[2] Continuation [concerning the Vegetable Kingdom]. - 3. There are two general forms, the spiritual and the natural; the spiritual being such as that which belongs to animals; and the natural, such as that which belongs to plants.

It is in accordance with this proposition that all things belonging to nature, except the sun, the moon, and the atmospheres, form the three kingdoms, the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral; and that the mineral kingdom is merely the storehouse in which are contained, and from which are taken, the substances which compose the forms of the animal and vegetable kingdoms.

[3] The forms of the animal kingdom, which are called a in one word, animals, are all in accordance with the flux of spiritual substances and forces. And this flux, from the conatus or effort which is inherent in the forms, has a tendency to the human form, and all its parts collectively and individually, from the head to the foot; it thus has a tendency to produce organs of sense and motion, and also those of nutrition and propagation. It is for this reason that the whole heaven is in the human form, and similarly all the angels and spirits there, and all the men on earth; and further, that all beasts, birds, and fishes, have a tendency to it, for they all have similar organs.

[4] This animal form derives the conatus or effort to produce such results from the First, from whom all things exist, and who is God because He is Man. This conatus and thence tendency of all spiritual forces can be and exist from no other source; for it exists in the greatest and least things, in primaries and ultimates, in the spiritual world and thence in the natural; but with a difference of perfection according to degrees.

[5] The other form, again, which is the natural form, and to which all plants belong, derives its origin from the conatus, and the consequent flux of the natural forces, which consist of atmospheres, and are called ethers. In these the conatus is according to the tendency of spiritual forces to the animal form, and according to their continual operation upon the natural forces, which are the ethers, and through these upon the material substances of the earth, of which plants are composed. That such is the origin [of the natural form] is plain from what was said above, that there is in plants an evident resemblance to the animal form.

[6] That all things in nature join in the effort to realize this form, and that the ethers have a tendency to produce it impressed upon them, and thus engrafted in them, from the Spiritual, is evident from many facts. For instance, from the entire vegetation found on the surface of the whole earth; from the vegetation again of minerals into forms of this kind in mines, wherever an aperture is found, and also from the vegetation of chalk-like substances into corals at the bottom of seas, and even from the forms of the snow-flakes, which seem to emulate those of vegetable life.