314 The Vegetable Individual, in its relation to Species. 
cordance with this idea, we regard external development as the 
revelation of the internal essence, which exhibits its purport in 
the processes it undergoes in connexion with the world without 
it, and whose realization is thus produced by a determinate sphere 
patiintion, This leads us to the aaa made at a arya 
ical determination of the vegetable individual. The usual defi- 
nition, and one entirely in accordance with the physiological 
point of view, is that an individual is a perfect representative 
of the character of the species, possessing all the functions neces- 
sary to the continuance of the species. Now if we would con- 
ceive of a physiological individual, in the broadest meaning of 
the term, we should certainly be compelled to demand that our 
conception should be such as to exhibit not only single phases, 
but all the phases of the specific life during its entire develop- 
conceivable that a higher being hauls mente the lower beings? We say: hydrogen 
d oxygen form water; but it would do as well to say, water forms itself out of 
of od meee aap is “Pst which & is cc to man,— 
necessary t when he proceeds from the data of his own existence. Shall 
the elements I Dats 4 ast ree claim to be acknowledged as real existences than man 
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hended ne, as yet, ha even 
of a poss bility of peor from the things themselves merely, why the ele- 
seomey pa i: form a mineral kingdom, a vegetable kingdom, an animal king- 
dom And why do they not fulfill their task after an e eternal immutable 
manner, since eg a fulfillment is one of their necessary, eternal, and immutable prop- 
erties! Why have ois succeeded in composi; 
sal epoch ? ‘ Why have they not from eternity produced in man’s brain the e- 
ory of their actions, and thus, in accordance wlth their et. eternally man anifested 
lorified themselves? The mo st industrious in inv into vio relations of 
It would be a strange contradiction, if the investigation of realms 
into which the human mind can gt ie rob us paves rat i nearest 
surest, the ir Spe rg a nt investiga But he 
who has not he foundations of 
pret 
pa ee 
