PART III.
BIOLOGY--OF THE WHOLE IN SINGULARS.
A.--_ORGANOSOPHY_.
I.--ORGANOGENY.
A. _Galvanism._
867. If we take a retrospective glance at the _development_ of the planet, we find that it commenced with the simplest actions, and then assumed a more elevated character by gradually drawing together several actions and letting them work in common. In magnetism the earth-element alone was active, and this having freed itself from the other elements by crystallization, asserted itself as a particular form upon the planet. By this single act of the planet, an extensive series of positions or numbers originated, which may be called _mineral individuals_.
868. Up to the formation of the solar system or of the planet, the character of creation is _analytic_. The three primary ideas emerged from each other as gravity, light and heat, and appeared as fire. These three united actions emerged again from each other and became air, water and earth, which together make up the planet. This was therefore the descending creation. But from and after this period, the character of the development of the planet becomes _synthetic_, for the divided elements again united with each other. By synthesis only or by combination of the elements does the planet progressively advance, and by it only does it divide into lesser planetary masses or bodies, called _individuals_. This is the ascending creation.
869. To the earth-element, in which the active magnetism is isolated, comes the element-water; and by the identification of both into _one_ body, a new process is evolved, which we have recognized by the term _chemism_--salt. Then the earth-element combines with air and becomes an Inflammable, in which the process is likewise extinguished and only a dead product is left--the Inflammable. Then it combines with fire and is converted into ore. There never originates therefore from the twofold combination of the earth-element with any other element, but one product, that namely in which the Earthy obtains the preponderance, or a mineral.
870. _Two_ elements only belong to the essence of chemism, and they indeed are the two lowest, the elements carbon and oxygen, both being reduced to their primary condition, i. e. to that of an alkali in natron, and an acid in the hydrochloric or that of common salt.
871. As the principle or rationale of chemical action consists only in the potentiality of two elements to revert to their polar, or the oxygenous, condition, this action must thus become extinct, so soon as the creation of the new or secondary element has resulted. For if the tension equalizes itself in the two, and the two only be coexistent, so in accordance with the compensation no new tension can originate, and yet such is the groundwork of all chemical action. The result of the chemical process is consequently death; and furthermore, because it is also a simple bin-elementary process, it cannot be the ultimate goal or limit attained by the development of the planet.
872. The next stage to which the genesis of the planet ascends consists in the bin-elementary processes being associated with the _third_ terrestrial element. In this manner a process originates in which the powers of _earth_ and of _water_ marry or conjoin with the power of _air_, and thus originates a chemical power or chemism, influenced by the air.
873. The chemism, when influenced by air, is one of a perpetual character; for this power dies only because the tension of its two elements is balanced or equalized; the influence of the air is, however, none other than the constant renewal of the tension.
874. Now, the process of tension in the air is electrism or that action in which the two poles being devoid of indifference range opposite to each other, can therefore never unite, and the end attained by which is oxydation. The new process is consequently a chemical power constantly excited by electrism--it is an _electro-chemism_. (Ed. 1st, 1810.) This composite process is known under the name of _Galvanism_.
875. Hereby the galvanism has been most rigorously and characteristically separated from the chemism, and the succession of stages been exactly indicated. By the accession of a single but higher nature-factor, namely, the air, chemism advances one and _only_ one stage higher. We have consequently made no leap or abrupt transition in tracing out our genesis of nature. Magnetism is the uni-elementary, chemism the bin-elementary, galvanism the tri-elementary process of the _planet_, in so far as it is occupied with its own evolution, or that of the _Solid_.
876. Considered in relation to the result and also the internal nature of the process, galvanism is in no wise different from chemism, but only in reference to the continuance of the tension. The fluid and solid are in both the co-equal media or means; the decompositions, separations and combinations also, are alike in both. The air has no other office than to sustain the opposition, which in chemism proceeds through the difference of the two unipolar elements, acid and alkali.
877. The air maintains this animosity of the elements only by oxydation, and so far takes part in the contest like a fellow-combatant; yet this invariably happens only while the water is preserved by these means in its primary condition, that of the acid. The air breathes life only into the chemical body, without being body itself. No galvanism therefore continues, if it be denied the access of air. The chain or column enters it is true into tension also without air, but remains only for a short time in that state, or so long only as there is a trace of oxygen in the water.
878. Galvanism, as a tri-elementary process, represents the planet in its _totality_. The galvanic column is an entire planet, a planet upon the planet, the planet individualized.
879. The individual, taken in a strong sense, is an entire planet taken up into Singulars, a triplicity of the elements in the particular or _special_ unity. In galvanism there consequently issues forth for the first time an individual, which is equivalent to a cosmic totality. Galvanism is the metatype of the planet. All other and profounder processes are not total in character, nor metatypes of a whole system, but only moieties thereof.
880. The planet, regarded in itself, in its three elements, apart from its relation to the sun, is a galvanic body, a column, just as inversely this is a planet.
881. The attributes, which consequently belong to the planet, abstractedly from the sun, must belong to every galvanic process, or to such a body. The planet is a Whole included in itself, and thus is galvanism. The latter acts only in a closed chain, or only by its own body or its materiality forming _one_ circle that returns into itself. The three elements are mutually self-excited and moved, and that indeed from internal causes, though not apart from external conditions. Thus galvanism is like an individual planet.
B. _Primary Organism._
882. An individual (total, self-included) body, excited and moved by itself, is called _Organism_. _Organism is what individual planet is._ The metatype of the planet is organism; or a planet upon the planet is organism. The planet is not itself an organism, because it is not individual or galvanic in every point.
883. The self-excitation of the individualized elements, is called life.
884. Galvanism is the principle of life. There is no other vital force than the galvanic polarity. The heterogeneity of the three terrestrial elements in a circumscribed individual body is the _vital force_. The galvanic process is one with the vital process.
885. Organism is galvanism residing in a thoroughly _homogeneous mass_. The galvanic column is no organism, because it only admits the galvanic process just as the planet does, in individual places. A body only, which is zinc-pole, silver-pole and moist pulp at every conceivable point, is an organism. A galvanic pile, pounded into atoms must become alive. In this manner nature brings forth organic bodies.
886. Electrism has a basis; it is the air. Magnetism has a basis; it is the metal. Chemism has a basis; it is the salt. So has galvanism a basis; it is the organic mass.
887. Accordingly, what would be organic, must be galvanic; what would be alive, must be galvanic. Life is not different from organism, nor also from galvanism. For life is verily the vital process. But the vital process is an organic, galvanic process. Galvanism lies at the basis of all the processes of the organic world. They are either modifications of it, or only its combinations with other and still higher actions. A living thing, which is not galvanic, is a nonentity.
888. With galvanism consequently the first step has been made out of the inorganic into the organic kingdom. Every aught of nature, which has hitherto originated, is inorganic. These, however, were mere individualities. The character of the Inorganic consists consequently in something being a Singular, a moiety, or a metatype of a Singular; the character of the Organic in its being the metatype of a whole or round number. Organic things are internal self-exciting numbers; the inorganic things are fractions.
889. Every fraction is dead. No moiety can attain to life, for it does not receive its complement. What is simply fluid, cannot be organic, because it is not the totality of the planet. What is simply solid, cannot be organic. It is only a third of the organism. Every organism is produced according to the laws of galvanism, according to the law of the triplicity.
