"I am neither alive nor dead," I murmured; "neither asleep nor awake; neither moving nor at rest, and neither standing, reclining, nor sitting. If I exist I can not bring evidence to prove that fact, neither can I prove that I am dead."
"Can any man prove either of these premises?" said the guide.
"I have never questioned the matter," said I; "it is a self-evident fact."
"Know then," said he, "that existence is a theory, and that man is incapable of demonstrating that he has a being. All evidences of mortal life are only as the phantasms of hallucination. As a moment in dreamland may span a life of time, the dreamer altogether unconscious that it is a dream, so may life itself be a shadow, the vision of a distempered fancy, the illusion of a floating thought."
"Are pain, pleasure, and living, imaginary creations?" I asked facetiously.
"Is there a madman who does not imagine, as facts, what others agree upon as hallucinations peculiar to himself? Is it not impossible to distinguish between different gradations of illusions, and is it not, therefore, possible that even self-existence is an illusion? What evidence can any man produce to prove that his idea of life is not a madman's dream?"
"Proceed," I said.
"At another time, perhaps," he remarked; "we have reached the Inner Circle, the Sphere of Rest, the line of gravity, and now our bodies have no weight; at this point we begin to move with decreased speed, we will soon come to a quiescent condition, a state of rest, and then start back on our rebound."