ITS MEANING AND DIVISIONS. 187 



is you now in the present act your present 

 Ego as evolved. But of this, hereafter. 



It would seem that the sphere of self-move- 

 ment is extending more and more into the 

 inorganic realm. The self-forming power of 

 the crystal has long been remarked, and spec- 

 ulated about, some observers even going to 

 the extent of attributing to it a sort of life. In 

 the crystal Nature manifests herself as ge- 

 ometrizing purely, and shapes herself reg- 

 ularly in line, surface and solid. Given the 

 material and the conditions, it forms itself 

 after a certain type which is externally re- 

 peated in layers, a kind of outer generation ; 

 just so much matter shoots into shape, like 

 ice and snow, from water; it assumes fixed 

 limits, it individualizes itself into an outer 

 form. Now, every living thing also has this 

 formative power, it bounds itself in an ex- 

 ternal shape which characterizes it normally, 

 be it plant or animal. Undoubtedly these 

 shapes become very diversified in life; they 

 are the outward signs of what is going on in- 

 ward; they show an ascending line from the 

 simplest to the most complex or highest or- 

 ganisms. The crystal is the first external 

 manifestation of this form-making energy of 

 Nature, the inorganic formation which is to 

 become organic, or the shaping power of Life 

 taken by itself before Life. For every living 



