural
expressions of life in order to recognize soul expressions in it. to reach final
maturity. (Goethe's Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. 127.) The obvious "effort and endeavor"
of the male parts towards the female flower, incidentally, may well have been only in
the imagination of the observer. I do not think that one needs to add anything to the
plant's natural expressions of life in order to recognize soul expressions in it. to reach
final maturity. (Goethe's Ges. Werke, Vol. 55, p. 127.) The obvious "effort and
endeavor" of the male parts towards the female flower, incidentally, may well have
been only in the imagination of the observer. I do not think that one needs to add
anything to the plant's natural expressions of life in order to recognize soul
expressions in it.
In the case of Serpicula verticillata L., a small plant with separate sexes found in
the waters of the East Indies, the male flowers, when they are near the point of
breaking loose from the open flower-sheaths, and swim to the female ones, resting on
the tips of the repelled ones Chalices and petals rest. (Roxb. Corom. II. 34. t, 164.)
An automatic contribution of the plant to the fertilization business takes place
partly by means of a special method, such as the growth process takes place, partly by
means of voluntary movements of the fertilizing organs.
In some upright flowers, where the scar on a long stylus stands so high above the
(often strapless) anthers that fertilization seems impossible, the anthers already open
when the flower is still bud, but close to breaking up. Then the opened anthers lie
directly on the fully developed scar. Only after breaking open does the stylus
lengthen. Thus in Proteazeen, Campanulazeen , many Papilionazen , the
hermaphroditischen florets of the Syngenesisten, with Nymphaea, Hypericum,
Argemone, Papaver, Paeonia, Oenothera, Impatiens, Ocymum, Canna etc.
(Treviranus, Phys. II. 378.)
In other plants, the initially separate fertilization organs gradually move together
through the growth of the flower parts in such a way that fertilization becomes
possible.
Coming to the voluntary movement of the reproductive organs, it is most often the
stamens, which gradually move to the pestle at the time of fertilization, pour their
pollen on the scar of the pestle and then return to their position. In other cases, the
pestle migrates to the stamens; in still others both seek each other
mutually. Treviranus, Biol., Ill. 349, V. 204. Treviranus, Physiol, d., Volumes II, 379.)
The first class, where the stamens move towards the pestle, are: Cactus opuntia,
Fritillaria peraica, Hyoscyamus aureus, Polygonum oriental, Tamarix gallica, Ruta
graveolens and chalepensis, Zygophyllum Fabago, Sedum
telephium and reflexum , Tropaeolum, Lilium superbum, Amaryllis formosissima ,
Pancratium maritimum, Parnassia palustris, Geum urbanum, Agrimonia eupatoria ,
various species of Ranunculus and Scrofularia, Rhus coriaria , Saxifraga
tridactylites, Sax. Muscoides, Sax. Aizoon, Sax. Granulata, Sax. Cotyledon , etc.
Second grade, where the pestle moves to the stamens include:Nigella sativa, Sida
americana, Passiflora, Candollea, Hypericum , Oenothera, Hibiscus, Turnera
ulmifolia , etc. The third, where mutual exploration takes place: Boerhavia diandra ,
all species of Malva, Lavatera , Althaea and Alcea (Treviranus).
The stamens of some plants observe a regular sequence as they move to the pestle.
In Lilium superbum, Amaryllis formosissima and Pancratium maritimum , the anthers
gradually approach the scar. In Fritillaria persica they turn alternately to the
stylus. In Rhus coriaria , two or three stamens emerge at the same time, describing a
quarter circle and bringing their anthers close to the scar. For Saxifraga trydactylites,
muscoides, Aizoon, granulata and cotyledontwo streaks of filament lean against each
other from opposite sides over the scar, and, after spreading their dust, they spread
out again to give place to others. In Parnassia palustris , the male parts move to the
female ones in the same order in which the seed dust ripens, and when they approach
the scar, rapidly and in three, when they move away from it after fertilization, in three
paragraphs. In the case of Tropaeolum, one after the other, one after the other, from
the initial downward-bent stamens, rises upwards, and, after the anther has dropped
its dust from the scar, bends down again to make room for another.
Finally, nature is smarter than us. Whatever the difficulties in fertilization
(Treviranus says), nature, if it is unlimited only in the application of its means, which,
for example, does not apply to cultivated plants, knows how to overcome them, either
by one of them and by connecting several, and so we often see the pollen, which
reveals itself by its shape and color, on the scar, without being able to indicate the
means by which nature has brought him to it "
"At Valeriana dioica, Link saw all the scars covered with pollen that could only be
brought in by the wind or by insects, and in Lilium Martagon the stamens and
styluses only acquire their maturity and maturity after the flower is opened Dustbags
removed, and yet, "says Treviranus," I saw them abundantly covered with reddish
pollen with 12 flowers, which gradually developed under my eyes, without my
having been able to specify the procedure of nature by never Insects looked busy, and
the plant was protected from the wind by their standing, similar observations can be
found in Kölreuter and Sprengel. "
Besides the main purpose of communicating the contact of the pollen with the scar,
there are also secondary considerations which may be considered in fertilization,
often in a very peculiar way, satisfied by special arrangements in the structure and
life-process of the plants.
The pollen or pollen actually consists of small bubbles filled with fluid, which,
reaching the scar of the pestle, grow into a long filiform tube, which grows through
the length of the pestle into its cavity (ovary cavity) and through its liquid contents
fertilize the seedbud, which is inwardly in that cave. Of course, this can not be done if
the pollen bubbles have already burst and have gotten rid of their liquid content. The
danger is given by the contact with moisture in that the pollen grains are inclined to
suck in, swell and burst; and both dew and rain, and especially the natural position of
many aquatic plants, bring with them such danger. Against this, perhaps the pollen of
some plants may be protected by a water-repellent, waxy coating; since, in certain
cases, we see the water itself involved in the fertilization business as helpful; but this
is at most one of the means of eliminating the danger. In other cases, the danger can
not even reach the point of pollen, as the flower behaves in a suitable manner against
the water or the moisture, or sets up its growth accordingly.
So many plants close their corolla when it wants to rain; Many also do it at night to
avoid the night dew, others bend the flower stalks at nightfall so that the mouth of the
crown is turned downwards. The common balsam ( Impatiens noli me tangere ) hides
its flowers under the leaves at night. In many flowers fertilization takes place under
the protection of special blankets, such as the vine and the Rapunzelarten, the
butterfly flowers, lip flowers, Katyptranthes species 3) etc.; In some plant genera the
fertilization takes place already in the flower bud not yet erupted, z. B. the bluebells
and butterfly flowers, or happens at the moment of breaking itself, and this takes
place only in dry weather. Not infrequently the change in the position of the flowers
by the wind, which generally accompanies the rain, makes it impossible for it to
penetrate, of which CC Sprengel gives a graphic representation in the book on
p. Nevertheless, if much moisture penetrates to the inner parts of the flower,
fertilization usually fails; Therefore, rainy weather is seen by the farmers in the
flowering of fruit and grain so reluctant.
3) In the vine and the Rapunzelarten ( Phyteuma ), the petals connected with
their tips form this ceiling; in the butterfly flowers ( Leguminosae ) it forms the
flag ( vexillum ); in the Labiata ( Labiatae ) the upper lip of the corolla, in the
Kalyptranthes species the cap-shaped calyx, etc. (Decandolle, Phys. 11, p. 82.)

Particularly interesting, however, are the remedies which are used in some aquatic
plants to carry out fertilization in the absence of water.
The water nut, Trapa natans L. , germinates at the bottom of the water and
develops in the youth under this; but as soon as the flowering time approaches, the
petiole swells into a cellular, air-filled bladder. These bladder-shaped petioles stand
next to each other in a kind of leaf-rose and lift the plant to the surface of the
water; the flowering takes place in the air, and when the flowering time is over, the
bubbles (with the absorption of the air) fill up with water and the plant sinks back to
the bottom of the water, where it brings its seed to maturity. (Decand, 11. 87.)
The Utrikularia species provide an even more composite device. The roots or rather
the submerged leaves of these plants are extremely strongly branched and with a lot
of small round tubing ( utriculi), which are provided with a kind of movable lid. In
the young utriculars, these tubes are filled with a mucus heavier than the water, and
the plant, retained by this ballast, remains at the bottom of the water. When the
flowering time approaches, the plant separates air, which penetrates into the hoses
and pushes the mucus out, by lifting the lid; when the plant is thus equipped with a
quantity of bubbles filled with air, it rises slowly and finally floats on the surface of
the water, so that the flowering in the open air can be accomplished. When the
flowering time has expired, the root begins again to separate mucus, and this occupies
the place of the air in the hoses: this makes the plant heavier, sinks to the bottom of
the water and brings its seeds to maturity in the same place where they are to be
scattered again. (Decand II, 87.)
In other aquatic plants, the purpose is more simply achieved by not blooming until
their stems have reached the surface of the water; so z. As most
Potamogeton - species that mints ( menthae ), water harrows ( Carices aquaticae ),
hedgehogs heads ( Sparganium ), etc.
Even under water fertilization in some plants can be protected against the water.
The seagrass ( Zostera marina ) z. B. is attached by its roots at the bottom of the
sea and can not extend sufficiently to reach the surface of the water; but it also
blooms in a fold of leaves ( duplicature de feuille ), which is open at the side, but
retains a certain amount of air separated from the plant itself, so that the male flowers
confined in this hollow with the female flowers are directly only airborne. not
surrounded by water.
At Ranunculus aquaticus , which actually blooms in the air, but whose flowering is
easily exposed to the danger of high water, provision is also made for this
case. Ramond and Batard found the flowers of this plant submerged in suddenly
growing lakes by the rising of the water, without detriment to fertilization. This is due
to the fact that the flower dust comes out early to the dust bags, while the flower still
appears as a closed and spherical, air-containing bud. August de St. Hilaire and
Choulant observed similar phenomena on the floating aquatic plantain ( Alisma
natans ) and on the cartilaginous ( Illecebrum verticillatum ). (Decand II, 84.)
Not less teleological interest than the fertilization process of plants also offers the
sowing of the same, as the concern of nature to ensure its continuance of plant souls
on a continual basis is just as distinct; although the measures taken in this respect are
for the most part not so directly related to sensations of the plant itself as those
concerning the fertilization process.
"Not calculated," says Autenrieth (Views of Natural Life and Soul Life, p. 257),
"the concern of many mammals and birds that the boys, once they no longer need
their help, may seem to drive them away, not so, if all in one place, the sparing
nourishment last, which the cultivated human race suffers so much from its guilt, is
missing for all, as the rising capsule of the European yellow balsamines,
the Impatiens noli me tangere L. , it seems to be calculated by means of which the
seeds are thrown far away, or as the mechanical form of the hooks, with which some
seeds are provided to hang on transient animals and be carried by them into the
distance, or the manifold formation of the feather-crowns of many seeds, to be led
away and scattered by the wind, evidently have that purpose. "
This remark is of interest when we see how, under circumstances in which the
possible growth of the seed is confined to a very definite location, there may also be
devices which hinder the contracting of the seed, and act to the same effect in the
same Be fixed near the parent strain. An example attached here grants the
Manglebaum.
 The mango tree, Rizophora L. , grows at the mouths of the rivers of the hot earth
and on shallow seashores, but only in the mud and so far, as it is alternately covered
by the flood with salt water. The seeds could not thrive deeper into the sea or further
inland; Thus, by their growth, they are already set up to take a firm footing at once,
where they fall away from the mother tree, and therefore can expect the same
favorable soil as to take place for it. In fact, a fleshy, hollow plant gradually grows on
the base of the flower of this tree, a piece of land which, as it were, extends beyond
the seed into the open, on which it gradually emerges with the help of a stalk. The
almost cylindrical, last about 11 / 2 Inch long stalk removes the seeds more and more
of this land. The seed itself is oblong-round, and at last 10 inches long, becoming
ever thicker and heavier towards its free end, but there terminates itself with a pom-
pinnacle. He hangs upright from the tree; At the same time, however, his connection
with the stalk becomes more and more relaxed, and at last he falls away from it. Due
to its heaviness, it now penetrates with the help of its pommel-shaped tip to one inch
deep by itself into the swampy ground and remains upright in the same stuck. But he
had spent nearly a whole year training for his tree, sprouting within its shell, and
already developed a significant root. He can almost immediately hold on. Jacquin
saw such seeds fall to the bottom of the ground 3 to 4 feet deep through water, and
then stand upright in the ground, and he found in such depths those who had shot up
again to trees in their roots. (Dict. Of the sc. Nat. T. XIV. Art. Rizophora, 387.)
According to Schüblers remark, the seeds of aquatic plants are usually heavier than
the water, so when they fall out of the enclosure they come directly to the ground
where they can germinate, while the seeds of most tall trees are lighter, that is, if they
are on water surfaces fall, swim and be fed by wind and current to the neighboring
shore. (Kastner's Arch. X. 426.)
The crop grows more securely covered with earth than just strewn on the
surface. In consideration of this nature gave the seed of the wild or flight-bird ( Avena
fatua L.) following device. The awns of the same are bent in the middle at an angle,
half turned like a rope, half straight. When the seed has become completely ripe and
dry, the lower part of this awn is very hygroscopic. Weakened he turns up, and by
turns the seed stands on the tip of his lower end and that of the awn, in order to lay
down on it again, because the latter by its rotation stretches straight again. Thus, the
grain necessarily continues to move one step at a time, because the direction of the
hairs on the grain and the fine spines on the awn allows it to move only in one
direction, towards the end not provided with the awn, but not backwards , In
alternating rain and re-emergence of dryness, the flight-bird crawls around on the
fields until he gets under a stubble or clod, where he can not get further, but now also
covered by this obstacle to germinate. (Plant system of Linnaeus XII. 43.)
It is not to be forgotten that all that is given here is but a few examples from
particular fields of plant life, where the administration of the purpose-principle seems
particularly striking, especially for our conception. If we could and should pursue
plant life in all aspects and in all its details, we would undoubtedly discover the same
expedient behavior everywhere, and find the harmony of all considerations of
purpose far more wonderful than any details may appear to us.

XII. Position of the plant to the animals.

It is argued that the soul can not descend from the animal kingdom into the
vegetable kingdom, because it is gradually extinguished as it descends from the
animal kingdom to the vegetable kingdom, and sees itself becoming very ambiguous
in the vicinity of the latter. The plant kingdom is on the whole deeper than the animal
kingdom; but even the lowest animals have nothing more of soul, so for the still
lower plants there is nothing left but nothing.
Polyps z. B. are already half plant-like nature. They sit, at least for the most part,
firmly on the ground with a stalk, they drive branches, sprouts, some seemingly
blossoms, etc. But how dark and imperfect are the signs of inspiration in them! If one
can attach at most a dark, murky remnant of soul to these still so mobile, soft animals,
how should anything else be given to the very rigid, stiff plants, which are, so to
speak, only woody polyps. Among the lower creatures, there are quite a few who still
argue today whether to count them among the animals or plants 1); and this dispute
coincides with whether or not to find signs of the soul in them; These signs become
so ambiguous here. If there is any doubt as to whether the soul, where the decision
between animal and plant still varies, there is no doubt that no soul, where the full
decision has been made to the plant.
1)Among these creatures are, among others, the Bolvocines, cloisters,
bacillaries, which Ehrenberg lists and describes among the infusoria, while
they were v. Siebold (see Anat. I. 7.) refers to the plant kingdom, but Eckhard
(Wiegm. Arch. 1846, H. 3.) again assigns the infusoria. In particular, the
bacillaria (or diatoms, desmidiaceen) is much dispute and wavering. Siebold,
Kutzing, Link, Mohl, Unger, Morren, Dujardin, Meyen consider them
vegetable, Ehrenberg, Eckhard, Focke, Corda animal. (Wiegm. Arch. 1837. II.
24. 1843. II. 372.) the monasteries are also declared vegetable by Meyen,
Morren, Dujardin and others. Similarly, the views of naturalists on the animal
or vegetable nature of the coloring matter of red snow contradict several times
(according to Unger and Ehrenberg, for example, vegetable, (according to
Boigt and Meyen animal).) The oscillators are by Ehrenberg, Meyen, etc. to the
algae Schleider, which is also considered to be the case with Schleider, and
various creatures which have been counted among the polyps for their calcium
content, namely Corallina, and the related Galaxaura, Halimedea, Udotea,
Acetabulum, Melobesia, Jania, etc., have Kützing (Anat. D. Tange p.8) is listed
as a tange, and it remains undecided whether the sponges are animal or
vegetable nature. With regard to the sponges and sponges, there are many other
changes. The Spongilles in particular are described by Dujardin and Laurent
(Wiegm. Arch. 1839. II. 197. 1841. II. 411.) for animals, Johnston and Hogg
 (ibid., 1839. II: 197. 1841. II. 409. 1843. II. 363.) for plants. The Millipore are
considered by Link and Blainville for inorganic heels of carbonate of lime, thus
referred to the mineral kingdom, by Ehrenberg and Lamarck for zoophytes,
explained by Rapp and Philippi for plants. (Wiegm. Arch. 1837. I. 387.) The
Millipore are considered by Link and Blainville for inorganic heels of
carbonate of lime, thus referred to the mineral kingdom, by Ehrenberg and
Lamarck for zoophytes, explained by Rapp and Philippi for plants. (Wiegm.
Arch. 1837. I. 387.) The Millipore are considered by Link and Blainville for
inorganic heels of carbonate of lime, thus referred to the mineral kingdom, by
Ehrenberg and Lamarck for zoophytes, explained by Rapp and Philippi for
plants. (Wiegm. Arch. 1837. I. 387.)

