Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 251 



must be conceived of, not only as an idea which guides the whole 

 process, or as a force determining the specific type of this plastic 

 succession, but also as a living essence, comprehending the idea 

 as its internal determination, and the force as the means of its 

 realization ; — an essence which precedes and shapes the external 

 existence ; as intentions precede and determine acts*. If, in ac- 



one ; and genera which are founded upon our ignorance of their successive 

 development, as Protonema, Lepra, Sclerotium, &c., must be given up by 

 the systeraatist himself. True, we shall be called upon at a later point in 

 this inquiry to decide, whether a sphere of development which really be- 

 longs to the individual can present itself to us so divided that the divisions 

 themselves attain to the importance of subordinate individuals. 



* Aristotle describes the internal essence of plants as a " plastic soul " 

 {BpeivTiKT] "^vx^i ToC ^wvTos ad)^aTos atria /cat dpxr)). Cf. Wimmer, Phytol. 

 Arist. Frag. c. iii. De PI. Vita atque Anima. The charge of anthropomorphism 

 has been made against such a view, which attempts to conceive of nature 

 as a chain of essences, both in the reciprocal relations of her forces, and in 

 her internal developments ; but, if man himself is a member of nature, if 

 he is the highest member in the order of natural beings, that member 

 which presents the most complete unison of all the phases of life in nature, 

 — then all his knowledge of nature must be connected with his knowledge 

 of himself. However meanly we may estimate this knowledge at the pre- 

 sent stage of psychological science, still it is sufficient to assure man of his 

 own " ego." And if man is justified in regarding himself as a human being, 

 by analogy he is justified in regarding his relations, the animals, in the 

 same manner, as animal beings; plants as vegetable beings; and every 

 single animal, every single plant, as an individual being (even though in- 

 cluded in a higher entity). To attain a unity of idea in Natural History, 

 man must apply this idea farther down in the scale of nature, and must 

 regard minerals, even the elements themselves, as beings of their own 

 kind. But the materialist will reply. Individual beings are only the ele- 

 mentary substance : all other beings, so called, are formed by a temporary 

 composition and cooperation of these. But who has seen these elements 

 of chemical combinations, as elements, or has proved then- existence in any 

 way ? But even if they should exist as such, is it not conceivable that a 

 higher being should include the lower beings? We say, hydrogen and 

 oxygen form water ; but it would do as well to say, water forms itself out 

 of hydrogen and oxygen. The elements do not form the plant; the plant 

 forms its body out of the elements. We may declare both these views to 

 be hypotheses ; but of hypotheses that is preferable which is nearest to 

 man, — I would almost say, most necessary to man's nature, when he pro- 

 ceeds from the data of his own existence. Shall the elements have a 

 stronger claim to be acknowledged as real existences than man himself? 

 Or will any one say that it is a more daring hypothesis to assume that man 

 thinks ; that brutes move themselves ; that plants themselves produce the 

 determinate form of their organism, than to suppose that elementary sub- 

 stances in their connexions and cooperations produce the phaenomena of 

 thought, voluntary motion, and typical conformation ? But after all, is it 

 not true that the elementary substance is everywhere present ? that without 

 it none of the phaenomena just mentioned can occur ? Certainly this is so ; 

 the higher stages cannot be realized without the lower, which enable them 

 to exist ; but these higher stages can never be explained by, and compre- 

 hended in, the lower. No one, as yet, has shown even the shadow of a 

 possibility of explaining, from the things themselves merely, why the ele- 



17* 



