655. We therefore witness that here the vital functions of the Earth's organism are greatly reduced. As it does not have any animal or plant life, its organism in the same place by nature can be only a kind of mineral. The icy regions can therefore be likened to "cartilaginous regions". And, as is well known, the bony, skeletal and cartilaginous areas are not to any special degree organs for sensing, but on the contrary serve the purpose of supporting, carrying and protecting those regions that to a great extent maintain the senses, that is to say, the animal regions. And as the highest animal life in the Earth's organism is identical to the organisms of terrestrial human beings, these constitute the microbeings that carry the foremost physical sensory perception of the Earth's I. In those places in the Earth's organism where living conditions are especially favourable for terrestrial human beings' existence, the Earth's organism will manifest its most advanced intellectual state, while the opposite will be the case where these conditions are absent. Here we will meet only coarse, that is to say, less conscious matter, which more or less belongs to the category of mineral matter, that is to say, to the icy regions at the poles and the skeletal area of the Earth's organism.
      A planet that has excellent conditions for highly developed animal life, will, to a corresponding degree, represent intellectual matter in its organism. This also applies to a terrestrial human being's organism. The better the conditions in it for highly developed animal life, the more healthily and beautifully will such a being's organism manifest itself, and the happier and more glorious a state of well-being will the being feel that it possesses. But just as less favourable conditions for animal life in a human being's organism will make it correspondingly impossible for highly developed, intellectual microbeings to be present in the organism, that is to say, in the blood, musculature or nervous system, so too will less favourable conditions for highly developed microbeings in the Earth's organism, also correspondingly exclude the presence or manifestation of such beings in this organism.