In the meantime, it just depends on justifying this argument, it turns entirely to the
opposite side.
What gives us first and foremost a right to find in the polyps, infusoria, among
others, so-called imperfect, but basically simpler animals merely dubious traces of
soul? Instead of the signs of a dark, murky residue of soul, I can only find the signs of
a simple and sensual play of them. The great susceptibility of these lower animals to
different stimuli, the clear distinction they possess, the liveliness and decisiveness of
their movements, the definite direction which they give to certain ends, the character
of the arbitrariness, the resolute resistance, to be perceived when they encounter
encroachments on their natural conditions of life, the struggle in which they get into
each other's self, all this speaks against a undecided, dull,
Let us only take a closer look at the phenomena of life of the polyps, and it will
appear that the apparent indistinctness of their soul depends in fact only on the actual
indistinctness of their contemplation.
If an outstretched arm polyp (Hydra) is touched, or shakes the water in which it is
located, it suddenly contracts into a small lump; certainly a sign of lively
sensitivity. He goes after the light, and if one puts down a glass with several polyps,
one finds after some time all hanging on the light side. The polyp has so many
senses. He is immensely gluttonous, eager to catch prey with his tentacles, and two
polyps often quarrel about it. These are signs of lively desires. He chooses and
distinguishes very well between his diet by merely enjoying animal food, rejecting
vegetarian diet; even among the animal diet he makes distinctions, especially by not
taking polyps of his own kind, even if you starve him and let him fall on his
outstretched arms while he grabs animals that he likes to eat at the first touch. Here is
a clear distinction (Trembley).
After all, what does one have in the polyp differently than a being of quite well-
developed sensuality, though perhaps nothing else? The whole play of souls revolves
around satisfying this sensuality in the shortest possible way. But sensual feelings and
desires may be the most pervasive and the most decided, and the simplicity of the
game in which they are conceived rather favors their strength and decisiveness. Just
look at the simplest and roughest people. Do they have less fierce and determined
desires than the most well-educated and educated? Of course, one can call this
darkness so far as the higher light of reason is lacking. But the light of sensuality can
burn in its way as bright as the higher light of reason, as fat burns as bright as ether;
What is true of polyps also applies to infusoria, as far as we can trace the way of
life of them, in their smallness. They show in part the liveliest movements with all the
characters of animal arbitrariness; and if not all are so active, there are also sloth-
animals among the higher animal classes, and, as discussed earlier, one can not even
seek in the liveliness of external movements the one measure of the liveliness of
inner sensations.
Unquestionably, and to some extent easily traceable, the simpler and more sensual
soul life of these lower beings is connected with their simpler physical
organization. Nature has gone through a large scale in this respect from man to the
lowest animals; but it is not a scale of strength and clarity, but of the entanglement,
height, and significance of the psychic life which is hereby passed through. Both
should not be confused, as it happens in the above argument.
In a certain way (only rightly understood) the organisms can be conceived as
machines, which, however unlike our artificial machines, which generate power for
their activity in themselves, and accompany the generation as well as use with
consciousness, permeate with feeling, by instead of mediate the services of a soul
expressing them, intended for the immediate service of an inner one. Moreover, they
show similar conditions of greater or lesser complication than our machines, and, as
the case may be, they are equally more complicated or simpler in purpose. Now the
simplest coffee grinder still paints her coffee as well as the fast press does its
complicated printing business. And I think, if each of our machines did what it is for,
through their own power and with their own consciousness, The coffee grinder would
master her business as well with it, penetrate with feeling as the rapid press. Not the
decisiveness or intension, only what is called the height of the consciousness, would
be less; if the simpler purpose also requires a smaller view. As we can now best
imagine, it will undoubtedly really be with the organisms. The increasing
complication of the organization will also depend on an increasing amount but not
strength and decisiveness of the consciousness. In the more complicated organization,
relationships with relationships are added, and higher relationships with lower ones,
which are lacking in simpler organization, and because they are lacking,
consciousness is also lacking. But the consciousness of the simplest and lowest
relationships can be so awake, vigorous, alive, to be decided like that of the supreme,
indeed slightly decided, and more alive; because every complication consumes
power, and where it disappears for the organic, it at the same time fades for the
psychic.
So, if the plants were really even more easily organized than polyps and infusoria,
there would not be any binding reason for keeping their souls alive and less alive than
those animals themselves, which are alert and alive enough. It only proves an even
simpler and lower kind of soul life.
 But it can not even be admitted that the most well-developed plants are more easily
organized than the simplest animals, and therefore the plant kingdom is completely
below the animal kingdom in this regard, even if, on the whole, the relationship
between the two realms remains correct Unless nowhere in the vegetable kingdom
has the organization advanced to such an entanglement as in the higher classes of the
animal kingdom. In any case, the plant kingdom, like the animal kingdom, rises from
the ambiguous intermediate realm, where one does not quite know whether animal, or
plant, again leads to greater complications, and this therefore can not justify the
conclusion that the development increasing with organic entanglement the soul
activity,
The following consideration comes to the aid: After undoubted results of the
geology over the fossil world worms and shellfish in the world were there rather than
amphibians, this rather than birds and mammals, this rather than the human, in short,
it went, in the whole and large Consider the creation of each lower tier of animals,
each one higher, probably for many thousands of years. Within the plant kingdom, on
the whole, there is a similar progression of creation from lower to higher
organizations. If, therefore, the plant kingdom should be subordinate to the animal
kingdom, one would necessarily have to assume that the plant kingdom, considered
in the whole and in the great, was also produced before the animal kingdom. But
nothing is more certain than that this is not the case; Rather, all the results of geology
unite in any case that the plant kingdom was certainly not there before the animal
kingdom; rather, one could doubt if it might not have come later. The most probable,
however, remains their simultaneous emergence. The lowest plants, with the lowest
animals, formed the common point of departure of organic creation, and from there it
arose in both kingdoms at the same time. In the animal kingdom, if we always
measure the height according to the inner complication, could it bring it to a higher
level; but the highest height to which it brought in the vegetable kingdom is by far
higher than the lowest in the animal kingdom. And if, on the whole, the vegetable
kingdom has remained in arrears in the amount of development, it has, on the other
hand, taken precedence over the wealth of external development as a whole.
If one puts the plants as stiff, stiff bodies in the direction of the moving polyps, this
sounds very much to their detriment; but you can do it and have it with greater
rights. The polyps (especially hyenas) are soft masses which appear almost uniform,
in which only a careful dissection laboriously recognizes some separation of organic
elements, the higher plants most subtly and clearly subdivided into cells and tubes of
various forms and functions, permeated with flowing juices, and so vigorously drive
leaves and roots for food as the polyp stretches arms afterward, only much wider and
wider. Does not it have to be considered an absurdity to everyone from the outset
anyway, when the monkey-bread tree, with its age of several thousand years, its
immense growth in trunk and branches, and the equally rich outer abundance as
careful inner elaboration of its parts on the ladder of the creatures should be lower
than the miserably small polyp formed raw from the raw or even smaller, so simply
organized Infusionstierchen after a short period, the mucus has disappeared, from
which they just seemed to have been built up? - Even the smallest infusion animal
may still have a bowel and the largest tree none; but does not every tube in the tree,
which leads the juice from below to above, have the meaning of such a bowel? The
baobab tree is a tremendous organ work, while the infusion animal is a tiny
whistle. And so unspeakably more effort in terms of mass, Power and organization
should nature have made for a soulless than for an animated being? How do you get
along with a reasonable teleology? Or will one also say here: the baobab tree is
nevertheless useful for the apes? It would be as if one wanted to say that St. Peter's is
good for the pigeons sitting on it. I think that's enough about that in earlier sections.
After all, it has long since come back from wanting to arrange the organic creatures
according to the pure scheme of a staircase; it is not in the animal kingdom for itself,
it is not in the vegetable kingdom for itself; but it is just as little in the position of the
plant and animal kingdom to each other. The notion of the height of one organic
being, in relation to another, is altogether a vague and ambiguous one, and it may be
found that, according to most relations, according to which one may measure the
height of one creature over the other, the animals On average, they will stand above
the plants, but neither will it, nor all relationships, nor will it be so between all
animals and plants. The whole consideration that the plants are therefore even less
entitled to soul than even the low-lying animals, because they are even deeper than
these, they lose their very foundation from the start. Surely, in some respects, they
will stand even deeper, but undoubtedly much higher in other respects: indeed, one
can argue that every organic being in a certain respect is higher than any other. The
point of view of his education was precisely that of attaining a certain kind of end in
the most perfect and direct manner with this kind of institution; but now the impulses
and sensations of this being must be furnished most completely and directly to the
reference to this purpose, to the need of its fulfillment, to the suffering of its failure,
the pleasure in its attainment, otherwise the whole endeavor would be a blind one and
deaf. - From this point of view, which is just the most important for our object, can
not really be a general series of levels of beings set up, or can be put every being at
the head of a special series of stages, where just his special purpose is taken to the
main focus. Of course one can distinguish between the height or the value of the ends
themselves; but again this from different points of view. Lastly, in order to have
something far-reaching, one may try to establish a series of steps according to the
subordination of the general to the particular of ends, and this coincides
approximately with the point of view of the greater or less involvement of the
organization on which the ordinary arrangement is based , There may be creatures
that, through the combined consideration of many purposes, At the same time, the
independent and immediate fulfillment of each individual purpose by the
consideration of the others must suffer a limitation. On the whole, such creatures may
now be called more perfect, but in regard to the individual, they are all the more
imperfectly named as the beings who merely or preferably have to satisfy the
individual purposes. The best example is the human being, in which the aim is
certainly the combined fulfillment of as many purposes as possible at the same time,
and these are best achieved on the whole. On the other hand, he does not have such
fast legs, not so sharp eyes, not so clinging claws as many animals, only the
combination of all this is so cheap, that with the weaker details he achieves more in
the whole and indirectly than the animals he is individually and immediately inferior
to. Of course, too, chiefly by means of his intellect; but the psychic organization is
related everywhere to the physical. There is no other principle.
In the meantime, not all beings can be superimposed upon one another in this order,
since many fields of purpose are coordinated, others interfere with one another, and
the detail in fulfillment of an end can easily take on a more general meaning after all
its moments than, so to speak, only quite sketchy fulfillment of several
purposes. Thus, after all, the simple concept of height gradation remains inadequate
to represent the complex relationship in which the organisms are related to each
other. And no matter how one tries to use this concept for the arrangement of the
same, the plants will not be allowed to settle very nicely under the animals; and even
if it does, only a lesser sensual, but not a soul, will allow themselves to be credited
with them.
Of course, if the difference between the ensoulment of animal and plant is
removed, the dispute over many creatures of the intermediate realm, as to which
animals and plants are to be reckoned of, must acquire a new turn, or a turn he used
to take more often, to lose. So far, the soul (arbitrariness, sensation) itself has
frequently been taken into account as a distinguishing feature between animal and
plant, without, however, being able to decide otherwise on the existence or non-
existence of the soul than on outward signs, whose validity itself first depended on
the presupposition that merely the animals are animated. But if the plants are so well
animated as the animals, then such a distinction is omitted altogether.
But there will no longer be such great interest in keeping a strict dividing line
between the animal and plant kingdoms and wanting to put dubious creatures on this
or that side of this dividing wall, as has been the case so far. The subjective passion,
which the controversy, whether animal or plant, has often gained, was indisputably
dependent on the assumption that it was at the same time the existence or non-
existence of an objective source of passion. If this presupposition disappears, there
remains only the outward interest in obtaining definite points of view for the
classification difference between animal and plant according to their physical
conditions; in what relation one should go from the outset exaggerated claims, if one
remembers the uncertainty of all the classification principles already within each of
the two organic areas and sees no reason why this uncertainty should not spread from
one area to another. In fact, all reason has been dropped, as well as allowing souls to
plants and animals. For as long as this was not the case, one could, of course, believe
that the difference between inspiration and non-ensoulment must also be expressed in
a corresponding striking difference in the bodily field, which does not permit a
bridge. as well as allowing souls to plants and animals. For as long as this was not the
case, one could, of course, believe that the difference between inspiration and non-
ensoulment must also be expressed in a corresponding striking difference in the
bodily field, which does not permit a bridge. as well as allowing souls to plants and
animals. For as long as this was not the case, one could, of course, believe that the
difference between inspiration and non-ensoulment must also be expressed in a
corresponding striking difference in the bodily field, which does not permit a bridge.
In my opinion, it will always remain arbitrary, up to certain limits, what and how
much one wants to place from the creatures of the intermediate realm to one side or
the other. The least arbitrariness will take place when the naturalist starts from the
concepts of animal and plant, as they have formed in the living usage of language,
and seeks to fix only its indeterminacy; otherwise everything would be arbitrary; but
it is hereby evident that in the end he does not escape arbitrariness. For in life these
notions have been fashioned according to a complex of commonly occurring features
without strict delimitation of this complex and decision on a principal characteristic,
chiefly the higher animals and plants being envisaged. But if, as is actually the
case, the characteristics of these complexes in the intermediate realm, and already in
the process of approximation, partly begin to intermingle and intermingle, the
decision as to which trait, or which narrower complex of features, is the last decisive
factor for the choice of the name and the position on this side or beyond the required
partition between animal and plant, no longer in the nature of the thing or the use of
language, but purely in the subjective discretion of the naturalist, or the direction he
wanted to give his classification principle arbitrarily, and which for others will not be
binding. And whatever he wants to choose as a major differentiator, or whatever
complex of traits he wants to choose,
Two main distinguishing features seem to be mainly recommended and have
probably been used most frequently, one of which relates to construction, the other to
life expressions. According to the former, a creature is declared to be an animal or a
plant, according as its nutrition is absorbed into the substance of the body by internal
or invaginated surfaces (intestinal canal, stomach, to which a mouth belongs) or
external everted surfaces (leaves, root-fibers, etc.) receives; after the other, according
as his outward life expresses itself more by free-floating locomotion of the whole or
parts, or by mere growth. In fact, in its higher stages, the plant and animal kingdoms
are very definitely distinguished by the combination of the two characteristics; but
both features have nothing absolutely divisive about their conception and the nature
of the organism, as is also sufficiently shown in the intermediate realm, because
invagination with protuberance, locomotion with growth can partly combine in the
same organism, sometimes change in such a way that one does not always be able to
say what should be taken as predominantly characteristic; Also, the trait taken from
the construction does not depend so much on that taken from the life-expressions that
always both were in connection. what should be taken as predominantly
characteristic; Also, the trait taken from the construction does not depend so much on
that taken from the life-expressions that always both were in connection. what should
be taken as predominantly characteristic; Also, the trait taken from the construction
does not depend so much on that taken from the life-expressions that always both
were in connection.
The impossibility of making sharp distinctions when limited to these two features
has led others to seek help: whether in the movements "the outer body contours
change as a result of voluntary contraction and expansion of the body parenchyma"
(Siebold); whether eyelashes, whether feet appear as motor organs; how the
multiplication takes place; whether this or that chemical circumstance is present. -
But what of the previous features, of these no less. None of these features has yet
completely satisfied the purpose of sharp distinction between animal and plant. And
this circumstance, that it is impossible to sharply distinguish plant and animal
kingdoms according to physical characteristics, can now be regarded as an argument
even backwards, that there is no separation between the two in regard to the psychic
either.
The deficiency of a stomach and of one of the animal-like internal organization in
general, with free-appearing locomotion of the whole or the parts, occurs frequently
enough, as in the case of the oscillators, the algae spores, and in general the creatures
cited above Controversy, whether animal or plant exists. Those who see here only
plants say, of course, that their movements are not really arbitrary movements. But
what is arbitrary here and here to call it, has hitherto been more and more a matter of
one, determined by individual views of the observers, Apercu as fixed features. Not
only the external characteristics, even the philosophical concept of arbitrariness is a
little so staggering that it is difficult to base an exact scientific distinction on it, As
Ehrenberg has tried to do with the following: "The movements of animals (he says)
have the purpose of arbitrary local movement, the movements of algae, etc. have not
the purpose of arbitrary change of location, but only the individual rotation and
development to tense form These have, it seems, the more animal-like stimulus, the
more animal-character conditioned by the inner (will), and the existence and
deficiency of the mouth and bowel strongly distinguish both formations. " (Abhandl.,
Berl. Akad. D. W., from J. 1833. Gedr., 1834, p. 157.) On the other hand, Ehrenberg,
as a characteristic of the animal character, still propagates by division, but also
belongs to creatures which be counted by others to the algae. The movements of
animals (he says) have the purpose of arbitrary local movement, the movements of
algae, etc., have not the purpose of arbitrary change of place, but only of individual
rotation and development to the tense form. These have, as it seems clear, the
vegetable character conditioned more by the external (stimulus), that the animal
character conditioned more by the inner (will). The existence and deficiency of the
mouth and the bowel strongly distinguish between the two formations. "(Abhandl.
Berl. Akad., D., W., J., 1833. Gedr., 1834, 157.) Ehrenberg, as a characteristic of the
animal character, still leads elsewhere the multiplication by division, but also belongs
to creatures that are counted by others to algae. The movements of animals (he says)
have the purpose of arbitrary local movement, the movements of algae, etc., have not
the purpose of arbitrary change of place, but only of individual rotation and
development to the tense form. These have, as it seems clear, the vegetable character
conditioned more by the external (stimulus), that the animal character conditioned
more by the inner (will). The existence and deficiency of the mouth and the bowel
strongly distinguish between the two formations. "(Abhandl. Berl. Akad., D., W., J.,
1833. Gedr., 1834, 157.) Ehrenberg, as a characteristic of the animal character, still
leads elsewhere the multiplication by division, but also belongs to creatures that are
counted by others to algae. have not the purpose of the arbitrary change of place, but
only of the individual rotation and development to the strained form. These have, as it
seems clear, the vegetable character conditioned more by the external (stimulus), that
the animal character conditioned more by the inner (will). The existence and
deficiency of the mouth and the bowel strongly distinguish between the two
formations. "(Abhandl. Berl. Akad., D., W., J., 1833. Gedr., 1834, 157.) Ehrenberg, as
a characteristic of the animal character, still leads elsewhere the multiplication by
division, but also belongs to creatures that are counted by others to algae. have not
the purpose of the arbitrary change of place, but only of the individual rotation and
development to the strained form. These have, as it seems clear, the vegetable
character conditioned more by the external (stimulus), that the animal character
conditioned more by the inner (will). The existence and deficiency of the mouth and
the bowel strongly distinguish between the two formations. "(Abhandl. Berl. Akad.,
D., W., J., 1833. Gedr., 1834, 157.) Ehrenberg, as a characteristic of the animal
character, still leads elsewhere the multiplication by division, but also belongs to
creatures that are counted by others to algae. those more animal character conditioned
by the inner (will). The existence and deficiency of the mouth and the bowel strongly
distinguish between the two formations. "(Abhandl. Berl. Akad., D., W., J., 1833.
Gedr., 1834, 157.) Ehrenberg, as a characteristic of the animal character, still leads
elsewhere the multiplication by division, but also belongs to creatures that are
counted by others to algae. those more animal character conditioned by the inner
(will). The existence and deficiency of the mouth and the bowel strongly distinguish
between the two formations. "(Abhandl. Berl. Akad., D., W., J., 1833. Gedr., 1834,
157.) Ehrenberg, as a characteristic of the animal character, still leads elsewhere the
multiplication by division, but also belongs to creatures that are counted by others to
algae.
How in principle one still wavers during the attempts to separate the animal and the
plant, may be seen from the following: Meyen explained the monasteries, etc., to
plants because he found starch in them; but now it was said that animals could
contain cornstarch; Unger explained that the mobile algae spores were of animal
nature because they seemed to move freely, by means of eyelash organs; But now
they said (Siebold) that plants could move like that and have eyelash organs. So you
say what you want to save just his system. Siebold (compare Anat. I. 8.) lays great
stress on the voluntary contraction and expansion of the body as a characteristic of
the animal, but he finds it responsible for that (cf. 14) to explain the presence of the
mouth and stomach as insignificant and to speak of animals that suck in the nutrients
with their entire body surface (ie outer surfaces) (thus the opalines). For him,
therefore, neither mouth nor stomach, nor free-appearing locomotion (if not
associated with contraction and expansion) is more characteristic of the animal.
Incidentally, the above-mentioned difficulties of a firm distinction between plant
and animal, which are founded on the nature of the matter, are still complicated, in
particular in the case of small organisms, with difficulties partly in observation and
partly in the interpretation of observations. Whether stomach, whether intestinal canal
exists, is often only very uncertain, often not to decide: Even Ehrenberg (first
practiced by the same) famous method of feeding the infusoria with dyes is not
recognized everywhere more as a crucial way to this. (Siebolds Comp. Anat. I. 15 ff.)
Meyen often describes something as an ordinary plant cell (in the algae
genus Pediastrum, Scenedesmus, Staurastrum), which Ehrenberg (in see
Polygastricis) calls stomach; yes, the notion of a plant cell with an opening and a
stomach with one mouth could possibly run into each other here and there. Siebold
explains Ehrenberg's stomach partly for drops under the skin cover. Whether
locomotion arises through a play of vital forces, or through external mechanical
causes (such as the Brownian molecular motions), or the nature of the camper's
movements on water, it is not always easy to see them; and the various
presuppositions of the observers also determine the interpretation here. If, however, a
cause of the last kind were to come into play, we now finally encountered the
annoying question of the difference in the process of life from the inorganic process
in general. As good as the vocal cords swing as strings,
It is undeniable that the sharpness and definiteness of any science are due to it, and
it is mainly due to its exact character, but it does not seem to me exactly to look for it
where it does not lie in nature itself; or to seek in a way that is not within her. For, of
course, nature certainly is everywhere, but therefore not according to such closed
general concepts and types as if it were comfortable with our philosophy. All general
concepts and types of nature overlap, but we are only too happy to cut with the knife
of the system through the entangled joint. I would not have allowed myself to speak
about this, since I did not myself have a man of the subject, unless some of the men
of the field seemed to me to think this subject too much more than men.
The fact remains that the similarities and assaults between plant and animal
kingdom accumulate the more the deeper one descends in both realms, and thus the
occurrence of an intermediate border, where the difference really becomes completely
unsteady, can not in itself have anything strange about it ,
To a certain extent, one can find this increasing resemblance between the two in the
concept of the increasing simplicity of both, as they descend in the animal and plant
kingdoms; However, on approaching the undefined border kingdom, encroachments
into characteristic peculiarities of higher levels on the other side occur from one
side. How many Stengliches, Branched, Sprossendes, Raising, Leaves, Blossomlike,
Spirales are around the lower limit of the animal kingdom; one would like to say that
the animal kingdom is playing masquerade under disguise as a plant
kingdom. Conversely, in the lower stages of the plant kingdom, the plants partly lose
their branched, petiolate type; here roundish forms appear, as in the mushrooms, there
articulated forms, as with the canned foods (which are at least indistinct
approximations to the higher animal). Think again of the similarities that lower
animals gain from plants in that they similarly share life without division and
multiply by division, and conversely that lower plants (many algae) give birth to
freely moving young (more of which below) ). Wood pulp has recently been
discovered in the casings of several rather low-lying animals (in the mantle of the
ascidians and other saline-like tunicates); conversely, mushrooms are known for their
abundance of animal-like substances, etc. that they share in a similar way without
detriment to life and multiply by division, and conversely that lower plants (many
algae) give birth to freely moving young (more of which below). Wood pulp has
recently been discovered in the casings of several rather low-lying animals (in the
mantle of the ascidians and other saline-like tunicates); conversely, mushrooms are
known for their abundance of animal-like substances, etc. that they share in a similar
way without detriment to life and multiply by division, and conversely that lower
plants (many algae) give birth to freely moving young (more of which below). Wood
pulp has recently been discovered in the casings of several rather low-lying animals
(in the mantle of the ascidians and other saline-like tunicates); conversely,
mushrooms are known for their abundance of animal-like substances, etc.
Concerning the similarity in shape of the lower animals with higher plants consider
z. For example, on the copper plates of Ehrenberg's great Infusoria, the resemblance
of the vorticelles to flower-bearing branched plants; from where they themselves give
the name flowerpots. The class of coral-like animals is particularly rich in similarities
with plants. As well suited to put this in the light, I share here following (literal)
excerpt from a description that gives a naturalist (Dana) of these animals. Everywhere
expressions (highlighted here in print) that remind of plants.
"The composite structure of the coral animals is a consequence of their bud
formation, from which all their varied forms emerge, some of them, as the
madrepores,
Gorgonians, astres, etc., have been well known and generally considered to be the
most abundant, if not the only, forms; but there is an immense variety among their
figures; some grow as scrolled leaves, similar to a cabbage, others consist of delicate,
curled, irregularly arranged leaflets. The surface of each leaf is covered with polyp
flowers, through whose growth and secretion it has arisen. No less similarities could
be found with an oak and acanthus branch, with mushrooms, mosses and lichens. The
vascular granules rest on a cylindrical base, which, in the living state, is entirely
covered with polypin flowers; they consist of a network of branches and
branches, which spreads gracefully from its center and is covered over and over with
colored polyp brood. The domes ofAstraea are quite symmetrical and often reach a
diameter of 10 to 12 feet; the porite mounds are over 20 feet high; there are also
columnar and club-shaped, as well as corals of various shapes. "
"Each composite zoophyte arises from a single polyps, and grows out through
continued bud formation to a tree or a dome A scoring 12 feet in diameter
Asträastamm united about 100,000 polyps, each of which. 1 / 2 Qu inch occupies;. At
a Porites, the animals Lin hardly l. wide, would whose number 5 1 / 2 Millions
exceed. In her so an equal number of mouths and stomach are connected to a single
plant animals and contribute to the common nutrition, bud formation, and
enlargement of the whole, are also interconnected laterally. Again, there are others
who never produce buds and live in individual cases soon as small cups, now as
shallow bowls, etc. "
"The polyps of a composite group differ in the way they are fastened, either
attached to the base alone, where each presents a single arm, and the whole looks like
a tree or shrub, or they are laterally to the top In the former case small cups will rise
for each separate polyp, in the other only flat cells, as in the gorgonians, where the
polyps are prominent, but whose calyces are absent. " (Dana in Schleidens and Fror.
Not. 1847. June. No. 48.)
It may be recalled that the great similarity of coral animals with higher plants only
affects the whole polyp poles, not the individual polypants (animal flowers). It's
true; but why should we also compare the individual animal flowers with whole
plants, because they only show analogous relationships with individual plant
blossoms. The question of the extent to which the individual polyp flowers and
individual plant flowers are regarded as independent individuals returns in the same
way in both realms, and the same causes which, in spite of what can be distinguished
as individual in the whole plant, also affect the whole plant To regard itself again as
an overarching, self-contained individual more or less complies with the whole polyp
stick. It grows as well from a single egg as the plant from a single seed; his form
develops according to a fixed idea, but with a certain freedom; each polyp is related
to the other by animal matter (especially considering Edward's study of the animal
organization through the limestone framework).
It does not even seem to lack direct signs of psychic interaction of the polyp
sticks. Of particular interest to me in this respect is the following statement by
Ehrenberg (in the large Infusoria Works, p. 69) on the known globus, volvox
globatora state that requires a mental activity that is too low to strike, one can not
justify, only be seduced. One must never forget that all individual animals possess
sensory organs which are comparable to the eyes, and that therefore they do not turn
blindly in the water, but as citizens of a large world remote from our judgment the
enjoyment of a sentimental existence, however proud we behave ourselves like to
share with ourselves. "
The whole question about the relationship of superior and subordinate
individualities to the physical as well as the psychic side is still a very dark one at
all. And one must not forget that, despite all the similarities between plants and
polyps, there are still greater differences between them, and one can not make
conclusions by analogy from one to the other without great caution. It is possible that
the plant would be much more bound to unity than a coral plant. At least I do not
know that corals are observed to show such definite signs of the interaction of all
parts as we will learn in the 13th section of the plants.
Using the above two characteristics one would have to say of the coral plants that
the plant as a whole is a plant, the polyps in detail being animals. Although the
surfaces with which food is taken up (the stomachs of the individual polyps) are
invaginations everywhere, they are invaginations found on protuberances of the plant,
and, conversely, in the case of higher organisms, which as animals in general, they
are protuberances (Villi), which protrude from invaginations (intestinal tract),
whereby the food is absorbed.
If one considers the extraordinarily great changes that often occur in the same
creature both within the animal kingdom and as a plant kingdom in the course of
different periods of life, and which are even more striking in some very deep-seated
animals, such as medusae, than even in insects, then it can prevail after all nor have it
anything incredible that a creature could change the animal and vegetable character in
such a change of the periods of life. According to the examples given immediately,
there is no doubt that there really are changes in this direction among the lower
creatures, but it is only argued whether this goes so far as to turn a real animal into an
actual plant, or vice versa ;2)
2)Compare the transgressions between animal and plant in particular the
following writings and treatises: Unger, The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming. Vienna. 1843. - Kützing, On the transformation of infusoria into
lower forms of algae. Nordhausen. 1844, same in Linnaea. 1833. - Siebold,
Dissertatio de finibus interregnum animale et vegetabile
constituendis. Erlangae. 1844. - Meyen in Rob. Brown, mixed fonts. Edited by
Nees v. Esenbeck. IV. P. 327 ff. And in s. Plant Physiology. - Thuret,
Recherches sur les organes locomoteurs des spores des algues in Ann. of the sc.
nat. Botanique. 1843. T.XIX. - (A compilation of the earlier observations can
be found in Kutzing's writing, and even more in detail by Meyen in Brown's
writing.

