325. There is, then, one type of substance which is so outstanding in its mode of movement that it is possible for people to see that it expresses life, while there is another type of substance whose mode of movement does not so obviously display any of the distinctive features which, for an uninformed person, characterize life. It is this latter type we express as "mineral" while the former type is termed either "plant" or "animal". Whereas in daily practical life and in their laboratories people use pure mental processes to work with "mineral" or "lifeless" substances, thereby producing corresponding "lifeless" results, they still cannot, to any great extent, work day-consciously with the two other "living" substances mentioned above to create new "living" results, that is to say living organisms or bodies and bodily parts.
      So we see that terrestrial people's cosmic chemistry does not occupy their day-consciousness and is not yet an overt function of the brain, as is their physical chemistry. This means that the same people in their clear day-conscious functioning are, in reality, only occupied with "lifeless" material and so, on these beings' planes of existence, the world must be considered to a corresponding degree as a "lifeless" or "dead" world.