THEIR LIFE AND AFFINITY. t 239 
mushrooms, ferns, &c., produce their seeds immediately without the 
aid of the male stamina, and this circumstance accords with their tex- 
ture, which is merely composed of cellular tissue. On the other hand, 
the male stamina, containing a generating life-imparting principle, that 
is, the operation of light, come nearer to animal nature. This view is 
in perfect accordance with the power of motion which is often to be 
observed in these parts, as well as with the very probable hypothesis, 
that the cause of the scent and of the colour of flowers may be 
traced to the elements of the male pollen*, which is contained in 
their leaves. We have already stated that the seed itself being an 
indifference emanating from this highest polarity, contains the most 
concentrated image of the bud. As it has thus within itself in idea 
the whole organism of the plant, it is capable of reproducing in reality 
the whole plant out of itself. 
Proceeding from this short survey of the principal phenomena of the 
development of plants to a further examination of their active manifes- 
tation of life, we shall find that even in this respect the vegetable king- 
dom, as a part of universal life, is connected with inorganic nature. It 
has been already observed that the life of the plant consists chiefly in 
the formation of its organs; whence it follows, that its most essential 
and fundamental activity manifests itself in the process of assimilation 
and secretion, as well as in the circulation of the sap, which is no- 
thing but a repetition of the chemical attraction and repulsion ob- 
served in unorganized matter. But since the circulation of the sap 
is not effected by any independent peculiar organ of circulation, (such, 
for instance, as a kind of heart,) we must suppose this movement to be, 
like the ebbing and flowing of the tides, the effect of a certain attrac- 
tion, partly originating in the structure of the plant, and partly in its 
external relations; unless we should prefer ascribing it entirely to the 
motion of fluids in capillary vessels, that is, in other words, to the laws 
of capillary attraction. But the laws of capillarity have surely but a 
limited influence in this case: capillarity may indeed enable us to ex- 
plain the phenomenon of the rising of fluids, but not their progres- 
sive motion, and still less the flowing off of the sap when the plant 
is cut or injured ; because a capillary tube never can overflow, and that 
for the very cause which makes fluids ascend, namely, their adhesion to 
the inner surface of the vessel. Hence, although capillary attraction 
has some share in the circulation of the plant, it is evident that this 
depends upon some higher cause. It has been already shown that the 
polarity of the plant between root and flower, which depends on the 
‘elementary polarity between gravitation and light, is also visible in the 
relation of the functions of both those parts, the root being particularly 
adapted to attraction and absorption, but less fit for secretion, and the 
* Goethe’s Morphologie, p. 23. 