890. As the terrestrial magnetism is indeed only one, but includes an infinity of magnets, which are rendered manifest in the progress of the earth's life; so also in the great galvanism of the earth an infinite number of subordinate galvanic triplicities reside inclosed, which become gradually detached, and, instead of the universal galvanism, represent an infinity of individual galvanisms. The universal galvanism cannot exist, without establishing itself as an infinity of individual galvanisms. As magnetism is only associated with the net of metallic veins, so is the absolute only, with the universality of its finite positions. The number of organisms is infinite, both in coexistence as also in consecutive existence.
891. An organism is an individual in the rigid sense of the word, because it is ruined, so soon as one of its three members parts from the rest. In this sense only are there properly speaking organic individuals.
892. If we do not confine indivisibility to what is mechanical, but extend it also to the chemical; individuals may be likewise granted to the mineral kingdom. The minerals are chemical individuals; for by separation they are likewise annihilated as such, and moreover the relation of mixture of chemical bodies is not one of an arbitrary kind. The gray ores are a definite mixture of sulphur and antimony, and are thereby individuals. The silver, lead, and copper, that are accidentally mixed in this compound, do not at all alter the individuality, and by no means prove a capacity residing in the matters for mixture in all conceivable numbers. Such a mixture would be a medley only. In plants and animals casual component parts occur also frequently. Thus the individuality of the ruby-silver appears to consist in the definite mixture of sulphur and arsenic, with the addition perhaps of antimony. The silver is only mingled with it, and therefore present in all numbers. The same holds good of the bi-sulphurets of iron, and the glance-ores. (Ed. 1st, 1810.)
_Creation of the Organic._
893. It has been demonstrated from the genesis of the Organic, that its essence consists in the universality of the planetary processes. Every organic individual has essentially three processes in itself, which must be regarded as its fundamental processes, whereof no one can ever be wanting. Seeing, that if this be the case, the body is only a chemical or magnetic, a crystallized carcase.
894. The first three planetary processes, namely, the earth-process, water-process, and air-process, or the _forming_, _chemicalizing_, _and electrifying or oxydizing processes_, are also the first three vital processes.
895. It has been shown, that with every new process and with every new combination of processes, the materials also of the same were altered, ennobled, rendered more composite, and thereupon also more decomposible. Herein also nature advances consecutively and creates new materials for the organic world.
896. In the metamorphosis of the earths, when the chemism was added to the process of formation, not only the alkalinity and acidity issued forth in the calcareous earth and the salts, but the pure Earthy also became free from fixity, and manifested itself as _carbon_ in the carbonic acid.
897. The last product of an antecedent stage is always the basis of that which is subsequent. _The fundamental matter of the organic world is consequently the carbon._
a. ELEMENTARY BODY--PRIMARY MUCUS.
898. If in this carbon the three processes of the planet, namely, the formative or its special, the chemicalizing or fluidizing, and the electrifying or oxydizing, process, concentrate themselves, and are present with all their energy in every atom of the organic body; so must the mass of carbon be at the same time solid, fluid, and aerial, oxydizable in every spot, and thus also _soft_. Now a carbon mixed identically with water and air is _Mucus_.
899. Mucus is oxydized, hydrated carbon; or expressed in purely philosophical language, mucus is the universality of the minerals and elements, or the synthesis of earth, salt, Inflammable, and ore in water and air.
900. Every Organic has issued out of mucus, is naught but mucus under different forms. Every Organic is again soluble into mucus; by which naught else is meant, than that the formed mucus becomes one devoid of form.
901. _The primary mucus, out of which every thing organic has been created, is the sea-mucus._
902. Mucus belongs originally and essentially to the sea, and has not been mixed with the latter through the dissolution in it of putrefying substances.
903. The sea-mucus has originated in the progress of planetary development, like the calcareous earth has with the carbon and like the sea-salt. As little as this could have entered the sea originally through solution of rock-salt; so little could the mucus through the perishing of animals and plants, for none of these were yet present, but could be first developed, only with the production of this mucus.
904. The sea-mucus was originally generated through the influence of light and by the denudation of the crude masses, especially of the earths and salts, which was thereby effected; while with the metals and Inflammables ranging opposite to these, the carbon thus became free, and betook itself as carbonic acid to the water and air. Thus also has salt been produced.
905. The sea-mucus, as well as the salt, is still produced by the light. Everything takes place through the differentialization, or by the absolution of fixed poles on the earth-element. _Light shines upon the water, and it is salted. Light shines upon the salted sea, and it lives._
906. All life is from the sea, none from the continent.
907. All mucus is endowed with life.
908. The whole sea is alive. It is a fluctuating, ever self-elevating and ever self-depressing organism.
909. Where the sea-organism by self-elevation succeeds in attaining unto form, there issues forth from it a higher organism. Love arose out of the sea-foam.
910. The primary mucus was and is still generated in those very parts of the sea where the water is in contact with earth and air, and thus upon the shores.
911. The first creation of the Organic took place, where the first mountain summits projected out of the water; and thus indeed without doubt in India, if the Himalaya be the highest mountain.
912. The first organic forms, whether plants or animals, emerged from the shallow parts of the sea.
913. _Man also is a child of the warm and shallow parts of the sea in the neighbourhood of the land._
914. It is possible, that Man has only originated on one spot, and that indeed the highest mountain in India. It is even possible, that only one favorable moment was granted, in which Men could arise. A definite mixture of water, definite blood-heat, and definite influence of light must concur to his production; and this has probably been the case only in a certain spot and at a certain time.
915. The first men were the littoral and mountainous inhabitants of warmer countries, and found therefore at once reptiles, fishes, fruit, and game for food.
CHANGE.
916. The number of individual organisms is not persistent. For they are verily only products of a ceaseless polarization or a constant evocation of poles in the great galvanism, positions of the general galvanism in time. Thus, as the poles change, so also do the organic individuals. The kingdom of organisms is an iron bar, in which the magnetic poles originate and vanish or change, according as the polarizing magnet is removed. Organisms change, because they are numbers, thoughts of God.
917. The process of change in organic individuals is that of their destruction.
918. But this destruction is as nothing for nature. There originate again in the same moment other organisms in other situations. The process that destroys the poles is only one that effects their change.
919. The world-organism only is eternal, and devoid of change, with the exception of that which is within its poles. It can itself change with no other, because it is only one.
920. No individual organism is eternal, because it is only a changing pole of the world-organism.
921. There is no constancy in the individualities. Change only is persistent.
922. The world only is persistent. Nothing in it is constant. Were individuals not to perish, but live for ever, the world must then die; for the life of the world, like every life, consists only in the change of poles. Individuals could in no way therefore continue alive, if the world were to remain alive, because this is only possible through change of the individuals, which are its organs; nor could they, were the world to die, because the totality of individuals is the world itself.
923. Death is no annihilation, but only a change. One individual emerges out of another. Death is only a transition to another life, not unto death.
924. This transition from one life to another takes place through the primary condition of the Organic, or the mucus.
925. If new individuals originate, they could not therefore originate directly from others; but they must be redissolved into mucus. Every generation is a new creation.
b. FORM--GLOBE.
926. The organism is a metatype of the planet and must also have the corresponding form. It is the _Sphere_. This results also from the combination of the three actions, which being in equiponderance could only produce the globe.
927. The sphere must commence with the idea of the point. For the idea of the sphere is the idea of the centre, which is a point. The point, however, is not different from the sphere. It is only the infinitely small or minute sphere.