Schleiden (Grundz I., 265), of course, says in his usual rude, yet scientific way:
"Only science that suffers from fantastic mysticism, but not a clear, self-
understanding natural philosophy, can come to such reveries that creatures soon
become animals, sometimes If that were possible, it would be much easier for a
creature to be soon a fish, sometimes a bird, or soon a bug, then a rose, and then all
our science would be folly, and we would better make potatoes and they but they
would not be sure that they would not become mice and run away. "
On the other hand, I would like to recall one word that Grabbe, though overbearing,
but from a certain point of view, says in one of his dramas: "the devil is closer to God
than the mite", which is about the same: an angel can easily become a devil to turn
into a mole. What may here be said of the extremes of highest development in two
opposite kingdoms with a certain truth, will have to be considered even more in the
case of greater simplicity of the extremes of the lowest development; they will be
closer and more easily interconvertible than the extremes of the deepest and highest
development in each kingdom for themselves.
The facts themselves are the following:
That some algae (simplest aquatic plants) can pass into infusoria, and vice versa,
has often been asserted and doubted before; In the meantime there have been such
careful and reliable observations, especially by Flotow and Kiitzing, that the
advantage is certainly no longer on the side of the enemy. Of course, however, the
way out (which Flotow took) of keeping the small animals in plant or out of plants,
always explains them as plants.
 The small bubbles that make up the red-coloring matter of the snow ( Protococcus
nivalis), were considered by the first observers of the same (Agardh, Decandolle,
Hooker, Unger, Martius, Harvey, Ehrenberg) for microscopic plantlets
(algae); Ehrenberg was even able to observe the reproduction of these plantlets
originating from the Alps in Berlin by sowing the samples sent in the winter of 1838
on snow. The plantlets multiplied in countless numbers, appeared to be equal to the
mother-bodies, but were not red in youth, but green (a phenomenon which is seen in
many red-colored algae), and carried no trace of an animal character, but a fine-
grained, lobed keymod and rootlets in itself, which Ehrenberg found it, under the
name Sphaerella nivalisto add the algae. Meanwhile, other observers, such as Voigt
and Meyen, found that this red-coloring matter represented the forms and movements
of infusoria; and then declared them to be animal. Shuttleworth finally distinguished
between infusoria and algae. These contradictions, which seemed to indicate that the
observers had various materials, are resolved by the very careful observations which
Flotow made of a plant closely related to the red-coloring matter of the snow, but
found in rainwater instead of on snow or animals, Haematococcus
pluvialis,made. This, consisting of microscopic, extremely delicate, spherical, glossy,
red vesicles, betrayed at first a purely vegetable nature, but turned into spouts under
suitable circumstances, clearly traceable by various intermediate forms, into an
infusion animal ( Astasia pluvialis ) with a proboscis (sometimes even gabel split)
feeler and all signs of voluntary movement; for which there is reason to see, even in
the vegetable and animal state of the reddening matter of snow, only different stages
of development of the same creature (especially since Flotov 's Astasia
pluvialis is related to Shuttleworth's Astasia nivalis in red snow). Since Flotow
considers that "it could be the Haematococcus but only his being either an animal or
an entire plant, "he says, of course, that the moving H." has accepted only the pseudo-
being of an astasia , "even though he himself admits the completely animal character
of the movements." (Nov. act acad. Leop. Car. 1843. T. XX.p. 413.)
From Kützings observations show that the infusorium Chlamidomonas
pulvisculus even multiple changes is able to give a decisive algae species from
him Stygeoclonium stellar , was developing, but that also other developments arising
from it, which also bear a decided algae character in itself, although They can also be
claimed as resting forms of infusoria in part of the external form. ( Tetraspora
lubrica or gelatinosa, Palmella botryoides, Protococcus and Gyges species,
for example, appear as different forms of development.) After this, the
infusorium Enchelys pulvisculus transformsinto a protococcus and finally into an
oscillatorie. (Kützing, On the Transformation of the Infusoria into Lower Forms of
Algae, Nordhausen, 1844.)
With a whole set of algae ( Zoospermae), both articulated and unorganized, and
still other lower plants (fungi, nostok), it has been observed that their germinal grains
(spores, sporidia, called by some seeds) breaking out of the mother plant for a while
make a voluntary infusoria-like movement in the water (as one sometimes recognizes
forms among them, which Ehrenberg has actually described as infusoria), then, after
about a few hours, they settle and germinate, so that now a plant like the mother plant
arises from it. True, these germinal grains do not show an animal organization
internally, but they do appear externally, as far as they are observed to have similar
eyelash or whip-shaped organs, which otherwise play such an important part in the
movements of the lower animals, especially many declared infusoria.
How strange these phenomena are, may be taken from the following passage in
Unger's writing: "The plant at the moment of becoming an animal". After sending
letters to a friend the apparitions to Vaucheria clavatauntil Sporidie's departure, he
says (p.2l): "If you have followed me so far, you can not possibly have stretched your
expectations so high that not what I am going to tell you, not even the Yes, it is really
a miracle, a phenomenon so divergent from the general laws, that one might suppose
that nature allowed himself here rather a poetic freedom than once withdrawn the veil
from a process which she perhaps daily and hourly, practicing and still practicing a
million times only in light mode: - Deep and serious is the meaning of procreation in
all its individual steps, but truly wonderful it may be called when the produced is
different from the producer, in short when the natures both are different,as can be
seen in the present case.
The more interesting are these phenomena, if one holds them together with quite
analogous ones which fall into the declared animal kingdom. The eggs (according to
recent views rather embryos to name) of many (probably all) of those lower animals,
which are called because of their sticking and plant-like growth in a broader sense
zoophytes, namely have a very similar simple organization as those germinal grains
of algae, move as well Only free for a while with eyelash organs in the water and
settle later to grow like a plant. It finds the most perfect analogy between algae and
zoophytes in this regard. Yes, even with slightly higher animals, similar conditions
occur up to certain limits.
Of the numerous observations and statements about this subject, I have some of the
most reliable ones to follow:
The small alga Vaucheria clavata Agdh . ( Ectosperma clavata Vauch .) Covers , in
numerous individuals, in the form of small upholstered turf, the surface of the stones
of the shallow, fast-flowing waters of central Europe. In the developed state, it
provides a branched unscheduled hose of 37 / 10,000 Vienna. Inch diam. which owes
its green color to the internal chlorophyll. Under normal circumstances a transverse
wall now appears at the tip of the end-shoots in the originally simple tube, and in the
upper section thus formed the formation of a tube (sporidium) conforming to the
original skin proceeds from an undyed, slimy-grained substance. which is formed
from a flicker epithelium. There is little trace of organization in its interior. By
swelling of the maturing sporidia at the same time as dilatation of the tip of the
mother's tube by absorption (expansion), it bursts, and the sporidia pushes itself out
through the narrow opening "unilaterally" and finally even with turning motion. This
process takes a few minutes. The Sporidie after leaving a pear- or egg-shaped shape,
which gradually changes in a regular oval or ellipsoidal. Freed from the mother's
hose, "she first rises in joyful rapid motion in the water and circles in various
directions like an infusorium." The movement is a constant direction from left to right
rotating and at the same time progressing. An epithelium uniformly occupied by
vibrating cilia produces the same. If you put a little bit of divided dye into the water,
you can see the vortex that the cilia make. Moments of rest alternate "at random"
with movements that last in total by 2 hours. Most striking is how the sporidia
carefully avoid all obstacles in these movementsVaucheriapull and avoid each other,
so never a collision or collision takes place. More or less round lumps of mucus
covered with chlorophyll, rather irregularly distributed, much more crowded in the
buttocks than in the fore, are the only recognizable corpuscles that play a significant
part in the intrinsic nature of sporidia. With the cessation of the movements, the
ellipsoid changes into the spherical shape, all cilia disappear suddenly, without
knowing where they are going; the green color is more uniformly distributed, and the
vitreous translucency of the epithelium turns into a delicate, homogeneous membrane
of plants. In less than 12 hours, the bladder lengthens by immediate Ausackung in
one or two places at the same time, and thus the phenomena of germination
occur. The development of the hoses continues rapidly. It forms on the one hand a
root structure, whereby the plantlet arrives, while the other extension extends,
branches and reaches the same spore formation within 14 days. - Warm water, even of
20 ° R, has a deadly effect on the moving sporidia, while a temperature, which is the
freezing point of the water, causes an interruption of the movements and even of the
vegetative phenomena of life, but without killing. Deprivation of light accelerates the
movement and ceases to germinate. The galvanic current has a similar influence as on
the infusoria; a weak one causes numbness and irregularity in the movements; a
stronger man immediately causes death. Mineral acids, alkalis and most salts are
lethal even in the smallest amount. Were in a concentr. After the solution of
sulphurous morphine had brought happy floating germs, they at first began to move,
but after a short while they began their movements again, but danced around in
strange circles, as if in a state of anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm
came. Still stronger was the opium tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water,
produced paralysis in the movements and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with
equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly
motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in any
way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming.) Alkalis and most salts are lethal even in the smallest amount. Were in a
concentr. After the solution of sulphurous morphine had brought happy floating
germs, they at first began to move, but after a short while they began their
movements again, but danced around in strange circles, as if in a state of anesthesia,
and afterwards For a few minutes calm came. Still stronger was the opium tract; even
the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the movements and
death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the used,
lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria,
could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment
of the animal becoming.) Alkalis and most salts are lethal even in the smallest
amount. Were in a concentr. After the solution of sulphurous morphine had brought
happy floating germs, they at first began to move, but after a short while they began
their movements again, but danced around in strange circles, as if in a state of
anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm came. Still stronger was the opium
tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the movements
and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the
used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in
infusoria, could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at
the moment of the animal becoming.) Were in a concentr. After the solution of
sulphurous morphine had brought happy floating germs, they at first began to move,
but after a short while they began their movements again, but danced around in
strange circles, as if in a state of anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm
came. Still stronger was the opium tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water,
produced paralysis in the movements and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with
equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly
motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in any
way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming.) Were in a concentr. After the solution of sulphurous morphine had
brought happy floating germs, they at first began to move, but after a short while they
began their movements again, but danced around in strange circles, as if in a state of
anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm came. Still stronger was the opium
tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the movements
and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the
used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in
infusoria, could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at
the moment of the animal becoming.) After the solution of sulphurous morphine had
brought happy floating germs, they at first began to move, but after a short while they
began their movements again, but danced around in strange circles, as if in a state of
anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm came. Still stronger was the opium
tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the movements
and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the
used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in
infusoria, could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at
the moment of the animal becoming.) After the solution of sulphurous morphine had
brought happy floating germs, they at first began to move, but after a short while they
began their movements again, but danced around in strange circles, as if in a state of
anesthesia, and afterwards For a few minutes calm came. Still stronger was the opium
tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the movements
and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water diluted, the
used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in
infusoria, could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at
the moment of the animal becoming.) But they danced around in strange circles, as if
in a state of numbness, and after a few minutes came peace. Still stronger was the
opium tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in the
movements and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of dist. Water
diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of
dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in any way. (According to Ungers font: The
plant at the moment of the animal becoming.) But they danced around in strange
circles, as if in a state of numbness, and after a few minutes came peace. Still stronger
was the opium tract; even the smallest dose, dissolved in water, produced paralysis in
the movements and death. In concentr. Hydrocyanic acid, with equal parts of
dist. Water diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia were suddenly
motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in any
way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming.) with equal parts least. Water diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia
were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in
any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming.) with equal parts least. Water diluted, the used, lively swimming sporidia
were suddenly motionless. Ingestion of dye, as in infusoria, could not be effected in
any way. (According to Ungers font: The plant at the moment of the animal
becoming.)
Thyret has also specifically demonstrated in the spores of Conferva
glomerata and rivularis, Chaetophora elegans var. Pisiformis, Prolifera
rivularis, and Candollii Leclerc the dependence of similar appearances on eyelash or
whip-shaped organs. (Ann. Des sc. Nat. 2. Ser. T. XIX.)
" Achlya prolifera(One Gallertal) has two types of spores, larger, which form in
smaller numbers in spherical sporangia, and smaller, which develop in greater
numbers in the unaltered thread-like end members. At the time of spore-maturity, a
small lid separates from the end-members, shortly before the spores get into a
teeming motion, with an actual, often significant change of location. This movement
lasts for a while after exiting and finally stops, whereupon the spores often germinate
after only a few hours. When such an end member is emptied, usually a new such
member, starting from the next septum, grows into it, often not quite filling the
remaining older one. Spores are also forming in this new member which then have to
pass through two openings at their exit and sometimes sway around between the two
cell walls until they come out to the second opening. But it also happens that they do
not reach this second way out and at least make the germination within the older tube.
"(Schleiden, Grundz. I. 264.)
"The embryos of Campanularia geniculata ( Sertularia geniculata garbage.) are
elongated cylindrical or pearly, completely closed by a delicate skin hose-like body,
without mouth opening and without the slightest trace of an organization inside. Its
surface is covered with an immense number of fine hairs, which enable it to make
rapid movements, to swim around in the water like infusoria, and to seek out the
place most suitable for its further development. After this brief infusorial state, they
acquire a disc-shaped form, attach themselves to an object, and drive a tubular
appendage, which, in the beginning, is not even different in shape from that of the
germinating algal sporidia. Thus, the animal enters the second stage of his life, the
polyp stage, where the organs of reproduction are formed only after the hand. The
same is true of the embryos of the medusae of Ehrenberg's, Siebold's (Contribution to
Naturgesch, the invertebrates, Gdansk, 1839), and preferably according to M. Sar's
observationsMedusa aurita and Cyanea capillata (Arch. F. Naturgesch., 1841, p. As
soon as they leave the mother's arms, they are little more than point-sized, oval or
pear-shaped, slightly compressed bodies, with no mouth opening and no trace of
internal organization. Her body is soft, consists only of a very fine-grained tissue and
seems inside a large cave. To have the same shape as the body contour. Tight ciliary
hairs cover the entire surface of the body uniformly, allowing it to perform
movements on all sides and in the manner of infusoria. - When swimming, they often
turn around their length axis and the blunt end goes on. Only after the period of their
infusorial life has expired, do they settle with the front end, gain a stalk-like
appendage downwards, while on the opposite surface a depression surrounded by
tentacles appears, which widens to the mouth and the stomach, and thus they become
polyps, which drive branches and propagate themselves both through them and
through transverse division. Only the boys arising by division obtain the form and
organization of the Akalephen. (Unger's writing p. 88.)
"The vorticelle develops a pedicle, divides (and skins), develops back-lashes,
detaches itself from the pedicel, wanders about, recovers (after second moult?) The
back-lashes, or loses them, and sets itself down again to strangle a stalk, form a
pedigree, and repeat it incessantly. " (Ehrenberg in s. Werke on Infusorien p. 290.)
According to Burmeister, the cirripodes, namely the anatises, when they crawl out
of the egg have two muscle-free tendons with suction cups, three pairs of bristle-
ended feet, some split forked, cornea, crystalline lens, and black pigment, and float
freely; but when they have settled in one place with the suckers, they grow through a
fleshy stalk and throw off the threads and eyes with the skin, while the pairs of feet
become double and are turned into many-feathered, twisted tendrils. (Burmeister,
Beiträge zur Geschichte der Rankenfüßer, Berlin, 1834.)
According to Nordmann, the female Lernaeocera has cyprinaceaas it comes out of
the egg, the ordinary form of other cancerous parasitic animals, namely a few
tendrils, two feet and one eye; but when she has sought a fish for her future place of
residence with the help of these organs, and with her fore-body deeply sunk into her
flesh, then her body changes into a simple cylinder upon the disappearance of those
organs, and one can not even have muscles on it Nerves are detected as the digestive
organs continue to develop and the reproductive organs develop. Now, until her
death, she remains in the well dug by her, so as to suck up food from the flesh of the
fish like a plant, and with the male, which seems to nourish herself from her kote, but
by the way retains sensory and locomotor organs to produce a boy. (Nordmann,
Mikrographische Beitr. z. Naturgesch. the invertebrate animals. Berlin. 1830th
issueII, p. 123 ff.)
Apart from such movements, which signify only a temporary developmental state
of certain lower plant organisms, there are also many strange phenomena of motion
of various and insufficiently recognized significance in developed lower plant
organisms themselves, which can recall animal phenomena and in part even make
them vacillate, if not rather here of animal as plant talk.
"Most striking are the phenomena which the oscillators show a small genus of
algae (others, rather, of an animal nature)." They appear as short threads, strung
together by more broad than long cylindrical cells, filled with green matter and
various, partly fluid The tip of each thread is slightly tapered and rounded, often
water-white and colorless.As long as they vegetate vividly, these threads show a
threefold movement, an alternating lower curvature of the anterior end, a semi-
pendulous, semi-elastic back and forth bending These movements are often observed
all at the same time, often one at a time, and they have something weird (I mean
Schleiden), something sinister, in themselves. " (Schleiden, Grundz. II. 549.) If one
includes oscillators in a dark room and lets in light through an opening, then all the
oscillations contract towards the opening and disappear from the remaining dark
space of the vessel. (Vaucher, Hist., Conf. D'eau douce, 171.) For details on the
movements of the oscillators, see p. in Meyen's Physiol. III. 443rd
"If a fragment of the mucilaginous substance is broken off from a spongy (some of
the animals count), then, according to Dujardin, they are initially immobile under the
microscope, but if the illumination is right, round-edged transparent projections
appear at the edges, and their shape in each change moment by expansion and
contraction. Sometimes are even small fragments of 1 / 100 bis 1 / 200 mm creeping
move slowly to the glass by those processes. D. wants this phenomenon in Spongia
panicea, Cliona celata and Spongilla since 1835 have observed. He also saw threads
of extraordinary tenderness appearing at the edges of ragged flaps of the spongilla,
and vibrating with a lively undulating motion, causing them to move on small
isolated masses, distinct from those described above. "Against the animal nature of
the sponges stimulated by this In the meantime, apart from the lack of a stomach, the
observations of Hogg that the sponges preserve their green color solely by the
influence of light and lose it again, degenerate in the light of gas, plants behave
similarly to acids, etc. Wiegm. Arch. 1839 . II p. 197. 1841. II. S . 410.)
In the foliage and Lebermosen, Charen and ferns develop in the cells of their so-
called antheridia or anthers(the meaning of which, however, is disputed as such)
spiral threads (in each cell one, according to Thuret in the Charen also probably two),
which, when the cells come under water, make a lively movement about their axis,
even after rupture of the cell this Movement for a while to continue in the water and
progress. These spiral filaments have been compared with the so-called spermatozoa
of the animals (even believed to see bristles or sensory tips on them), without, of
course, having any right to give them an equal function. For details see in Meyen,
Physieol. III 208ff. - Schleiden, Grundz. II. 48, 66. 77. - Wiegm. Arch. 1837. I. 430,
1838. I. 212. II. 85. 1839. II. 45. 1841. II. 423.
The molecular movements which the globules of pollen content make upon exiting
do not seem, according to recent investigations, to merit the interest which they were
formerly inclined to attach. (See Schleiden, Grundz 11, 303.)
In most plants from the families of Charazeen, Najaden and Hydrocharideen and
fruit stalk of Young Haussmannien in each cell is a simple ascending on one side,
descending on the other side flow of a through color, consistency (sliminess) and
insolubility in aqueous fluids to observe in the other water-liquid cell-sap different
liquid, which becomes visible in some particularly by the fact that it continues with
the globules contained in the sap (cornstarch, chlorophyll, slime, etc.), but is usually
recognized clearly enough for itself. (See Schleiden, Grundz II, p.

XIII. Unity and centralization of the plant organism.

Everything would be quite good, it will be said, if only the organism of the plants
really showed such a unity, centralization, such a comprehensive connection,
alternation and subsequent relation of all parts and sides of its structure and life, such
a union and cycle of functions as that of humans and animals in order to find in it the
appropriate expression of the unity and rule of a soul. But it is not like that. What is
the plant essentially other than a heap of externally bonded cells; where is there
something in it that represented a unifying center of prevailing meaning, to which
everything points, from which all impulse received, like the brain of animals; where
is something of a powerful, all-linking power and life itself? Because the external
formal reference, which the enclosing figure sets, is not enough to bind the plant to
the whole even in forces and activities. No part of the plant cares very much about
what happens in the other. Tear off a piece of it and plant it; it grows on its own, and
the plant from which you tear it off continues to grow, as if nothing had happened to
it. That does not look like union through the binding unity of a soul. So many leaves,
so many individuals on the tree; actually so many cells, so many individuals; it has no
limit. Let's hear a botanist from the subject: it grows on its own, and the plant from
which you tear it off continues to grow, as if nothing had happened to it. That does
not look like union through the binding unity of a soul. So many leaves, so many
individuals on the tree; actually so many cells, so many individuals; it has no
limit. Let's hear a botanist from the subject: it grows on its own, and the plant from
which you tear it off continues to grow, as if nothing had happened to it. That does
not look like union through the binding unity of a soul. So many leaves, so many
individuals on the tree; actually so many cells, so many individuals; it has no
limit. Let's hear a botanist from the subject:
"Every cell," says Schleiden, "feeds itself in a different way, according to its
peculiar nature." (Schleiden, Grundz. II., P. 464.)
"In the autonomy of the life of the individual cells, processes can take place in and
on certain cells, which have no significance for the life of the neighboring cells and
thus of the whole plant," (Ebendas, II., P.
"The nutrition of the whole plant consists only in the nutrition of its individual
cells." (P. 466.)
"As such, the plant essentially consists only in the morphological connection of its
physiologically independent elementary organs." (P.470)
"We may regard the cell as a small autonomous, living organism, from which it
takes up liquid food, from which it forms new substances through chemical processes
which are constantly active inside the cell ... In the rain The life of the cell is the play
of the absorption and excretion of substances, the chemical formation, transformation
and decomposition of substances, and - since the plant is really nothing but the sum
of many cells connected to a certain shape - the life of the whole Plants." (Schleiden,
The Plant, p. 41.)
"Each cell leads a separate life, as it were." (Ibid., P.
Can it be said more clearly, as we hear it here from an expert: the plant as a whole
is nothing, the cell everything? To be sure, the plant is called, alive, and is organic,
but it is only a part of the organism that belongs to the whole organism. She grew out
of the ground, still growing on the ground like a hair on our head; Although their
processes are more active than those of the hair, they are no different from those of a
gland of our body in which all sorts of substances are processed for the purpose of the
whole. Thus in the plant air, light, solid substances of the outside world are processed
in a peculiar way for the purpose of the whole. Who wants to find a soul in a liver
drip; is there more reason to find one in the plant? After all, leave the plant
organic, to be alive, let also an idea of their creation and design be subject; but if it is
not a self-terminating organic, a living, self-referential, living life, then the idea,
which is subject to its being and life, can not be sought in a soul-principle immanent
to itself. In the fullness of its world of ideas, the divine spirit may carry within itself
the idea of the vegetable form, but it is only its life, its idea, not self-living life, its
own soul, which is given to the plant. which is subject to its being and life, should not
be sought in a soul principle immanent to itself. In the fullness of its world of ideas,
the divine spirit may carry within itself the idea of the vegetable form, but it is only
its life, its idea, not self-living life, its own soul, which is given to the plant. which is
subject to its being and life, should not be sought in a soul principle immanent to
itself. In the fullness of its world of ideas, the divine spirit may carry within itself the
idea of the vegetable form, but it is only its life, its idea, not self-living life, its own
soul, which is given to the plant.
How different all this with the animals! The animal organism closes itself around in
itself, is on its own, revolves in itself, refers back to itself everywhere. You can not
tear anything away and plant it for yourself, and where and how you tear something
away, it feels the whole thing. The whole and the individual exist only with and
through each other as they are. Like each on the other, each mediates the mediation of
the other in the cycle back to itself. Wherever the dominant center lies, even if it is
not at any single point, there is certainly one thing present in the effects that binds the
whole thing and compels everything to submit to it.
I have tried to exhaust everything that can be said in this sense; If only I knew what
could be said even more and more strikingly in this sense, I would have liked to say
it, because I do not want to avoid the objections, but rather to meet them. But perhaps
I have already said more than many will want to say; you just have to deduct this. If
not everything has been clearly and clearly stated in this objection and kept apart, this
is not our fault; for if one tries to reduce it to the solid and clear, it dissolves by
itself. Why then ask him? Because he is ever asked.
 In order to communicate the own words of an adversary, I cite the following
argumentation of Carus (Psyche p. 112), which is made mainly in the sense of the
previous objection, although partly intervening in what has already been considered
elsewhere.
"The plant kingdom rests through and through, as in every single plant, as well as
in the variety of its forms, essentially on endless repetition of a basic form; it is
through and through cell-building, repeating itself to infinity, and therefore from
every single cell again and again possibly the whole spawning, and for that very
reason the concept of totality never completely concluded. 1) even the layman,
without being aware of the higher ground, so parts separates the plant from other
ideas and feelings than with animals: he is that it were always a part, and always take
this to a whole. a sheet to break off a flower happens to desire to replace a limb of a
living animal will be always painful to him. 2) For this reason the plant has no
viscera, and no organs different in the sense of the animal. Therefore, in contrast to
organs which become essentially heterogeneous, it is not possible to leave such an
original structure as the nervous system. In short, it essentially always remains only a
multiplicity of units, it lacks such an inner center, as the animal has, and although it
too can not be without a certain totality, the concept of it is never completed in the
same way as in the animal kingdom From this it follows that the concept of higher
and lower organization, which is so clearly recognizable in the animal kingdom,
always expresses itself very imperfectly in the vegetable kingdom (it will always be
disputed, which should be regarded as the highest plant); another time it follows
that in that the plant lacks a truly central system, and thereby a perfect bond of unity
and wholeness, there can be no question of any kind of consciousness here. If,
therefore, we call by the name of the soul only that idea in which any consciousness
has really developed, it follows clearly from the above that the plant can not yet be
said to have given it a soul. "
1)I do not overlook the extent to which that possibility is more likely to
contradict such conclusion than if we prefer to refer this possibility to certain
cells of the mother's body, especially since no one really has the possibility of
really recovering from every cell of a pear tree or a carnation Pear tree or a
carnation produce, has shown. It seems to me that the conclusion of a cell
majority to the totality and the ability of this or that or each individual cell to
reproduce the whole when separated from the whole, are in no clear relation to
each other at all.
2) Comp. on this subject, p. 20. 22. 68 ff.

A closer look reveals that in the previous objections one demands things from the
plant to the soul which are not universally or only seemingly found in animals, and
which in themselves have no reason to be essential to the existence of a soul and
partly miss things. They are basically just as likely to be found in plants as in
animals, albeit in a different form.
 The animal is first and foremost as good as the plant is a cluster of externally linked
cells. It is well known that even nerve and muscle fibers consist of contiguous and
partly fused cells, and in this respect has found only the greatest analogy between
plants and animals. Where is the central point in the animal within this cell cluster
that is required in the plant? In the brain? But the brain is merely a web of fibers
running alongside and among each other, nowhere a point in which they converge. Or
is the whole brain itself this central point? Usually one means so, although it is a little
big for a point; but you can not be challenged. But now there are enough animals that
instead of a brain have merely scattered ganglion nodes, albeit linked by nerves, and
yet, in very well-developed, purposefully controlling instincts, betray the ruling of a
soul which is in itself a few. To the insects, of course, a brain is measured; it is a
nerve-node that lies in the head and from which the main sensory nerves emanate; but
it is often smaller than other nerve-nodes of the same insect, and if it is cut away with
its head, the signs of the activity of the soul will not cease.
Listen:
which makes their pursuit scarcely obscure, for the barb of the beast is not
mechanically advanced and drawn in, but the beast takes possession of the feet of an
object, holds it fast, and pierces it. Treviranus saw something similar. Such
movements are not3) reflex movements, for they take place without external stimulus;
they have little resemblance to convulsions, as Grainger understands them. For, on
the one hand, they lack the twitching which is characteristic of the convulsions, and
on the other hand, they seem to pursue purposes which are given by the imagination.
"(Volkmann in Wagner's Physiolog., Wort, Art. Brain, p.
3) The word is not missing in the original due to misprints.

