1S4 THEORY OF THE 



tius, " in their essence, and only differ according to 

 the intensity of their metamorphosis." 



Von Martius farther instructs us, that every plant 

 possesses two living forces, one vertical, the other 

 spiral; by the action of which forces the plant is 

 formed. By the action of the vertical force, the root 

 goes down, and the stem rises up ; and by the spiral 

 force, the leaves, both in their natural state and in their 

 disguised forms of flowers and fruit, are wound about 

 the stem in spiral whirls. As soon then as a plant 

 begins to grow, a series of leaves winds upwards 

 around the stem in a spiral direction, and hence a 

 whole plant is considered to consist of nothing more 

 than a vertical axis, and a spiral of leaves. 



The whole fancy well accords with, if it have not 

 sprung out of, the speculative theory of what is termed 

 unity by the German mystics, a phantom as unreal as 

 the philosopher's stone. On their principle of unity, 

 they maintain that the same phenomena ocjur in every 

 individual thing, and in every part of it, however dif- 

 ferent it may appear, otherwise the unity would not 

 be maintained. Dr. Carus, for example, tells us that 

 the liver and the kidneys, in animals, are mere repeti- 

 tions of the lungs, and consequently are in reality lungs, 

 in the same way as we have just seen flowers and fruit 

 asserted to be repetitions of leaves. The spiral whirls 

 again are said to depend on the general law of polarity, 

 which consists of motion round an axis. 



It will render the theory more obvious to exhibit 

 the sketch of a plant conforming to its announce- 

 ments : 



