Carl Gustav Carus

“ If we now cast a look on that universal nature which surrounds us, the endless multiplicity of its phænomena is indisputably manifest; and as it would be an absurdity to imagine a highest number to which another number cannot be added, we can fix the limits of nature nowhere, either in the great or in the small, because the infinite divisibility of each would lead again to infinity. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Proceeding from this general view to the consideration of single beings, we perceive that all those individuals, so far as they are integrant parts of universal nature, must partake more or less of its essential properties,—that whatever is essential to the one must be partially repeated in the other. Every natural being must therefore appear, like nature in general, partly as a unity (in which light only it is an individual) , and partly as a multiplicity, in which light it is infinitely divisible [1] , and its action and reaction upon the different other individuals may also be infinite. ”

“ We now turn our attention to animal sensation, in order to observe the difference between it and the receptivity of the plant. The animal, containing within itself the organism of the plant, its organic functions must, like those of the plant, be liable to be modified by external influences. This property in the plant we have termed irritability, because irritation immediately causes and calls forth re-action. In the animal, however, the nervous life (as the expression and type of unity, which embraces all the parts of the organism and forms them into a whole.) ”

“ Since the addition of the idea of unity constitutes the perfect idea of an organism, just as thickness, added to length and breadth, constitutes the idea of a body, it is evident that the unity of the animal body presents and affords in reality a perfect idea of an individual organism. We have already observed that the peculiarities of vegetable life may very well be collectively ascribed to its want of inward self-independence; in a similar way we may deduce all the peculiarities of the animal organism already alluded to, from the idea of perfect unity which is characteristic of animal life. ”

“ The fourth consequence is, that as unity is the characteristic peculiarity of an organism, there must exist, because of the greater multiplicity of its form, a bond which, while it again unites that multitude, exhibits that relationship to a common centre which accords with its organization. However, since the animal presents two sides, a higher one, turned toward the outer world, and peculiarly animal, and a lower one, turned into itself, destined for reproduction, and so far purely vegetative, the above bond must likewise of necessity be twofold, and bear a particular relation to each side. ”

“ Consequence the first.—If the plant, exposed alike to gravitation and light, is divided into root and stem, into a terrestrial and an atmospheric part, the animal, being more independent, is less bound to the organism of the planet to which it originally belongs, and is consequently more under the influence of light; wherefore, though sometimes fettered to the earth, it is by no means fixed or rooted in it, to which circumstance it owes its faculty of locomotion. ”

“ Comparing animal with planetary life, we are therefore led to conclude, that as a homogeneous fluid, in continual circulation, the blood, is the source in which all forms and reproductions of the organism originate, so is water one of the members most important to the life of the earth. This internal life of the fluid becomes indeed more evident when we consider the individual formations of the solid to which it gives birth. The most striking illustration of this is the process of crystallization, which exhibits a near approach of the inorganic to the organic life ”

“ Now, as in an animal a piece of bone, muscle, or skin, and in a plant a fragment of the wood, leaf, or fruit, may be considered as organic, but cannot be called an organism, all substances, except plants and animals, observable in and upon the body of the earth, so far indeed as they are parts of the terrestrial organism, are to be regarded as organic and as parts of a living thing, but not as organisms possessing an independent life. ”

“ Hence it follows that the irritability of the plant stands in the same relation to animal sensibility, as its own physical receptivity stands to its irritability. While the plant therefore, from being indebted for its own movements to the influence of external causes, approaches more nearly to universal nature, and is therefore further separated from animal life, to which it approximates again in the inclining of the stamina towards the stigma, this movement, though independent of its own will, originates in an attraction inherent in the plant itself. ”

“ If we call to our recollection the history of the primitive formation of the rudiments of organic bodies in the green matter of Priestley, and see in this the conditions of this formation,—whilst, under the influence of light and gravitation, some particles of the original fluid attain the nature of individual beings, as well as a tendency to internal unity, and consequently a globular form,—it becomes clear that this development cannot occur without a separation of those particles from the rest, without an individual limitation in form of a spherical surface ”

“ As the plant may be considered a crystal continually developing itself in a constant change of its matter, in like manner the living animal body so nearly represents a plant which has reached a higher unity and faculty of self-determination, that although the animal still remains a part of a higher unity, and is closely bound to the earth by the necessities of life, yet this hold taken of the animal as compared with that taken of the plant, is even less in degree than that which we observe in the plant as compared with the unorganized body. ”

