PLANT-LIFEGENERATION. 237 



of Mendel, have shown strikingly heredity in 

 the Plant from both sides. Also its sexual 

 propagation brings forth characters not ob- 

 tainable by other methods. Still in the Plant 

 sex has by no means reached its destiny. It 

 has, however, something to say, to which we 

 may now listen. 



2. Double Generation of Plant-life. The 

 reproduction of the Plant is now b'i-parental, 

 although the two parents may not be two sep- 

 arate individuals, but two sexual organs or 

 two sets of organs in the one organism. 

 (Hence called also digenetic in sundry bo- 

 tanical books). Thus living Nature has be- 

 gun to manifest in outward shapes her deep- 

 est dualism, that of sex, which, however, 

 drops back into unity in the individual off- 

 spring, though the latter may become many. 

 Our Biocosmos has pushed forward to its 

 supreme separation, which it is always over- 

 coming, yet always reproducing. For the 

 living individual is born with the sexual di- 

 remption upon him ; the higher he is, the pro- 

 founder the chasm, which he still has to 

 bridge in order to continue Ms kind. But 

 floral sexuality is the first quite playful, inno- 

 cent appearance of sex. We might call it 

 paradisaical. 



Two kinds of cells, male and female now 

 appear in the Plant, neither of which (as a 



