B. Æther Organs.
THYRSUS OR FLOWER.
1160. Hitherto we have regarded the plant as simply a planetary organism, namely, as a trunk with water-, earth-, and air-organ. But the primary vesicle does not lie wholly in the dark, but is illuminated upon its apex by the sun. Every operation, however, produces its like; thus in the plant a light-organ must also be developed. As the light evokes heat in the æther, so also does it evoke a heat-organ in the plant. As the heavenly bodies corevolve in æther by means of light and motion, or the gravitation condenses the æther into matter, so also must an organ of gravity originate also in the plant. These organs are not, however, predominant in the plant, because it is essentially planet or vegetable trunk. They can be therefore nothing else than the parts of the trunk itself with the properties of the æther or fire. They are thus a repetition of the trunk, wherein, in place of the material processes of growth, those of the light, heat, and gravity occur. The light-organ excites the heat-organ by polarization unto motion and thereby originates the organ of gravity.
1161. The process in which through polar tension the trunk has been reproduced, as the Whole in miniature, is called sexual process. The æther-organs are thus sexual organs. These sexual organs can only be a leaf-formation, because the last development of the stem is the leaf. The leaf-formations which, by means of polar tension, reproduce the trunk, are the Flower. The light-organ is the corolla. The heat-organ is the pistil. The organ of gravity the seed. The pollen upon the stigma sets the pistil in a state of tension with the trunk, whereby the sap, out of which the seed attains to perfection, ascends. Without this tension the pistil would not have had strength sufficient to perfect the seed. It would wither ere the latter had obtained sufficient nourishment.
1162. The development of the flower takes place through differentialization, individualization, or complete separation of the trunk-organs. The trunk indeed summons up all power in the leaves, to separate the three vegetable tissues and represent each as a particular organ; only in this formation it does not wholly succeed; for in a leaf the ribs or tracheal fascicles are still held together by cellular tissue. In the first place with the perfect separation of the tissues or, properly speaking, with the ex-organization of each of them unto an independent Whole, the limit of the vegetation is attained and the growth completed. This was the course of the whole of nature; in every system she has proceeded to individual consummation of the factors, to their liberation from chaos; and the developments of the systems were concluded, so soon as all factors became independent, or so soon as every factor had itself become an entire nature. Such was the case in the genesis of elements, and such in the metamorphosis of the earth-element into earths, salts, Inflammables, metals.
1163. This complete severance and individualization can no longer be effected by the air, but must be achieved by the light. The air is itself not the wholly differencing element, but derives its potency only from the light. All ultimate separation and individualization is reserved for the light.
1164. Root and stem are the water-and earth-plant, the leaf is the air-plant, the flower is the light-or rather fire-plant.
1165. In the flower the problem has been solved, of producing an entire plant simply by the light without earth, water, and air, or as it were in a merely spiritual manner.
1166. The plant is a flower that has been posited under three ideas, under the idea of earth, water, and air. As in æther or fire all the elements are dissolved; so are all the elements of the plant in the flower.
1167. The flower is truly, not merely in idea, the whole plant with all systems and formations, posited under a single idea, under that of the æther, namely, of the gravity, light and heat, or the fire.
1168. The flower as the æther-organ of the plant is not so independent as an animal, but subordinated to the planetary systems, being only a separation of the parts of the trunk, not a new formation, as in the animal kingdom.