928. The primary mucus is globular in form. The primary mucus does not swell into a single sphere, but it divides into infinitely numerous spheres. For were it only one sphere, it would be the planet itself. But it is an individual, or only one sphere in the great sphere. The idea of the great sphere consists however of an infinity of small spheres.
929. The primary mucus consists of an infinity of points. This admits of being proved by its mode of origin. It is formed on the limit between water and earth, consequently in a line. This line, however, becomes constantly dissevered by disquietude, and divides therefore necessarily into infinitely numerous points.
930. The primary Organic is a mucous point.
931. The organic world commences not merely with one point, but with infinitely numerous points. Where earth, water, and air are found in _one_ spot, there also is an organic point.
932. The organic points originate upon the surface of the earth, not in it, and not in the air. For only between earth and air do all three elements enter into collision.
PRIMARY VESICLE.
933. Through the oxydation of the air an opposition of the component parts, or of the Fluid and Solid, issues forth in the organic point, and these mutually conditionate each other. The Fluid and Solid cannot, however, be otherwise conditioned, seeing that the former is the Contained, the latter the Containing. The Solid is only a precipitate from the Fluid wrought by the influence of the air. The air, however, is externally related to the mucus-point. The Solid can therefore originate nowhere else than between the Fluid and the air. It consequently surrounds in accordance with its genesis the Fluid. The physical cause thereof is naturally the oxydation of mucus upon its periphery. A globe, the middle of which is fluid, but the periphery solid, is called a bladder or cyst.
934. The first organic points are vesicles. The organic world has for its basis an infinity of vesicles. (Ed. 1st, 1813. §. 922.)
INFUSORIA.
935. The mucous primary vesicle may in a philosophical sense be aptly called infusorium, like as we designate the primary condition of the embryo, by the word vitellus. Now are we making use of definite expressions.
936. Everywhere, where the three elements cooperate, are infusoria present--thus upon the sea-shore, the tide-mark or strand, and shallow watery places.
937. The infusorium is a galvanic point, a galvanic vesicle, a galvanic column or chain.
938. In every infusorium there is triplicity of the poles, or properly speaking, of the processes. Each one maintains itself by the nutritive, digestive, and respiratory process, or what amounts to the same, the infusorial globule of mucus assumes a figure, its peculiar fluidity is formed in its interior, and it becomes oxydized. As is well known, no infusorium can live without moisture, and none if the access of air having been prevented, or the water boiled, it is freed from the air and the Earthy.
939. If the organic fundamental substance _consist_ of infusoria, so must the whole organic world _originate_ from infusoria. Plants and animals can only be metamorphoses of infusoria.
940. This being granted, so also must all organizations _consist_ of infusoria, and during their destruction dissolve into the same. Every plant, every animal is converted by maceration into a mucous mass; this putrefies, and the moisture is stocked with infusoria.
941. Putrefaction is nothing else than a division of organisms into infusoria, a reduction of the higher to the primary, life.
942. Organisms are a synthesis of infusoria. Their generation is none other than an accumulation of infinitely numerous mucous points, infusoria. In these the organisms have not forsooth been at once wholly and perfectly depicted as on the smallest scale, nor contained in a state of preformation; but they are only infusorial vesicles, that by different combinations assume different forms, and grow up into higher organisms.
THEORY OF GENERATION.
943. The theory of generation is in _this_ sense a synthetical and epigenetic, not an analytic.
944. The theory of preformation contradicts the laws of nature's development.
945. Generation is a successive formation, both in relation to the quantity as well as the quality, and the specific organs. It having been preposited, that an organism has several organic systems, so must these range according to their importance, and like the systems of nature, behind each other, and be also developed in this order. As the whole of nature has been a successive fixation of æther, so is the organic world a successive fixation of infusorial mucus-vesicles. The mucus is the æther, the chaos for the organic world. The semen of all animals consists also of infusoria; the same may be said of the vitellus. The pollen of flowers consists in like manner of microscopic vesicles with globules, which have a life of their own and move themselves in water. Many confervæ indeed divide evidently into a multitude of living, self-moving globules, which, after they have swam about for some time, again unite to form a stem of conferva.
946. Every generation consequently commences à priori or from the beginning. The organic substance must again be dissolved into the original chaos, if any thing new should reoriginate.
947. Out of an organic menstruum only can a new organism proceed, but not one organism out of the other. A finished or perfect organism cannot gradually transform itself into another.
948. The generative juices, or semen and vitellus, are none other than the total organism reduced to the primary menstruum.
949. Physically regarded also every individual originates only from the Absolute, but no one out of the other. The history of generation is a retrogression into the Absolute of the Organic, or the organic chaos--mucus, and a new evocation from the same.
950. This development from mucus is only applicable however to the generation of the perfect organisms, but not to the origin of the organic body, or the infusorial mass. The former originate only from an organic mass that has been already formed; but the infusorial mass, as constituting the organic primary bodies, cannot have originated in the same way. It does and must originate directly from the Inorganic. For whence can the organic matter have otherwise proceeded?
951. The infusorial mucus-mass originated, as has been already remarked, at the moment when the earth's metamorphosis was at an end; at the moment, when the planet succeeded in so bringing together and identifying all the elementary processes, that they were all together or at one and the same time in every point.
952. Hence the organic primary body originated also by synthesis, not by analysis, if regard be paid to its factors. But do we consider this substance as first emerging into view, when the coarse, abundant, isolated materials, such as earth, metals, Inflammables, and salts had separated themselves from it; that this organic primary body then remained behind as it were for the first time: it has then originated through analysis, or was preformed; but so preformed as are also the metals, and as is everything. It need scarcely be observed, that this last separation from out the Earthy is the _carbon_, the dissolution of the earths into atoms, and thus again into points or globules susceptible of form.
953. Everything is preformed in æther, like as every Mathematic is preformed in zero, every Active in God; yet for that very reason nothing individual is preformed therein; but it originates first through _fixation of poles on the substance_. This is the true meaning of the original generation of the Organic.
954. This origin of the organic primary bodies I designate _Generatio originaria_, _Creation_.
955. But infusorial vesicles can also originate by mere division of larger organic carcases, and these can again originate as well through the combination of these secondary as of the primitive vesicles, or as it were by coagulation only, such being the case indeed in the intestinal worms also. I nominate this generation, _Generatio æquivoca_.
956. All generation is _Generatio æquivoca_; whether imparted by sexes or not. For the generative juices of the sexual organs themselves are naught else than organic primary mass, and have originated by division.
957. There are only two kinds of generation in the world. The creation proper and the propagation that is sequent thereupon, or the _Generatio originaria_ and _secundaria_.
958. No organism has been consequently created of larger size than an infusorial point. No organism is, nor has one ever been, created, which is not microscopic.
959. Whatever is larger, has not been created, but developed.
960. Man has not been created, but developed. So the Bible itself teaches us. God did not make man out of nothing; but took an elemental body then existing, an _earth_-clod or carbon; moulded it into form, thus making use of _water_; and breathed into it life, namely _air_, whereby galvanism, or the vital process arose.
961. The original origin of organization has been imparted by the co-operating influence of heat and light. By the heat, because without this no galvanic and no chemical process is possible; further, because heat is the totality of æther, the moved æther, the ætherial air, and thus the menstruum of all action. But the heat is not sufficient to animate the three terrestrial elements, because it imparts only the possibility of procedure and of action; while it does not differentialize, nor posit tension, but maintains everything in identity, fluidity. In the heat alone every thing must become fluid and finally decompose. Unto heat therefore the accession is yet necessary of the Cosmic-differencing, or the light. The light inspires the body prepared by heat with life, antagonism, polarity.
