Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1693

1693. "Living" matter can thus exist only by virtue of the fact that its substance consists of independent, wakingly day-conscious living beings that are joined together in a common structure in which they constitute an inner, mutual, purposeful harmony and a cohesive whole, directed and maintained by the desire and will of a macro-I. The harmonious cooperation of such a combination of living beings in an independent whole, maintained by an I outwardly constitutes a "living being" in an animal organism. This animal organism, which thus consists of living, animal beings in a microscopic state, constitutes in turn, along with other animal organisms of the same and related species, a plane of existence. This plane of existence constitutes the "mesocosmos" for the I that prevails within the organism. The living beings that constitute the animal matter that makes up the organism constitute, however, another plane of existence. We know this plane of existence as the "microcosmos". We are therefore dealing with two kinds of beings here, namely the tiny beings that make up a mesocosmic, animal organism, and the beings that control organisms of this kind, the latter being the kind of being to which we ourselves belong. We know these tiny beings from "Livets Bog" as "microbeings", while the mesocosmic beings constitute, as will be remembered, the beings that are usually the only ones that we accept as "living beings", namely human beings, animals and to some extent plants. Up to now we have been willing and able to understand everything else in the world only as "substance". But of course this has made it possible for us to understand both "vegetable" and "animal" substance.