THEIR LIFE AND AFFINITY. 239 



musHrooras, ferns, &c., produce their seeds immediately without the 

 aid of the male stamina, and this circumstance accords with their tex- 

 ture, which is merely composed of cellular tissue. On the other hand, 

 the male stamina, containing a generating life-imparting principle, that 

 is, the operation of light, come nearer to animal nature. This view is 

 in perfect accordance with the power of motion which is often to be 

 observed in these parts, as well as with the very probable hypothesis, 

 that the cause of the scent and of the colour of flowers may be 

 traced to the elements of the male pollen*, which is contained in 

 their leaves. We have already stated that the seed itself being an 

 indifference emanating from this highest polarity, contains the most 

 concentrated image of the bud. As it has thus within itself in idea 

 the whole organism of the plant, it is capable of reproducing in reality 

 the whole plant out of itself. 



Proceeding from this short survey of the principal phsenomena of the 

 development of plants to a further examination of their active manifes- 

 tation of life, Ave shall find that even in this respect the vegetable king- 

 dom, as a part of universal life, is connected with inorganic nature. It 

 has been already observed that the life of the plant consists chiefly in 

 the formation of its organs ; whence it follows, that its most essential 

 and fundamental activity manifests itself in the process of assimilation 

 and secretion, as well as in the circulation of the sap, which is no- 

 thing but a repetition of the chemical attraction and repulsion ob- 

 sei"ved in unorganized matter. But since the circulation of the sap 

 is not effected by any independent peculiar organ of circulation, (such, 

 for instance, as a kind of heart,) we must suppose this movement to be, 

 like the ebbing and flowing of the tides, the efiect of a certain attrac- 

 tion, partly originating in the structure of the plant, and partly in its 

 external relations ; imless we should prefer ascribing it entirely to the 

 motion of fluids in capillary vessels, that is, in other words, to the laws 

 of capillarj^ attraction. But the laws of capillarity have surely but a 

 limited influence in this case : capillarity may indeed enable us to ex- 

 plain the phaenomenon of the rising of fluids, but not their progres- 

 sive motion, and still less the flowing ofl" of the sap when the plant 

 is cut or injured ; because a capillary tube never can overflow, and that 

 for the very cause which makes fluids ascend, namely, their adhesion to 

 the inner surface of the vessel. Hence, although capillary attraction 

 has some share in the circulation of the plant, it is evident that this 

 depends upon some higher cause. It has been already shown that the 

 polarity of the plant between root and flower, which depends on the 

 elementarj' polarity between gravitation and light, is also visible in the 

 relation of tlie functions of both those j)arts, the root being particularly 

 ada])ted to attraction and absorption, but less fit for secretion, and the 



• Goethe's Morphologie, p. 23. 



