585. Many scholars have maintained that the development not only of trees but of all plants corresponds to human reproduction. So by way of an appendix I shall add a few remarks on this subject. Trees and the other members of the vegetable kingdom do not have two sexes, male and female, but every one is male. Only the earth or soil is their common mother, and so to speak a woman. For she receives the seeds of all plants, opens them, carries them as if in a womb, and then nourishes them, gives birth to them, that is, brings them to the light of day, and afterwards clothes and supports them.
When the earth first opens up a seed, she begins with the root, which is like the heart. From the root she sends forth and transmits the sap, like blood, and so produces a body equipped with limbs. The body is the trunk, the limbs its branches and twigs. The leaves, which it produces immediately after birth, take the place of the lungs. For just as the heart cannot without the lungs produce movement and sensation, by which the person comes alive, so the root without the leaves cannot make the tree or plant grow. The flowers which are the forerunners of the fruit are a means of purifying the sap, its blood, and of filtering off the denser from its purer elements, and, as these flow in, of forming in its recesses a new stem through which the purified sap may flow into and so start and by stages form the fruit (which is comparable to the testicle), where the seeds are brought to completion. The vegetable soul, or its reproductive essence, which is inmostly dominant in every particle of sap, comes from no other source than the heat of the spiritual world. Since this comes from the spiritual sun of that world, its one aim is reproduction, and by this means the continuation of creation. And since its essential aim is the reproduction of man, it gives whatever it creates some likeness to man.
[3] There is no reason to be surprised at the statement that the members of the vegetable kingdom are exclusively male, and only the earth or soil is so to speak their common mother, being so to speak a woman. This can be illustrated by a similar fact about bees, which according to Swarmmerdam's observation in his nature books* have only one common mother, who gives birth to all the offspring in the hive. If these small creatures have only one common mother, why should not the same be true of all plants?
[4] On the spiritual level too it is possible to illustrate how the earth can be a common mother from the fact that earth in the Word means the church, and the church is our common mother and is so called in the Word. On earth meaning the church see APOCALYPSE REVEALED (285, 902), where this is shown. However, the ability of the earth or soil to enter the interior of the seed so as to reach its reproductive principle, and bring it forth and transport it, is due to every tiny particle or piece of dust exhaling from its essence some subtle effluvium which can penetrate the seed. This is brought about as a result of the activity of the heat coming from the spiritual world.
* The writings of the Dutch naturalist J. Swarmmerdam were published by H. Boerhaave in 1737-38 under the title Biblia Naturae or Nature Books.
This page is part of 
© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church