‘She merely imagined she felt a pain—the cat?’
‘She cannot imagine a pain, for imagination is an effect of mind; without mind, there is no imagination. A cat has no imagination.’
‘Then she had a real pain?’
‘I have already told you there is no such thing as real pain.’
‘It is strange and interesting. I do wonder what was the matter with the cat. Because, there being no such thing as real pain, and she not being able to imagine an imaginary thing, it would seem that God in his Pity has compensated the cat with some kind of a mysterious emotion useable when her tail is trodden on which for the moment joins cat and Christian in one common brotherhood of—’
She broke in with an irritated—
‘Peace! The cat feels nothing, the Christian feels nothing. Your empty and foolish imaginings are profanation and blasphemy, and can do you an injury. It is wiser and better and holier to recognise and confess that there is no such thing as disease or pain or death.’
‘I am full of imaginary tortures,’ I said, ‘but I do not think I could be any more uncomfortable if they were real ones. What must I do to get rid of them?’
‘There is no occasion to get rid of them, since they do not exist. They are illusions propagated by matter, and matter has no existence; there is no such thing as matter.’
‘It sounds right and clear, but yet it seems in a degree elusive; it seems to slip through, just when you think you are getting a grip on it.’