(Continuation)

[2] Something shall now be said about the vegetable kingdom, and its soul, which is called the plant soul. That this, too, is spiritual is not known in the world. By the plant soul is meant the tendency and effort to produce a plant from its seed progressively even to new seeds, and thereby to multiply itself to infinity, and to propagate itself to eternity; for there is as it were in every plant an idea of what is infinite and eternal; for a single seed can be so multiplied during a certain number of years as to fill the whole earth, and can also be propagated from seed to seed without end. This, with the wonderful process of growth from the root into a sprout, then into a stalk, also into branches, leaves, flowers, fruits, even into new seeds, is not a natural but a spiritual power. Likewise, plants have in many respects a relation to such things as belong to the animal kingdom, as that they exist from seed, in which there is as it were a prolific power, they produce a sprout like an infant, a stalk like a body, branches like arms, a top like a head, barks like skins, leaves like lungs, they grow in years, and afterwards blossom like maidens before their nuptials, and after these they expand like wombs or eggs, and bring forth fruit like offspring, in which are contained new seeds, from which, as in the animal kingdom, spring new prolifications or fructifications of the same kind or stock. These and many other things that are observed by those skilled in the art of botany who have traced a parallel between the two kingdoms, indicate that the tendency and effort to such things are not from the natural world but from the spiritual. That the living force as the principal cause is the spiritual, and that the dead force as the instrumental cause is the natural, will be seen in what follows.