317. The divine "Something", or the I in the living being thus constitutes an eternal reality with an equally eternal faculty for creating and experiencing. The present most important and most plainly visible product or result of this eternal creation is the I's current physical body. This again constitutes its tool for manifesting itself, that is to say, a means by which, from the majestic serenity and silence of its inherent nature, raised above all visibility on the very throne of the Godhead itself, it can demonstrate its power or mastery over matter to the other I's in life or existence. And it is this act of making itself visible that forms the basis on which other I's can recognize the former I as "a living being".
      As all the I's in existence represent highly different mutual differences in the way they materialize, and these differences can be divided up into a scale of steps rising from the culmination of imperfection to the culmination of perfection, that is to say, the culmination of wrong and the culmination of right combinations or compositions of matter respectively, then the manifestation of an I will thus represent one or another of these steps. And this step will thereby constitute a yardstick for every assessment and evaluation of the nature of the I as a "living being". The nearer the step – through which the I manifests itself – is to the culminating point of disharmony or wrong combinations of matter, the more will it infringe the law governing the reactions of substances and the more horror, discord and suffering will it create as its fate. We say of such a being that it is "primitive", "backward" or "imperfect". On the other hand, we say that an I's nature as a "living being" is highly developed, intellectual or perfect the nearer the step – through which it manifests itself – is to the culmination of harmony, that is, to the right combinations of matter. And so it cannot be difficult for the reader to recognize in this scale of steps the reality we learned to know as "the ladder of evolution" in the first volume of "Livets Bog".