ble[1], and its action and reaction upon the different other individuals may also be infinite. At the same time it still further appears that such an individual approaches more nearly to general nature in proportion as the multiplicity manifesting itself in its unity is more comprehensive and striking. A substance therefore (a geometrical body, for instance,) which is merely multiform and infinitely divisible in space but immutable in time, has far less claim to this affinity than a body, such as that of a plant or an animal, which changes in time also because of its continued growth and progress toward an independent life. 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.
Now it is clear that the idea of life and that of an organism are essentially the same; for any unity that continually develops itself inwardly and outwardly into a real multiplicity is named—so far as it produces means, that is to say, instruments or organs suited to its own development—an organism or organized body, and everything belonging to it is termed organic. Its action is therefore named organic life, and that which is generated in space by this living action the organic body. Universal nature is consequently to be considered as the highest, the most complete, the original organism; and in nature those individuals only are to be called organisms which, as unities under certain external conditions, that is in their relation to other natural unities, continually develop themselves inwardly and outwardly into a real multiplicity. Among such organisms the most prominent are those bodies which, including our planet, constitute the system of the universe, and display themselves in continual motion and formation; those on our planet consist of plants and animals.
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.
According to this view we must include among those things which do not as unities develop themselves into multiplicity,—that is, among
- ↑ [An investigation of this part of the subject will be found in a paper "On the Origin and Production of Matter, and on its alleged Infinite Divisibility," in the Philosophical Magazine, First Series, vol. lxii. p. 360, et seq. See also vol. lxiii. p. 372.—Edit.]
