Part 31 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”The material is the same, is it not?”
”Go on.”
”What strength has charcoal?”
”Scarcely any.”
”Crystallize it, and the diamond results.”
”I did not speak of diamond.”
”Ah! and is not the same amount of the same material present in each, a grain of diamond and a grain of charcoal? What is present in a grain of diamond that is not present in a grain of charcoal?”
”Go on.”
”Answer my question.”
”I can not.”
”Why does brittle, cold zinc, when heated, become first ductile, and then, at an increased temperature, become brittle again? In each case the same material is present.”
”I do not know; but this I do know: I am an organized being, and I have strength of body.”
The old man grasped the heavy iron poker with both hands, and suddenly rising to his full height, swung it about his head, then with a motion so menacing that I shrunk back into my chair and cried out in alarm, seemed about to strike, with full force, my defenseless brow.
”My G.o.d,” I shouted, ”what have I done that you should murder me?”
He lowered the weapon, and calmly asked:
”Suppose that I had crushed your skull--where then would be your vaunted strength?”
I made no reply, for as yet I had not recovered from the mental shock.
”Could you then have snapped a pencil? Could you have broken a reed?
Could you even have blown the down from a thistle bloom?”
”No.”
”Would not your material body have been intact?”
”Yes.”
”Listen,” said he. ”Matter has no strength, matter obeys spirit, and spirit dominates all things material. Energy in some form holds particles of matter together, and energy in other forms loosens them.
'Tis this imponderable force that gives strength to substances, not the ponderable side of the material. Granite crushed is still granite, but dest.i.tute of rigidity. Creatures dead are still organic structures, but devoid of strength or motion. The spirit that pervades all material things gives to them form and existence. Take from your earth its vital spirit, the energy that subjects matter, and your so-called adamantine rocks would disintegrate, and sift as dust into the interstices of s.p.a.ce. Your so-called rigid globe, a sh.e.l.l of s.p.a.ce dust, would dissolve, collapse, and as the spray of a burst bubble, its ponderous side would vanish in the depths of force.”
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.”