its spiral winding an equally definite feminine principle. Since in the
normal plant both principles are inwardly connected, 'we can represent
vegetation as a whole as being in a secret androgynous union from the
root up. From this union, through the changes of growth, both systems
break away into open polarity and so stand in decisive opposition to
each other, only to unite again in a higher sense.'

Thus Goethe found himself led to ideas regarding the male and female
principles in the plant, which were the exact opposite of those one
obtains if, in trying to explain the process of pollination, one does
not keep to the plant itself but imports an analogy from another
kingdom of nature. For in continuance of the vertical principle of the
plant, the pistil and carpel represent the male aspect in the process
of spiritual anastomosis, and the mobile, wind- or insect-borne pollen,
in continuing the spiral principle, represents the female part.

If the process of pollination is what the plant tells us it is, then
the question arises as to the reason for the occurrence of such a
process in the life cycle of the fully developed plant. Goethe himself
has not expressed himself explicitly on this subject. But his term
'spiritual anastomosis' shows that he had some definite idea about it.
Let us picture in our mind what happens physically in the plant as a
result of pollination and then try to read from this picture, as from a
hieroglyph, what act of the spiritual principle in the plant comes to
expression through it.

Without pollination there is no ripening of the seed. Ripening means
for the seed its acquisition of the power to bring forth a new and
independent plant organism through which the species continues its
existence within nature. In the life cycle of the plant this event