series joining on to the highest material part, and ascending analogously in the spiritual world with which it is in Correspondence. The activity of the spiritual world, one of the forms of which is manifested as plant life, operates perpetually upon and within the higher part, or plant-soul, and this acts upon and within the material part.
The development of the plant takes place when the seed is rightly conditioned. The soil yields moisture, and softens its substances. The sun gives heat and light, whereby chemical changes set in and prepare substance for the plant's structure. When the material part is softened and becomes responsive to the soul-form, the latter is freed also and becomes more responsive to the force of plant life, which then begins to develop the plant-soul into a plant. The plant-soul develops into a plant as fast as the material part can be formed as the basis upon which it can rest and within which it can be contained and preserved from dissolution. As heat, light, and nourishment are provided, the plant-soul unfolds, and clothes itself in nature with a corresponding body, communicating to it the tendencies, appetites, qualities, forces, and essentials with which a plant is endowed. By this means the plant in nature assumes a form analogous to its spiritual correlative, for
