59. Still, it is not advisable to apply the word "spirit" or "breathing" to it, while it is only enforcing chemical affinities; but, when the chemical affinities are brought under the influence of the air, and of the sun's heat, the formative force enters and entirely different phase. It does not now merely crystallize indefinite masses, but it gives to limited portions of matter the power of gathering, selectively, other elements proper to them, and binding those elements into their own peculiar and adopted form. 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. And where this life is in at full power, its form becomes invested with aspects that are chiefly delightful to our own human passions; namely, at first, with the loveliest outlines of shape; and, secondly, with the most brilliant phases of the primary colors, blue, yellow, and red or white, the unison of all; and, to make it all more strange, this time of peculiar and perfect glory is associated with relations of the plants or blossoms to each other, correspondent to the joy of love in human creatures, and having the same object in the continuance of the race. Only, with respect to plants, as animals, we are wrong in speaking as if the object of this strong life were only the bequeathing of itself. The flower is the end or proper object of the seed, not the seed of the flower. The reason for seeds is that flowers may be; not the reason of flowers that seeds may be. The flower itself is the creature which the spirit makes; only, in connection with its perfectness is placed the giving birth to its successor.