218 THE BIOCOSMOS PARTICULARIZED. 



stage is that of difference, of separation, of 

 battle ever won and ever renewed. 



On the one hand the Plant has to seize and 

 assimilate earthy matter, water, and air, all 

 of which are heavy and gravitate, and so may 

 be regarded from this viewpoint as the strict- 

 ly cosmical contribution to vegetal life. On 

 the other hand the Plant must employ and 

 assimilate heat, light, electricity, and chem- 

 ism, making its own the energies which de- 

 gravitate and are diacosmical. How the Plant 

 unites in its process of assimilation these 

 two basic elements of Nature (Cosmos and 

 Diacosmos) and makes them constituents of 

 Life (Biocosmos) is to be seen more fully 

 later. Here, then, the Inorganic, in its two 

 great stages is transformed into the Organic. 

 Hence also organs begin to appear with their 

 organism, which is now the vegetal, the first 

 and less complete, not well centered (as is the 

 animal). It has no sensation (or very little) ; 

 it does not feel itself, or determine its own 

 process but is determined thereto from the 

 outside. Still it has its round of assimila- 

 tion : the organs give out their energy to re- 

 gain what they give out. 



The Plant gets its food and its force from 

 the outside, food from the Earth and force 

 from the Sun as radiant. The Animal on the 

 contrary gets its food and force from the in- 



