234 DR. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, 
stance to the real, or that which is the condition of the phzenomena of 
nature, this eternal substance causes by a continual metamorphosis 
the appearance and disappearance, the perpetual change of natural 
‘objects; a real creation and annihilation being as inconceivable as a 
limit to universal nature. 
Of the Organic Kingdom. 
The animal stands in the same relation to the vegetable kingdom as 
organized bodies in general do to the unorganized, that is, as unities un- 
folding themselves into multiplicity ; for as in the activity of individual 
terrestrial organisms we observe not merely a power peculiar to them as 
organisms, viz. organic life, but likewise that activity which appertains 
to them as parts of universal nature, viz. physical life, gravitation, che- 
mical properties, &c.: so also we find in the animal kingdom, besides 
the life peculiar to animals, the properties peculiar to vegetation. But 
further, according to our previous inquiries, so little difference can we 
trace between the unorganized and the organized in their essence and 
their various relations, that the organized merely presents the unorga- 
nized body in higher power, and in closer unity, and in more perfect 
independence. In like manner the absolute and essential difference 
between an animal and a plant is so little, that the animal is to be con- 
sidered only as a plant which has attained a more complete unity, inde- 
pendence, freedom, and power; which will be more satisfactorily proved 
in the following pages, where we intend to submit the life of plants, as 
well as that of animals, to a closer examination. 
The Vegetable Kingdom. 
Speaking of the crystal, we stated that it forms itself by an inward 
living principle, but that when formed it appears deprived of indivi- 
dual life; whilst organisms, on the contrary, (though to be considered 
as in a state of continual transformation and growth,) first manifest 
‘their real life when they are completely developed: In the same manner 
we may say of the plant when compared with the animal, that though 
the plant be in one view formed in order to live, yet even when deve- 
loped it strives only after a progressive organic formation and real 
development as the highest aim of its life; whilst, on the other hand, the 
whole end of the activity of animal life is not mere organie formation, 
‘but also free self-determination and ideal development. A proposition 
which may be also thus briefly expressed : If in universal nature, and in 
every individual that forms a part of the universe, we must distinguish 
between the internal unity or law, and external multiplicity or sen- 
sible phenomena, we find that in the plant the multiplicity overbalances 
the unity; in the animal, on the contrary, the unity overbalances the 
multiplicity. But since a body which possesses less unity is thereby more 
precisely marked as an integrant part of a superior whole, and, on the 
contrary, a body possessing greater internal unity appears to be on that 
