and organic forms in general. I will go further, and maintain that a flower, and this particular flower, could arise in this place only in so far as all other circumstances united to make it possible. But by the union of all these circumstances for its possibility, the actual existence of the flower is in no measure explained to me; and for this I am still compelled to assume a particular, spontaneous, and original power in Nature, and indeed a flower-producing power; for another power of Nature might, under the same circumstances, have produced something entirely different.—I have thus attained to the following view of the Universe.
When I contemplate all things as one whole, one Nature, there is but one power,—when I regard them as separate existences, there are many powers—which develope themselves according to their inward laws, and pass through all the possible forms of which they are capable; and all objects in Nature are but those powers under certain determinate forms. The manifestations of every individual power of Nature are determined, become what they are, partly by its own essential character, and partly through the manifestations of all the other powers of Nature with which it is connected; but it is connected with them all—for Nature is one connected whole. They are, therefore, unalterably determined,—while its essential character remains what it is, and while it continues to manifest itself under these particular circumstances, its manifestations must necessarily be what they are,—and it is absolutely impossible that they should be in the smallest degree different from what they are.
In every moment of her duration Nature is one connected whole; in every moment each individual
