ON THE THEORY OF VEGETABLE SPIRALS. 365 



merit in the life of the plant; but what is true of such series 

 must, we can hardly doubt, be true of all. We can hardly look 

 at figure (2), in which the spiral T 8 ^ is represented, without seeing 



Fig. 2. 



at its base the primitive phyton with its two leaves and radicle : 

 nor having got thus far not to remember that the laws of vege- 

 table spirals are simply the result of their capability of division, 

 and that the ideal division of the spiral is only a type of the 

 actual division of the cell. The Monad, said the Neo-platonists, 

 produced the Duad, and the Duad all things. 



4. Maxims .of this kind may well be called ' oracula mentis;' 

 they envelope the truth rather than express it, and like oracles 

 do not teach us how we are to interpret them. They conse- 

 quently resemble oracles in this also, that for the most part those 

 who are guided by them are led astray. For it is difficult to 

 resist the sort of charm which philosophical dicta possess when 

 having reached the boundary land between the finite and the 

 infinite, they pass into the region of poetry*. In thinking, for 



* See W. von Humboldt on the "Bhagavad Gita." 



