] I see- but it is a thing
difficult to tell. [Another long pause.] He is not spirit, for he
exists. Nor is he matter, as you understand it. But there are
gradations of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser impelling
the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmosphere, for
example, impels the electric principle, while the electric principle
permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in
rarity or fineness until we arrive at a matter unparticled- without
particles- indivisible-one, and here the law of impulsion and
permeation is modified. The ultimate or unparticled matter not only
permeates all things, but impels all things; and thus is all things
within itself. This matter is God. What men attempt to embody in the
word "thought," is this matter in motion.
P. The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to
motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the former.
V. Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the action of
mind, not of thinking. The unparticled matter, or God, in quiescence
is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call mind. And the power
of self-movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in the
unparticled matter, the result of its unity and omniprevalence; how, I
know not, and now clearly see that I shall never know.
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