252 Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 



cordance with this idea, we regard external development as the 

 revelation of the internal essence, which exhibits its purport in 

 the processes it undergoes in connexion with the world without 

 it, and whose realization is thus produced by a determinate 

 sphere of activities, necessary for such a realization, then, vice 

 versa, we may infer the essential unity of each particular sphere 

 of development from the complete unity of the functions rela- 

 ting to this realization. This leads us to the attempts made at 

 a physiological determination of the vegetable individual. The 

 usual definition, and one entirely in accordance with the physio- 

 logical point of view, is that an individual is a perfect represen- 

 tative of the character of the species, possessing all the functions 

 necessary to the continuance of the species. Now if we would 

 conceive of a physiological individual, in the broadest meaning 

 of the term, we should certainly be compelled to demand that 

 our conception should be such as to exhibit not only single 

 phases, but all the phases of the specific life during its entire 

 development ; that it should realize all the capabilities of the 

 specific being, and thus present to us the whole plan, the whole 

 destiny of the species. If we examine the preceding conclusions 

 from this point of view, it will be evident that single cells can- 

 not be such individuals ; for, although the whole construction of 

 the plant and all the functions of its life are carried on by means 

 of the cells, still, viewed as a connected whole, the cells are only 

 single stones, single elements, in the great mechanism of the 



mentary particles form a mineral kingdom, a vegetable kingdom, an animal 

 kingdom, and man. And why do they not fulfil their task after an eternal, 

 immutable manner, since such a fulfilment is one of their necessary, eter- 

 nal, and immutable properties ? Why have they succeeded in composing 

 man only in the most recent geological epoch ? Why have they not from 

 eternity produced in man's brain the theory of their actions, and thus, in 

 accordance with their eternity, eternally manifested and glorified them- 

 selves ? The most industrious investigations into the relations of the phy- 

 sical world promise us a deeper insight into the regular connexions of all 

 the parts of nature; into the cunning mechanism which carries on and 

 upholds all natural life. Still, a key to the interior of this structure, and an 

 admission to the essence of plastic nature in her operations, cannot be found 

 by our investigations, if, by presumptuous hypotheses, they debar us from 

 the higher realms of development, especially those of organic nature and 

 of human life. Flesh and blood are hypotheses ; but mind is truth, says a 

 well-known writer ; and Des Cartes could find a proof of his own existence 

 and of that of the world around him in his mind alone. It would be a 

 strange contradiction, if the investigation of the most distant realms into 

 which the human mind can penetrate should rob us of what is nearest and 

 surest, the intellectual ego itself, the starting-point of all investigations. 

 But he who has not recognized the foundations of the spiritual world in 

 nature itself, must of consequence deny their existence in man, if he would 

 not lose, in an inexpUcable dualism, the hope of obtaining coherent views 

 of nature. 



