“There is no space, Doctor,” replied Hitt. “Space is likewise a mental concept. The human mind sees, hears, and feels nothing but its own thoughts. These it posits within itself with reference to one another, and calls the process ‘seeing material objects in space.’ The mind as little needs a space in which to see things as in which to dream them. I repeat, we do not see external things, or things outside of ourselves. We see always and only the thoughts that are within our own mentalities. Everything is within.”
“That’s why,” murmured Carmen, “Jesus said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’”
“Exactly!” said Hitt. “Did he not call evil, and all that originates in matter, the lie about God? And a lie is wholly mental. I tell you, the existence of a world outside of ourselves, an objective world composed of matter, is wholly inferred––it is mental visualizing––and it is unreal, for it is not based upon fact, upon truth!”
“Then,” queried Haynerd, “our supposed ‘outer world’ is but our collection of thought-concepts which we hold within us, within our own consciousness, eh?”
“Yes.”
“But––the question of God?”
“We are ready for that again,” replied Hitt. “We have said that in the physical universe all is in a state of incessant change. Since the physical universe is but a mental concept to each one of us, we must admit that, were the concept based upon truth, it would not change. Our concept of the universe must be without the real causative and sustaining principle of all reality, else would it not pass away. And yet, beneath and behind all these changes, something endures. What is it? Matter? No. There is an enduring substance, invisible to human sight, but felt and known through its own influence. Is it law? Yes. Mind? Yes. Ideas? Yes. But none of these things is in any sense material. The material is the fleeting, human concept, composed of thought that is not based upon reality. These other things, wholly mental, or spiritual, if you 62 prefer, are based upon that ‘something’ which does endure, and which I will call the Causative Principle. It is the Universal Mind. It is what you loosely call God.”
“Then did God make matter?” persisted Haynerd.
“I think,” interposed Doctor Morton at this juncture, “that I can throw some light upon the immaterial character of matter, if I may so put it; for even our physical reasoning throws it entirely into the realm of the mental.”
“Good!” exclaimed Hitt. “Let us hear from you, Doctor.”