“ The great elementary masses of the earth are formed and governed by many powers, among which we may distinguish those which relate to the individual preservation of the planet, from those which originate in other heavenly bodies. Of the former the most remarkable is Gravitation, which manifests itself as the immediate principle of internal unity, the sensible tendency of all parts of the earth to a common centre, and therefore to an ideal unity, since according to Euclid no point can be represented materially. ”

“ This desire has its origin in a most distinct conviction that without such knowledge no real harmony, no true internal equilibrium can be conceived to exist in man, and that nature and he must therefore stand as two eternally separated beings. But a feeling that things are separated which at the same moment exist in and through each other, is totally incompatible with that internal repose which, as we ourselves are one, is to be found not in the sense of separation but in the consciousness of unity. ”

“ But our purpose demands a particular examination of the relation of water to the other atmospherical and terrestrial substances, more particularly because it forms, as we shall show, the most essential link between organized and unorganized bodies, or rather the constant source from which the former arise. Water considered in its threefold form, as solid, fluid, and gaseous, presents a true middle and connecting member between the planet and its atmosphere. ”

“ On the contrary, life is necessarily the original principle, and the body one of its particular phænomena, conceived therefore not as permanent but as perpetually changing; and this idea of it is conveyed in the term formation, inasmuch as it signifies a thing not only formed but forming itself. We know, for example, that the human body after a series of years is a very different thing from what it was at an earlier period; nay, that the body of the adult does not contain even a single atom of that which constituted the fœtus ”

“ From all this we are finally led to infer the universal connexion, the combination, the never-ceasing action and reaction of all the powers of nature, sometimes in sympathy, sometimes in antipathy, as necessary to the production of an immeasurably vast and magnificent whole,—an action and reaction which would be impossible, were not all originally pervaded by one living principle, were not all in this respect similar and allied to each other. ”

“ Whilst the root, penetrating more deeply in the direction of the earth, spreads itself with uniformity, the plant elevates itself more and more into the light, and attains a more delicate and perfect organization ”

“ But the egg itself must be considered as the original animal, as the infusorial creature, appearing in the globular or primary form of animal life, and, like the seed of the plant, containing ideally within itself the whole animal, which, under given external circumstances, it develops really out of itself. Recent observations have shown that the first rudiment of the embryo is formed on the inner surface of the hollow globe of the egg, by folding or turning inwardly a part of the integuments of the egg ”

“ 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 nothing but a repetition of the chemical attraction and repulsion observed in unorganized matter. ”

“ If we now reflect likewise how in the Infusoria and Priestley's matter, the rudiments of the animal kingdom appear as so many animated globuli, we shall thence perceive that the largest animal bodies themselves must be viewed as an innumerable aggregate of Infusoria, but at the same time united into a living whole. It is moreover worthy of remark, that very essential differences present themselves in respect to the primary formation of the animal body in its different systems. ”

“ So again we find that the animal kingdom maintains the most active relation with the vegetable life and with the elements of the earth and of the air. We see coral rocks and islands raised from the bottom of the sea by animated beings apparently insignificant, which, existing before the creation of Adam, now elevate their lofty tops as mountains of the continent; we see the animal kingdom penetrating into parts of the earth seemingly impenetrable to all living creatures [25] ”

“ Although, as has been shown already, the idea of life is in full and perfect accordance with universal nature, and consequently no natural body can, in this general view, be accounted anything more than a living member of the whole, yet there is a vast difference perceptible between individuals, inasmuch as the collective idea of life, a life proper to themselves, manifests itself in some, while others are less independent and can be recognised only as necessary parts of other individuals. ”

“ The osseous system is developed uniformly with that of the nerves, and issues out of the vertebral column, as the nervous system does out of the spinal marrow; whilst the vertebral column forms at first but an isolating sheath around the latter, as an earthly substance most powerfully attracted by the nervous system, acting like the sun, and for the most part antagonistically upon the other parts of the body. In a somewhat similar manner, among falling bodies of different specific gravities, the heaviest will always lie undermost and nearest to the attracting centre of the earth. ”

“ We may hope now to have attained the object of the present essay, if, by throwing some new light upon certain aspects of infinite nature which have hitherto remained less observed, we have awakened a new attention to the indissoluble union as well as the beauty and regularity of the phænomena surrounding man and existing within him; and as the contemplation of these must necessarily stimulate us, not only to penetrate more deeply into the mysteries of science, but also to conform our own inward life to that harmony and purity which are presented by universal nature ”

“ It was, no doubt, owing to this circumstance, that many a truth which presented itself almost unveiled to the pure and unsophisticated feeling of the genuine children of nature remained a hidden mystery to the sages of mankind. ”

“ 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 account more a whole in itself, hence we know why the plant is from necessity more closely connected with the organism of the earth than the animal ”