Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1099

1099. In the outermost periphery of the range of sensory perception we thus have the first stage of the cycle, the "zone of instinct", where the details or things, as already mentioned, are merely "inklings". When we look at a distant, unknown horizon we can at the very most only have an "inkling" of what lies beyond it, just as the details in this horizon's outermost limit of vision can at the very most be identified imperfectly. And this identification is imperfect to the extent that these details can produce only "inklings" in our consciousness. Our consciousness or range of sensory perception has thus an "outermost periphery" where all experience of what lies outside this periphery and inside it can be experienced only as "inklings". And here we find the very first feeble form of the birth of a "thought". Such a "state of vague sensory perception" or reaction of the consciousness thus constitutes what we call "instinct".
If we do not draw closer to the details of this periphery and do not have the opportunity to experience them at close quarters or in the inner zones of the range of sensory perception closer to the centre, no evolution of our "state of vague sensory perception" will occur. And the "thought", which at this stage is thus merely an "inkling", will pass into the "zone of memory" of the range of consciousness or sensory perception in a completely undeveloped state, and will be stored there as a "memory of an inkling". A "living being" whose functioning of consciousness manifests itself in the main only in this way is termed a "plant". We will therefore express "thoughts" that in their evolution are still "inklings" as "vegetable thoughts". Since no "living being" can exist without having a "sensory periphery", and since the sensory reactions or "thoughts" here in relation to the above can appear absolutely only as "vegetable thoughts", it is thus to a corresponding extent established as fact that in the range of sensory perception of every "living being" there exists in principle a "plant kingdom".