I sat motionless.
"Listen," he repeated. "You wrong your own common sense when you place dead matter above the spirit of matter. Atoms come and go in their ceaseless transmigrations, worlds move, universes circulate, not because they are material bodies, but because as points of matter, in a flood of force, they obey the spirit that can blot out a sun, or dissolve the earth, as easily as it can unlink two atoms. Matter is an illusion, spirit is the reality."
I felt that he had silenced me against my will, and although I could not gainsay his assertions, I determined to study the subject carefully, at my leisure.
"As you please," he interjected into my musings; "but since you are so determined, you would better study from books that are written by authors who know whereof they write, and who are not obliged to theorize from speculative data concerning the intrastructural earth crust."
"But where can I find such works? I do not know of any."
"Then," said he, "perhaps it would be better to cease doubting the word of one who has acquired the knowledge to write such a book, and who has no object in misleading you."
"Still other questions arise," I said.
"Well?"
"I consider the account of the intra-earth fungus intoxicant beyond the realm of fact."
"In what respect?"