“Yes; and yet the ether is a very necessary theory, if we are going to continue to explain the phenomena of force on a material basis.”
“But if we abandon that basis––?”
“Then,” said Carmen, “matter reduces to what it really is, the human mind’s interpretation of substance.”
“Yes,” said Hitt, turning to her; “I think you are right; matter is the way real substance––let us say, spirit––looks to the human mentality. It is the way the human mind interprets its ideas of spirit. In other words, the human mind looks at the material thoughts and ideas which enter it, and calls 65 them solid substance, occupying space––calls them matter, with definite laws, and, in certain forms, containing life and intelligence.”
“Aye, that is it!” said Father Waite. “And that has been the terrible mistake of the ages, the one great error, the one lie, that has caused us all to miss the mark and come short, far short, of the glory of the mind that is God. There is the origin of the problem of evil!”
“Undoubtedly,” replied Hitt. “For evil is in essence but evil thought. And evil thought is invariably associated with matter. The origin of all evil is matter itself. And matter, we find, is but a mental concept, a thing of thought. Oh, the irony of it!”
“Well,” put in Haynerd, who had been twitching nervously in his chair, “let’s get to the conclusion of this very learned discussion. I’m a plain man, and I’d like to know just where we’ve landed. What have you said that I can take home with me? The earth still revolves around the sun, even if it is a mean mud ball. And I can’t see that I can get along with less than three square meals a day.”
“We have arrived,” replied Hitt gravely, “at a most momentous conclusion, deduced by the physical scientists themselves, namely, that things are not what they seem. In other words, all things material seem to reduce to vibrations in and of the ether; the basis of all materiality is energy, motion, activity––mental things. All the elements of matter seem to be but modifications of one all-pervading element. That element is probably the ether, often called the ‘mother of matter.’ The elements, such as carbon, silicon, and the others, are not elementary at all, but are forms of one universal element, the ether. Hence, atoms are not atoms. The so-called rare elements are rare only because their lives are short. They disintegrate rapidly and change into other forms of the universal element––or disappear. ‘Atoms are but fleeting phases of matter,’ we are told. They are by no means eternal, even though they may endure for millions of years.”
“Y-e-s?” commented Haynerd with a yawn.
“A great scientist of our own day,” Hitt continued, “has said that ‘the ether is so modified as to constitute matter, in some way.’ What does that mean? Simply that ‘visible matter and invisible ether are one and the same thing.’ But to the five so-called physical senses the ether is utterly incomprehensible. So, then, matter is wholly incomprehensible to the five physical senses. What is it, then, that we call matter? It can be nothing more than the human mind’s interpretation of its idea of an all-pervading, omnipresent something, a something which represents substance to it.”