1013. _This is the essential and only conclusive distinction between animal and plant._ All others that have been advanced are not sufficient. _Processes of the Cosmic Organism._ ÆTHER PROCESSES. 1014. The primary or planetary organism cannot be the last product of nature's development: for it is only indeed the metatype of the three terrestrial elements, and consequently not of the totality of nature. The mucus-organism ascends to a higher stage, since it superadds to its three elements the primary element, or ascends itself to primary elements. It becomes an _ætherial globe of mucus_. 1015. Hitherto there were merely three processes in the organism; to these consequently the fourth is added, which is the æther-process. It may be called the fire-process. 1016. With the fire-process the development of the organic world has been carried to the highest pitch and therewith closed. 1017. The highest organism is a quadri-elementary individual, or a quadri-elementary mucus. 1018. The four elements are, however, the universe. The higher organism is consequently not merely a synotype of the planet, but of it and the sun, or of the whole universe. The higher organism is an universe in miniature; in the profoundest, truest sense of the word is it _small world_, _microcosm_. 1019. The planetary, terrestrial organisms are related to the solar or cosmic, as the planet is to solar-system. 1020. The cosmic organism has besides the systems of nutrition, digestion, and respiration, those of the æther in itself, and thus of the gravity, light and heat. These are immaterial, spiritual processes, which produce no more matters. 1. _Process of Gravity._ 1021. The organ of gravity is that of quiescence or rest, the organ constituting the basis of the organic body, or rather of the other æther-organs, the centralization. 1022. It imparts form to the higher organism. 1023. The quiescent, sustaining, form-imparting system is the rigid earth-system, and appears as the _osseous system_. 2. _Process of Heat._ 1024. As the heat is the motion of the æther, so is there a system of motion in the organism. 1025. The system, which has no other function to perform than to move, is the _muscular system_. 1026. The osseous system is related to the muscular system as mass to motion, as Passive to Active. The former maintains the form, the latter changes the same exactly like gravitation and heat. 3. _Process of Light._ 1027. The light-system must be related to all other spiritual systems and the three fundamental systems of the organism, or to the _simply_ organic systems as light is to matter, being thus polarizing or _dominant_. 1028. Now the domination of light consists in the sustenance of polarity in all matter. The air itself is preserved in its duplicity only by light. All the points of the organism are polarized by the light-system. The light-system acts consequently through the whole body.