“Let me add a further quotation from the great physical scientist to whom you have referred,” said the doctor. “He has said that the ether is not matter, but that it is material. And further, that we can not deny that the ether may have some mental and spiritual functions to subserve in some other order of existence, as matter has in this. It is wholly unrelated to any of our senses. The sense of sight takes cognizance of it, but only in a very indirect and not easily recognized way. And yet––stupendous conclusion!––without the ether there could be no material universe at all!”
“In other words,” said Hitt, “the whole fabric of the material universe depends upon something utterly unrecognizable by the five physical senses.”
“Exactly!” replied the doctor.
“Then,” concluded Hitt, “the physical senses give us no information whatsoever of a real physical universe about us.”
“And so,” added Father Waite, “we come back to Carmen’s statement, namely, that seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling are mental processes, in no way dependent upon the outer fleshly organs of sense––”
“Nonsense!” interjected Haynerd. “Why is it, then, that if the eyes are destroyed we do not see?”
“Simply, my friend, because of human belief,” replied Hitt. “The human mind has been trained for untold centuries to dependence upon beliefs in the reality of matter, and beliefs in its dependence upon material modes for sight, hearing, touch, and so on. It is because of its erroneous beliefs that the human mind is to-day enslaved by matter, and dependent upon it for its very sense of existence. The human mind has made its sense of sight dependent upon a frail, pulpy bit of flesh, the eye. As long as that fleshly organ remains intact, the human mind sees its sense of sight externalized in the positing of its mental concepts about it as natural objects. But let that fleshly eye be destroyed, and the human mind sees its belief of dependence upon the material eye externalized as blindness. When the fleshly eye is gone the mind declares that it can no longer see. And what it declares as truth, as fact, becomes externalized to it. I repeat, the human mind sees and hears only its thoughts, its beliefs. And holding to these beliefs, and making them real to itself, it eventually sees them externalized in what it calls its outer world, its environment, its universe. And yet, the materialistic scientists themselves show that the human mind can take no cognizance whatever through the five physical senses of the all-pervading basis of its very existence, the ether. And the ether––alas! it is but a theory which we find necessary for any intelligible explanation of the farce of human existence on a material basis.”
“Now see here!” retorted Haynerd, rising and giving expression to his protest by means of emphatic gestures. “I’m getting mixed––badly! You tell me that the existence of things demands a creator, and I admit it, for there can be no effect without a cause. Then you say that the universe is infinite; and I admit that, too, for the science of astronomy finds no limits to space, and no space unoccupied. You say that the unity manifested in the universe proves that there can be but one creator. Moreover, to create an infinite universe there must needs be an omnipotent creator; and there can be but one who is omnipotent. I cordially agree. Further, I can see how that creator must be mind––infinite mind. And I can see why that mind must be absolutely perfect, with no intelligence of evil whatsoever, else would it be a house divided against itself. And such a house must eventually fall. Now I admit that the universe must be the manifestation, the expression, of that infinite creative mind. But––and here’s the sticking point––the universe is both good and evil! Hence, the mind which it manifests is likewise both good and evil––and the whole pretty theory blows up!”