The nervous system of the Asterias consists of a nerve ring in which 5 nerve
centers are distributed symmetrically, one of which is as much as the other value; yet
this animal moves so well with all the signs of the soul unit as one that has only one
main central organ. Now, I say: if the Soul Unit consists of a distribution of 5 nerve
nodes, it can equally well consist of a distribution of 100 or 1000 nerve nodes, and,
where nerves are not necessary at all, with a distribution of millions of cells; we see,
it does not depend on the required centralization. It is undisputed that the clumping
together of the nervous mass in the brain has its great significance in man, but it will
have to be different from what it is to condition the unity of the soul.
Since it does not want to be true with the brain, it goes on, and seeks (like Carus)
the expression of the linking, centralizing unit in the whole nervous system. But it is
clear that if plants are denied such a unity because they are a mere agglomerate of
cells, one can not find the expression of such unity in a system, which is just a mere
agglomeration of fibers. Only in so far as the nervous system itself presents a central
point, would the animal have in it a centralization; but that is not the case. By the
way, if it is only about the contrast of a more internal system to more external
systems in the organization, you can also find something in the spiral fibers of the
plants, which has a central position against the other shaped parts of the plants, and if
one has not yet found any spiral fibers in the simplest plants, this corresponds only to
the fact that no nerves were found even in the simplest animals. We have already
pointed out how much analogy the spiral fibers have with nerve fibers, but here too
we are not inclined to put more emphasis on this analogy than there happen; because
we consider the whole demand of a central system or central organ for animating an
unjustified one. However, how much analogy the spiral fibers have with nerve fibers
is not inclined here to place more emphasis on this analogy than happened
there; because we consider the whole demand of a central system or central organ for
animating an unjustified one. However, how much analogy the spiral fibers have with
nerve fibers is not inclined here to place more emphasis on this analogy than
happened there; because we consider the whole demand of a central system or central
organ for animating an unjustified one.
The most striking example, perhaps, is that no central organ, nor any self-returning
cycle of juices as the bearer, expression, or condition of unity, domination, or
consummation of the soul, is essential to us. Let us recall earlier facts. If an arm
polyp has completely expanded and all its tentacles are spread out, and if one touches
it with a needle, or shakes the water, it suddenly contracts all its parts into a small
lump. This is quite the same as the effect of a soul controlling all the body of the
polyp, all parts of it in a causal connection, thus making the other peculiarities more
peculiar, may be related to appropriately related soul activities of the polyp. Well, I
do not say at all that the polyps are philosophers; but I assert that he himself is a bad
philosopher, who, after such signs, wants to deny the polyps, independent sensations
and instincts of various kinds, united to unity. But what is the polyp of his
organization? A simple tube, in which hitherto no vessels or nerves have been found,
at one end with hollow tentacles. After all, it may be possible to discover nerves, or
what some polyps consider to be the name, but one certainly will not discover a
central organ and a cycle.
Is it not strange that, since one usually considers the soul itself as the principle
connecting the whole manifold of the corporeal, on the other hand one is so inclined
to admire the obvious emergence of an excellent point or organ in this multiplicity as
a particular expression of its unifying power desire? If we look at the figure in a
kaleidoscope, every ray of the colored star means as much as the other; also in the
acanthus leaf of the Corinthian capital, each side leaflet means as much as the
other; there is no part which particularly represents the unifying idea, which must
nevertheless be present according to the harmonic impression of the whole; it is
grounded in the symmetry that binds the whole. Just as little here as in the idea of an
object will one be able to demand from the soul of a subject a tangible proof of its
unifying power in a particularly distinguished part. Of course, in the brightly colored
star of the kaleidoscope, one can point to the center, in the acanthus leaf to the axis of
the leaf as the unifying; but the plant is not lacking in such an ideal center either
because the point at which the root descends, the stalk rises upward, or that one
wishes to refer to the axis of the whole plant, from the normative one Meaning,
anyway, in the botany so much essence is made. Of course, in the brightly colored
star of the kaleidoscope, one can point to the center, in the acanthus leaf to the axis of
the leaf as the unifying; but the plant is not lacking in such an ideal center either
because the point at which the root descends, the stalk rises upward, or that one
wishes to refer to the axis of the whole plant, from the normative one Meaning,
anyway, in the botany so much essence is made. Of course, in the brightly colored
star of the kaleidoscope, one can point to the center, in the acanthus leaf to the axis of
the leaf as the unifying; but the plant is not lacking in such an ideal center either
because the point at which the root descends, the stalk rises upward, or that one
wishes to refer to the axis of the whole plant, from the normative one Meaning,
anyway, in the botany so much essence is made.
I think it is with the body as with the world. God reigns as omnipresent in the
whole world, binds, binds everything, without needing a central sun that appears in
the middle; It is only possible to think of an ideal center of power (center of gravity)
of the whole, but it could just as well fall into the void between the suns as into one
of them, and would just as well be found, all suns also want to be the same. But
unless they are quite equal, the larger and heavier sun means more and more
important than the smaller and lighter. Thus, even in our smaller body, it is not a
single organ to whose existence the lordship and unifying power of the soul are
bound; it is as omnipresent in the body as God in the world. And if in one body
individual parts gain more importance than others, one supremacy against the other,
this can mean only a higher development of the soul against the state where
everything is equal, but not only the existence of the soul; and even in the plant there
is no lack of such parts, whether we wish to externally reflect on the spiral vessels, or
on the flower, which, though not from the beginning to there, is from the beginning in
the process of becoming, and In this process the whole process of life of the plant
gives its direction. Indeed, this direction, which takes all parts and sides of the life
process of the plant from the beginning to the production of the flower, proves from
the outset the non-drivenness of all those claims, that the plant is nothing but a heap
of cells without reference to each other. It would be as if a beautiful dome of a pile of
sand and stones could bloom by itself.
It is only too common, of course, to imagine the soul as merely a little bodily being
in the larger bodily structure, where, of course, it will then require a special little
stool to sit on, in order to control the whole of the body and from there on to carry out
the required action. One thinks of the soul as the wisdom of a beehive sitting in a
particularly distinguished spot of this hive, and around which the whole household of
the hive revolves. But if we capture the picture, then the soul of the hive is actually
not merely in the Weisel, what would be a hive in which there was nothing but a
Weisel; he is just a main thing in it. In every cell where a bee sits, there is also
something about the soul of the hive. And if in the hive, however, the queen is
distinguished from other bees, such as our brain or a part of it in front of other organs,
this is no longer the case in the anthill, where it is just as united and ordered as in the
hive. Well, I say, if the animals are monarchic beehives, the plants are republican
anthills. But a republic has its unity as well as a monarchy.
 To be sure, in a monarchy the unifying principle seems more secure and more
rigorously represented than in a republic. But why is this? Certainly only because
every human being forms a monarchical system with the brain at the top; accordingly,
a human society is now more prepared to complete itself in a monarchy, as a republic,
into complete unity. But the ants prove that this is not at all related to the nature of the
republic. And one does not see why nature should find it more difficult to place an
ideal unit in a heap of overgrown cells than in a heap of diverging ants.
After all, in the question of the external expression or the physical conditions for
the unity of the soul in the plant, one has no regard whatsoever as to whether
something similar in the plant clumps together like the brain in the animal, or a
similar, central position against the plant the rest of the body assumes as its nervous
system; For, from a closer look, that lump and this system are as well as highly
composed as the cellular structure of the plant, and as we have seen, not even every
animal clumps together in such a way, and the node of the ideal connection is not at
all a massive node or to find central strand. A network with many nodes can be as
good a bearer of psychic unity as a scourge with a single knot, in which many threads
converge.
On the other hand, however, a thoroughgoing interrelation of all parts and activities
of the corporeal and their co-ordination will have to be demanded for purposeful
services for the individual as an expression of the linking and self-reliant mastery of
the soul. For such we also perceive humans and animals as an expression of unifying
soul control. Let's see if it's missing in the plants. As far as the side of expediency is
concerned, enough has already been said about this in the past. But the existence of a
radical interrelation still requires proof against the above assertions.
It is a great mistake to think that the external form of the plant, which encloses the
entire structure of cells according to a uniform plan, is merely an external aspect of it,
which does not come into play when it comes to the question of whether an inner
living one is alive Interdependence between the forces and activities of all the
individual cells consists, since this external form is itself only the outwardly apparent
effect of the internally coherent action of the totality of all cells, and in any case
could not have developed as it has just arisen. If a tulip bulb under the earth has never
carried anything other than a tulip over the earth, who denies that the forces that
make up the plant beneath the earth are in the most exact connection with those
which are above it on the earth form;
By explaining the plant essentially merely "for a morphological linkage of its
physiologically independent elementary organs," one does in fact do nothing
but commit a contradiction in adjecto . And who will really believe, what one would
have to believe after that, is that a cell which, in connection with the whole plant,
for For example, cornstarch prepares sugar, multiplies in its particular way, and so
does the same except this connection. Are there plants that consist of only one cell
( Protococcus) and still vegetate, on which one seems to put weight, it would be
neither logical nor empirical that a plant cell can exist independently, because in a
particular case it is prepared to be able to conclude that the plant cells, even where
they are no longer alone, can exist and exist independently, whereas direct experience
shows that they can not.
If it were true that parts of a plant could be torn off without any change in the rest
of the plant, this would be direct proof against the dependence of the various parts of
the plant and their functions on each other; but if you look closer, the experience just
teaches the opposite. Who does not know the wine cut, the pruning? If I cut off a
branch here, it drives a new one out of a bud, which would otherwise have driven no
one. If I take all the leaves of a tree, it is possible that even the trunk and roots may
enter; I cut off the roots, enter trunk, branches and leaves, sometimes not; there are
new roots that would otherwise have not driven; it's like the lizard that you cut off a
leg, it has one, so it does not drive one, it does not have one, That's how she drives
one. It goes without saying, of course, that one does not notice the influence of small
injuries on the plant; but that's why he does not miss. For as surely as a tree
undergoes a considerable change in taking all its leaves, it is certain that it will have
to feel it in a proportionately smaller change, if one takes it.
Here follows a series of facts which serve to elucidate the sweeping
interrelationship that governs the parts of the plant from below upwards, as from top
to bottom, as from the axis to the lateral parts and vice versa, under various forms.
Schleiden says (Grundz. IS 218.): "We easily notice that in the individual cells of
the Chara the oblique direction of the green spheres is complemented by the
following cells to a perfect spiral, and there is often a peculiar connection between
the spiral deposits two adjacent cells, so that the not-very-attentive observer, the
spiral seems to continue uninterruptedly. " This fact does not quite fit with the above
utterances of Schleidens.
Linnaeus observed that one tree, nourished in another vessel, produced twigs of
twigs for several years in a row, as it enclosed fast flowers and fruit, enclosed in a
narrower vessel. - Here you can see the influence that the type of rooting has on the
crown of the tree.
Knight observed that all the pear and apple trees that had been freed from the outer
parts of their bark would produce more wood in two years than they had in the
previous twenty years (Decand, II, p. - Here is the influence of a change of the outer
parts on the inner to recognize.
If an annular bark strip is removed from the circumference of a branch or tree (so-
called magic ring), it bears above abundant flowers and fruits, the latter ripens faster,
throws off its leaves sooner and thickens more in the wood than below that cut
(Schleiden, Grundz. II. P. 503). - This shows the influence of a change produced only
on a small spot on the whole vegetation of the tree.
If a graft, z. If, for example, apricots are placed on a plum trunk, the plum trunk
gradually clings to annual rings of apricot wood (ebendas, p. 803). Here you can see
clearly, how not only downwards applied changes upwards, but also top-mounted
changes act downward.
 but from the earth or water that surrounds the roots; I have convinced myself that
the water in the vessels into which the roots are immersed, decreases. Knight came to
the same conclusion by saying that the tree freezes more easily than usual in the
circumstances described. The easier freezing proves that there is more water in the
log below the part brought into the greenhouse than usual. "
When one takes its leaves from a log in May or June, all the buds in its axils
develop on the spot, as can be seen in the mulberry trees sloped for the silk worms,
and also, if after a hail, all the leaves in the orchards knocked down, hot and humid
weather occurs. (Decand II, pp. 482.) If too many branches stand side by side, the
weakest are starved of the strongest; when too many fruits spring close together, only
those whose growth is strongest thrive, and the rest perish (p. 484). - During the
development of new leaves, the movements of plant-sleep are very unregulated in the
next leaves and slowly, as with some plants (eg Lupinus) at the time of the
development of the flowers and fruits is the case. (Dassenger in Wiegm. Arch. 1838.
IS 216.) - In these cases one finds a relation between neighboring side parts of the
same plant.
A remark that has been made many times is in the Compt. rend. 1835. II. 360
Repeated by Jaubert, that on the side where the branches of the trees are strongest,
there are also strong roots. He says he often found this in the Sologne digging up
trees. Here there is a special relation between certain parts of the tree and certain
other parts of the same tree, as in animals such special relations occur frequently.
Mustel assures, from his own experience, that all the other parts of the flower die
off as soon as the petals are cut off, when a flower begins to unfold; On the other
hand, if one takes them away later, the embryo only seems to gain all the more. -
There is sympathy and antagonism in the same example (Mustel, Traité de la végét, I.
178.).
According to Gartner (verse and observation on the fertilizing organs of the full-
grown plants, 1844.), if fertilization of the ovary is not impaired, the calyx dwindles
and assumes a morbid appearance, but if the fertilization of the ovary has taken place,
he receives several days, depending on the type of plant. - Here is a similar sympathy
in the opposite direction.
It has been observed, without exception, that vines with blue grapes have purple
leaves in the autumn, and yellows with white or yellow grapes. (Decand II, p. 707.) -
Here one sees how the coloring of the parts of the plant takes place according to a
coherent plane extending through the whole.
It is not disputed that, according to such facts, it can not be denied that the plant is
an individual firmly bound to itself by the interrelation of all parts, as well as the
animal.
Of course, when we speak of a radical interrelation of all parts of the plant, we do
not have to understand that, as if the cells at the apex of the root could express a
direct effect at a distance from the cells of the flower. No, it is only with the help of
the other cells of the plant that their relationship takes place; as is the same case with
humans and animals. The parts of my foot and my head work together only by
mediating the other parts; and there are closer and more distant relationships. We
know so little about the forces that mediate these relationships, as little in the animal
as in the plant; but their actual presence is as clear in the plant as it is in the animal.
However, some intermediaries are really present in our knowledge; only one does
not want to see the whole in it, but only moments of the whole. Recall that as
moisture is lost from the plant above, it will have to subside from below as the oil
descends into the wick from below, as it is consumed above. If a cell or fiber swells
somewhere, it will have to work by pressure on the rest of the system; if a path is
blocked somewhere, the juice will seek to make its way through the rest of the
system; if one part is torn loose, the juice will be used in larger quantities to the other
parts. The laws of exosmosis and endosmosis may go further than we know. - You
can ask, What can such hydrostatic-hydrodynamic processes actually have for the
psychic? But if we see that, according to how the blood runs faster or slower or
differently in our head and body, it is only able to maintain the most important
influence by virtue of quite mechanical disturbances in the vascular system, and also
by thought and mood, and when its course falters, stand still ; In the same way, we
may ascribe to the mechanical moments of the run of the juice in the plants an
importance for the psychic; whereby it is always free to relate the bondage of the
mechanical with the unfree side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in thinking
and feeling on the mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is something
completely unfree in us. But if we see that, according to how the blood runs faster or
slower or differently in our head and body, it is only able to maintain the most
important influence by virtue of quite mechanical disturbances in the vascular
system, and also by thought and mood, and when its course falters, stand still ; In the
same way, we may ascribe to the mechanical moments of the run of the juice in the
plants an importance for the psychic; whereby it is always free to relate the bondage
of the mechanical with the unfree side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in
thinking and feeling on the mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is
something completely unfree in us. But if we see that, according to how the blood
runs faster or slower or differently in our head and body, it is only able to maintain
the most important influence by virtue of quite mechanical disturbances in the
vascular system, and also by thought and mood, and when its course falters, stand
still ; In the same way, we may ascribe to the mechanical moments of the run of the
juice in the plants an importance for the psychic; whereby it is always free to relate
the bondage of the mechanical with the unfree side of the soul; since, in fact, what
depends in thinking and feeling on the mechanical side of the blood circulation in us
is something completely unfree in us. even if it were only through mechanical
disturbances in the vascular system, thought-flow and moods could experience the
most important influence, and when its course ceases to stand still; In the same way,
we may ascribe to the mechanical moments of the run of the juice in the plants an
importance for the psychic; whereby it is always free to relate the bondage of the
mechanical with the unfree side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in thinking
and feeling on the mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is something
completely unfree in us. even if it were only through mechanical disturbances in the
vascular system, thought-flow and moods could experience the most important
influence, and when its course ceases to stand still; In the same way, we may ascribe
to the mechanical moments of the run of the juice in the plants an importance for the
psychic; whereby it is always free to relate the bondage of the mechanical with the
unfree side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in thinking and feeling on the
mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is something completely unfree in
us. whereby it is always free to relate the bondage of the mechanical with the unfree
side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in thinking and feeling on the
mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is something completely unfree in
us. whereby it is always free to relate the bondage of the mechanical with the unfree
side of the soul; since, in fact, what depends in thinking and feeling on the
mechanical side of the blood circulation in us is something completely unfree in us.
The above does not prevent that every cell of the plant leads in a certain way their
individual life. It is just a life subordinated to a higher individuality. Goethe expresses
this adequately in his Metamorphosis of Plants: "Every living thing is not an isolated
thing, but a majority, even insofar as it appears to us as an individual, it still remains a
gathering of living, independent beings, which, according to the idea are equal, but in
appearance may be the same or similar, unequal or dissimilar. " It is not necessary to
pay attention to the phenomena of individual cell life unilaterally, as if a thorough
general reference to their activities was somehow excluded.
To the pervasive, living reciprocal relation of all parts of the plant, we shall have to
demand a continuous continuation of the successive phenomena of life of the plant
upon each other as expressions of a unity of the soul governing and linking to space
also its temporal. This one is not missing. In fact, just as well as the flower of each
plant with its root is in interdependent relationships of shape and function, every
earlier stage of development of the plant seems to be a condition for everyone
later. The present state of the plant, to use a popular word, is, so to speak, always
superseded in the following; that is, the present one does not remain, but is
maintained by its effects in the following. That `s how it is, how our present soul
activities sustain themselves in the effects of the following, even where they do not
reappear in conscious memories. And if the soul activities are carried by bodily
activities, one thing depends on the other.
Examples of this subsequent relation of the former to the later processes in the
plant are partly already in the above, since the interrelationships and subsequent
relationships in the organism actually exist only with one another and with one
another. I only add a few things where the last page of relationships is more obvious.
The periodic phenomena of plant life belong here in particular insofar as they are
independent of the periodicity of external influences; an earlier state appears here as
the reason for his late recurrence.
"Nowhere," says Decandolle (II, p.18), "is this episode of periodicity or habit more
decidedly pronounced than it is to condemn plants of one hemisphere in the
opposite." If you place our fruit trees in the temperate regions of the southern
hemisphere, so they continue for some years to flower the time which corresponds to
our spring, and the reverse takes place when certain trees of the southern hemisphere
are brought to Europe. " "Often it is the case that a tree that bore a great deal of fruit
in a year, or where the fruit remained very long, the year after it has little or no
flowering." In southern Europe, it has been observed that the oil crop fails, if you
look at the olives ( Olea Europaea) lets sit too late on the trees; The latter
circumstance is to blame for the fact that the olive tree only carries the other fruit for
a year. On the other hand, if you pick the olives early, you can reap annually. "
Also the phenomena of habituation are to be drawn here, which one has observed in
the sensible plant and other plants (see p. 181). One consequence of this habituation
is that the sensible plant, though held in rooms, folds up the leaves with every
vibration, yet does not do so in its natural state in the open air. Link says in this
regard: "In the wind, the leaves of this plant collapse, but re-erect regardless of the
wind, and finally get used to it so that it no longer affects them."
If a circulation of the juices is lost in the plants, then, as has already been stated,
polyps and other animals are just as little affected, and it is indisputable that the same
applies to them as to the prevalence of a central organ; it only means a special way in
which the whole can be bound to unity without being the only way of meaning. The
essential will always be, instead of circulating the juices in circles, such a circle of
relations, that, as the phenomena in the root gain influence on those in leaf and
flower, and in reverse, this is the case. That it is so, the examples given above are
enough to teach.
But how, they say, is it not possible to cut the plant into a hundred pieces, and each
of these pieces, made into a cuttings, continues to grow? Is it possible to split the soul
into a hundred pieces? How should you think that?
It is true that it is much easier to think, the plant has no soul; thus one avoids the
difficulty of thinking how it behaves during the split. But I think nature does not care
about our ease or difficulty in thinking that kind of thing.
Can not one also cut the polyp into a hundred pieces, and each piece gives a new
polyp? It will again be said: what do you prove with the polyp, to whom we hardly
allow a soul? And again I will remember his contraction at the touch of the
needlepoint, his greed for greed, his quarrel for the prey, his choice between the
foods, his sensitivity to the light. But, of course, it is also uncomfortable for us to
think the polyp is animated; So we like to overlook that kind of thing. Fortunately, we
are not referring to the polyp alone. Even an earthworm can be cut into two
pieces; each one gives a new earthworm. How should you think about it here? The
earthworm is an animal that already has vascular and nervous systems, trained
digestive tools and muscles.
Even in these days I read in Frorieps and Schleiden's notes the following recent
experiments, with which Nais serpentina hired.
Schnetzler several times sliced individual animals of this kind into three or four
dissimilar pieces, and from these almost always received an equal number of living
individuals. On a piece taken from the middle, consisting of three rings, he perceived
all the signs of life for several days; the blood circulation continued and with it
respiration, "feeling", movement, etc. At the moment of cutting through, the muscles
closed both the intestinal canal and the large vessel trunk, thus preventing the escape
of the nutritional juice; Gradually the connections between the dorsal and the ventral
veins were restored, and gradually the cut-off became the new individual. (Frorieps
and Schleidens Not., 1848. Jan. p. 35.) "After that," says Schnetzler, "
Thus a natural scientist draws from these experiments the conclusion: "that a whole
animal presents, so to speak, a heap of individuals in a latent state," in other words,
that in this respect it is quite similar to plants. And yet the Naide moves, eats, and
lives with such distinct signs of independent sensation as an insect or leech.
Even up to the insects one can follow the same; though indistinct.
A wasp, cut between the breast and the abdomen, and thus divided into two halves,
still goes with the fore-part, bites, and utters all actions from which arbitrariness can
be deduced; but the cut abdomen, too, bends in manifold ways, and, when touched,
seeks to injure it with the sting moved alternately in all directions; both halves can
live on for days. (Autenrieth, Views, p.
Now it is true that an animal of higher classes can no longer be arbitrarily cut into
two or more pieces, so that it lives on; but birth is proof that it can divide itself into
several similar pieces.
But among the lower animals there are some who, while still at the first stage of
evolution, even split themselves so as to disappear altogether, by disintegrating into
several new surviving individuals from another stage of development, either grouping
together remain, and form a colony (aggregated ascidians), or separate completely, in
order to live on in isolation (Campanula, Medusa, etc.).
One may find all this so difficult to explain as one wants; but can we therefore say
that the polyp, earthworm, the Naide, the insect, the woman giving birth to a child,
etc., are not beings with a single soul? I claim that this difficulty can not really bother
us here. We merely ask: can one ascribe to the plants as much unity of the soul as
animals in which one has never doubted them?
As with the phenomena of separation, so it is with the growth phenomena that
could be asserted in a similar sense against the soul of the plants. The lower animals
were cut halfway and the halves sewn together by different individuals, and under
suitable circumstances they grew together and behaved like an individual. It would be
impossible for now to indicate how the soul behaves in this way. But since in animals
we do not prove anything by such phenomena against the soul, how should we do it
with plants?
It is true, such is found in the vegetable kingdom in a greater extent than in the
animal kingdom; but this can only prove that nature wishes to bring about the
conditions at issue in the establishment of plants, while the institutions of the animal
kingdom are less and only suitable for it, as they are in the field of animal welfare
others approach those of the plant kingdom more. At any rate, what we find in
animals must suffice to secure us from premature inference, as if this were not
compatible with inspiration. One would like to say that nature has just presented the
plant-like animals as a pointer in this regard.
If one says that the plant-organism is to be regarded only as a whole rising organ of
the whole organism, comparable to a gland, which processes and reproduces the
substances of the larger organism into which it enters, then one does not discern what
is in In this respect, it could be said of the plant that would not be the same to the
animal. Of course, it is not solid in the earth, but it is just as necessary in the
terrestrial outer world as the plant; For lift it into the empty space above the earth and
the circle of air, and it dies still more than a plant that you have torn out with the
root; also it is so well understood in a constant exchange of substances and activities
with the outside world as the plant. But in general it does not contradict the
individuality of a being