962. The æther imparts the substance, the heat the form, the light the life. (Oken first started this opinion in his work, 'Die Zeugung,' Frankfurt, Wesche, 1805.)
c. _Processes of the Organic._
963. The life of the organic body is not a single but a threefold action, consisting of the actions of the three terrestrial elements, which become the three fundamental processes of the body, or of life, and in which _three_ processes galvanism consists.
1. EARTH-PROCESS, NUTRITIVE PROCESS.
964. The magnetic earth-process is virtually the formative; and in organic bodies is called the _nutrient_ process.
965. The process of nutrition is the principal process in the organic world. Its product or its basis is the fundamental mass of the body itself. As crystal and the process of crystallization are related to each other, so are the body and the process of nutrition.
966. The process of nutrition is the sustaining, and proper fundamental process of the organism.
967. It is present entire and indivisible in every part of the body. Whencesoever it is ablated or withdrawn, there is death.
968. It operates according to the laws of crystallization.
969. Its very forms are crystals modified by the organic mass or, what amounts to the same, by the other processes combined therewith. The organic body is an accumulation of an infinity of (organic) crystals (cells).
970. In the planetary process of formation, which is a process of crystallization, the organism is continually comprehended. It is the planetary body ever becoming; the latter is an organic body, which has ceased to become.
2. WATER-PROCESS, DIGESTIVE PROCESS.
971. Another action, that helps to constitute the organic body, is the chemism, which is not only the process of liquefaction, but the process also of the formation or creation of new organic matter. It is known to us under the name of _Digestive process_.
972. The digestive process elevates the Inorganic up to the organic mass, like the chemism has converted the Earthy into carbonate of lime and finally into muriatic natron. The digestive process is the _process of the formation of mucus_. Regarded philosophically the nutritive juice (or chyle) is naught else than mucus. This is also correct in a physiological point of view.
973. The digestive process is the second organic process, in so far as it has been fashioned after the type of the water; but the first, in so far as every Organic has originated out of water.
974. As forming only the mucus it is not directly distributed in every part of the body like the nutritive process, which is the body or planet itself. But it interposes, or is mediate, everywhere.
975. As the water of the planet is related to the continent or earth's nucleus, so are the digestive matters or the mucus of nutrition to the body. The Earthy, however, is the principal mass of the planet, upon which the others have been supported. So is the nutritive body the principal mass, upon which the digestive body has been supported.
976. No organism is conceivable without a digestive process.
3. AIR PROCESS, RESPIRATORY PROCESS.
977. The action of the air finally settles down also in mucus. It is that which sustains the constant heterogeneity of the organic factors, the electrical tension. The electrical tension has, however, oxydation for its result. The organic process of electricity is thus at the same time a process of oxydation. It is called _Respiratory process_.
978. Without respiratory process, no organism is conceivable. By its influence difference has been induced in the chyle, and by this difference only does the latter become decomposible or serviceable for the process of nutrition.
979. The respiratory process is also present not immediately in every part of the body, but only mediately. It is the atmosphere of the body.
980. The mutation, which the juices undergo through the process of respiration, is none other than an emergence from their state of indifference. Thereby each point of the juice becomes polar towards every other; all are mutually attracted, all repelled, whereby a decisive vortication originates.
981. As every globule of sap or mucus is indifferent, it has thus naturally an affinity for air. The air itself is comprehended, like the water and the earth, in the organism. And thus it may with full force be said; that the organism is elevated by respiration to the element air, by digestion to the element water, by nutrition to the element earth. So that respiratory process = air-process, digestive process = water-process, and nutritive process = earth-process.
982. The first three organic processes are consequently true synotypes of the planetary processes--are planet-forming processes in miniature in individuals. The fundamental organism has thus been shown to be in its apparent processes a synotype or likeness of the planet; in other words, a microscopic planet.
983. These three processes constitute the galvanic process. Making use of the expressions applied to the inorganic kingdom, we found the organism to be a combination of magnetism, chemism, and electrism; while in organic parlance it is a nutritive process, maintained by respiration and digestion. The processus nutritorius, digestivus, respiratorius, together constituting galvanism.
4. MOTION.
984. Motion is no peculiar or self-persistent process, but the necessary manifestation of galvanism. Motion has been established with the three organic fundamental processes.
985. Every motion depends upon the galvanic process. Taken in a strict sense, there is no _process_ of motion, but motion only. For motion is verily but the phenomenon of galvanism. The process of motion is synonymous with the galvanic process.
986. The galvanic process is a process of motion effected in circles, in its own factors, in its planet, but not from without; it is consequently an actual vital process.
987. As the process of motion is the phenomenon common to all three organic fundamental processes, so is the whole organism characterized by it. The essence of the Organic depends consequently upon its automatic or self-motion.
988. _Self-motion_ is the only, but essential and ultimate, distinction between the Organic and Inorganic. (Ed. 1st, 1810. § 904.) All other distinctions that have been advanced do not suffice; because they do not comprehend the totality of the organism, nor the three fundamental processes in _one_ phenomenon, but only individual attributes.
989. A circumscribed, closed mass, which moves itself, is an organism. The perpetuum mobile is only the organism.
990. Every Inorganic moves not itself, but is only moved by external influences; because every Inorganic is only a part of a whole.
991. The organic motion is present and possible in every point of a body. A mass that is automatic, or thoroughly moved by itself, is an organism.
992. The Inorganic consists in motion having vanished from it, and in being simply mass. But the Organic consists exactly in this alone, namely, that the Massive has disappeared, or that the mass is in constant motion. The Organic becomes destroyed, so soon as motion disappears in it; the Inorganic is destroyed, so soon as motion enters it. Motion is therefore the soul, whereby the Organic is elevated above the Inorganic.
2. ORGANOGNOSY.
_Division of the Organism._
PLANETARY AND COSMIC ORGANISM.
993. Hitherto we have regarded the organism merely in a general point of view; namely, as regards the substance, form, and processes, which must indiscriminately occur in every organism. We have seen that it is composed of at least _three_ elements, the earth, water and air. There is still, however, one combination that is possible and therefore also actual, namely, with the æther or the _fire_.
994. The organic world has two stages in its development. Upon each stage, however, it is the totality or synotype of nature, yet is different in each.
995. The organism represents the whole solar system; but this divides into two stages. The lowest of these is the Planetary, or totality of the Earthy, Aqueous and Aerial; the higher is the Solar or Cosmic, namely, the totality of earth, water, air and fire. Thus there is a tri-elementary and a quadri-elementary totality. As the first is already an organism, so much the more too must be the second. Thus there must be one organism, which comprehends indeed all systems in itself, but with the preponderance of the Planetary; and one with the preponderance of the Solar.
996. In the planetary organism the æther-systems will be either wanting, or only indicated as mere projections; they are there only, in so far as the planet itself is not without light. In the solar organism, however, the planetary systems are subordinate to the æther processes; the former are only there, because the sun cannot be without planets. In the planetary organism the æther-system has only been taken up into the Terrestrial; but in the Solar the Terrestrial has been taken up into the æther.
997. In the planetary organism all the processes launch out into production or alterations of the matters; it is a chemical organism; in the solar organism there are processes, which neither change, nor produce matters, it may be therefore styled light organism.
998. The chemical organism is associated with the earth, the spiritual with the water and air; the former must therefore consist principally of carbon, the latter of the combination of oxygen with hydrogen, and thus of nitrogen.
