226 DR. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, 



ble*, and its action and reaction upon the different other individuals may 

 also be infinite. At the same time it still further appears that such an 

 individual approaches more nearly to general nature in proportion as 

 the multiplicity manifesting itself in its unity is more comprehensive 

 and striking. A substance therefore (a geometrical body, for instance,) 

 which is merely mvdtiform and infinitely divisible in space but immu- 

 table in time, has far less claim to this affinity than a body, such as that 

 of a plant or an animal, which changes in time also because of its con- 

 tinued growth and progress toward an independent life. Although, as 

 has been shown already, the idea of life is in full and perfect accord- 

 ance with universal nature, and consequently no natural body can, in 

 this general view, be accounted anything more than a living member of 

 the whole, yet there is a vast difference percejjtible between individuals, 

 inasmuch as the collective idea of life, a life proper to themselves, ma- 

 nifests itself in some, while others are less independent and can be re- 

 cognised only as necessary parts of other individuals. 



Now it is clear that the idea of life and that of an organism are es- 

 sentially the same ; for any unity that continually develops itself in- 

 wardly and outwardly into a real multiplicity is named — so far as it pro- 

 duces means, that is to say, instruments or organs suited to its own de- 

 velopment — an organism or organized body, and everything belonging 

 to it is termed organic. Its action is therefore named organic life, and 

 that which is generated in space by this living action the organic body. 

 Universal nature is consequently to be considered as the highest, the 

 most complete, the original organism ; and in nature those individuals 

 only are to be called organisms which, as unities under certain external 

 conditions, that is in their relation to other natural unities, continually de- 

 velop themselves inwardly and outwardly into a real multiplicity. Among 

 such organisms the most prominent are those bodies which, including 

 our planet, constitute the system of the universe, and display them- 

 selves in continual motion and formation ; those on our planet consist 

 of plants and animals. 



Now, as in an animal a piece of bone, muscle, or skin, and in a 

 plant a fragment of the wood, leaf, or fruit, may be considered as or- 

 ganic, but cannot be called an organism, all substances, except plants and 

 animals, observable in and upon the body of the earth, so far indeed as 

 they are parts of the terrestrial organism, are to be regarded as organic 

 and as parts of a living thing, but not as organisms possessing an inde- 

 pendent life. 



According tc this view we must include among those things which 

 do not as unities develop themselves into multiplicity, — that is, among 



* [An investigation of this part of the subject will be found in a paper " On 

 the Origin and Production of Matter, and on its alleged Infinite Divijsibilily," 

 in the Philosophical Magazine, First Series, vol. Ixii. p. 360, et seq. See also 

 vol. Ixiii. p. 372. — Edit.] 