XIV. More about the constitution of the plant soul.

It may seem bold and premature to speak more closely about the way in which the
plants are animated, as long as the more general assertion that they are animated is
only considered a daring hypothesis. But the attempt to substantiate this hypothesis
must itself be based on the possibility of presenting the psychic life of plants to man
and animals in such a way that it appears neither as a repetition beside it, nor as an
impossibility or futility of another besides it; it will always be recognized that any
attempt to go into detail is subject to difficulties which should not be allowed much
more weight to be set out from them than to have presented appropriate possibilities.
These hints were directed to attributing to the plants a richly developed sensory
life, a more developed one even than to the animals; with refusal but higher spiritual
ability.
Such a conception of the plant-soul-life leaves from the outset some objections, in
the pursuit however many explanations.
How, one can say, is not what we explain for the stage of the plant below that of the
animal, but rather the animal's level below that of the human? The animal is
shortened to man for reason and understanding; What is left to him like
sensuality? the same thing we just want to leave the plant. According to us, however,
the plant should rather supplement the animal than repeat it.
But the animal is not really a purely sensual being, as it is often explained. What
the animals lack against us, of course, is reason, self-consciousness, the capacity to
summarize general relations spiritually, the ability to think about oneself, to make
conscious conclusions; but do not they still have memories of the past, foresight of
the future, which, even as regards the sensible, are not themselves something
sensible; for the sensuous is merely with the present. Who does not believe that a cat,
creeping to the pigeonhole, already imagines what she wants to do, and remembers
the doves that she saw flying in there? But can reason, self-reflection be stunted, and
soul still be powerful and living, why not also those foresight and retrospect? Only
then can we reach the lowest level of consciousness imaginable for us. And if nature
in animals represented the lowest with the higher without the highest manifold in the
most varied directions, then it is natural to suppose that it would have reserved for
itself a separate kingdom for the independent presentation of the lowest. The
systematics of nature seems to demand this independent education; the relative
simplicity of the plants is enough for her. that they would have reserved for
themselves a separate kingdom for the independent representation of the lowest. The
systematics of nature seems to demand this independent education; the relative
simplicity of the plants is enough for her. that they would have reserved for
themselves a separate kingdom for the independent representation of the lowest. The
systematics of nature seems to demand this independent education; the relative
simplicity of the plants is enough for her.
But, it is said, the very essence of psychic life is to carry and set temporal
relationships with the forwards and backwards; to let them go away means that soul
life itself is omitted. A soul level like the one we want to plant on can not exist
according to the very nature of the soul.
But you confused two. To be sure, every conscious foresight and retrospective view
of time also includes temporal relations of the soul, but it is not the other way round
that the soul needs such a foresight and retrospective in order to be alive in temporal
relationships.
Suppose somebody is rocking, he consciously thinks neither of the past nor of the
coming movement, yet he feels the movement of rocking in an unconscious relation
between before and after.
Another soul is rocked, carried by the river of a melody. He consciously thinks
neither of the past nor the coming notes; yet the continuous thread of a felt reference
continues from the past tones through the present already in the direction of the
following.
Could not the plant-soul-life thus be so weighed in the flow of sensual sensations
without carrying mirror-images of forward or backward in time?
For us, of course, forward or retrospective reflection may at every moment be
added to such a sensual play of the soul; but she does not have to. Why should not
there be beings in which she can not, after there are already beings, in which the even
higher general view, by which many memories are linked at once, withdraws?
In short, when we ask what remains for the plant to be stripped off, after the animal
has already stripped reason, there is something here whose stripping is even
necessary to allow the soul to be represented in its simplest wrinkle-free manner. And
if, as is the case, we really miss the signs of foresight and remembrance of the plant,
we do not, as is usually the case, miss the soul in it; but if we did not miss those
signs, we would rather miss a possible level of soul.
 The fact that we earlier attributed instincts to plants does not contradict that we
now deny them the foresight for the future. For even the instincts of men and animals
have, insofar as they are pure instincts, reference to the future; but nothing of a
developed consciousness of the future to which they are directed. Or who believed
that a caterpillar would bury itself with an awareness of why it does it according to
the purpose of nature? that a newborn child, before it tasted milk for the first time,
already imagined the milk it requires, and the movements it must make to get to
it. Rather, a felt need is what drives it; nature has set about the child and his
relationships, inwardly and outwardly, psychologically and physically, so that the
child, without knowing for oneself how, through which, it is driven to the actions that
lead to the fulfillment of this need. Only once milk has been consumed, once it has
been accomplished, by which means it will be remembered, and will it be able to use
this memory for its future actions; because it has the fortune to do it.
Thus, in general, according to how man grows, the foresight and retrospect, and,
consequently, the actual thinking and thinking, the self-contemplation, and the
rational volition, become more and more remote from the first initial state of pure
absorption Flow of sensual sensations and instinctual impulses, in that every
experience made in itself and others leaves the faculty of conscious return and
conscious application to similar relations. But we see that man sometimes approaches
the state of pure absorption in the flow of sensations and impulses, and for a short
time may very well sink back into it; see also that different people, depending on
their different state of education, rise above him at a very different height, a botokude
comparatively little, a philosopher very much. In view of this factual relativity, we
can then easily avoid drawing absolute limits in the position of the various beings
which nature does not recognize anywhere, saying: animals are such beings, where
self-consciousness is at a minimum, plants such, where, moreover, the conscious
foresight and retrospect into time, and all that depends on it, has come down to the
minimum, or rather has not yet awakened, in that the conditions for development are
lacking; To prove it, whether the one and the other creatures do not have hints from
the higher realm; which I believe in fact, without first having to do something to
assert and carry it out. Certainly only remains that, if man temporarily keeps the
higher fortunes down to a minimum, he can let sleep, without his soul ceasing to
express himself in lower activities, even if he as a new-born child even begins with it,
beings must also be conceivable where such a state is permanent, the development
does not grow or disproportionately less to a higher level. Hereby an increasing
development within the stage of the sense-life and impulse itself is not excluded.
The presumed lack of foresight and retrospect on time in plants is undoubtedly in a
teleological relation to their fixed position in space and their accordingly limited
living conditions, to which I have already referred. The animal must be able to look
forward to the time, because it has far-reaching purposes to pursue in space, the
movement should not miss the target. Instincts can only be calculated on the basis of
once-for-all living conditions; What would be the instinct of the child to seek the
breast if a breast were not offered each time? But they are no longer sufficient where
conditions change as in adult animals. The plant remains, so to speak, always
attached to the mother's breast; it would have been given the foresight and sight only
as a distracting encore.
The organic cause of the lack of foresight and retrospect, on the other hand, may in
the case of the plant be connected with the lack of actual circulatory phenomena,
which in turn depends on the deficiency of the nervous system and vascular system. It
does not return anything inside of it. All that she receives from the outside is only a
reason that she endeavors to receive more from the outside, and that she endeavors to
take it up as before; and this causal relation of the former to the later reaches out to a
psychic continuation of the mental, which is linked to entertaining; but of reflected
functions in the physical, nothing is visible which represented itself as an expression
or carrier of corresponding psychic.
With the memories and the foresight into the future, the plant must of course still
lack many other things; everything by name is missing, which builds itself up only on
the basis of such. Here belongs the whole real life of imagination, not only the
thinking of and about things that are beyond it, but, to a certain extent, the notions of
oneself.
It may easily be caused to put the weight on a false point, namely, that the plant is
unable to receive images of objects of the external world because of a lack of
eyes. But also by means of the ear, which does not deliver any pictures, objective
representations of things can be gained. The blind man knows so well about an
external world of things as the seer, and has, freshly operated, at first no profit from
the image of this world which falls into his eyes. Instead of being enriched with
objective ideas, only the existing ones confuse him; he has to close his eyes to find
his way around as well as before. In the beginning, the world only looks like a
marbled color chart, in which color means only color, line only line, the green spot
still no forest, the red does not present a rose yet. One can say that the pictures that
fall into his eye initially do not depict him. What is it all about? Because he did not
learn to remember anything yet. Not the green that I see in the forest makes it a forest
or is more than a small contribution to it; but that it grows, gives shade, cooling, fires,
the bird sings in it, the hunter goes in it; all that is not in the mere sight of the green
spot. Only when an overall impression of memories of this and the like is added to
the intuition of the green spot, and the sensual image is once again painted with this
spiritual color, does the sensuous impression of the green spot become the objective
conception of a forest that is objective to me. But if a being has no memories, so it
can not make any of the impressions it receives. And so not only is the lack of eyes
reason that the plant has no objective conceptions, but rather the otherwise justified
impossibility of having such, among the reasons may include, that there are no eyes
given, since the pictures of objects but only Through their interpretation, memories
can gain meaning and benefit through memories. After all, if the world wishes to
reproduce itself on a part of the plant as well as on the retina of our eye, and if we see
the plant as well as we of the colors and drawings of this picture; it would be as
incomprehensible to her as to the newly operated blind man, and since she would not
learn to understand it, it was, of course, shorter, the picture and the And so not only is
the lack of eyes reason that the plant has no objective conceptions, but rather the
otherwise justified impossibility of having such, among the reasons may include, that
there are no eyes given, since the pictures of objects but only Through their
interpretation, memories can gain meaning and benefit through memories. After all, if
the world wishes to reproduce itself on a part of the plant as well as on the retina of
our eye, and if we see the plant as well as we of the colors and drawings of this
picture; it would be as incomprehensible to her as to the newly operated blind man,
and since she would not learn to understand it, it was, of course, shorter, the picture
and the And so not only is the lack of eyes reason that the plant has no objective
conceptions, but rather the otherwise justified impossibility of having such, among
the reasons may include, that there are no eyes given, since the pictures of objects but
only Through their interpretation, memories can gain meaning and benefit through
memories. After all, if the world wishes to reproduce itself on a part of the plant as
well as on the retina of our eye, and if we see the plant as well as we of the colors and
drawings of this picture; it would be as incomprehensible to her as to the newly
operated blind man, and since she would not learn to understand it, it was, of course,
shorter, the picture and the Among the reasons may be that no eyes are given to it, for
the pictures of the objects can only gain meaning and utility through their
interpretation through memories. After all, if the world wishes to reproduce itself on a
part of the plant as well as on the retina of our eye, and if we see the plant as well as
we of the colors and drawings of this picture; it would be as incomprehensible to her
as to the newly operated blind man, and since she would not learn to understand it, it
was, of course, shorter, the picture and the Among the reasons may be that no eyes
are given to it, for the pictures of the objects can only gain meaning and utility
through their interpretation through memories. After all, if the world wishes to
reproduce itself on a part of the plant as well as on the retina of our eye, and if we see
the plant as well as we of the colors and drawings of this picture; it would be as
incomprehensible to her as to the newly operated blind man, and since she would not
learn to understand it, it was, of course, shorter, the picture and the and the plant as
well as we see the colors and drawings of this picture; it would be as
incomprehensible to her as to the newly operated blind man, and since she would not
learn to understand it, it was, of course, shorter, the picture and the and the plant as
well as we see the colors and drawings of this picture; it would be as
incomprehensible to her as to the newly operated blind man, and since she would not
learn to understand it, it was, of course, shorter, the picture and theLeave camera
obscura to let the sunlight shine fresh on the bare plant, and thus achieve other
benefits that tie to the greater simplicity. Any complication hurts where it does not
use.
Now the objection easily arises that a psychic life which is so entirely objective in
nature, and which is surrendered to the change of external influences, can not at all be
thought of as an individual, independent self, but leads back to the idea of absorption
in the river of general inspiration. But let's just stick to what we can experience about
ourselves rather than arbitrary premises. I think we will drive safer doing this than if
we were to construct a priori left in the head. To be sure, pure experiences can not be
made on ourselves, because we ourselves are not so purely sensual beings, as
presumably the plants. But as we observe with ourselves what grows and diminishes,
or remains unchanged, as the side of sensuality grows or diminishes, we may well
conclude what must happen at the extreme, even though it can not be reached by us.
A concrete example may lead us. Let us think of several people, for example
Hegelian philosophers, in philosophizing, and in the face of them several others, for
example Hottentots, in a feast. Those should delve into considerations about the
beginning and the end of the whole world, so mentally as far back, forward, and
around as possible; These are absorbed in the sensual pleasures of eating and
drinking. It will, however, be possible to say that the Hottentots indulge themselves
much more in the outer world than the philosophers; for eating and drinking is
certainly something very external to thinking; but not in the least more than resolved
like this. On the contrary, every Hottentott has his sensual enjoyment quite as much
for himself as every Hegelian has his philosophical thoughts, feels quite as much as a
being in itself. The one Hottentot tastes nothing directly of what the other tastes, and
one Hegelian knows nothing directly of what the other knows. That is the same. And
even without the Hottentot ever saying to myself, I taste, there would be something in
it that tastes and something that nobody else tastes. Who doubts that it is the same
with animals? The divorce of the individualities does not depend on the height of
their spirituality. and something that nobody else tastes. Who doubts that it is the
same with animals? The divorce of the individualities does not depend on the height
of their spirituality. and something that nobody else tastes. Who doubts that it is the
same with animals? The divorce of the individualities does not depend on the height
of their spirituality.
Now go to the border with the plants; Let them be constantly absorbed in the life of
the senses, as perhaps even the most sensual man himself may not be able to do so at
times; Thus, since no loss of individuality depends on sensuality, they themselves can
not experience any loss of it.
Against this it is said, for instance, that what the Hottentots receive individuality in
their meal is not yet given in their mere sensuality, but is something more than
sufficient, though not actu during the pleasure of the animal, that is, in a real
statement, yet potentia. that is, the possibility of expressing something that exists, if it
could and would express itself in other circumstances. The Hottentots and even the
animals are once more than purely sensual beings, and it is only through this higher
things that they detach themselves from the ground of general inspiration. Well, yes,
but in that sense I also say that the plants are more than purely sensual
beings; potentiacan one seek as much higher things in them as one likes; it would
only require the addition of the internal and external circumstances, which must still
occur in the Hottentot, so that the higher things can be clearly manifested in it. The
sensible can be understood everywhere as the basis of a higher being, which, if
not actu , is nevertheless potentia . I only mean that the actuwhich is already weak
and rare in Hottentots, and now as weak and rare as possible in plants. Traces,
momentary awakening may even be there; nature does not cut anything off; And I do
not say, therefore, that the plant is cut off the higher plane smoothly, just as one can
cut off the flower of a plant, but only that this flower has remained with it in still
undeveloped, scarcely or scarcely opening bud, while the leaf growth sensuality
vigorously proliferates. But because I do not care much about the ambush of
the potentia , when it comes to depicting what is, not what might be the case with the
possible access of conditions, so I explain the plants for pretty much purely sensual
beings. potentia In the end, nothing would hinder it, even to settle a stone with
reason.
Individuality is characterized in the previous by certain characteristics. It is
possible that the concept of many philosophers of individuality is not right. But here
it is not at all important to establish or disprove a definite definition of individuality,
but only to try to save the thing described here for the plant, which is likely to be the
one around which the interest in this question really turns. He who, from the
beginning, demands a higher self-conscious spirituality for individuality, will of
course not be able to find it in the plant; but still be able to find a self-sufficient being
in it.
If one asks: what could be the purpose and meaning of putting beings into the
world that can neither think about themselves, nor about their future or past, and
willingly surrender themselves to the flow of sensual feelings and instincts, then an
analogous question would be open for the animals. For although the conceptions of
the animals advance further and further back into time than those of plants, so little
does it seem so rational and intelligible that, judging the value of the spiritual merely
according to the rational and the intelligible Animals for equally foolish supplements
would have to be kept like the plants. The matter gains a different meaning if one
does not regard the souls of animals and plants as individuals, which of course they
are, and the world, as a collection of such individuals, faces a god beyond them, but
the whole souls of plants and beasts stand as subordinate moments of God's soul
itself, linked in its general unity; because then all the riches and manifoldness of these
souls benefit God, but not their foolishness meets them, which they have only as
isolated individuals facing each other, and apart from their connection in God. And
what could prove or force us to suppose that, when we feel so fragmented against
each other, there is the same fragmentation for God, in which all fragments are
connected like fibers of a living tree? linked in his general unity; because then all the
riches and manifoldness of these souls benefit God, but not their foolishness meets
them, which they have only as isolated individuals facing each other, and apart from
their connection in God. And what could prove or force us to suppose that, when we
feel so fragmented against each other, there is the same fragmentation for God, in
which all fragments are connected like fibers of a living tree? linked in his general
unity; because then all the riches and manifoldness of these souls benefit God, but not
their foolishness meets them, which they have only as isolated individuals facing
each other, and apart from their connection in God. And what could prove or force us
to suppose that, when we feel so fragmented against each other, there is the same
fragmentation for God, in which all fragments are connected like fibers of a living
tree?
The above is supposed to show against many a mocking objection that the
independent existence of a soul-level, as we hold it to be that of the plant, is at all
possible and fits into the plan of a universal soul-realm. But that this level of soul
really is that of the plant becomes probable through the totality of the earlier
discussions. We have found equally manifold and, as we think, fully valid signs of a
sensual psychic life in the plants, when, on the other hand, we have not encountered
any sign higher up.
We look in detail at the most general conditions, which are grounded in the nature
of the soul itself, but at the same time the most radical differences between the
psychic life of plants and that of animals; Differences, which are mainly due to the
fact that the plant relies entirely on sensuality, and that the animal is only partially or
more subordinate. If, on the whole, this makes the plant lower than the animal, it
nevertheless puts the sensuousness of the plant above that of the animal; because here
it assumes the meaning of the full sphere of life, in the case of animals only that of a
subordinate side. The sensuality of the animal is the serving, often only too dirty
maid of a higher rule, the sensuality of the plant a free country girl,
According to all signs, the sensory life of the plant has in common with that of the
animal the double side of sensations and instincts, and the instincts are similarly
stimulated or elicited by sensations here and there. We see the plant on the stimulus
of nutrients, air, light, supports, etc. Buds, leaves, flowers, twigs drift, turn, bend,
twine, their flowers open, close, etc. The whole interplay of sensations and impulses
arises but as much easier in the plants than in the animals, with which the much
simpler legalism of the same is related. The teleological reason for this lies in the
limited living conditions of the plant, the organic reason in the greater simplicity of
the construction. The stimulus of sensation in the plants has nowhere to go through so
many and varied central components as in man and animal, where the enormously
complicated brain is inserted between the action of the stimulus and the rash in
motion. Rather, the plants have only a brief interaction between what they suffer and
what they do; Although not so simple, that the counteraction would not be
conditioned and changed by the internal institution; but on the whole a much simpler
than in humans and all the more perfect animals. As the light stirs her, so does she
bloom, as the air stirs her, so does she drift. where the enormously involved brain is
inserted between the action of the stimulus and the rash in motion. Rather, the plants
have only a brief interaction between what they suffer and what they do; Although
not so simple, that the counteraction would not be conditioned and changed by the
internal institution; but on the whole a much simpler than in humans and all the more
perfect animals. As the light stirs her, so does she bloom, as the air stirs her, so does
she drift. where the enormously involved brain is inserted between the action of the
stimulus and the rash in motion. Rather, the plants have only a brief interaction
between what they suffer and what they do; Although not so simple, that the
counteraction would not be conditioned and changed by the internal institution; but
on the whole a much simpler than in humans and all the more perfect animals. As the
light stirs her, so does she bloom, as the air stirs her, so does she drift. but on the
whole a much simpler than in humans and all the more perfect animals. As the light
stirs her, so does she bloom, as the air stirs her, so does she drift. but on the whole a
much simpler than in humans and all the more perfect animals. As the light stirs her,
so does she bloom, as the air stirs her, so does she drift.
To instincts triggered by stimuli, we also see instincts, as in animals, dependent on
special moods of the common sense, which may relate to internal organic conditions
and processes.
Just as the soul of men and animals, as it is awake, is caught in a continuous flow
of expressions of life, so we have found reason to accept this also in the plants,
except that this continuous activity manifests itself here in a more sensual realm
rather, it is borne by a bodily process directed towards the outside world as an inner
world. The constant exploration of the plants, figures of appearance, survey, coloring,
offers clues to this idea. For if the body of the plant is once the bearer of the soul,
then also the automatic changes and strivings of this body can be regarded as a sign
or expression of corresponding activities of its soul.
The soul of man and beast, however, is subject to sleep, which manifests itself
externally by the cessation of all spontaneous expressions of life. After an analogue
cessation, the plant-soul must undergo a similar sleep in winter. It is only for the
change between sleep and wake in the plant that the greater, in which animals the
smaller cycle of nature has become authoritative, or more correctly, of paramount
importance. The change between winter and summer is not without significance for
the whole mode of existence of humans and animals. In winter, man always
approaches something to the dormouse, and likewise for the plant the change between
day and night will not be without significance, only much less than that between
winter and summer. Thus, flora and fauna complement each other in a remarkable
way. One can make the following analysis. The great period of nature depends on the
rotation of the earth around the sun, the small of rotation of the earth around itself.
The life of plants revolves more on an appearance, and especially on the sun; Animal
life is more about itself, and sunlight is of secondary importance to its life process.
But again, no absolute divorce. The dormouse and so many other hibernating
animals prove that for the animal the great period may have a similar meaning as for
the plant, at the same time confirming the possibility of such a meaning; and so may
there be some plants in which the decline of life during the night may take on the
meaning of sleep; while what is usually called plant sleep during the night may be
comparable only to a rest, as man's work in nature rest in winter.
In connection with the simple and sensual soul play in the plants, of course, only a
simpler and more sensual soul interplay between them can exist. Yes, one can doubt
whether such exists at all. In the meantime it is probable, according to earlier
discussions, that in the scent of flowers there is a remedy which, of course, may not,
like our language, transmit thought, but may produce sensations and instinctive
sympathies, as in animals at the analogous time of the reproductive process Smell
becomes meaningful in this respect; although he undeniably, like the whole sensory
scale, here a very different meaning than in the plant wins. I think a lot more about
that in the 16th section.
 One can still think of another means of communication, which connects with the
previous one.
Each leaf, as it moves, shakes the air in some other way, depending on its shape
and its approach, and this vibration, propagated to other plants, will again impart to
them a different shock. It can even be visually explained by an analogous
phenomenon. If we go around in the water with a stick or a shovel, we will see the
waves spreading, different according to the type of movement and the moving body,
instead of water we will put the air, instead of stick and shovel, the moving leaves
will have it we are essentially the same. It is certain that similar waves arise in the air
as in water, and every other wave strikes differently at the bodies that meet it.
In our case the sound in the voice is begotten from the inside, in the case of plants
the smell, in order to communicate the inner states to others; with us the light beam
comes from the outside and flies from one to the other without our assistance, to let
the one to see what the other one looks like; so with them the wind and the air wave.
Meanwhile, such analogies can afford only very distant hints.
The inward simplicity of the soul-life of the plant according to the relations
discussed so far agrees with an external variety of the same according to other
relations. In fact, the variety of external stimuli to which the plant is subject, the
multiplicity of its various parts, and the multiform nature of its reaction to them, are
sufficient reasons to infer a variety of sensations and impulses from it. Light, heat,
humidity, airborne shock, insect contact, influence of food and respiratory
substances; everything has a peculiar effect on the plant. Roots, leaves, flowers and in
the flowers the petals, the male and female reproductive organs are each constructed
in different ways, and each behave differently against those agents, so that none can
substitute the function of the other. The flowers can not nourish the plant; rather, they
want to be nourished, and conversely they can do their fertilization process through
the roots, they can not produce seeds. The leaves exhale oxygen in the light and
produce green color, the flowers consume oxygen in the light and produce bright
colors, the inseminating parts more than the petals, the male parts more than the
female; the lower surface of the leaves behaves differently from the surface during
breathing and against the light. There are plants whose leaves stink (while grinding),
while the flowers smell pleasant, such. B. the Datura species and Volkameria and the
white lily (Decand II, p. even in taste, the different parts of the same plant differ very
frequently, which presupposes different kinds of chemical activities. And so it
continues through many details.
After these differences in the structure and activity of the parts of one and the same
plant, one can not think only of a succession, but also of a simultaneity of different
sensations in the plant; for with the help of differently constructed parts and,
accordingly, different parts counteracting the stimuli, we also feel various things not
merely one after the other, but ourselves at the same time.
It is indisputable that the plants of the same stimulants of sensation can not be
expected to carry the same sensation as we do; that they z. For example, from the
scent that comes to them, the same sense of smell, from the vibration that hits them,
the same sensation of sound as we have. Only a certain analogy may take place, we
do not know how far. We already find that, depending on their structure, the animals
are moved differently from the same stimulants and, in general, different from
ourselves. What smells and tastes good to one person, is contrary to the other. For the
mode of sensation depends not only on the nature of the stimulus, but also on the
nature of the stimulated being; and why should nature have a kind of sensation that is
already in a being, repeat in the other again. Thus, the sensations of the plant may be
very different from ours, and it may not be possible for us to imagine them in their
true nature, as it is possible for someone who has never smelt a rose to smell the
peculiar smell to introduce the rose after that of a carnation or a violet. On the other
hand, in spite of all the diversity in the structure of beings, the communality of the
same stimulus must receive something communal in all sensations dependent on it, so
that it may always be allowed to us, preferably by the action of light on our own
sensation of light think. to imagine this in its true nature, as it is possible for someone
who has never smelt a rose to imagine the peculiar smell of the rose after that of a
carnation or a violet. On the other hand, in spite of all the diversity in the structure of
beings, the communality of the same stimulus must receive something communal in
all sensations dependent on it, so that it may always be allowed to us, preferably by
the action of light on our own sensation of light think. to imagine this in its true
nature, as it is possible for someone who has never smelt a rose to imagine the
peculiar smell of the rose after that of a carnation or a violet. On the other hand, in
spite of all the diversity in the structure of beings, the communality of the same
stimulus must receive something communal in all sensations dependent on it, so that
it may always be allowed to us, preferably by the action of light on our own sensation
of light think.
The fact that the plant possesses neither similarly built artificial organs of sensation
nor nerves, as we do, does not, according to earlier remarks, arouse any objection to
the alleged existence of sensations in the same. The following auxiliary
considerations may assist those earlier. Already within the animal kingdom the form
and arrangement of the sensory organs varies exceptionally, always in relation to the
way of life of the animal. Now, as the plant, instead of having to move through the
space and find its way through it, has only to grow through it and to shape itself more
than the outside world, the artificial arrangement of our higher sense organs could, as
we have already noticed, disappear. because, in fact, it is only calculated to orient us
by images or sounds of the external world in it. But the lower sense organs of smell,
taste, and taste are also very simply furnished here (at the same time giving us an
example of the distribution over the entire surface of the body), and even those higher
are more likely to do so than descending in the animal kingdom life ever
simplified. It must therefore be concluded that an artificial construction of the sense
organs is not at all essential everywhere to produce sensations, but merely to make
them suitable for the service of higher soul functions; if the higher of the soul-
functions of a being is always connected with its further relations to the outside
world. Already with some insects very simple eyes appear; the organ of hearing, in
our case a true labyrinth, is in some animals a very simple sack; yes, the polyp goes
after the light without even having eyes; and notice that he is one of the more plant-
like animals.
As the most essential of the sensory organs, at last only the nerves seem to
remain. but our earlier discussions have already shown that they can only be regarded
as necessary in the establishment of the animal, since the plant as well as other things,
to which the animal of the nerves needs, such as breathing, influx of the prisoners,
stimulus movements, etc., have no nerves can do.
Basically, even in animals, only the beginning and ending point of the nerves are
the essential for the sense-sensation. The course of the nerves between their
peripheral endings in the sensory organs and their central termination in the brain or
ganglion acts merely like a ladder and could be thought to be shortened at will
without detriment to sensation. Where there is no need of a brain, no nerve-node for
the service of higher soul-functions, such a guide will not be required. What divides
itself into central and peripheral in man and animal, and thus permits a higher
development of the whole beyond the sensible, and indeed conditioned by the organic
side, can not require this divorce where the whole life is merely to be decided in the
sensible eliminate the nervous system by itself,
I am not saying that the conduction through the fibers of the nervous system is
something completely indifferent. On the contrary, an interaction may occur in the
brain of what is conducted in the individual nerve fibers, and these interactions are
related to the higher functions of the soul. But where it is not to do with these higher
soul functions, this interacting leader will not be required. In the meantime, it would
not be the place to further justify and carry out this idea here.
If you want a short, but only very cum grano salisIt may be said that the body of an
animal is like a sack, the sensitive surface of which is interior. Now special accesses
are required for what sensation should touch from the outside in order to reach the
interior. because everything can not be access; These approaches are represented by
the individual sensory organs with their nerves; but if the sack is turned over, there is
no need for special access; the whole surface is open to sensation; Such turned sacks
are in a sense the plants. And there are reasons to explain it. For the plant in general
also behaves like an inverted animal in terms of its external admission, and has often
been compared with it; namely, the animal absorbs through inner surfaces, intestinal
tract and lungs, air and nutrients, and the movements of the limbs serve to put the
food right there. The plant absorbs all this through external surfaces; the outwardly-
turned root-fibers of the plant are comparable with the inner intestinal villi of the
animal, the outward-pointing leaves with the invaginated lungs; the movements of the
limbs of the plant serve to evacuate itself into the exterior. But if this relationship
takes place with regard to the gross material, it is more than probable that it will take
place also with regard to the subtler sensory impressions, since the organs of sense-
sensation are in part even directly connected with the organs of nutrition. the
outwardly-turned root-fibers of the plant are comparable with the inner intestinal villi
of the animal, the outward-pointing leaves with the invaginated lungs; the movements
of the limbs of the plant serve to evacuate itself into the exterior. But if this
relationship takes place with regard to the gross material, it is more than probable that
it will take place also with regard to the subtler sensory impressions, since the organs
of sense-sensation are in part even directly connected with the organs of nutrition. the
outwardly-turned root-fibers of the plant are comparable with the inner intestinal villi
of the animal, the outward-pointing leaves with the invaginated lungs; the movements
of the limbs of the plant serve to evacuate itself into the exterior. But if this
relationship takes place with regard to the gross material, it is more than probable that
it will take place also with regard to the subtler sensory impressions, since the organs
of sense-sensation are in part even directly connected with the organs of nutrition.
Regardless of the fact that it is only a schema, which we hereby put forward, it is
perhaps possible to attach some meaning to it, because great importance is attached
within the animal kingdom to a positional opposition of the sensory organ; if in the
upper classes of animals the nervous system is more concentrated on the upper or
dorsal side, more concentrated on the lower or ventral side in the lower animal
classes. The greater contrast between the animal and plant kingdoms seems to rest on
the only more decided contrast between inside and outside.
If the plants, by their appearance in mere sensuousness, put themselves before man
and beast, they are likely to be above both in the formation of the level of sensibility,
as already indicated.
The following circumstances are in support of this view:
First of all, within humanity we find sensation and sensuous urge, under otherwise
similar circumstances, all the stronger and more developed, the more man gives
himself completely to them, the more prejudice, reflection, and self-reflection are
silent. In this respect there is almost a certain antagonism. In the peoples who are
undeveloped according to higher spiritual relations, the senses and instincts are most
sharply developed. They do not understand music of a higher character, they do not
know how to judge a painting; but they almost hear the grass grow, arguing with the
eagle for the sharpness of the eye, with the dog for the sharpness of the smell. Among
ourselves, people with the most sensuous plant least have the facility for higher
reflection and vice versa. Yes, even with each individual, this antagonism is
confirmed. A person who thinks deeply does not see or hear what is going on around
him, and a person who completely indulges in a sensual pleasure or urge can not
think at that; or if something is so subverted, at the same time something escapes the
power of the sensual.
If, then, nature has denied to plants the higher functions of the soul, this can easily
be grasped in such a way that it is precisely in them that it seeks to bring the sensory
life to its fullest development and bloom, which it does not attain by taking into
account the higher functions been possible.
If the savage of the glaring color-jewelery or of the dance after a rushing clock is
already looking forward, how much more will the plant be able to enjoy brushing its
colors in the bright sunshine and rocking in the rushing beat of the wind. To the
savage, every piece of jewelery and music means something other than color and
sound; the plant has no meaning in making it, it is absorbed in sensual pleasure; she
always loses enough of what she already has, wants more and more of it, and so she
makes more and more new green areas and dancing leaves; At last she becomes full
of it too, and bursts into flowers, with brand new colors; Now, instead of the wind,
the insect, bee and butterfly come, and stir up deeper feelings in it.
Of course, the absence of the higher functions alone could not speak for the greater
and higher development of the lower; if the stone is missing both at the same time; In
part, the fact that the plants share with the animals into the sphere of organic life,
makes it not improbable that the law of antagonism, which has taken hold within a
part of this field, will partly affect the relation of the two parts All earlier teleological
considerations point to the same point, partly the direct phenomena of plant life are
themselves in this sense.
The plant is much more naked and exposed to the influence of all sensory stimuli,
and reacts with vigorous life activities against it as we do. One remembers how much
more vigorously the light interferes in their life process than in ours, how much more
it is shaken in all parts, how much more susceptible it is to the effects of air and
moisture, and how much more important is the fragrance for them than for them It
seems to us that it is capable of assimilating even the inorganic, what we are unable
to do, and that it is constantly changing its own form. It might be objected that the
want of artificial sensory organs, such as the animal, puts the plant, though it does not
lack sense-sensation, always deeper than the animal in regard to it. It's not like that
alone; if, according to its whole structure, it appears much more as a sensory organ
than the animal, and those artistic acts are necessary not for the service of the
sensuous but of a higher life in the animals. It's nice to find textbooks in children, but
only if they want to be or become more than children. The pure nature of the child
does that rather demolition. Such textbooks are eyes and ears for humans and
animals; she does not need the plant because she has nothing to learn. Your child's
nature therefore remains all the more beautiful and pure. Instead of becoming a man
out of the child, in the process of blossoming it becomes from the child to the angel,
which only in a higher light actuates its child nature. but a higher life in the animals
are needed. It's nice to find textbooks in children, but only if they want to be or
become more than children. The pure nature of the child does that rather
demolition. Such textbooks are eyes and ears for humans and animals; she does not
need the plant because she has nothing to learn. Your child's nature therefore remains
all the more beautiful and pure. Instead of becoming a man out of the child, in the
process of blossoming it becomes from the child to the angel, which only in a higher
light actuates its child nature. but a higher life in the animals are needed. It's nice to
find textbooks in children, but only if they want to be or become more than
children. The pure nature of the child does that rather demolition. Such textbooks are
eyes and ears for humans and animals; she does not need the plant because she has
nothing to learn. Your child's nature therefore remains all the more beautiful and
pure. Instead of becoming a man out of the child, in the process of blossoming it
becomes from the child to the angel, which only in a higher light actuates its child
nature. Such textbooks are eyes and ears for humans and animals; she does not need
the plant because she has nothing to learn. Your child's nature therefore remains all
the more beautiful and pure. Instead of becoming a man out of the child, in the
process of blossoming it becomes from the child to the angel, which only in a higher
light actuates its child nature. Such textbooks are eyes and ears for humans and
animals; she does not need the plant because she has nothing to learn. Your child's
nature therefore remains all the more beautiful and pure. Instead of becoming a man
out of the child, in the process of blossoming it becomes from the child to the angel,
which only in a higher light actuates its child nature.
What is nicer, a map or a pure and simply painted paper sheet? Certainly the latter,
and the child is more pleased with it, but by learning to understand the map, it is
beyond the joy of paperwork. Well, our eye paints the world as a map and our minds
teach it to understand us; But that's it with the pure joy of color. The plant does not
need a map because it does not have to travel, so instead of merely receiving the
colorful sheets of paper; but now also receive the full joy of it, which holds so long as
the color resists; because if the desire for colors no longer holds, the plant also throws
away the colorful bows itself. That in fact the plant feels something of its own color,
Here, too, the greater importance of the sensory life in the vegetable kingdom than
in the animal kingdom proves that the animal perceives its senses, as it were, ready,
as the basis for its higher development, while the life of the plant itself is determined
to be its To build up a sensory basis in terms of quantity and quality ever
higher. Sensuality is given to the animal as an agreed-upon thing, given up to the
plant as the first to be abolished. Every new leaf can be regarded more as an organ,
with which it presents itself to the sensory stimuli, and in the flowering, a whole new
and higher realm of sensuality closes at last. Hereby, sensuality gains an immanent
purpose, which it does not have in animals, gains an inner life that goes beyond the
animal.
Again, no absolute difference. Completely finished, the animal does not get its
sensuality; the sexual sensation develops later; On the other hand, as has been
repeatedly acknowledged, the plant may not be confined to sensuality, and especially
in flowering the idea of a higher one may exceed sensuality. So the flowering times in
both realms touch.
Of course, in this meaningful yet quiet touch one has no intention of finding
anything but the coarsest resemblance. It arouses a sexual sensation in the plant at the
time of flowering; and that was all that ever awoke in her. But basically that would be
the wrong world. For if in the animal the entrance of the sensation of sex forms the
summit in the development of sensibility, it can not form in the plant a beginning of
it, to which nothing precedes. The animal saw, heard, smelled, tasted, but already felt
before sexual maturity. The flowering of sensation was preceded by an undergrowth
of sensations, based on the processes of nutrition, breathing, and the action of many
sensory stimuli. How can one now find in the plant that flower of sensations, and yet
want to deny that undergrowth of the same, while diet, breathing, sensory stimuli, her
play in the plant before even much more powerful than in the animal drift. One
confuses the trace of higher light of the soul, which indisputably awakens with the
flower of the plant, with a trace of soul-light at all. Our stupid eye can not quite close
itself to the splendor that falls on the summit of the plant-soul life; but now you see
nothing but this supreme shine, toned down to the inconspicuous dot; but the whole
beautiful design of the plant-soul-life remains submerged in the night. Our stupid eye
can not quite close itself to the splendor that falls on the summit of the plant-soul
life; but now you see nothing but this supreme shine, toned down to the
inconspicuous dot; but the whole beautiful design of the plant-soul-life remains
submerged in the night. Our stupid eye can not quite close itself to the splendor that
falls on the summit of the plant-soul life; but now you see nothing but this supreme
shine, toned down to the inconspicuous dot; but the whole beautiful design of the
plant-soul-life remains submerged in the night.
In my opinion, the sexual process in the plant is raised to a higher level only, and
more in a particular stage of development than in animals. In this, sensory
development breaks down with sexual maturity, where a new wreath of finer sensory
activity breaks out; the entire sensory life rises to a higher and more self-evolving
level. One would like to say that the plant already brings it here to the third higher
heavenly life, what we expect only in the hereafter, and of which we consider the
bliss of love as a taste. And for that very reason the blossom also gives many hints for
our future life, a symbol as beautiful as the butterfly, as I recall earlier; only that it
merely gives a sensual picture of it. Thus, the plant in its lowliness is, as it were,
much more elevated than we ourselves. Here it is already experiencing a salvation
that we only expect. Already here these children come to their kingdom of heaven.
Basically, it is equally thoughtless to acknowledge a psychic life of plants at all, but
to find it reduced to a sleepy or dreamlike state. If we look at the plants sharply, we
will find everything speaking against such an assumption. How has the state of the
continuously acting and creating plant, which is in the most active conflict with all
sensory stimuli, so unlike our sleep, where the interactions with the outside world are
rather resting or reduced to a minimum, nothing new arises, but only the old is being
played. Only the condition of the plant in winter can be reasonably compared, as we
have said earlier, with our state of sleep; but since it can do this, it can not be the
same in summer. To say nothing of that, in essence, all nature itself appears as a
dreamer as with half-drawn eyes; should one imagine that she would let the half-
distance of her creatures sleep through the long, bright, light day, open her eyes early,
and still sleep on, put so much vitality on an oak just to let her sleep for half a
millennium? And meanwhile, this oak creates such enormous works on itself, of
itself. Does man also sleep like that? just to let her sleep for half a millennium? And
meanwhile, this oak creates such enormous works on itself, of itself. Does man also
sleep like that? just to let her sleep for half a millennium? And meanwhile, this oak
creates such enormous works on itself, of itself. Does man also sleep like that?
To be sure, it will always be possible in some ways to defend the expression of a
sleep or dream life, as long as the higher faculties lie in a sleep or a dream. But this is
not really an expression. For in our sleep and dreams not only the higher, but also the
sensible faculties are broken, and perhaps even worse than the higher ones. For
memories which constitute the outcome of the higher faculties of the soul still
continue in the dream, while the senses are completely closed. But in the plant, the
senses are completely open, and memories do not run. How can one last speak of a
dream where no waking is, from which the dream takes the stuff of the
memories? Guards are probably without dream, not dream without guards
conceivable. So you say the plants lead a dream life and nothing further, one says the
same as, there is a shadow and nothing that throws him. It is nonsense; and hereby
the plants should be lost to their purpose.
Up to now we have followed the life of the plant only to the flower-stand, indeed
spoken of it as if there were nothing beyond the flower-stand; and, indeed, it may be
the culmination of this life, the conclusion of which is on the ascending side, and less
interested in pursuing the same on the descending side. But there is such a side, and
meaningless we can not hold it for the plant, whether we think of the great abundance
of material and vital force, which from now on will be used for the development of
the fruits, be it the great effort expedient facilities, which here just like the
fertilization processes take place. He who, of course, holds the flower blind to the
light, will see in all the fruits only dumb nuts; but for us,
Man, when he is beyond the heyday of life, does not yet become dead with it; His
life will only gain a different direction and meaning from now on. Until then, more
concerned with the care of oneself and the next present, yet never thinking much
about oneself, responsive to every impulse from the outside and yet alive, he begins
from now on to think more about the future and the past, to turn more to oneself to
care for a progeny, to work for a posterity. The splendor of life is extinguished,
meaning increases, receptivity to the mere enjoyment of the senses recedes, the
organs gradually wither; for that he matures all the more internally.
We shall have to assume an analogous turn also in the plant according to analogous
external phenomena, except that everything which falls into bright self-consciousness
in man will here more fall into feeling and instinct, but which nevertheless can be
determined and lively enough. It may begin a kind of retreat of the feeling of the
plant in itself, while diminishing its susceptibility to external stimuli, as we see the
organs gradually wither and develop a kind of instinct that urges them to live their
own lives in the formation of the organism to reproduce or reproduce young seedlings
in seeds. (Recall that the plantlet is actually preformed in its seed in rootlets and leaf-
feathers.) One would say the formation of the young seedling in the seed represents
the first and only real thought in its head, in which the memory of its whole past life
is darkly summed up and at the same time expresses concern for the future of another,
alike, being. Even our thoughts are attached to bodily processes that leave something
changed. However indistinctly the seedling appears in the seed against the whole
plant, so vaguely may the memory of the former life, which now becomes the soul of
the creation of the new seedling, be against the whole former life of the plant
itself. But they are express their same nature. Even our thoughts are attached to
bodily processes that leave something changed. However indistinctly the seedling
appears in the seed against the whole plant, so vaguely may the memory of the
former life, which now becomes the soul of the creation of the new seedling, be
against the whole former life of the plant itself. But they are express their same
nature. Even our thoughts are attached to bodily processes that leave something
changed. However indistinctly the seedling appears in the seed against the whole
plant, so vaguely may the memory of the former life, which now becomes the soul of
the creation of the new seedling, be against the whole former life of the plant
itself. But they areeven our memories only pale pictures of reality.
One does not object that the analogous process of the formation of new beings in
man is not accompanied by consciousness. It's just like growth. For the plant, this
process has a completely different meaning than for humans; what lies at the bottom
of this one lies supreme there, has passed into the head of the plant. Just as flowering
is only the summit of the process of growth in the outward direction, fruiting and
seedling is only the return path in an inward direction, a retreat of the growing plant
in itself. Now growth is the bearer of soul movement in general of the plant, it will be
as well in the inward as outward direction.
Incidentally, even the initiation of the fruiting process itself shows the most
essential difference between plant and animal, that it is a process of self-reflection
carried out in one and the same being, here a process shared between two. This can
be very important for the psychic. The plant and animal kingdoms should not be
repeated here, but should complement each other; What goes on in the darkest
unconsciousness of the animal and only remotely reminds us in the phenomena of the
mistake of what always takes place in the vegetable kingdom, is the main point of the
conscious life of the plant. Extreme touch otherwise often enough. Here, moreover,
this touch is indicated strangely enough in the external appearance.
In fact, one may think of it as a mere play of external resemblance, but it is always
peculiar how the fruit, like the head of man, is generally at the top, often enclosed by
a kind of hard brain-shell, the seed in it Of the form often deceptively similar to the
brain, 1 and in the upper classes of plants two lobes of semen, just as the brain in the
upper classes of animals has two halves of the brain; yes, as even the substance is
protein-like in both.
1)I remind of the fake nut; but the resemblance continues when one remembers
that lower animals also have smooth brains.

