However, you know,
Isabel, you might have been a particle of a mineral, and yet have
been carried round the room, or anywhere else, by chemical forces,
in the liveliest way.
ISABEL. Yes; but I wasn't carried: I carried myself.
L. The fact is, mousie, the difficulty is not so much to say what
makes a thing alive, as what makes it a Self. As soon as you are
shut off from the rest of the universe into a Self, you begin to
be alive.
VIOLET (indignant). Oh, surely--surely that cannot be so. Is not
all the life of the soul in communion, not separation?
L. There can be no communion where there is no distinction. But we
shall be in an abyss of metaphysics presently, if we don't look
out; and besides, we must not be too grand, to-day, for the
younger children. We'll be grand, some day, by ourselves, if we
must. (The younger children are not pleased, and prepare to
remonstrate; but, knowing by experience, that all conversations in
which the word "communion" occurs, are unintelligible, think
better of it.) Meantime, for broad answer about the atoms. I do
not think we should use the word "life," of any energy which does
not belong to a given form. A seed, or an egg, or a young animal,
are properly called "alive" with respect to the force belonging to
those forms, which consistently develops that form, and no other.
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