Servitude and freedom-this is in the last and deepest analysis the differentia by which we distinguish vegetable and animal existence...The plant is something cosmic; the animal has an additional quality, it is a microcosm in relation to a macrocosm...seeking to return out of the life of freedom into the vegetal servitude from which (it was) emancipated into individuality and loneliness.
Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West