XV. Comparisons, schematics.

Some have probably tried to describe the relationship between animal and plant
sharply and aptly by a single catchphrase, simple scheme, or identification with a
relationship between other objects. I think that is impossible for me. General
expressions, simple schemes, pictorial comparisons can in any case only be useful in
representing a complex relationship to certain pages or above. Thus plants and
animals can oppose each other polarly according to some relation; but in how many
ways do they agree? according to some relation, arrange oneself like stairs; but after
other relations the order will be changed; according to certain relations the plant can
be grasped as a used animal; but you can not do it in all details. One can call the plant
a line, the animal a ball, as one can call one face more oval, another more round; but
have they properly drawn the true physiognomy of either, or can they be deduced
from this general schema? One can compare plant and animal with one or the other
concretum, as one head may be more like an apple, another more like a pear; but in
how many ways are such comparisons always behind the right, in how many do they
reach beyond that? Lastly, the relation between animal and plant will not be more
accurate, sharper, or more comprehensive than to say that it is the relationship
between animal and plant. Nowhere does this relation to the totality of its moments
be found again as between animal and plant. Nature does not repeat itself anywhere.
On the other hand, there is always a certain need to constrict complex conditions, to
compare related fields, and by applying a valid method both in setting up and using
the schemes and comparisons, one could look at the overall picture, the emphasis,
and the context of the essence, the conception of kinship relationships between
different natural areas, expect great benefits.
Unfortunately, we do not find such a method that really satisfies the prospect of
these advantages, nor can they succeed here, and if created, we would hardly be able
to apply it in a thorough manner, as such application is based on meticulous detail to
find a place here, and to have more in-depth botanical and zoological knowledge than
we ought to stand.
So let us not add too much weight, let alone serious intention, to the following
comparative and schematic views of the relationship between animal and plant. Only
here and there may Ernst look through the game. One side of the game, too, has this
object, which, after all, is able to occupy the mind, even if it is not with the interest of
rigorous scholarship.
Known enough, though serving almost exclusively poetic interest, is the
comparison of plants, especially of flowers, soon with children, now with
women. Both seem to be very different comparisons; in the meantime, they find a
point of connection in the fact that women themselves are always only children
against men. Incidentally, both grasp the same subject from different sides.
The points of comparison of the flowers with children are that they regard the earth
as their common mother, are still attached to it, suck the food from it; that they let
themselves be supplied with all needs; do not run far; that they look lovely, kind,
innocent, no one to do anything; to wear bright clothes, and, as we think, are still as
sensual in their soul as the child-soul is. The highest thing, which they bring with
their childish sense, is to weigh and bush small dolls - bushy cubs, that contain the
seedlings already wrapped in young plants; not knowing but well suspecting what
that means for adults. Everyone will come across Schiller's song in these
comparisons:
Children of the rejuvenated sun,
flowers of the decorated hallway, etc.,
which, of course, challenges the comment from our side, that much more the poet
than the flowers was trapped in the night, since he explained them in the night; and it
did not take human fingers to touch them to pour life, language, soul, and heart into
them, after a much more powerful finger had already done so.
Also, the beginning of a beautiful song by Heine, which sounds almost like no
Heine, may be remembered, as he says to a child:
"You are like a flower,
So beautiful and beautiful and pure
"etc.
Of course, it is a little less poetical when Hegel (Naturphilos, p. 471) says: "The
plant, as the first self-existing subject, which comes from immediacy, is, however, the
feeble, childish life that is in it itself has not yet come to the difference. " - Everyone
in his own way!
Probably even more numerous comparison points but offers the character of the
femininity of the plants.
The plant, like the woman, is always banished to its narrow circle of life, which it
leaves only when it is torn away, while the animal, like the man, wanders unbound
into the distance; but she knows how to use everything in her narrow sphere of
action, following the guiding instincts without ever bringing her to the higher
intelligence of the animal, and, like the woman to the man, the further foresight and
vision and the transforming interventions in leaving the outside world. The plant, like
the woman the man, is always subject to the will of the animal, but does not oppose it
even in the most beautiful relationship, as the butterfly points to the flower. She likes
chattering with her neighbors. She provides the animal's food, bakes bread (in the
ears), prepares vegetables for the same. Her favorite business, however, remains until
the heyday of her life, to decorate herself beautifully and to present her figure always
new and beautiful. There are even some flowers that stand up like women in white
cloths and later dress colorfully, yes probably change several times.1) But after the
time of the young love pass, the plant is consecrated to a new profession. Now she
throws aside the brightly colored bunting, and her first and only thought is the care of
her young child, who harbors and wears her, and who, having at last freed herself
from her, surround her for a long time.
1) "For example, as has (to mention only the most striking examples)
of Cheiranthus Chamaeleon , initially a whitish flower that is lemon yellow
and finally red later with a little of violet. The petals of Stylidium fruticosum R.
Br. Are The flowers of Oenothera tetraptera L. are initially white, then rose-
red and almost red. " Tamarindus Indica L. has, according to Mrs. G. Hayne,
white petals the first day The yellow corolla of the Cobaea scandens Cav . is
greenish-white the first day, violet the following dayHibiscus mutabilis L. is a
strange and instructive phenomenon in this respect. His flower is white at dawn
(naitre), at noon it turns red or crimson, and at last, when the sun goes down, it
is red Climate of the Antilles is that change of color regularly. (Decand.,
Physiol. II., P. 724.)
 One remembers here what Schiller says:
"The man must go out
into the enemy's life,
must work and strive
And plant and create,
Erlanger, Erraffen,
must bet and dare
to hunt the luck ....
And inside the
chaste housewife rules ,
The mother of the children,
And prevails wisely
In the domestic circle,
And teaches the girls,
And defends the boy , And stirs up the
end
The industrious hands,
And multiplies the profit
With an orderly mind.
And fill with treasures the fragrant shops
And turn around a purring spindle a
thread,
And gather in a cleanly smoothed
shrine Shimmering
wool, a
snowed linen, And for the sake of good
shine and shine,
And never rest.
I do not doubt, since poets still mean something other than to say what is left to the
spear of the interpreters, that the poet really only wanted to represent the relationship
between animal and plant, so well does everything fit. The teaching and defense, the
rain of the hands and some others may seem less fitting to some; yet, as in all such
cases, it depends only on the correct interpretation. Every little plant, since it was still
in the seed on the mother plant, has to learn from it how it should grow and not
grow; but the endless rain of hard-working hands expresses very aptly the endless
spreading out of leaves, the working and creating of the plant with it, in order to
prepare the materials for the service of the animal. The treasures in the fragrant shop
are the many delicious substances that the plants gather in cells, such as in
compartments of a cupboard; By spinning the thread around the spindle is meant
spinning the spiral vessels and otherwise creating spiraling formations, which keeps
the plant busy. With the shimmering wool and snow flax is targeted on cotton and
flax, and with the sheen and shimmer on the shimmering colors of the plant.
After this artificial interpretation, the following simply graceful poem by Ruckert
may be liked the better, in which he so beautifully characterizes the female flower-
manner:
The flower of the resignation.
"I am the flower in the garden
And must wait in silence
When and in what way
you step into my circles.

Are you coming in the sun's rays?

So I will
unfold your breasts to your delight ,
And keep your gaze.

Do you come as dew and rain,

So I will take your blessing
in love bowls,
do not let him dry up.
And if you drive gently
over me in the wind, then
I will bow to you,
Speaking: I am your own.
I am the flower in the garden
And must wait in Sille
When and in what way
you step into my circles. "
(Rückerts Ges. Gedichte IS 98.)

