But what price humaneness, that great virtue of the Enlightenment, if animals were mere things?

It is instead asking about the magical moment at which a cluster of cells becomes more than a mere physical thing.

I am sure he is not a mere thing, Potria.

You are too much preoccupied with mere things and ideas and people to understand the full beauty of words.

They were more than mere things to fill a hole in the wall.

Those things out mere were among the greatest demons of the Night.

They were far more fundamental to the operation of the universe than mere mechanical things like gravity.

They do not bother to consult mere things like Parliament before making any decisions.

You can take only so much horror before the mind starts regarding the bodies and pieces as mere things.

Something is being done to me and by a mere thing, here in my own house.