The beings of all the kingdoms of nature are endowed with an aggregate of physical forces in the form of a material body subject to gravity. The same cannot be said of the etheric forces. Only where life is present as an inherent principle - that is, in plant, animal and man - is ether at work in the form of an individual etheric organization, while the mineral is formed by the universal ether from outside. Where life prevails, we are met by the phenomena of birth and death. When a living organism comes to birth, an individual ether-body is formed out of the general etheric substance of the universe.¹ The death of such an organism consists in the separation of the etheric from the physical body and the dissolution of both in their respective mother-realms. So long as an organism is alive, its form is maintained by the ether-body present in it.