Ruth was not in the least convinced. Indeed, the thing was not overclear. She said: “I still think matter is something to be overcome, something that binds us. Surely we will sometime be spirits without matter, altogether spiritual.” I tried to show them that spirit without expression would be unthinkable, that though expression might not be what we call matter, it would still be some expression. I said: “Expression frees us.” That was puzzling, and needed more explanation. I asked Henry: “What is the object and aim of life?” He answered vaguely: “I suppose it is spirit.” “Now, what do you mean by that?” I asked. He answered: “I suppose we don’t know what it is until we reach the truth.” Evidently he did not, but all the others did. They all spoke at once to explain to him that the object of life was complete understanding and love. I said: “That is what expression is to get for us, for we express ourselves in form and thought, so that we may understand and be understood. And that is what I meant by freedom. I meant understanding, love and perfect adjustment. In one sense matter is binding, because we want more freedom. Matter, so called, is the physical condition which our will made in the past, and which we want already to surpass. Suppose that a man wrote a book in which he put all his ideas, and that when he finished the book he was forbidden to write or speak again; his ideas would grow afterward, and as he could not express them, he would think himself limited and bound by the book he had written. So material conditions are binding only because we want still more freedom, though they themselves were freedom at the time of their creation. In that sense, Ruth, you might call the body something which the spirit constantly wants to leave behind, because it is creating new forms for itself.” Marian said: “It is as if there were a house with many rooms, and we thought we wanted to go only into the first; but each door made us long for the next room, and the next, so that we could never be satisfied.” “And if one door were locked,” I said, “we would consider ourselves sadly bound, though we had thought we wished to go only so far. Suppose a man made a statue, that statue would be an expression of his spirit. But if the next instant he wanted to change it, to make, say, the lines of the arm more perfect, he could not do so by willing. He would have to make a new statue.” “But that is different,” said Ruth. “The stuff he works in is still matter.” I tried to explain how all creation is an inter-change of form, a flowing and influence. I tried to show them how all things whatsoever, even thoughts, are forms, and all form an expression. Virginia said: “Those who write books, or do any great work, are immortal in that, because of their influence.” I answered her that all of us were immortal in this sense, that each thing had endless influence.