999. The carbon-organism must moreover in accordance with its import be associated with the Inflammables and metals, and through these with the silicious earth.
1000. The nitrogen-organism on the contrary with the salts and calcareous earths; thus we have silicious organisms and calcareous organisms; Inflammable organisms and salt organisms. From this it is already clear, that the planetary or primary organism is not general, nor indefinite, but the _plant_; for no General or Indefinite has existence. The solar or quadri-elementary organism admits in like manner of being recognized as _animal_. This is the philosophical deduction. But there is also a physiological, which conducts to the same result.
1001. The mucus-vesicle can feasibly pass into two kinds of condition only. It either remains in the water, or is cast upon the shore, or in the mud. In the last case it continues to lie, and is only supplied with light, and oxydized by the air upon the upper side; in the first case, on the contrary, it rolls about constantly in the water, and is alternately illumed and oxydized upon all sides. The first vesicle thus obtains a single axis from above downwards, between light and darkness; the second on the contrary gains a multitude of axes from without inwards, where it is alone dark and deoxydized. The first is thus devoid of any middle point, and finds its centre of gravity only in the middle of the earth, while the latter acquires its centre of gravity in its Interior, and this renders the Interior polar towards all points of the circumference. The plant is only one axis, or from having no middle point, is properly only one radius, which has its centre in the centre of the earth; the animal is an infinity of axes or radii, which concur or converge in the creature itself; the plant is an inverted cone, the animal an infinity of cones or a globe.
1002. Thus the planetary organism originates, if the primary vesicle having been taken out of the water is given up to the earth, to immobility and to _darkness_. But the light-organism arises, if the primary vesicle continue in water, or in the Moveable and Diaphanous. Here then in their genesis an essential difference is declared between the two organic worlds. Planetary organism originates, if the vesicle develops itself apart from the water, in which case it is withdrawn on one side from the light; but the light-organism originates if it remains in water itself, where it can be supplied on all sides with light. The essence of both is expressed by the names _darkness_-organism and _light_-organism.
1003. The basis of both kingdoms is therefore exactly similar; the vesicle and the mucus lie at the foundation of both. It depends solely upon the surrounding element, whether out of one and the same mass this or that organism should arise, or rather upon the active influence of the light, this being conditioned only by the elements. Not a word can accordingly be spoken about preformation. In darkness-organism the water-vesicle has been placed between earth and air, and thus fettered to the earth; in light-organism, however, the vesicle has been placed in the water and so freed from the earth.
1004. The planetary organism has, in accordance with its situation and import, been bound to the earth. It must originate like the metal in the earth, in the darkness and, as it were, in a vein. But it is at the same time a light-product; it must rise from out of the earth into the air and towards the light. It is a mucus, living metallic vein, which elevates itself from out the earth into the air.
1005. This organism, which originates in the darkness of the earth, and grows therefrom into the air so as to meet the light, is _plant_.
1006. The solar-organism is, in accordance with its import, void of connexion with the earth; like a planet it revolves freely about the earth, and everywhere receives its image or likeness in the influence of all four elements.
1007. The organism, which, free from the earth, has originated in water, or properly speaking, in the transparency, is _animal_.
1008. The vegetable and animal are the only organic, kingdoms. In both, nature has exhausted herself, and has in the last kingdom, as in a mirror, been wholly reflected. They are together planet and sun, or thus solar system. But since the animal comprehends all elements in itself, so it contains also the plant, and is therefore for itself vegetable and animal kingdom, or the whole solar-system.
1009. The plant hath no free system of motion, because motion is wanting to it; bound to the elements, by these it is determined. The element of motion, the æther, lies apart from it. It has only motion, if and while the elements act upon, or solicit it, thereunto.
1010. It moves itself only by an external or _foreign_ stimulus. If no foreign stimulus be present, it does not move itself. A root grows, moves itself towards one spot, not because it there _seeks_ for moisture, but because it is _affected_ by the moisture which is there found. Were the moisture not to act upon it, it would wither.
1011. The animal has independent motion. For it has indeed taken up the centre, the earth-and the light-system which is the principle of motion, into itself.
1012. Thus the animal moves itself independently of external stimuli. The animal can move itself from _want_ of stimulus. It moves itself to _seek_ for, and thus from want of, nourishment, which consequently does not act upon it; the plant cannot, however, move itself owing to want of food, but only die.
1013. _This is the essential and only conclusive distinction between animal and plant._ All others that have been advanced are not sufficient.
_Processes of the Cosmic Organism._
ÆTHER PROCESSES.
1014. The primary or planetary organism cannot be the last product of nature's development: for it is only indeed the metatype of the three terrestrial elements, and consequently not of the totality of nature. The mucus-organism ascends to a higher stage, since it superadds to its three elements the primary element, or ascends itself to primary elements. It becomes an _ætherial globe of mucus_.
1015. Hitherto there were merely three processes in the organism; to these consequently the fourth is added, which is the æther-process. It may be called the fire-process.
1016. With the fire-process the development of the organic world has been carried to the highest pitch and therewith closed.
1017. The highest organism is a quadri-elementary individual, or a quadri-elementary mucus.
1018. The four elements are, however, the universe. The higher organism is consequently not merely a synotype of the planet, but of it and the sun, or of the whole universe. The higher organism is an universe in miniature; in the profoundest, truest sense of the word is it _small world_, _microcosm_.
1019. The planetary, terrestrial organisms are related to the solar or cosmic, as the planet is to solar-system.
1020. The cosmic organism has besides the systems of nutrition, digestion, and respiration, those of the æther in itself, and thus of the gravity, light and heat. These are immaterial, spiritual processes, which produce no more matters.
1. _Process of Gravity._
1021. The organ of gravity is that of quiescence or rest, the organ constituting the basis of the organic body, or rather of the other æther-organs, the centralization.
1022. It imparts form to the higher organism.
1023. The quiescent, sustaining, form-imparting system is the rigid earth-system, and appears as the _osseous system_.
2. _Process of Heat._
1024. As the heat is the motion of the æther, so is there a system of motion in the organism.
1025. The system, which has no other function to perform than to move, is the _muscular system_.
1026. The osseous system is related to the muscular system as mass to motion, as Passive to Active. The former maintains the form, the latter changes the same exactly like gravitation and heat.
3. _Process of Light._
1027. The light-system must be related to all other spiritual systems and the three fundamental systems of the organism, or to the _simply_ organic systems as light is to matter, being thus polarizing or _dominant_.
1028. Now the domination of light consists in the sustenance of polarity in all matter. The air itself is preserved in its duplicity only by light. All the points of the organism are polarized by the light-system. The light-system acts consequently through the whole body.
1029. The light-system is not capable of producing matter, like the terrestrial systems. This is self-evident.
1030. It does not polarize by effecting chemical changes. If nevertheless these are present, they are thus only results, occurring while the terrestrial processes are set in action by the process of light.
1031. Light polarizes the Material by mere fixation or discharging of poles, and thus in a spiritual manner. So also does the light-system of the organism. It governs the organism not by mechanical power, not by mass, but by a _spiritual breath or aura_.
1032. The organic light-system is the Animative of the organism. In it the spirit exercises its power over the mucous mass. It is the _nervous system_.
LIFE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
1033. The light-polarity can bring about no other tension in the mass than that which is peculiar to it, and thus the galvanic tension, whose highest and purest phenomenon is motion. The light-system principally causes motion in the mass, like as in æther.
