302. Certainly one of the most important facts to be found in life is that terrestrial people, to a large extent, are most unskilful in handling their cosmic chemistry, in other words the thought-material or substances which build up their consciousness. In the sphere of terrestrial man's consciousness is there anything more highly apparent than mistakes? And in that same sphere is anything lacking to a greater degree than logic?
      The whole world, all life, all consciousness, everything that can be thought or sensed downwards throughout the microcosmos and upwards throughout the macrocosmos as well as through everything that appears in the mesocosmos (the sensory sphere of terrestrial man) as well as everything through all time which has ever been experienced or will be experienced in the future – all this is exclusively identical with the reactions of all the substances – both physical and cosmic – of which the whole Universe is compiled. It is in no way whatsoever an expression of imperfection or error in the law of the reaction of substances that each of these reactions manifests its own particular character in such a way that some appear green, others yellow, some black and others white, that some are what one calls "evil" and others what one calls "good'; that some reactions constitute murder, manslaughter and bodily injury, while others are identical with compassion, helpfulness and love; that some appear as ignorance and naïvety, while others express the highest form of intellectuality; that some manifest as war, revolution and cultural collapse, others as peace, harmony and blessedness and so forth. It is in fact quite the contrary, for all phenomena, notwithstanding in which of the above categories they appear, are just expressions of the absolute precision with which that law is implicitly fulfilled by the substances in the Universe; each owes its particular manifestation, existence, nature and quality to the irrevocability of this precision.
      Without this unconditional fulfilment by substances of the law governing matter, no organisms, no planets or worlds would exist. All that which today pleases, entertains and develops living beings would not come into existence. The beauty of wild flowers, the ocean's foam-crested waves, the soft whisper of a forest brook, the secret thoughts of lovers, in short everything – beings, life and objects – would be just a "nothing". The manifestation of each living being is therefore possible solely through the power of the law for the reaction of substances. This law is therefore the framework for the whole Universe and the whole of existence.