ABSTRACT
The geological organism is devoid of ideality, for it is the bare system of shape. The growth which predominates in vegetable being is therefore self-augmentation as a change of form. The planetary process is grasped in its two aspects: as the absorbing action of the wood-fibres, and as the action whereby the sap in the life-vessels acquires a vegetable nature. In plants, the generic process is formal, and it is only in the animal organism that it assumes its true significance. The plant assimilates the other being into itself as it grows, but as self-multiplication, this assimilation is also a self-emergence. Goethe has ingeniously represented the unity of the plant as a spiritual gradation. Metamorphosis does not account for the whole; the difference of formations also has to be considered, and it is here that the special process of life first makes its appearance. From this it has been concluded that excessive nutrition hinders the inflorescence of a plant.