1034. The nervous system has, however, a life also in itself, or the _internal_ light-polarity that is without any relation to the organic mass. This action of the nerves is called _sensibility_, and its phenomenon, _feeling_ or _sensation_. The system of sensation is the nervous system as sun in itself; in the motor-system it is as sun in a centre of planets.
1035. The organism, like the elementary nature, is completed by four systems.
1. By the Nutrient, 2. " Digestive, 3. " Respiring, and 4. " Motive, unto which the nerves, muscles, and bones belong.
1036. It is impossible for more than these to be developed in an organism; impossible, for any thing else but what is in nature to originate therein; impossible, that any thing new be born by it. Everything in nature is only repetition of an Antecedent or something that has gone before. How could the organism be aught else, how aught else than the focus of the four elements!
SECOND KINGDOM.
VEGETABLE KINGDOM.
1037. The Vegetable Kingdom is the individual development of the three planetary elements.
I.--_PHYTOGENY_.
1038. Phytogeny represents the developmental history of individual plants, or, properly speaking, the idea of the plant.
1039. To the plant belong all the definitions that have been hitherto deduced. It is an organism fettered to the earth, is developed only apart from water, only in the dark, in the earth; is associated with the metal, with the carbon; is a magnetic needle that has been attracted out of the earth into the air towards the light. Seeds germinate better if they have been protected beforehand from the access of light; the radicle sinks, indeed, into the earth, because it obeys the gravity, the quiescence or rest; but it is therein maintained, because it is there humid and dark. This is a reason that has not yet been connoted, for the plant having been fettered to the earth. There are indeed plants which also take root in water, but the water is still darker than the air. The root has, in this respect, completely the character of the metal, that is a child of darkness.
1040. Consisting for the greatest part of carbon, plants are associated with the pit-coals, through these pass over into the carbon of the clay-slate rocks; finally, through the black-lead unto the iron. In like manner, through their hydrogenous import, they pass over into the inflammable asphalts, and through these unto sulphur. Metal and sulphur have, in the Geogeny, announced themselves as the precursors, or harbingers, of the vegetable world. In this respect, also, can the vegetable kingdom be regarded as the mineral kingdom, that, having continued to grow, has become alive. The ore, which becomes organic, becomes carbon or plant.
PARTS OF THE PLANT.
1041. The character of each development consists in the separation of the Indifferent or Chaotic into its ideas or actions, i. e. the development of every system is first completed, when it is divided into as many substantial systems as it numbers factors, or has processes in itself.
1042. Although the plant is only essentially a planetary-organism, it must yet be developed unto an æther- or light-organism; and it therefore divides into planetary- and solar-or light-organs.
1043. The planetary organs are those that have the earth-, water-, and air-process above them, and which are made known in the root, the stalk and foliage, which together constitute the vegetable stem.
1044. The light-organs begin to be stirring in the blossom, and are divulged as sexual organs. They are a repetition of the trunk.
1045. The vegetable body divides therefore into two great principal parts, which are synotypes of each other, into _trunk_ and _blossom_ or _inflorescence_. If we regard the vegetable trunk empirically; it is then divisible into three stages, whereof each consists of the organs of the three fundamental processes, which seek to separate from each other.
a. The first stage is that of the _three tissues_ namely of the parenchyma, medulla or pith; of the _cells_, _ducts_, and _tracheæ_ or _spiral vessels_.
b. The second stage is _that of the shaft_ or main axis, where these three have separated concentrically into cortex or _bark_, _liber_, and _wood_, constituting the anatomical _systems_ or _sheaths_.
c. The third stage is that of the _caudex_ proper or the trunk, in which the three tissues have separated in the direction of the longitudinal axis into _root_, _stalk_ or stem, and _leaves_, these making up the _organs_ proper or _members_. The inflorescence divides into two stages, into _flower_ and _fruit_.
d. The fourth stage or that of the _flower_ repeats root, stalk and leaves, in _seeds_, _pistil_ and in the _corolla_.
e. The fifth stage or that of the _fruit_ is a further repetition of these three parts of the flower in the nut, plum and berry, unto which, as synthesis, comes the apple.
A. _Vegetable-trunk._
1046. The vegetable-trunk is the development of the three fundamental processes up to their complete separation or substantial representation. It divides itself into the tissues or the pith (parenchyma), into the shaft and into the trunk.
1047. The plant is a galvanic water-vesicle, and as such earth, water and air. Upon this vesicle it is, however, the earth-element that chiefly acts. While the earth seeks to encroach upon the vesicle, the magnetic process becomes active therein, and it enters into opposition with the air. The vesicle becomes now determined by two elements, by the earth and by the air; it stands itself in the category of the water.
1048. The plant may be characterized as organic water which is polarized upon two sides, towards the earth and the air. The vegetable vesicle must therefore maintain two poles. While it would represent in itself the magnetic pole, it endeavours to identify itself, to obey gravity and merge into the darkness towards the mediate point of the earth; but that it may remain a galvanic pole, it becomes excited by the air, strives to become a Different and to attain the light.
1049. The vegetable vesicle receives two opposed extremities, an identical earth-and a dyadic air-extremity; and thus the plant must be regarded as the organism, which manifests a constant endeavour, upon the one side to become earth, on the other air, upon the one side identical metal, on the other duplex air.
1050. The plant is a radius, that towards the centre becomes identical, towards the periphery divides or starts asunder. The plant is not therefore an entire circle or globe, but only a section of such, a cone, whose apex has been turned towards the centre of the earth, or would become earth-centre. It can therefore have no middle-point. It will on the contrary demonstrate that the animal is the totality of radii, is consequently diameter, and has therefore a centre of its own, or is entire globe. As the whole earth is surrounded by plants, and all their roots turn towards the centre; the whole vegetable kingdom only forms a sphere, composed of infinitely numerous cones. On the contrary every individual animal forms a sphere for itself alone, and is therefore worth as much as all plants taken together. Animals are entire heavenly bodies, satellites or moons, which circulate independently about the earth; all plants, on the contrary, taken together are only equivalent to one heavenly body. An animal is an infinity of plants.
1051. In so far as an organism strives unto identity or to gravity, it seeks to produce the Metallic, the carbon, the Alkaline. The indifferent and alkaline character appears in the earth-extremity of the plant. Mucus and acid bodies are evidenced for the most part in the root. In so far as the organism strives unto duplicity, it will produce the salt, the acid and the Inflammable. Acids and electric bodies are manifested in the air-extremity of the plant.
1052. The two vegetable extremities are accordingly related to each other as alkali and acid, and as carbon and hydrogen. In the air the water is divided into oxygen and hydrogen, acids and oils; in the earth it hardens into earths and carbon.
1053. The earth-end or the alkaline extremity of the plant is the _root_; the air-end, or the acid and oily, is the entire _stem-fabric_, or body. The plant has first of all two cardinal organs, viz. root and stem-fabric. Both together represent the water divided into earth- and air-mucus. The root is the central extremity of the plant, and is therefore prolonged or runs out into magnetic points; the stem-fabric is the peripheric and therefore expands into branches and electric surfaces.
