228 BIOLOGY. 



B. jEther Organs. 



THYRSUS OR FLOWER. 



1160. Hitherto we have regarded the plant as simply 

 a planetary organism, namely, as a trunk with water-, 

 earth-, and air-organ. But the primary vesicle does not 

 lie wholly in the dark, but is illuminated upon its apex 

 by the sun. Every operation, however, produces its like ; 

 thus in the plant a light-organ must also be developed. 

 As the light evokes heat in the aether, so also does it 

 evoke a heat-organ in the plant. As the heavenly bodies 

 corevolve in aether by means of light and motion, or the 

 gravitation condenses the aether into matter, so also must 

 an organ of gravity originate also in the plant. These 

 organs are not, however, predominant in the plant, be- 

 cause it is essentially planet or vegetable trunk. They 

 can be therefore nothing else than the parts of the trunk 

 itself with the properties of the aether or fire. They are 

 thus a repetition of the trunk, wherein, in place of the 

 material processes of growth, those of the light, heat, 

 and gravity occur. The light- organ excites the heat- 

 organ by polarization unto motion and thereby originates 

 the organ of gravity. 



1161. The process in which through polar tension the 

 trunk, as being the Whole in miniature, has been re- 

 produced, is called sexual process. The aether-organs 

 are thus sexual organs. These sexual organs can only 

 be a leaf-formation, because the last development of the 

 stem is the leaf. The leaf-formations which, by means 

 of polar tension, reproduce the trunk, are the Flower. 

 The light-organ is the corolla. The heat-organ is ihepistil. 

 The organ of gravity the seed. The pollen upon the 

 stigma sets the pistil in a state of tension with the trunk, 

 whereby the sap, out of which the seed attains to per- 

 fection, ascends. Without this tension the pistil would 

 not have had strength sufficient to perfect the seed. It 

 would wither ere the latter had obtained sufficient nou- 

 rishment. 



