Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 5, sect. 1696

1696. Here the reader will perhaps object that one cannot regard the first-mentioned substances – the vegetable and animal ones – as "matter", since they, of course, obviously constitute the "living" beings we are familiar with, namely plants and animals. But why should one not be able to perceive the whole animal world and the whole vegetable world as each constituting "matter"? The fact that one is able to see the individual units that make up these two kinds of "matter" does not, however, mean that they do not still constitute "matter" from a higher perspective. Mineral matter does not stop being "matter" even if researchers using microscopes and other methods discover its specific units or constituent parts. Incidentally, there is no kind of matter whatsoever that does not consist of independent, constituent parts or small power centres. Even liquids or substances in a fluid state consist of separate particles, that is particles that are separated by relatively large spaces, in the same way that the stars in the sky are separated by relatively huge spaces. In accordance with what we have described above, our perception of things as "substance" or "matter" or as independent, separate particles or units is thus a matter of perspective. And with this attitude we will now take another look at the plants, the animals and the human beings, that is the vegetable and animal beings, on Earth.