1054. But besides the air, the _light_ also operates upon the plant and stimulates it to grow aloft and produce a light-organ. This light-organ can thus originate only upon the apex or summit. It is the _flower_. The flower can therefore stand nowhere else than on the summit or end of the plant. The light however acts upon many points of the upper surface of the vegetable trunk and elongates the same. One plant can therefore support numerous flowers, but all of these must stand upon an extremity. Wherever therefore a flower may happen to stand, that spot must be regarded as a summit or end. There is thus also, according to the physiological view of the matter, a _light-organ_ in the plant, which is its animal pre-affection. The chief antagonism in the plant is in this respect therefore between trunk and inflorescence the former is related to the latter as plant to animal. Were the plant to attain unto animal functions; they could thus only take place in the flower.
I. _Tissues._
1055. The tissues are the unseparated organs of the three fundamental processes, the earth-, water-, and air-process.
1. WATER-ORGAN, CELLULAR TISSUE.
1056. If a mucus-vesicle lie upon the ground, it thus continues indifferent upon the lower or dark side, and is only affected by the gravity and the water; the upper side, on the contrary, by the differencing air and light. It is consequently prolonged into the earth and into the air. It must pass over from the round into a linear form. The elongation is not a mere protraction of the vesicle, but an apposition of new vesicles. For it happens through polarization, and thus by infinite repetition of the primary vesicle. The plant is thus a body of infinitely numerous vesicles.
1057. In so far as the plant is a multiplication of the primary vesicle, it consists of _Cellular tissue_. The anatomy of plants informs us, that there is nothing _originally_ in the plant but cellular tissue, and that other forms first emerge or make their appearance in the sequel.
1058. The cellular tissue indicates the Indifferent in the plant, for it is only an accumulation of the indifferent primary vesicles. In so far as the plant consists thereof, is it indifference--water-plant.
1059. The cellular tissue is only oxydized, desiccated mucus. Chemistry has proved, that the wood is only oxydized mucus.
1060. The cellular tissue being the water organized and saturated with earth, or the organized mucus, has consequently the chemical function in itself of solution, homogeneous production, or formation of mucus. As therefore the plant originates, so does it enlarge. It originates as vesicle, and its growth is a constant origination of vesicles; from the Indifferent, which is the water. The sap contained in the cells consists of water and starch-granules, which constantly circulate therein in a circle.
1061. The fundamental form of the cells is the rhomboidal-dodecahedron (Kieser's Phytotomie); for around a globe only 6 others of equal size can be placed, whereby its 6 lateral surfaces are pressed in, which during the induration impart to it the form of a six-sided column. Above and below these 7 globes only 3 others admit of being placed, whereby 3 point-converging surfaces originate, which thus complete the middle globe as rhomboidal-dodecahedron.
2. EARTH-ORGAN, VASCULAR TISSUE.
1062. So long as the vesicles or cells lie as globes upon each other, triangular interspaces are found between them, which stand in conjunction with each other on all sides. As water is found in these interspaces, it is plain that they do not entirely disappear with the transformation of the cells into rhomboidal-dodecahedra. These spaces are called intercellular passages or sap-tubes, _Vessels_. In many plants, such as those which contain a milky juice, particular sap-tubes run through a part of these intercellular passages, and are probably formed by condensation of the sap. Both are therefore in a physiological respect of one kind. At bottom also the blood-vessels of animals are naught else but passages in felted cellular tissue.
1063. As the principal polarity of plants has been directed upwards, and the cells therefore been protracted lengthwise; so also the chief direction of the vessels is parallel with the axis of the plant.
1064. The vegetable sap ascends in these tubes, which must be therefore viewed indeed as constituting the earth-or nutritive organ.
3. AIR-ORGAN, TRACHEAL TISSUE.
1065. The plant is not merely earth-and water-organism, but also air-organism; and there must therefore be developed in it an anatomical system, which coincides with the process of air.
1066. Besides the cells and tubes naught else is found in vegetable tissue but spiral vessels; what are called scalariform tubes, annular vessels, dotted ducts, vermiform or strangulated vessels, are no peculiar formations in themselves, but only different conditions of the spiral vessels.
1067. The spiral vessels are the air-system of the plant, and therefore rightly deserve the name of _Tracheæ_. They exhibit the structure of the air-tubes in insects, and contain, according to the most authentic observations, air, and not sap, except in the period of adolescence, as occurs in the animal kingdom.
1068. The spiral vessels consist of one or several filaments spirally contorted, and held together by a delicate tubular-shaped membrane.
1069. They must be regarded as elongated cells, upon whose parietes the starch-granules have been placed in serial juxtaposition with each other, so as to form spirally-twisted filaments, as is to be plainly seen in many cells and also in Confervæ. This spiral condition originates without doubt from the spiral-shaped motion of the granules in cell-sap.
1070. The ultimate cause of this spiral motion, as well as the position of the parts, appears to reside in the rotation of the sun.
1071. Upon this also depends probably the winding of the stem of plants, with the spiral-shaped position of the leaves and branches, as probably even the contortions of the snail's shell and of the hairs upon the crown of the head.
1072. The production of the spiral form originates from the antagonism of the light with the matter. The number of spiral vessels is therefore less in those parts that are beneath, than in those above, the earth, or less in the root than the stem. The more indeed an organ has been exposed to the air, by so much the more do the spiral vessels preponderate, as e. g. in the leaves.
1073. An organ must necessarily be nobler in character, the more spiral vessels it contains. The plant also that, with more spiral vessels, exhibits them particularly arranged, must take a higher rank. The lowest plants, as the mushrooms, lichens and mosses, consist therefore entirely of cellular tissue; in the ferns therefore only a single bundle of spiral vessels makes its appearance. When plants become nobler, several fasciculi of spiral vessels originate; and in tracing this feature we ascend from the ferns to the grasses and lilies, up to the lower Dicotyledons. In the higher Dicotyledons the packets of the tracheæ increase for the first time to such a degree, that they form a closed circle, the fibrous ring or zone of wood.
1074. The tracheæ extend from one end of the plant to the other; many are wont to terminate only in nodes, while these are to be regarded as arrested branches. The air can therefore penetrate through the spiral vessels from the leaves even to the apices of the roots.
II. _Anatomical Systems--Sheaths._
1075. These originate by vagination and separation of the tissues in the transverse direction, and prevail throughout the whole plant. The idea of the whole vegetable structure is extremely simple. Originally the plant is a vesicle in water, or cellular tissue in the seed; root and stalk also consist in their main bulk or proportion of cellular tissue, which is called parenchyma. Therein the three planetary processes reside inclosed. Such a plant is still in the recognizable state of the primary organism. In the sequel, however, through the influence of light, the polarity between light and darkness issues forth in the parenchyma, the cellular tissue obtains a linear direction, and becomes elongated into spiral vessels. The spiral vessels form one or several fasciculi, which emerge out of the parenchyma, by which they, and each packet individually, are circularly surrounded. The cellular tissue is as it were the soil, in which the fasciculi of spiral vessels are rooted as proprietary plants and out of which they grow.
1076. The effort of the three vegetable processes, to separate their organs from, and perfect them independently of, each other, is in incessant operation, both from without inwards, as well as from above downwards, because in both cases is light there, darkness here, dryness there, humidity here. The cellular tissue, that has finally become independent in the transverse direction or from without inwards, is called _bark_, the self-substantial tubular tissue is called _liber_, the non-dependent tracheal tissue, _wood_.
