1498. Indefiniteness in form, size and number, is the character of the plant, although a law lies at the basis of all this. The animal has a definite size, because several animals do not grow around each other.
III.—PHYTOLOGY.
1499. Hitherto the organs of the plant have been considered in a general point of view or as to their idea in time; to this now follows the development of the plant in a special sense, or its representation in space.
1500. The vegetable tissues, systems, and organs have only by degrees been disengaged from each other and independently perfected. The independent or self-substantial development of the organs constitutes definite or individual plants.
1501. A plant, in which all the organs are present, separately or self-substantially developed and yet combined, is without doubt the highest in point of rank.
1502. Before it attains to this separation, nature can only produce lower forms, in which fewer organs have attained to independence. These forms constitute the diversity of plants and their plurality, for nature establishes every principal form as a finished organization.
1503. There are as many plants different from each other as there are organs, namely, tissues, anatomical systems and members.
1504. The sum of all plants is called the vegetable kingdom; this is the self-substantial representation of all vegetable organs. (Ed. 1st, 1810, p. 123.)
1505. The vegetable kingdom is consequently the expression of the vegetable idea, or of the perfect plant represented in the multiplicity of individuals; it is the plant disintegrated, or anatomised, by nature herself.
1506. Were we therefore acquainted with all vegetable organs, we should know their rank and developmental series; and thus also recognize the character, rank, and developmental series of the plants themselves, or their divisions. There can be no doubt that the lowest organs, e. g. the tissues, have been first developed and independently perfected as plants; later on they separate into anatomical systems and finally into members, whereby perfect plants must originate. The division or classification of the vegetable kingdom is consequently that of the vegetable organs. The Systematic of plants is a copy of that of their organs, or a plastic representation of the philosophical vegetable anatomy. With this every thing has been granted, which is requisite for the building or erection of the vegetable system. All principles, together with the methods, rest in the proposition that has been expressed.