these sparks are caught and imprisoned by matter, they become living
shapes. The nearer the stream is to its source, the more terrible
and vigorous is its life. You'll see for yourself when we reach the
head of the valley that there are no living shapes there at all.
That means that there is no kind of matter tough enough to capture
and hold the terrible sparks that are to be found there. Lower down
the stream, most of the sparks are vigorous enough to escape to the
upper air, but some are held when they are a little way up, and
these burst suddenly into shapes. I myself am of this nature. Lower
down still, toward the sea, the stream has lost a great part of its
vital power and the sparks are lazy and sluggish. They spread out,
rather than rise into the air. There is hardly any kind of matter,
however delicate, that is incapable of capturing these feeble sparks,
and they are captured in multitudes--that accounts for the
innumerable living shapes you see there. But not only that--the
sparks are passed from one body to another by way of generation, and
can never hope to cease being so until they are worn out by decay.
Lowest of all, you have the Sinking Sea itself. There the degenerate
and enfeebled life of the Matterplay streams has for its body the
whole sea. So weak is it's power that it can't succeed in creating
any shapes at all but you can see its ceaseless, futile attempts to
do so, in those spouts."

"So the slow development of men and women is due to the feebleness of
the life germ in their case?"

"Exactly. It can't attain all its desires at once. And now you can
see how immeasurably superior are the phaens, who spring
spontaneously from the more electric and vigorous sparks."