1. TRACHEAL-SYSTEM, WOOD.
1077. With increased influence of light the tracheal fasciculi also increase, and form a circle of columns in the parenchyma around the centre of the plant. Between the column, externally and internally to the same, is the parenchyma. The more, however, the columns accumulate, by so much the more does it diminish, and whereas the columns previously stood singly in the parenchyma, the appearance is now as if narrow _plates_ only of parenchyma traversed between the columns from without inwards. Finally the columns predominate to such an extent and approximate so closely, that the _plates_ almost disappear. They are now called insertions of cellular tissue, or _medullary rays_. As the tracheæ convey air, and have thus been more exposed to the process of oxydation, they generally harden sooner than in other parts.
1078. Around the fasciculi of spiral vessels the cellular tissue also strives to elongate, and begins at the same time to harden. Such extended cells, in which the light has almost disappeared, are called fibres. Indurated tracheæ and fibres are called _Wood_. The wood is always in the vicinity of the spiral vessels. It is a production synchronous with the latter.
1079. Only, where spiral vessels are, can genuine wood originate; but it is not everywhere, where they are found, that woody fibres must be also present, although the cells extend around all bundles of spiral vessels. If the degree of oxydation of the cells be slight, they do not harden, but continue herbaceous in texture. The parenchyma has now been separated by a circle of fibrous columns into an external and internal, or peripheric and central. The central parenchyma becomes void of sap and spongy, because the plant imbibing its nutriment on the surface, and the air and the light operating thereupon, the processes conduct it thither. This withered parenchyma is called _pith_, which in accordance with its origin merits no physiological consideration, nor is worthy and susceptible of any philosophical construction.
2. TUBULAR SYSTEM, LIBER.
1080. As the plant draws in its nourishment from without, so is the main proportion of the sap necessarily present in the periphery of the spiral vessels. The elongated cells in the neighbourhood of the spiral vessels, and which principally contain sap, are called _Liber_.
1081. Liber is necessarily present around every packet of spiral vessels, and thus with fasciculi everywhere dispersed throughout the stem. The liber is only situated beneath the bark, when the number of the spiro-vascular fasciculi is so great, that they form a closed circle in the parenchyma; it is only beneath the bark, in so far as it accompanies the spiral vessels, but can only surround the latter from without. As it is only the woody plants that have been usually examined, the false idea has thus originated of the liber having, as it were from its very essence, to be beneath the bark.
1082. In the liber is the main seat of vegetable activity. For it is soft cellular tissue with open intercellular passages, wherein the sap can move.
1083. Now as every fascicle of spiral fibres is surrounded by liber, such a fascicle must be regarded as a whole plant. A plant consists accordingly of as many plants, as it has or can have tracheal fasciculi. Every plant is a trunk of infinitely numerous plants; for every one can contain infinitely numerous tracheal fascicles. One plant is a whole vegetable world. (Ed. 1st, 1810. § 1065.)
3. CELLULAR-SYSTEM, BARK.
1084. No spiral vessels lie upon the surface of the plant, for where they originate, there the liber forms around them, and this is consequently the External. The surface of plants is therefore necessarily environed by liber, notwithstanding the greater influence of the light. The cellular tissue upon the surface of plants is, however, less rich in sap than the liber around the tracheal fasciculi, because it is too rapidly evaporated and dried up by the immediate contact of the air, light and heat. The surface of the plant is too strongly oxydized by the air, and therefore the cells harden. The sap also decomposes too rapidly and becomes rigid, so that an irregular formation only can proceed from it. The external, more inactive, or irregularly wood-converted layer of cells, is the _Bark_.
1085. The plant has thus likewise three anatomical systems, which are nothing new, but only the repetition or rather vagination of the three tissues; alburnum and cambium are only transitional, not special formations.
III. _Organs of the Vegetable Trunk.--Members._
1086. Organs are separated parts of the body, and combinations of single tissues and systems, and are consequently a Whole in Singulars. There are, however, no uniform combinations; but one or the other system asserts its preponderance and imparts the character.
1087. In conformity with the developmental progress of the whole of nature, namely, that of always separating further its chaotically mingled parts, individualizing and yet forming them with the others into a whole, vegetation cannot continue stationary with the partition into bark, liber and wood, seeing that they are always circumscribed and form a body in common; but they must also sever this body itself into as many members as it has constituent parts. This severance makes its appearance in the longitudinal axis, because in this direction the antagonisms of air and light with water and earth are more powerful.
1088. Through the separation of the vegetable trunk _three_ members only can originate; one with the preponderance of cells or of bark, one with that of vessels or of liber, and one with that of the tracheæ or of wood. The cellular tissue has been posited as vegetable trunk in the _root_, the vascular tissue as a special member is _stalk_, the tracheal tissue _leaf_. In this manner the trunk of the plant divides into three great divisions; more are not possible.
1089. Now the root is the perfected water-organ, because it is always fixed in water; the leaf is the perfected air-organ, because it moves in the air; the stalk is the perfected earth-organ, because it removes the mass out of water and air. Root is a heap of cells; leaf a plane of tracheæ; stalk a bundle of vessels.
1. WATER-ORGAN--ROOT.
1090. By the two polar systems, the earth-and air-system, the cellular and tracheal system, is the development of the plant confirmed. Thereby is it in the next place a twofold organism. By the first system it has been turned towards the planet and immersed in earth and water, by the second it has been turned towards the sun and immersed in the air. The root and the fabric of the stem, or root and stem simply, have now obtained their truest significance. Each is the whole plant, each the whole organism; in the root this is only in its original purity, but in the stem it is upon a higher stage. Root is stem in water and earth; stem is root in air and light.
1091. The root has accordingly more cellular tissue, fewer tracheæ; in the stem this condition is reversed. The root resembles young plants, or such as still rank upon a lower stage, and have but few columns of tracheæ. The root has therefore no marrow or pith. It may be said that it should have no pith, because it is usually thinner than the stem and richer in sap; but it has only the latter character, from consisting for the most part merely of cellular tissue. Root is the vegetable trunk with preponderating cellular tissue. In consequence of the antagonism between root and stem, wherein even their difference consists, the one strives to produce the Chemical, the watery earth or the mucus, but the other the Electrical, the combustible air-bodies.
1092. The root, as producing mucus or infusoria, has therefore in itself the organic process of putrefaction, in so far as the origin of mucus and infusoria is a result of the putridity. It corresponds to imbibition and digestion. To this is referrible the mouldy, and as it were fetid, condition of the root. Through the process of decomposition, which it evokes in its neighbourhood, it kills its nutriment, takes possession of it, and thus originates completely, as does every first organism, out of putrefaction, out of infusoria. To the essence of the root belong therefore not merely food, but the favouring relations of decomposition, as earth and water, whereby the access of the air, as necessary to every galvanism, has not been suppressed.
1093. The earth is not merely a mechanical station for the plant, in order to give it the perpendicular direction, but it is necessary for polar excitation, whereby the decomposition is imparted. A plant placed upright in pure water, although with the roots, necessarily perishes. Darkness is at the same time the lurking-place of putrefaction, as being that which only plays its part in localities where the polarizing and dissevering influence of light is wanting.
1094. The root always passes perpendicular into the earth, on account of its greater weight due to repletion with water. In all zones therefore the root stands perpendicular to the horizon, and thus the whole plant, although this is somewhat inclined towards the sun.
1095. The developmental stages of the root pass probably parallel to the parts of the vegetable stem.
a. In respect to the tissue, there are thus cellular roots, as is probably the case in the fungi, and with the fibrils of all roots; tubular or vascular roots as in the mosses, tracheal roots in the rest.
b. In respect to the systems the bulbs are the cortical or bark-roots; the tubers the liber-roots; the fibres the woody-roots.