He sat down abruptly, with the air of having given finality to a perplexing question.
All eyes then turned to Carmen, who slowly rose and surveyed the little group.
“It is not surprising,” she said, smiling at the confused Haynerd, “that difficulties arise when you attempt to reach God through human reasoning––spirit through matter. You have taken the unreal, and, through it, have sought to reach back to the real.”
“Well,” interrupted Haynerd testily, “kindly explain the difference.”
“Then, first,” replied Carmen, “let us adopt some common meeting ground, some basis which we can all accept, and from which we can rise. Are you all agreed that, in our every-day life, everything is mental?––every action?––every object?––and that, as the philosopher Mill said, ‘Everything is a feeling of which the mind is conscious’? Let me illustrate my meaning,” she continued, noting Haynerd’s rising protest. “I see this book; I take it up; and drop it upon the table. Have I really seen a book? No; I have been conscious of thoughts which I call a book, nothing more. A real material book did not get into my mind; but thoughts of a book did. And the activity of such thought resulted in a state of consciousness––for consciousness is mental activity, the activity of thought. Remember that, even according to your great physical scientists, this book is composed of millions of charges of electricity, or electrons, 68 moving at a tremendously high rate of speed. And yet, regardless of its composition, I am conscious only of my thoughts of the book. It is but my thoughts that I see, after all.”
She paused and waited for the protest which was not voiced.
“Very well,” she said, continuing; “so it is with the sense of touch; I had the thought of touching it, and that thought I saw; I was conscious of it when it became active in my mentality. So with sound; when I let the book drop, I was conscious of my thought of sound. If the book had been dropped in a vacuum I should not have been conscious of a thought of sound––why? Because, as Mr. Hitt has told us, the human mind has made its sense-testimony dependent upon vibrations. And yet, there is a clock ticking up there on the wall. Do you hear it?”
“Yes,” replied Haynerd; “now that you’ve called my attention to it.”
“Ah, yes,” replied the girl. “You hear it when your thought is directed to it. And yet the air was vibrating all the time, and, if hearing is dependent upon the fleshly ear, you should have heard it incessantly when you were not thinking of it, as well as you hear it now when you are thinking of it. Am I not right?”
“Well, perhaps so,” assented Haynerd with some reluctance.