This force, now properly called life, or breathing, or spirit, is
continually creating its own shell of definite shape out of the wreck
around it; and this is what I meant by saying, in the "Ethics of the
Dust," "you may always stand by form against force." For the mere force
of junction is not spirit; but the power that catches out of chaos
charcoal, water, lime, or what not, and fastens them down into a given
form, is properly called "spirit;" and we shall not diminish, but
strengthen our conception of this creative energy by recognizing its
presence in lower states of matter than our own; such recognition being
enforced upon us by delight we instinctively receive from all the forms
of matter which manifest it; and yet more, by the glorifying of those
forms, in the parts of them that are most animated, with the colors that
are pleasantest to our senses. The most familiar instance of this is the
best, and also the most wonderful: the blossoming of plants.
60. The spirit in the plant--that is to say, its power of gathering dead
matter out of the wreck round it, and shaping it into its own chosen
shape--is of course strongest at the moment of its flowering, for it then
not only gathers, but forms, with the greatest energy.
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