=Specification of the Vegetable (Plant) Powers, and Mention of the
Need there is for Each One of Them.=
Souled bodies, I mean having souls, if considered from the side of
their vegetable powers, are found to have in common the getting of
nourishment, and to differ in growth and generation (reproduction of
offspring); since, among nourishment-taking beings, there are such as
do not grow, for example a living individual that has reached full
growth and the period of stand still, or that has declined therefrom
through withering. Yet every growing thing gets nourishment. Again,
among nutriment-taking beings there are such as do not propagate, as
seeds that are not yet harvest-ripe, and an animal that has not yet
reached puberty. Nevertheless, every propagating thing has inevitably
passed through a preceding stage of nutrition; nor will the state
(stage) of propagating ever be deprived of nutrition. Further, we find
them, beside having the getting of nourishment in common, to have
growth also in common, but to differ in the propagation (of offspring)
since there are, among growing things, such as do not beget, as an
animal not yet arrived at puberty, and the worm.[11] Nevertheless every
begetter has already passed through a period of growth; nor will the
state (stage) of begetting be deprived of the power of giving growth
[to the young that are being produced]. Hence the vegetable powers are
three:
1. the nutritive; 2. the growth promoting; and 3. the propagating. Of
these the nutritive is as the starting-point; the propagating as the
aim and end; and the growth-promoting as the means binding the end to
the starting-place. Indeed the souled body stands in absolute need
of these three powers for the following reasons: Whereas the Divine
Command came down upon Nature enjoining (imposing) upon her the task
of forming a compound living being out of the four elements after such
wise fashion as they called for in it; and whereas Nature of herself
is unable to originate a souled body at one stroke, but can do so only
by promoting its growth little by little;[F] and whereas an individual
that is put together after the manner of animal composition is
susceptible of being again decomposed and melting away by the natures
of its constituents; and whereas a thing composed of opposites will
not keep up so protracted a duration and last so long a time as is
expected of it--therefore Nature is in want of a power by which she
can fabricate a living body by promotion of growth; so she has been
supplied by Divine Providence with the growth-giving power; and is in
want of a power whereby she can preserve the souled body at an even
standard[G] over against the waste which it undergoes in making up for
what disintegration wears away from it; so she has been succoured by
Divine Providence with the nutritive power; and is in want of a power
that shall mould, out of the living natural body, a piece that she
shall dwell in, in order that if corruption permeate the body it shall
have sought for itself a successor as a substitute, whereby to arrive
at the preservation of species; so she has been helped by the Divine
Providence with the propagating (generating) power.
And we ought, in this connection, to bear in mind as a certain and true
fact that the growth-giving power, although it has been found, from
the standpoint that we have mentioned, to be following close upon the
nutritive, and the propagating (generating) to be following close upon
the growth-imparting (promoting), yet the precedence of the part played
by each one of the three, in their undertaking the task of creating
the living body and preserving it through their special and peculiar
workings, is the other way about; for the first to enthrall the
material predisposed to receive life is the generating (procreating,
propagating) power, since this power clothes the material at first
with the form (prototype) of that which is intended to be realized
through the ministry (service) of the growth-promoting and nutritive
powers; and as soon as it has achieved in that material a perfect form
it delivers over the sway to the growth-promoting power, which assumes
it through the ministry (service) of the nutritive power, and imparts
to the material--all the time keeping up the form of the material
within the due proportions of the [three] dimensions [length, breadth
and thickness]--a motion (activity) of growth towards the end striven
after by it, the growth-promoting power aforesaid. Then this latter
stops; and the nutritive power enthralls the material. Again, the
generating (propagating) power is the one served, not the servant; and
in comparison with it, the nutritive power is the servant, not the one
served. Thus too the growth-promoting power is served in one sense,
and serving in an other sense. And the nutritive power, although it
does not exist as the one served in the spiritual powers, yet it does
sometimes employ the four forces of Nature--to wit, the attracting,
the holding, the digesting, and the excreting (repelling). And, even
as that which is striven after in the process of form-making is solely
the bringing about of the [due] form in matter in the shape (kind,
design) proposed, and not at all the bringing about of growth or of
nutrition,--only that there is need for the two latter for the sake of
realizing the desired form, and not the converse--so also the final aim
in the [several] powers is the procreating (propagating) power, to the
exclusion of the growth-promoting and of the nutritive. Wherefore, the
procreating power is given precedence for a teliological reason.
And through God is fitness to be achieved.