Page:Scientific Memoirs, Vol. 1 (1837).djvu/246

234 to the real, or that which is the condition of the phænomena 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.

The animal stands in the same relation to the vegetable kingdom as organized bodies in general do to the unorganized, that is, as unities unfolding 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, chemical 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 unorganized 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 considered only as a plant which has attained a more complete unity, independence, 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.

Speaking of the crystal, we stated that it forms itself by an inward living principle, but that when formed it appears deprived of individual 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 developed 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 organic 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 sensible phænomena, 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