234 DH. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, 



stance to the real, or that which is the condition of the phaenomena of 

 nature, this eternal substance causes by a continual metamorphosis 

 the appearance and disappearance, the perpetual change of natural 

 objects ; a real creation and annihilation being as inconceivable as a 

 limit to universal nature. 



Of the Organic Kingdom. 

 The animal stands in the same relation to the vegetable kingdom as 

 organized bodies in general do to the unorganized, that is, as unities un- 

 folding themselves into multiplicity ; for as in the activity of individual 

 terrestrial organisms we observe not merely a power peculiar to them as 

 organisms, viz. organic life, but likewise that activity which appertains 

 to them as parts of universal nature, viz. physical life, gravitation, che- 

 mical properties, &c.: so also we find in the animal kingdom, besides 

 the life peculiar to animals, the properties peculiar to vegetation. But 

 further, according to our previous inquiries, so little difference can we 

 trace between the unorganized and the organized in their essence and 

 their various relations, that the organized merely presents the unorga- 

 nized body in higher power, and in closer unity, and in more perfect 

 independence. In like manner the absolute and essential difference 

 between an animal and a plant is so little, that the animal is to be con- 

 sidered only as a plant which has attained a more complete unity, inde- 

 pendence, freedom, and power; which will be more satisfactorily proved 

 in the following pages, where we intend to submit the life of plants, as 

 well as that of animals, to a closer examination. 



The Vegetable Kingdom. 

 Speaking of the crystal, we stated that it forms itself by an inward 

 living principle, but that when formed it appears deprived of indivi- 

 dual life ; whilst organisms, on the contrary, (though to be considered 

 as in a state of continual transformation and growth,) first manifest 

 their real life when they are completely developed : In the same manner 

 we may say of the plant when compared with the animal, that though 

 the plant be in one view formed in order to live, yet even when deve- 

 loped it strives only after a progressive organic formation and real 

 development as the highest aim of its life ; whilst, on the other hand, the 

 whole end of the activity of animal life is not mere organic formation, 

 but also free self-determination and ideal development. A proposition 

 which may be also thus briefly expressed : If in universal nature, and in 

 every individual that forms a part of the universe, we must distinguish 

 between the internal unity or law, and external multiplicity or sen- 

 sible phaenomena, we find that in the plant the multiplicity overbalances 

 the unity ; in the animal, on the contrary, the unity overbalances the 

 multiplicity. But since a body which possesses less unity is thereby more 

 precisely marked as an integrant part of a superior whole, and, on the 

 contrary, a body possessing greater internal unity appears to be on that 



