Dr. A. Braun on the Vegetable Individual. 249 



of them, that is, when exclusively applied to their solution. That 

 which is eternally necessary can only be conceived as eternally 

 carried out ; and thus any real event becomes an absurdity. If 

 the " mechanical " (physical and chemical) forces of nature are 

 necessarily active, then if any motion is to take place, the first 

 impulse, the proximate cause, cannot be explained by the nature 

 of the motion ; it must be another principle above necessity ; and 

 this is true not only of nature as a whole, but also of every par- 

 ticular motion in nature as well. Thus not only the first impulse, 

 but the universally apparent final cause, remains an inexplicable 

 riddle in the doctrine of blind necessity. Hence the insuffi- 

 ciency of the " physical " theory, compared with the " teleolo- 

 gical *, " is peculiarly ol'vious in the realms of organic nature, 

 where the final cause of each particular life appears so distinctly. 

 The advocates of the physical view perceive this ; but they ex- 

 plain the fitness of means to ends in nature as a whole, and in 

 its individual parts, by supposing matter, with its blind forces, 

 to have been created by an intelligent Beingf. But we can 

 regard this as a germ of an explanation only in proportion as it 

 is also granted, that the intellect of the Creator lies not only be- 

 hind and without nature and her processes of development, but 

 that, as if incorporated in nature, it is taken into the destiny of 

 each created being, in proportion to its individuality. But this 

 again presupposes the admission of a substantiality of nature fit 

 for such an hypothesis; — a substantiality not grounded on mere 

 matter, like a blind force; but which, on the contrary, must 

 comprehend matter as subordinate to itself, and must realize 

 itself through matter : — an assumption which modifies the phy- 

 sical view essentially, and would seem to be a modification of 

 some ideal, or teleological theory. 



Without underrating the great importance which the physical 

 view possesses for vegetable physiology, still we must confess 

 that we cannot find in it the key to a conception of vegetable 

 individuality ; for, after all, this must be sought for, not in the 

 external conformation, but in the essence of the plant, determined 



* Cf. Schwann, Microscopische Untersuchungen iiber die Ueberein- 

 stimraung in der Structur u. d. Wachsthum d. Thiere u. Pflanzen (1839), 

 especially p. 221-225; on the other side, Eschricht, D. Physische Leben 

 (1852), in sections ii. and iii. 



t " The fitness of means to ends, in every organism, even a superior de- 

 gree of this individual fitness, cannot be denied ; but in this (the physical) 

 view, the cause of the fitness does not consist in the fact that every organ- 

 ism is produced by an individual force tending towards a certain end, but, 

 like the cause of the fitness of means to ends in the organic world, that 

 matter is the creation of an intelligent Being." Schwann, I. c. p. 221, and, 

 in almost the same words, p. 224. 



Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xvi. 17 