As children and country girls at the same time, the flowers are characterized in the
following lines from Rückert's Amaryllis (Ges. Gedichte, vol. II. P. 97):
Spring cooks out of winter Travel
The dew his children are supposed to drink;
He agrees with the morning song the cheerful tines.
And decorate his green house with flower bows.
Well, my heart, let your eyes wander for
flowers that wave in every hall!
 Country girls are they on the right and on the left
Steh'n they cleaned, after which you want to draw? "
With insects plants have a striking resemblance, partly according to individual
parts, partly according to the conditions of their metamorphosis as a whole, 2 which
have previously given us occasion for many remarks.
2) Comp. Linné in s. Metamorphosis plantarum sub praes. DO car. Linnaei
proposita a Nic. a Dalberg. Upsaliac, 1755, in Amoenitat. acad. IV. P. 368th

Already in shape and color shows great similarity between flowers and
butterflies; so that it is not uncommon to compare the butterflies with loose, living
blossoms. Some orchid flowers behave like butterflies. and the name butterfly
flowers, which a large class of plants (where wicks, beans, etc. belong), also proves a
prevailing similarity here. The interest of this external similarity, however, increases
very much by considering the already repeatedly touched living relationship between
the two; the female character of the flowers is particularly striking. The flower is like
a still-sitting butterfly awaiting the visit of the swarming one; a similar ratio, as we
also in the insect kingdom itself, z. B. between female and male of the St. John's
beetle, notice. That which lacks flying power must remain on the ground; It sits
quietly in the green and only attracts the little man by its bright shine. This has
similar brilliance, but probably brighter eyes than the female and looks for the same
in the countryside. Thus the color of the flower shines forth from the green, and with
its brightly colored but bright eyes, the butterfly seeks it out, she who can only be
looked for, who is attached to the ground.
Just as butterfly and flower are directly alike, so too do both unfold in a similar
way from a similar structure, in which, at an earlier stage of development, they have
only been dormant and folded for a long time. Who did not really like the bud, from
which the flower, and the doll, from which the butterfly breaks, both to go into the
communal kingdom of light, find an external resemblance? Even the stalk, in that,
slowly growing upward, it pushes one leaf around the other, may not be quite
incomparable to the caterpillar, which creeps upwards and pushes one leg around the
other. Only the plant, as noted earlier, always keeps visible its former developmental
stage, while the insect picks it up.
The air-conducting spiral vessels, which enforce the whole structure of the plant,
and the, admittedly branched, air channels, which enforce the whole body of the
insect, also establish some kinship of the internal organization between the two.
Those who like similar comparisons may find that the relationship between animal
and plant, even in the animal itself, in the ratio of the more clumped nervous system
to the more branched vascular system, or in the plant itself in the ratio of more
centrally terminating flowering to the find free and all-round branched stem. But with
what could not be found last comparison points! It would be tiresome and useless at
the same time to follow them everywhere. To be sure, there was a time when, in the
pursuit of such similarities, almost the whole task of natural philosophy was sought. I
will be the last one to summon her again.
For many interesting considerations, the peculiarity of the plants, as noted earlier,
may give rise to a tendency to spiral formations and positions of their parts. If one
first wants to pay attention to a symbolic gimmick for a few moments, one thinks of
the spiral stalking around the leaves and the spiral vessels extending through the
whole length of the plant to the flower (pestle, stamens, and petals); and the nectar
contained in the flower, the butterfly seeking nectar, and the healing powers that are
usually present in poisonous and bitter substances. Then the flower may be compared
to the skin of the Hygiea carried by the snake-wrapped stalk, into which the serpent,
placing its poisonous substances at the service of the goddess of healing, pierces with
its head; but the butterfly sitting on the flower, with the soul seeking the nectar of
health in it, but, in order to reach it, must first pass by the lancing head of the
venomous snake; that is, only by intervening in itself dangerous remedies, the healing
art leads to health.
Next: Consider the so-general spiral tendency of the plant against the more
prevalent tendency in the animal towards returning form and circulatory
movement. Then one can say that the plant, in its creative and internal processes of
motion, depends more on the form of the annual (apparent) movement of the sun in
the sky, which is known to be spiral, the animal more according to its daily motion,
which is noticeably a circular one or, strictly speaking, represents only a single turn
of the Sun's annual spiral orbit; and it may be remembered that even in sleep and
waking the plant follows more the annual, the animal more the daily period. In other
words, one could say that the plant depends more on the movement, which is a point
on the surface of the earth, the animal after, which makes the center of the earth
moving around the sun, as long as the movement of the points on the surface of the
earth as composed of the rotation of the earth about its axis and its course around the
sun is also a spiral. In the meantime, these are always only relationships that could
gain significance for science only through the recognition of a causal connection, for
which there is no prospect for now.
Even from a very scientific point of view, the spiral tendency of plants can be
grasped and the representation of a type of plant based on a certain relation to it. Let's
briefly share the main results of the Schimper studies with:
The schema of all perfect plants is hereafter represented by the form of an axis
perpendicular to the ground, from which, according to certain mathematical laws,
radii (leaves) emerge laterally. The law of their position on the axis gives the essential
differences in shape of the plants, but always appears under the form of a spiral line,
which winds around the axis and sends out in certain paragraphs the peripheral
radii. Let us call the cycle of the spiral such a part of it, which extends from some
radius (leaf) until it has once again reached a radius in the same line parallel to the
axis in which the first lies, then we may ask: l) How many radii (leaves) has the spiral
to go through in the circumference of the axis in order to go from the lower limit
radius of the cycle to the upper one,3) 2) how many turns does the spiral have to make
within one cycle to pass through the intermediate radii from the lower limit radius to
the upper one. Both the number of sections and the turns of the spiral within a cycle
are now constant for each plant species, but different for different plant species, thus
belong to the essential characteristic of the species. Not every number of sections and
rounds is possible; but the numbers can only be taken from the following series:
l, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233,
whose law is easy to find. The first two numbers of these are the first natural
numbers, the third number is the sum of the first two, and so every subsequent
number is the sum of the two preceding numbers. So it can be the number of sections
of a cycle z. 2 or 3 or 5 or 8, but not 4 or 6 or 7, and the same applies to the number
of cycles. The number of sections is linked to the number of turns of the spiral within
the same cycle by a specific law. Is z. As the number of sections 2, as is that of the
rounds always l (This is expressed 1 / 2 ), the number of the portions 3, so that the
rounds and l (is thus 1 / 3); is the number of sections 5, so that the rounds is 2
(i.e. 2 / 5 ), and at all the possible ratios are as follows:
1 / 1/ , 2/ 3/ 5/ 8/ , 13/ , 21/ , 34/ , 55/ 89/ , ...
2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233
of which the law is easy to find again. The numerator of each fraction is equal to the
denominator of the second preceding fraction.
3)If a radius is in the interval between the two boundary radii of the cycle, this
course will be divided into two sections; if there are two in it, it is divided into
three parts, and so on, and in the other part there is more than the number of
intermediate radii. As many sections have the cycles of a plant, there are as
many parallel lines on the axis, in which there are leaves in the circumference
of the plant.

Admittedly, the correctness of Schimper's view presented here is not generally

admitted; In particular, the constant numerical values of the previous fractions as a
general standard are contested by several researchers. Also, the Bravais brothers have
taken a very different approach to legally representing the spiraling nature of the
position of the petals. Naumann regards the quincunx as the basic law of the position
of the leaves. Mathematically exact positional relationships do not exist at all on the
plant, and only by correcting the observations, setting aside the exceptional cases,
assuming failures, and the like. Likewise, the appearance of such a complete
regularity emerges, as, according to some representations, the plant is supposed to
show. In any case, the approximation of the position of the leaves actually leads to a
legality,
A clear account of the results of Schimper's investigations, which underlies the
previous one, can be found in Burmeister's Geschichte der Schöpfung (2nd edition, p.
340). More about this item s. in the following writings: Schimper, description of the
Symphytum Zeyheri etc. in Geiger's Mag. S. Pharmacie. Bd. XXIX. P. L ff. A. Braun,
Comparative study on the order of scales on pine cones, etc. Nov. Act. Acad. CLNCT
XIV. Vol. I. p. 195-402. - Dr. Schimper, lectures on the possibility of a scientific
understanding of the position of the leaves, etc., communicated by Dr. med. A.
Brown. Flora of the year XVIII. no. 10. 11. 12. (1835). - L. et A. Bravais, Mémoires
sur la disposition géométrique des feuilles et des inflorescences, précédés d'un
résumé des travaux des MM. Schimper et brown sur le même sujet, by Ch. Martius et
A. Bravais. Paris 1838. German by Walpers. Wroclaw. 1839. - Bravais in Ann. of the
sc. nat. 1837. Part. Bot. I. 42. 1839. Part. Bot. II. L. - Naumann in Pogg. Ann. 1842.
(2nd row). Vol. 26. p. L. (Excerpt in Wiegm. Arch. 1844. II. P. 49.)
Next to the position of the lateral parts on the axis, the transformation, which they
often experience into each other, has attracted the attention of the more recent
naturalists. For the characteristics of recent plant morphology, let us give the
following short account of a botanist of Fach (Link in Wiegm. Arch. 1842.II. p. 164).
become more tender and coarse, etc., as found in nature after observations. In
particular, it has been found that the side parts transform into each other, and that one
can view the leaves as the basic form, from which all other side parts come up to the
sheathing of the embryo. This is the metamorphosis of the plants that are now called
in France, according to a new fashion, the Goethesche, as they have sometimes been
called in Germany. She was supposed to be called the Linnaeus, as she already fully
lectured Linnaeus. " This is the metamorphosis of the plants that are now called in
France, according to a new fashion, the Goethesche, as they have sometimes been
called in Germany. She was supposed to be called the Linnaeus, as she already fully
lectured Linnaeus. " This is the metamorphosis of the plants that are now called in
France, according to a new fashion, the Goethesche, as they have sometimes been
called in Germany. She was supposed to be called the Linnaeus, as she already fully
lectured Linnaeus. "
It will be easy to see that the above method of producing the derivatives allows by
their nature to make everything out of everything. And in this subject arbitrariness
has been sufficiently practiced. The transformation of the side parts into each other,
however, remains a very strange and significant phenomenon, which may be read in
detail in Goethe's work on plant metamorphosis.
The most general and important significance for the relationship between animal
and plant seems to me to have been the difference of direction of development
inwardly and outwardly, which has already been touched several times.
In short it will be possible to say: the animal grows more in itself, the plant more
out of itself; that divides, folds more inward, this more outward. Although this
difference is not absolute, but so that one sees, in the course of development of the
ambiguous intermediate realm, the preponderance in the animal kingdom is on the
whole more pronounced on the first, and on the second in the vegetable kingdom.
In fact, we put animal and plant on their perfect levels opposite each other:
The animal is externally more compactly compacted, in a fairly firm shape, with a
few definite external beginnings and equally determined blunt impressions on
monotonous lumps of the body, but inwardly divided into a manifold of organs
increasing from the lower to the higher animals which are again subdivided into ever
finer and finer subdivisions, and whose last innermost modifications finally follow
the freedom of soul movements themselves, insofar as, in connection with the
formation of the mental and emotional faculties in the course of the conscious
psychic life, even the innermost organizational relations develop into the finest. In the
brain, shooting the last fibers together like chain and impact of a tissue, because in
the process of growing inward and decaying in the end, there is nothing left but to
grow through oneself, or to disintegrate the already decayed in a still new
direction. The higher psychic life is linked to the activity and training of these inner
intersections.
The plant, on the other hand, to the summit of its life, again and again presenting
only its monotonous mixture of fibers, cells, and tubes, without clear division into
internal organs, but into an inexhaustible and from the lower to the higher plants,
from the trunk to the branches from these after the branches, from these to the leaves,
from these, still growing after the leaf-ribs, fulness of externally divergent form-parts,
the last shoots of which externally depend upon the freedom of their soul-
drives. This, too, until the finite entanglement, though in a different sense than
before, thrives; through the branches, then the leaves grow through each other and
thus form the leaf crown; the leaves themselves arose because the leaf-ribs branch off
more and more finely,
This idea acquires an increased interest when we relate it to that schematic in which
the animal's body behaves like a sac whose sensory surface is internal, that of the
plant as such, where it is memorized, then the whole Ratio on the contrast of
invagination and protuberance of this bag is traceable. In fact, the inner and outer
branches of the animal and plant organization can be quite well conceived as
protuberances and protuberances, which are continually becoming more and more
invaded and eviscerated. And it may be remarked that forms invaded by nature, in
particular, love to oppose forms of partly parallel, partly complementary
meanings; such as Lungs and gills; genitalia masculiua and feminina. Here we have
this contrast in the whole and great between two realms. The inverted hand has in any
case taken its attack on the non-sensory surface of the sac, and thus the sensory
surface of the animal is buried in the inner invaginations, which the plant's absence
on the outer protuberances. (Of course, the contrast between the sensory and non-
sensory parts of the organism itself is onlyto take cum grano salis .)
The closed sack of the animal first of all invades itself, so that a doubling arises, as
in a sleepyhead sitting on the head; on the sack of the plant, on the other hand, the
inner double is pulled out long. The invagination at animals makes a gut, the
protuberance at a plant makes a root. The inverted motion in animals happens with
such force that the cap bursts at the top, and the mouth is formed while the cap
contracts at the bottom to the anus. The intestinal tract of the animal is then further
inserted into the salivary glands, the liver, the pancreas; In addition to - invaginations
of the bag are lungs and genital feminina. But the sack of the animal actually consists
of a double leaf, and the inner leaf does not follow the outer. But it has detached itself
from the outer, is torn open and has collapsed in the smallest possible place, to the
self-folded brain and spinal cord; on the other hand, the outer leaf as skin around its
invagination has swelled the intestinal canal as far as possible. The result is a large
cavity between the skin and the intestinal canal, in which the nerve leaf is folded,
therefore far from filling the gap. In order not to let too great an emptiness, the skin is
now well fed with a padding of flesh and cell tissue, and to give the whole hold, with
firm struts, the bones, kept stretched, also the cotton well sewn with wire nets, and At
the same time the nerve leaf is sewn to the skin and intestinal leaves.
No such separation of the sac into two distinguishable leaves is visible in the plant,
and the eviscerated plant gland is simply stuffed with fibers and cell tissue. The
vegetative and sentient leaves coincide here. And this is a difference that still adds
meaningfully to the difference in the direction of the protuberance and protuberance,
but is indisputably related in causal and teleological terms.
Basically, of course, it is not a real hand everywhere, but the schematizing notion
which makes all the appearing overturnings. Strictly speaking, it does not fold or fold
any skin at all, but cells gradually form in such layers, grow and become so absorbed
that the sight of wrinkles becomes gradually transformed into the sight of something
folded inwards or outwards , In the end, success is the same, but the process is
different, as a result of which we, in reality, accomplish ideas and developments,
introductions and evaginations.
To be sure, I admit that the conception of the manner in which the nerve-leaf
behaves is somewhat fictional, insofar as it is drawn more from a bold
reinterpretation of the finished storage relations than from a close examination of the
actual conditions of development. What must then prevent them from attaching great
scientific interest? On the other hand, the general contradiction between excrement
and invagination between plant and animal seems to me very decided.
The continued protuberance progresses in the plant only to the summit of its
life. There comes a moment, the moment when the stamen or its pollen touches the
scar of the pestle, where the plant, so to speak, struggles against itself, and now, as
the pollen tube grows into the cavity of the ovary, it only begins suggested
invagination process, which goes through the whole Fruchtbildung.
The second oscillation of life takes place in the plant in the opposite direction from
the first. This is not the case with animals, since at the beginning the life process
takes the direction inwards; yet, in the case of animals, an equivalent is relatively
evident in the fact that the animal still grows outwardly to manhood, but later evolves
only internally
In general, one does not want to extend the validity of the schema beyond
reasonable limits. In the area of the lowest organisms, which approach the
intermediate kingdom, protuberances often occur in animals; but the contrast
becomes all the clearer the higher we go upwards in both realms. Also in the higher
animals are the limbs, the nose, the genital masc., The mammae, the hair
protuberances, contrary to the other character of the animal kingdom.
 Let us take a look at the meaning which the previous opposition must have for the
psychic.
Insofar as the soul is something definite and, according to its determinateness, also
finds and demands a definite expression in the bodily carrier, one will not have to
assume that the particular determinateness of the soul, which is pronounced in the
animal body, is nothing, but rather now also a determination of the soul opposite
Kind of face. The plant-soul will be something only after other, in a certain opposite
direction developed; something unfolded against the outside world, while those
something unfolded in itself. The fact that the inward turn causes the soul to return to
itself, so to speak, more to itself, is expressed in the schema in that the feeling
surface, by virtue of its folding, strikes back against itself, whereby inner
touches, yes, intersecting between them, so that the sensually excited can enter into
new connections. In the case of plants, where the sensory surface turns outward, this
is not the case; For though twigs and leaves in their divergence diverge at last, so too,
they remain for the most part out of touch, and when at last they touch each other in
leaves, and in the leaf-ribs, all of them cling to each other, or anastomosed. without
crossing again from touch; as we see it in the brain of animals. Thus, animal life
anticipates a dimension of inwardness in front of the plant; and for that very reason
the plant remains more in simple sensuousness; until, with the descending direction
of life, the direction of the folding in the plant takes on a certain place, which now
undeniably gains more importance for the plant. But it does not dominate the whole
life of the plant from the outset, as it does that of the animal. It is, so to speak, only
the tip that turns over, in which it runs out and somewhat changes into the
animal. The plant carries, so to speak, a small animal only as a crown, jewelery and
topmost summit on the pyramid of its structure and life, and a sphinx that merely
enigmizes the essence of the animal while the animal is from below, which it is, like
the pillar of Memnon next to the pyramid. But it does not dominate the whole life of
the plant from the outset, as it does that of the animal. It is, so to speak, only the tip
that turns over, in which it runs out and somewhat changes into the animal. The plant
carries, so to speak, a small animal only as a crown, jewelery and topmost summit on
the pyramid of its structure and life, and a sphinx that merely enigmizes the essence
of the animal while the animal is from below, which it is, like the pillar of Memnon
next to the pyramid. But it does not dominate the whole life of the plant from the
outset, as it does that of the animal. It is, so to speak, only the tip that turns over, in
which it runs out and somewhat changes into the animal. The plant carries, so to
speak, a small animal only as a crown, jewelery and topmost summit on the pyramid
of its structure and life, and a sphinx that merely enigmizes the essence of the animal
while the animal is from below, which it is, like the pillar of Memnon next to the
pyramid.
A similar fundamental contradiction, as within the organic between animal and
plant design, can be found even in the broad domain of nature between organic and
inorganic formation, only that it reaches back here to the elemental structure, while
he goes there on the plan of the whole ,
 The organic creatures, whether animals or plants, arise from elementary parts that
grow inward and fold inward and disintegrate; the inorganic, the crystals, out of those
that grow outward, unfold and consolidate outwards. Namely, as elemental parts of
the organic, the cells are hollow bubbles filled with liquid, the walls of which bulge
from outside to inside, so that the lumen of many fades completely over time. By
folding inwards, it seems that projections, finally partitions, result, whereby the cells
divide into several. The crystal, on the other hand, emerges from a solid primal
crystal within a liquor, thickening itself by approach from the outside, unfolding, as it
were, outwards into corners, points, edges, without giving up its solidity;
Strange how such simple contrasts in the curriculum of education, when we notice
between animal and plant, organism, and crystal, can turn out in results that go so far
beyond the character of simple contrasts, carry very different degrees of entanglement
and entanglement. Compare the enormously complicated organisms with the always
so simple crystals, and in the organic again the relatively so entangled animals with
the relatively simple plants. The inward direction of development evidently has a
character that is quite different, more concise, and at the same time more meaningful
for the life of the soul than the outward.
A very superficial scheme, however, with regard to the most general and outermost
of the morphological conditions, but of interest not quite bar and capable of
deepening in many directions, presents itself as follows.
The rounded, usually elongated shape of the animal body, viewed against the plant,
resembles in the whole more of the ellipse, where the heart and brain may imagine
the foci around which all life of the animal revolves, the shape of the plant by virtue
of it double and opposite divergence upwards into branches, leaves and flowers,
down into the radiations of the roots, more of the hyperbola; and if we put the
simplest case of an unbranched stem bearing only a flower, then the flower itself will
be the upper half of the hyperbola, and the endpoints of the plant axis, the stigma of
the stylus, and the top of the taproot will be the place of the Present focal points
between which all life of the plant oscillates; the two nodes, from which the flower
stretches upwards and the root downwards, the apices of both hyperbola halves; the
leaves finally, reduced to their middle horizontal direction, the direction of the
ineffective minor axis.
The intermediate realm between animal and plant, swaying between spherical
forms and linear forms, then represents the cases where the ellipse and hyperbola, by
the simplest possible simplification of their equations (without anything becoming
infinite), become spherical and linear forms, which can be done in several ways
proteus-like beings of the intermediate realm are connected.
It is well known that the hyperbola arises from the ellipse in that one thinks of a
major quantity taken in the wrong direction; which coincides with the fact that the
plant is in some ways a used animal. Also, one can relate the descending side of plant
life, where one sees the flower transform into the more ellipsoidal fruit, with such a
precaution.
 This scheme is of interest if one lets it fall into the symbolic. The series of possible
ellipses has, at the limit, the parabola, which, although from one side still falls
completely to finitude, opens from the other to infinity. As we know, the ellipse
passes over into a parabola when the one focal point of the ellipse is extended into
infinity, or, as it is said, the great axis of the same takes infinite. Insofar as the
kingdom of the various ellipses represents the realm of animals, which are still
completely finite, the parabola, as the upper limit of the ellipses, means the upper
limit of the animal kingdom, man, although with one side quite as much as that
Animal is rooted in the earthly, but opens from the other side against the heavenly. Of
course, his brain, which is a focal point, is not really in infinity, but it can think such,
subjectively includes it. As a result, the schema turns into the symbolic.
The parabola, instead of being the boundary of the ellipses, could also be regarded
as the border of hyperbolas; but in a different sense. When the ellipse passes into
parabola, a very finite being becomes infinite to one side, the animal changes into
half animal, half angel; In the transition of the hyperbola into parabola, on the other
hand, with the loss of an infinite half, a two-sidedly infinite being becomes an only
one-sidedly infinite being. According to this, man may as well be beheld as an animal
rising from the earth to heaven, as a plant planted from heaven into the earthly, but
with the loss of the heavenly half.
The comparison of the animal and the plant with ellipsis and hyperbola may be of
more scientific interest than it appears after the previous description by the following
reference to the principles of a general mathematical morphology, about which I am
content here with a few hints.
The general difference in form between organic beings (animals and plants) and
inorganic organisms (crystals) is, in a nutshell, that the former are bounded by curved
surfaces, the latter by flat surfaces. The crooked forms of the organisms pass through
all degrees from the spherical form (approximately in some seeds, fruits, eggs and
lower animals) to the most complicated forms, which are no longer capable of exact
mathematical calculation or representation in formulas, which, of course, of all
Natural forms in general apply, because even the crystal surfaces are, strictly
speaking, only flat surfaces. Unless one abstracts from small irregularities; such
trifles are neglected. But also for the consideration of the most complicated natural
forms one can gain an exact mathematical point of view, by asking which of the
simpler forms given are most similar to them, which always permits a precise
determination according to measurements and calculations; For example, he asks
which sphere is most similar to a given human head, or, if one wants to go farther,
which ellipsoid, or, if one wants to ascend even higher, which body has surfaces of
the third or fourth order. Also one can subordinate arbitrarily individual parts and
surfaces of it particularly such consideration. Now, according to the plane surfaces, or
surfaces of the first order, the surfaces of the second order, ie those which have conic
sections for averages or projections, are the simplest. And so if you asked what kind
of conic the shape of the plants, and what kind of conic is most similar to the shape of
the animals (for an average through the great axis or projection on a plane parallel to
them), exactly for the former the hyperbola, for the latter finding the ellipse; indeed,
for every particular plant and animal, mathematically speaking, the particular
hyperbola and the particular ellipse, to which they are most closely related, would be
indicated.
It is true that such a determination, so remote from the true form, apart from its
arduousness, could hardly be expected to yield a practically useful result for
science. On the other hand, the aspect of mathematical morphology presented here
for classification and probably other general relations seems to promise useful and at
least interesting results, if it refers to the simpler forms of animals and plants, or the
parts where the approximation is no longer very different from that Reality removed,
applied; This is also at least already with regard to the snail shell (by name Naumann)
done with success. But indisputably the object deserves an advanced
processing. Namely seed, fruit and egg shapes, partly because of their simplicity,

