I might without further thought say that this conception of becoming, referred to the plant as a plant, is improper, that in reality the plant does not _become_ for the very reason that we deny it its freedom. But I shall begin by stating that the becoming which we attribute to the spiritual reality must be specified and determined with greater accuracy, if we are to consider it as the characteristic of this reality. When so specified and determined, it will be found to coincide with the conception of freedom. Becoming, then, can be taken in two ways, which for brevity's sake we shall call the _autonomous_ and the _heteronomous_. That is, the being which becomes may have the law of its becoming either in itself or outside of itself. Becoming covers such cases as, for example, the filling of a vessel into which a liquid is poured. But this becoming takes place in a manner which has its law in the person that fills the vessel; and the filling therefore may be considered not so much a becoming as the effect of a becoming, that is, as the result of that act which is being performed by man. An heteronomous becoming is to be traced back to the becoming of the cause which produces it. The plant vegetates, and its vegetation is a development, a becoming. But could it grow without the rays of the sun, the moisture of the soil? The plant vegetates in consequence of its nature, that nature which in accord with our ordinary way of considering plant life it possessed from the time it was a green blade just sprouting; nay, from the time it was a seed in the ground, or rather when it was as yet in the plant that produced the seed, or better still when it was in its infinitely remote origin. It is evident therefore that we cannot think of the law of becoming as residing, so to speak, within a given plant. Whether we call it nature or name it God, this law transcends the becoming of the plant, its heteronomous becoming as we called it, and is properly the becoming of something else. But the becoming of man is autonomous. If he _becomes_ intelligent, that is, if he understands, he does so through a principle which is intrinsically his own; for no man can be made to comprehend what he himself will not grasp. If he becomes good, his perfected will can in no manner whatsoever be considered as determined by an outside cause, without at the same time being thereby deprived of all that is characteristic of goodness.