XVI. Colors and fragrances.

The colors and scents of the plants are something so beautiful and charming to us,
so important to the plant itself, that after all that we have occasionally said about it, it
deserves a few words of special consideration.
Think of the plants away from the earth, what could there be to see on them as
yellow desert sand, gray rocks, desert snow and ice fields. As bare as a tree looks in
winter, the whole earth looks so bare. It is the plants which weave her the beautiful
green dress, at the joy of which our eye rejoices, refreshes what it can itself be
healthy. We also make our clothes mostly from plant substances, dye them with plant
colors, as the earth does; but our dress is a dead one; the earth has put on a garment of
self-living fabrics with vivid colors, a dress whose weaves weave itself, dye itself,
renew itself, an eternally fresh, never aging garment; whose departures first give our
own dress. Strange, of course, that the dead will put on a living dress, while we living
people put on a dead dress. But is not this a peculiarity that exists only in our views,
not in nature? Is the earth as dead as we hold it?
Certainly we can believe that wherever pleasure and intention lie, this ornament of
the earth's earth will not be made without pleasure and intention. Only then do we not
just have to know the intention and the desire not only to knot for God's control over
nature, but also in nature.
In any case, the production of the color does not depend on the plant alone; she
probably adds her special living conditions to it, but besides, there are larger, more
general ones, spread over the whole plant world. And so, pointing to these general
reasons, one can say: the sun is the one that goes over the sky, shining over all herbs,
whose ray-brush colors the earth green and bright; indeed, the sun itself appears only
as the fist of God, which guides this ray-brush, leads back and forth daily over the
surface which is to be painted; only in the morning in soft strokes, then with ever
stronger, juicier features. In fact, one knows that all greening of plants and all
coloring of flowers takes place only through the charm and under the influence of the
sunlight, without this itself gives something of substance, as little as the brush
color. But where is this color taken from? From the color shell of the sky; for we
know that the air, whose appearance is the vault of heaven, supplies the substances
from which the vegetable colors develop, not the earth. This supplies only the rough
base, as it were the canvas, to.
Mainly it is the carbonic acid and the oxygen of the air, which are involved in the
production of vegetable colors; from the earth but preferably mineral components go
into the plant.
The effect of the sunlight in coloring the plants becomes all the more similar to the
effect of a brush, so that it takes place quite locally. For a part preserved before the
light remains white, while the rest of the plant turns green.
One can ask why the main color of the earth is now green, why not blue, not red,
not yellow, not white? Well, blue is already blue, and golden is already the sun, and
red is already the blood, and white is already the snow, and so, playing with another
picture, one might also say: the golden sun and the blue sky only do together to
produce the green color of the plant as their child, but the red in the blood and the
green in the juice are destined to complement each other, as the animal kingdom and
the plant kingdom in general have to supplement themselves after so much
relationships; indeed, we know that red and green really stand in the relationship of
optical complement to one another, ie, that they can be mixed into white. As the
organic life on earth has split, the gift of heaven has also split, through which it grows
and thrives; and the gentler parts, the gentler color, the more active the more active
one fell for.
This, of course, does not answer the previous question, but rather expands it: why,
then, precisely this distribution in the whole system of natural colors?
And I answer further: for no other reason will the earth be just green, as why the
kingfisher is just blue, the canary just yellow, the flamingo just red. Among other
world bodies there should now be one green for the most part; that hit the earth; Of
course, then it is not possible to specify why. Other world bodies will have a different
color for it. Did you really suspect that the reddish color of Mars stems from a red
vegetation on it?
The circle of the question is expanded again, the explanation postponed, but every
retraction of the explanation is in itself a piece of explanation. But we can not go to
the infinite.
Should the earth's green color really be random? But why, then, just where the
green of the vegetation ends, the green of the sea? At first everything was covered
with the uniform green glaze color of the sea. But as the land rose and wanted to have
color again, the Creator covered it with the over-color of the plant world and added
green again, and even from the heights of the land the glacier waters trickle down
green again. As green as country green, start as the end of the water green. That
seems to indicate that it was really a matter of a very green skin of the earth, as well
as the very blue shirt of the same. On the whole, nature once wants constant colors,
the change puts them in the small. The clouds of the sky are not blue, nor are the
animals of the earth green;
If we pass on consideration of the individual relationships of color to the plant-
world and individual plant, it remains always strange that the green is as prevalent to
the herb as the flower is, although not without exception on both sides. The species
that thrive in green color usually do not have pure green, but only a dirty yellow-
green or gray-green, and many apparently green-flowering plants, such as the
families of grasses, often do not have both green-colored and colorless flower-
spikes. Pure green is very rare in flowers (Schübler).
Of leaves there are even some red and piebald; many are young yellowish and most
are withering red or yellow.
There are even whole plants that do not turn green in any of their parts, and these,
strangely, all belong to the parasite plants, the plants that root on other plants; such as
the Orobanchen, Lathräa species, Cytineen, Cassytha and Cascuta species, the
monotrophs and leafless orchids (Decandolle).
This contrast of the green herb and the differently colored blossoms is connected
with a contrast in the mutual expressions of life. The non-green flowers ingest
oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide in the same conditions where the green leaves
squeeze in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen gas.
Similarly, nature has stubbornly shown that pure black does not appear on the
flowers, provided that even the darkest spots of flowers, which at first sight may
seem to be black, show on closer examination a particular kind of color.
Decandolle says about this in f. Physiol. II, p. 726. "The black does not seem to
have a color that would be natural to the flowers, but the flowers in which black is
found are usually originally yellow flowers, which turn into a very dark brown
blackish parts of the flowers of Pelargonium tricolor Curtis and Vicia faba L . (broad
bean) take place. the same is true of those brown or black flowers whose color is a
very dark red, as we z. B. at Orchis nigra space. see . "
The translator Röper notes:
The seemingly black spots in the corolla of the Vicia Faba L. are really only very
dark brown, as can be clearly seen with the help of a microscope. .. The seemingly
black hair on the umbel of Protea Lepidocarpon R. Brown. appear, at high
magnification and falling light, dark violet, playing in indigo blue. They are partly
mixed with yellow hair and are surrounded by yellow hair. "
It is said that just as pure white does not appear in the flowers as pure black; for
even the whitest flowers, when viewed on colored paper, betray a coloration on the
other hand (compare Decandolle, Physiol., II., p. 723); but I suspect that the
occurrence of subjective complementary coloration (which is more vivid for some
eyes than for others) gives rise to deception. From the few white flowers I have right
now in the current season, I could not obtain any confirmation of that assertion.
 If the white light between the animal and plant kingdom has already split so much
that the red was given to the animal body, and the green to the vegetable body, it is
remarkable to see how the green within the plant kingdom splits again by the one in
the herb yet unified contrast of yellow and blue in the flower of stepping
apart. Similarly, as among men there is a contrast between blond and brown hair, skin
and eye color, according to which, as it were, divided into two classes, an analogous
contrast between yellow and blue flower colors returns among the flowers. The fact is
the following:
Schübler and Frank have shown in a special treatise that the flowers may be
divided into two large series, those having yellow as the basis of color (oxidized or
xanthic series), and those in which blue is the basis (deoxygenated or cyan
series). Flowers belonging to the first row may vary only in yellow, red and white,
but not in blue, depending on the variety or species; Flowers, belonging to the second
row, but only in blue, red and white, but not in yellow, so that both rows meet in red
and white, but divorced in blue and yellow.
So there are no blue cactus, aloe, roses, ranunculus, tulips, Mesembryanthemen,
georgines, etc., but only yellow, red and white; they belong to the first, the xanthic
series; on the other hand, no yellow campanula, geranium, phlox, anagallis, asters,
etc., but only blue, red, and white; these belong to the cyan series. There are some
exceptions to this rule; as it is z. For example, among the hyacinths belonging to the
cyan series, there are some yellow varieties; but these exceptions are rare.
The genera of the plants belonging to the xanthic series are much more inclined to
the formation of acid substances than the genera belonging to the cyanine series,
which, on the other hand, are often distinguished by peculiar substances, sharp, bitter,
and narcotic, which are often strong on the body are. Although one should not see
this without exception.
At the awakening of the year, most of the flowers are white, yellow at the end of
the year. It is as if the snow of winter, here the sun of summer, gave an after-effect.
Extensive research on the relative distribution of flower colors (the German flora)
among the different months of the year, Fritsch in s. Abhandl. over the
period. Appearances of the Plant Kingdom in the Abhandl. the boehm. Gesellsch. the
knowledge 1847, p. 74, made public.
In view of the nearer approach of plant coloration to the phenomena of the soul, the
plant can not, on account of its lack of eyes, perceive the beauty of its own color or
that of its neighbors in the same way as we do. For though it is already susceptible to
the stimulus of light, the light of color coming from different parts of the space
indifferently mixes on every point of its surface, thus blurring itself into a general
appearance. But should we therefore lose their own beauty for the flower? Certainly
not; it only wins it from a different angle, and certainly gains more from it than we
can ever get from it; as much as each one of his own creations, at the moment of
creation, seems more beautiful and meaningful than to another, to whom it is then
commanded; By the way, it may seem the same to both. In fact, the production of
color is intimately related to the active life process of the plant, which is indeed
stimulated by the external light, but which gives its color only by its own reaction to
this stimulation. Of course, we can not swear that the plant becomes aware of its
green and red and blue in the process of production in the same sense of color as we
do in external intuition; have more reason to doubt it; but, on the other hand, nothing
hinders either thinking of something similar. Should the human being, who is
supposed to reflect everything that happens on earth after the main moments, not also
reflect this main side of the soul life of the plant in itself? Certainly, the plant also has
different sensations when producing the different colors. as we see them; since the
generation of each color is related to various internal changes in it.
In a way, the production of plant colors may be compared to the production of our
imagination. The plant, one can say, transforms the light fantastically into colors. The
light falls white or somehow stained on the plant; she feels his influence in some
way; but they do not return as they receive it; rather, it has only served to stimulate a
self-creative activity in it, whereby the color is produced, and this activity is now
undoubtedly accompanied by the feeling of self-creation. Thus our imagination needs
the sensory suggestions from the outside world; but only in order to be stimulated to
inner self-creations, which expose the received in another form and with the feeling
of self-activity from within.
Even the white flower, though it seems to re-radiate the light, does not behave
passively against the light; Rather, because the whiteness of the flowers is also based
on active processes, by virtue of which the flower reproduces the light in only
increased abundance and purity, as well as the human imagination, the circumstances
by which it has been stimulated, pure and beautiful again in the work of art, and even
more so to bring to the fullness of the vividness. The flower only makes itself to this
artwork. Where could we observe the whiteness of light more full and beautiful than
the whiteness of lilies and other white flowers?
Of course, animals and humans also color themselves on the surface, without it
being possible for us to attribute a similar meaning to this coloring process as in
plants. But there are similar distinctions between the manner in which the coloring of
the plants and those of the animals takes place, as between the growth of the two (see
VIII.), And therefore a very different meaning is attached to them, as to me do not go
into special versions here again.
More about plant colors in physiological and chemical terms s. except in the
textbooks of Plant Physiology in Fechner Repertor. the org. Chemistry. II. P.
832; Excerpts from the newer Abhandl. von Mohl, Pieper, Marquart, Hope, Berzelius,
Decaisne, Elsner, Turpin, Morren, Hünefeld in Wiegm. Arch. 1835. II. 186. 1836. II.
85. 1837. II. 35. 1838. II. 32. 1839. II. 80. 1840. II. 91.
Now some of the scents:
The scents of the flowers seem to play only a minor role against their colors, as not
all flowers are gifted with them. And if it be true, as we have indicated earlier, that
the perfuming of flowers has chiefly the purpose of causing a communication of
sensations or instinctive sympathies between different plants; that explains that
well. The production of color in plants is connected with the development of own
processes of the soul; but this is of course more important and necessary than the
interplay with other souls.
Also among the animals there are socially living and lonely living ones. The
smelling plants represent the former, the non-smelling ones the latter. And, according
to the nature of its limited circle of life and the circumstance that sex is already
unified in each individual, the plant may as a whole require less of the psychical
intercourse with its equals than the animal.
The animal itself teaches us that the smell is really capable of serving the sensual
psychical intercourse, especially for the analogous time of the reproductive
process. This is always important for the interpretation. But nevertheless this traffic
in animals takes place without comparison any more by the voice. And in this
respect, as in many other respects, one can say that the scent takes on a similar
meaning in the plants as the voice of the animals. The equation points are different.
From within comes the voice, from inside comes the fragrance, and both are at the
same time the finest and surest characteristic feature of what they come from. As one
can still recognize every man in the dark by the tone of the voice, so in the dark every
flower, indeed every variety of the flower, at the fragrance. Both features, seemingly
simple in themselves, vary in nuances of nuances and thus denote just as many
nuances of organizational entanglements whose highest, most developed product they
are. Each carries, as it were, the soul of the being from which it comes, on its wings
from there.
It would be indisputable that the odor organ be formed rather finely in order not
only to differentiate every variety, but also every individual from hyacinth or
carnation to every other after smelling. Our organ of smell is in part not practiced in
this respect, and partly indisputably not so naturally furnished as the flower may be,
because this distinction is not so close to us. The Negro also distinguishes
physiognomically the faces of his compatriots, who all look about the same.
The lower animals, who have little to say, worms, insects, are on the whole mute,
and so are the lower plants, fungi, lichens, odorless. To be sure, some insects make
noises exceptionally, but only through external scrubbing, buzzing, drilling; the notes
do not come from within, and so, for once, some mushrooms smell like lichens, but
the fragrance does not come from any flower.
As the voice of the creatures, which have such, but not constantly sounded, but
rather in the manner of the creature and other circumstances soon more daily,
sometimes more in the evening, half more at night, now louder, now quieter, mostly
in the whole the time of the reproductive process, everything reveals itself
accordingly at the fragrance of the plants; and this best proves that the flower scents
are not simply mechanically distilled out of the flower juices by the heat of the sun,
as if the flowers were small distilling flasks for essential oils; but that the flowers
really develop according to external and internal demands on their lives.
If the warmth were the cause of the escape of the fragrances, then all the flowers
should smell most of the day and be exhausted in the evening. Now it is true, the
hotter it is, the lip-flowers and the cistroses, the myrtle and orange-bushes fill the air
of southern Europe with their fragrance; but there are other flowers that almost do not
smell the day and start to smell fragrant only at sunset, just as the nightingale sings
songs in the evenings, and there is hardly a single flower that smells only during the
day. In general, great heat of the sun tends to reduce the tendency to smell, as animals
become drowsy in the heat (Decand, II, p. 764), which, by the way, does not prevent
one from believing that they are helpfully preparing for evening smells could.
In particular, all flowers are mourning colors, such. B. Pelargonium triste
W . Aiton, Hesperis tristis L. , Gladiolus tristis L. etc. almost all day without odor and
smell at sunset an ambrosive smell. In other plants the smell is weak during the day
and becomes stronger in the evening, as in Datura suaveolens Willd . ( Datura
arborea Miller ), Oenothera suaveolens Desf ., Genista juncea L . etc. The flowers
of Cereus grandiflorus Miller ( Cactus grandiflorus L.) begins to open at 7 o'clock in
the evening and at the same time begins to spread its fragrance. Senebier wants to
have raised narcissus flowers in deep darkness, which smelled as strong as others
(?); On the other hand, in the Cacalia septentrionalis it is remarked that the sunrays
of the flower elicit an aromatic odor, which disappears when they are stopped, and
reappears when the shadowy body is removed. In orange blossoms, the odor
continues uninterruptedly with slight changes during flowering. Coronilla
glauca smells only during the day, and also at Cestrum diurnumthe smell is much
weaker at night. Many flowers change the smell after fertilization. (Decand., Physiol.
11. p. 763. 768 and Wiegm. Arch. 1840. n. 90.)
The fact that the main means of transport in plants are related to a lower sense, as
in the case of animals, may also be due to the fact that the whole plant stands on a
lower sensual level than the animal, as its whole sensuousness is nevertheless reduced
to one higher level than in animals; both agree that the odor should be directed to this
modified passage. Notice that even within the animal kingdom, even dislocations of
functions are common. The bird's hand lies in its beak, in several animals the
breathing tool also serves as a leg, etc. Also, as noted, the smell has partly the same
function in animals as in plants, but in a more subordinate degree.
It is possible to add to the fragrance, as well as the colors, the other function of
luring butterflies and other insects to the flowers (see p. 219); but has nothing here to
find the previous contradictory. Nature seeks to meet more than one hit at a time.

XVII. Resumé.
1) The primitive nature-view of the peoples, as well as the characteristic and
aesthetic impression which the plants give us directly, speaks much more to the soul
of the plants than the popular opinion prevailing among us, based on educated ideas
(v .).
 2) The plants, on the whole, are more dissimilar than the animals, but in the main
features of life they are still in agreement with us and the animals, so that, though
there is a great difference in the nature of the ensoulment between them and us , yet
are not entitled to conclude the basic difference of inspiration and non-soulfulness
itself (II.). In general, such a relationship of complementation occurs on both sides
that the psychic life of the plants fills in gaps that would leave that of humans and
animals (see previous chapter).
3) The fact that the plants have neither nerves nor sensory organs to sensation like
the animals proves nothing against their senses, since they require other things, to
which the animal of the nerves and special organs requires, without nerves and
similar organs only in another form make money; but in general the conclusion that
the particular form of the animal nerves and sense organs is necessary for sensation is
based on untenable reasons (III, XIV.).
4) The whole teleological contemplation of nature is much more satisfying if one
attaches souls to the plants than if they deny them, as a result of which a great
number of circumstances and institutions in nature acquire a living and substantial
meaning which otherwise is dead and idle lie or appear as an empty gimmick (IV.
XI.).
5) The fact that the vegetable kingdom serves the purposes of the human and
animal kingdom can not speak against self-serving purposes, since in nature service is
not at all incompatible with others and for one's own purposes, and the animal
kingdom is equally entitled to the purposes of the plant kingdom has served as the
other way round (X. XL).
6) If the plants, as animated beings, seem to be put in a bad position, having to put
up with much injustice from humans and animals, without being able to defend
themselves against them, then this seems only so bad, if we place ourselves on our
human standpoint, quite on the other hand, if we understand plant life according to its
own inner connection. We also attach more weight to this objection than it deserves
(VI.).
7) If one asserts that the plants have no soul, because they have no freedom and
arbitrary movement, then one either does not pay much attention to the facts which
make such freedom in the plant recognizable in a similar sense as in the animal, or
demands of the plant something that one does not find in animals, since real liberty
can not be well talked about in animals (VII.).
8) If the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom border on each other through an
intermediate realm, where the differences between them become ambiguous, but this
intermediate kingdom contains both the most imperfect plants and animals, then the
plant kingdom can not simply be subordinated to the animal kingdom as a lower
one; as it begins to rise again from the intermediate realm through the higher
plants. This, and the fact that the plant kingdom and the animal kingdom have the
same date of creation in the creation story, indicates that one will not be subordinate
to the other even in regard to inspiration (XII).
 9) If one misses the signs of centralization, linking unity or self-contained
conclusion in the plant organism as a condition or expression of the unity and
individuality of the soul, one does not look again at the right points, or requires things
from the plants which one contributes also does not find the animals (XIII.).
10) It is probable that the psychic life of plants is far more sensuous than that of
animals, which, though not reason and self-consciousness, still have a remembrance
of the past and foresight of the future, while the life of plants is likely to continue
without becoming absorbed in the general soul. But instead of the sensory life of
plants being less developed than that of the animals, it may be even more developed
(XIV.).

XVIII. Still a few occasional thoughts.

After I finish the work, I want to sit down and chat a little bit from one to the other.
To be sure, I still remember what impression it made on me when, after many years
of eye disease, I for the first time stepped out of the dark room without a blindfold
before the eyes into the blooming garden. That seemed to me to be a beautiful sight
beyond the human, every flower glared at me with peculiar clarity, as if throwing into
outer light something of its own light. The whole garden seemed to me to be
transfigured, as if it had not been for me, but nature had risen afresh; and I thought,
so it is only necessary to open the eyes fresh, to let the old nature become young
again. Yes one does not believe it, how new and lively nature meets that which meets
it with a new eye.
The picture of the garden accompanied me back to the dim room; but it was only
brighter and more beautiful in the twilight, and I suddenly thought I saw an inner
light as a source of external clarity in the flowers, and colors in it to see themselves
affect spiritually, which only pervaded the exterior. At that time I did not doubt that I
saw the own light of the flowers of the flowers, and thought in a whimsically ecstatic
mood: this is what it looks like in the garden that lies behind the boards of this world,
and all the earth and all the body of the earth is only the final fence around this
garden for those still standing outside.
Imagine spending half a year at the North Pole, almost forgetting what a tree, a
flower looks like, seeing only barren snow and ice fields, and suddenly entering a
flowery garden bathed in mild light Do you, like me, first of all stand in front of a
line of tall Georgines, would you not find them wonderfully glowing and suspect that
behind this ornament, this splendor, this joy is something more than common bast
and water?
That bright picture faded, as did many things which in that first time touched my
outer and inner eyes with a kind of shudder, which no longer fall in the sense of the
daily enjoyment of the light; the plants, as my eye became accustomed, became again
the ordinary, earthly, meaningless, futile beings which they are for all, until, in the
dreaming glance of the water-lily, the flower-soul came afresh before me, and
determined me of the business I warned that I now fulfilled. Certainly there was a
reverberation from that first time; and so, I believe, this book would hardly have been
written if my eye had not been laid one night and then so suddenly returned to the
light.
Now I have spent many an hour with what pleases my mind in a few bright shades,
and makes it clear to the intellect and to others' minds, and many senses have not cost
me without difficulty whether I want to achieve it. How much was there apart and
then put together again. And when I had first grasped the spirits of the flowers, they
now began to seize me, and did not let me go again, and compelled me to remain in
their service, often wanting to do otherwise; and when I spun out the dope that hung
on my skirts today, I found something new tomorrow. That's how the thread has
become so long.
But now I am glad to have wrapped the end around the spindle, and only at last
attach a few ribbons to fly out into the open, with dark and light colors, as the day has
just commanded, of seriousness and cheerfulness the whole work sign.
I came to a funeral today: A preacher was standing at the grave on the hill of
freshly excavated earth and talking about the spell (I Corinthians 15: 36-37): "That
you sow, does not come to life, dying then that you sow, is not the body that is to
become, but a mere grain, wheat or the other one. " Two long palm branches,
detached from the coffin, leaned against the railing surrounding the tomb and blew
green flags high above the black bars; many flower wreaths, which had been
decorated with the coffin before, hung on the bars. The speaker loudly praised the
virtues of the deceased; Meanwhile, a bee flew about the wreaths, softly, but
humming as if displeased, seeking in all the flowers, finding in no more what she
sought; for the sources of fragrance and sweetness had dried up; but a butterfly,
unaffected by the withering springs of its former joys, swept across the churchyard
wall into the distance. On a wreath I saw drops dripping to keep it fresh, and in a few
eyes tears that might well be drying there and here soon; then flowers and memories
withered. A weeping willow shaded the neighboring tomb, but its roots reached the
fresh grave; she should seem new and not in vain for mourning. A white board,
wrapped in green ivy, called the family of those who gathered here to their fathers. So
the plant world committed the funeral of a human being. and in a few eyes tears that
might well be drying there and here soon; then flowers and memories withered. A
weeping willow shaded the neighboring tomb, but its roots reached the fresh
grave; she should seem new and not in vain for mourning. A white board, wrapped in
green ivy, called the family of those who gathered here to their fathers. So the plant
world committed the funeral of a human being. and in a few eyes tears that might
well be drying there and here soon; then flowers and memories withered. A weeping
willow shaded the neighboring tomb, but its roots reached the fresh grave; she should
seem new and not in vain for mourning. A white board, wrapped in green ivy, called
the family of those who gathered here to their fathers. So the plant world committed
the funeral of a human being.
 It occurred to me, considering how much unconscious symbolism plays into the
conscious of man; and then, as it is peculiar, that while man himself so little takes the
dying of plants to heart, they are so much involved in his dying. The fruit of lemon
and the herb rosemary go to the grave too; Many a green wreath follows the young
girl into the tomb itself; Every time a tree has to die in order to enclose the corpse of
man with his corpse and to decompose it. But the plant knows nothing about the fact
that what it is doing and suffering here is the death of a human soul, just as humans
do not know or want to know that plant souls also come into play with plants. Yes,
life and dying of the human and plant world are not at all intermingled, and yet the
souls of both realms do not know each other, as do people who inhabit one and the
same great city, pushing and drifting about each other, without running and running at
each other to greet. Is not that a sad splintered being in the soul realm? Yes, sad if
that's how we usually think. But I think a higher knowledge will probably exist,
which thinks of the human and plant and all souls fate in relation to each other, even
in relation sets. For this knowledge, it will be less a matter of how the branches of
palm, wreaths, flowers, trees, bees, and butterflies externally exude themselves to the
coffin and the grave, but like the souls of the palm that has taken the branches, and
the flowers, who walk to the grave, and the trees that surround the grave, and the
flowers that grow again above the grave, and the bees and butterflies that fly around
and over the flowers, exuding themselves to the human soul on their way home. And
as the spectacle seems most agreeable to this knowing being, it will be arranged by
him in face to face contemplation. But we see everything only piecemeal, as through
a mirror in a dark word, and when a symbolic gleam of it falls into our souls, we even
mean that it has fallen out of our soul. And as the spectacle seems most agreeable to
this knowing being, it will be arranged by him in face to face contemplation. But we
see everything only piecemeal, as through a mirror in a dark word, and when a
symbolic gleam of it falls into our souls, we even mean that it has fallen out of our
soul. And as the spectacle seems most agreeable to this knowing being, it will be
arranged by him in face to face contemplation. But we see everything only piecemeal,
as through a mirror in a dark word, and when a symbolic gleam of it falls into our
souls, we even mean that it has fallen out of our soul.
Flowers are not everywhere, but plants play the same role in human death as in
ours. Wild peoples butcher instead of flowers, plants, horses, sheep, dogs on the
grave or sacrifice them in the grave. But that's just it. It does not befit a great mistress
to travel to foreign lands without a subordinate retinue. Thus, even the mistress of the
earth, the human soul, should not travel to the kingdom of heaven without a retinue of
other lower souls. Now she takes here animal, there plant souls. But why with us
plant souls? Is it about the fact that in Christianity there is talk of a garden of paradise
beyond, but not of animals in it? Now, every human soul should also bring along its
contribution of flower souls. It is not about animals. Only the butterfly must fly
symbolically, otherwise it would be too lonely for the flower-souls in the garden
above; and heaven is supposed to be a heaven to them, too.
Even with the Greeks it was a little different than ours. Since body and bodily life
had a flourishing meaning even among them, the body of man himself was laid on
top of the wood like a flower, and tree and body went together in fiery flames to the
heaven of the dwelling place of the gods. In our case, where the view of body and life
itself is lignified, the body is also closed like a dead worm in the dead wood to the
food of other worms, and only externally placed flowers on coffin and grave. So it
went from life to death so much more beautiful with the Greeks than with us. But
only so much more beautiful sensual, while probably some things for us sensibly
beautiful
This reminds me of the beautiful funeral feast, which is celebrated annually in
Leipzig in Johannis. Anyone who has slept in the churchyard, of whom he still thinks
in love, is going to wreath his grave; and whoever has none to garland goes to see the
wreaths and the wreaths. Everything on the otherwise lonely field becomes colorful
and lively and gets mixed up and comes and goes, a lively society above the
quiet. Only in the evening does it become quiet and empty above; only wreaths
remain withering to their purpose.
How many beautiful garlands and wreaths can you see there. As on a ball the living
want to outdo themselves in the jewelry, so now try the graves. But one soon forgets
the most beautiful flowers and wreaths; who can remember the individual? I can not
forget only one simple cloverleaf, which, after so many richly decorated graves, we
found lonely lying on a green grave. The soul was certainly different than the others,
who gave the humble flower among all the rich jewelry.
I do not like to conclude with grave thoughts, and so I like to remember how the
plants take so much part not only in the suffering, but also in the joyous encounters of
the human world, and how man himself owes so much of his lust to them. Should not
one say that the whole plant kingdom swirls around and between the human kingdom
like a beautiful arabesque? Man himself, with all the splendor of his robes and all
artful device like half-body, grows out of the plant world from below; and from above
flowers and grapes of the long-reaching hand grow again, contrary to the demanding
mouth. And above all this hovers the most beautiful scent of poetic relationships.
Where is there a feast that did not beautify flowers, where a poem to which they
did not lend pictures, where a gift whose value they could not increase by
ornamentation? The myrtle brings the wreath to decorate the bride; the flowers come
from all the gardens to lay at her feet; the doors are wrapped in colorful floral
draperies, letting them through; the wedding bitters boast of the bouquet in his
hands; flowers are again waiting on the blackboard; and in the evening at the dance
still like some flower on the chest and in the hair. - The laurel is in the best of honor,
Forget-me-not reminds of remembering; Snowdrop lures the children for the first
time in the green forest; the first Aster says: now comes autumn; the linden tree
covers a green roof over the table in front of the house; the oak still calls the German
in the foreign land as her countryman. The fir throws its pine cones away and comes
with golden apples and lights and how many beautiful gifts in the hall. May she bring
the most beautiful to the most beautiful, the best to the best, the most to the poorest.
 All the plant, however, in its lowliness, remains of its remembrance, that it is a
plant of God and before God, which only has its freedom in the bond, and which it
only needs in union.