The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume II Part 6

I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.

The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-night this had been attempted in vain.

As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease.

"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do.

All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own works as well as in those of his European and American echoes. The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in my hands. I read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it logical, but the portions which were not _merely_ logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Germany. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The will may a.s.sent--the soul--the intellect, never.

"I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually believed. But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric influence.

I cannot better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, but which, in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend, except through its _effect_, into my normal condition. In sleep-waking, the reasoning and its conclusion--the cause and its effect--are present together. In my natural state, the cause vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains.

"These considerations have led me to think that some good results might ensue from a series of well-directed questions propounded to me while mesmerized. You have often observed the profound self-cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker--the extensive knowledge he displays upon all points relating to the mesmeric condition itself; and from this self-cognizance may be deduced hints for the proper conduct of a catechism."

I consented of course to make this experiment. A few pa.s.ses threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep. His breathing became immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical uneasiness.

The following conversation then ensued:--V. in the dialogue representing the patient, and P. myself.

_ P._ Are you asleep?

_ V._ Yes--no I would rather sleep more soundly.

_P._ [_After a few more pa.s.ses._] Do you sleep now?

_V._ Yes.

_P._ How do you think your present illness will result?

_V._ [_After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort_.] I must die.

_P._ Does the idea of death afflict you?

_V._ [_Very quickly_.] No--no!

_P._ Are you pleased with the prospect?

_V._ If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.

_P._ I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk.

_V._ I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I feel able to make. You do not question me properly.

_P._ What then shall I ask?

_V._ You must begin at the beginning.

_P._ The beginning! but where is the beginning?

_V._ You know that the beginning is G.o.d. [_This was said in a low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound veneration_.]

_P._ What then is G.o.d?

_V._ [_Hesitating for many minutes._] I cannot tell.

_P._ Is not G.o.d spirit?

_V._ While I was awake I knew what you meant by "spirit," but now it seems only a word--such for instance as truth, beauty--a quality, I mean.

_P._ Is not G.o.d immaterial?

_V._ There is no immateriality--it is a mere word. That which is not matter, is not at all--unless qualities are things.

_P._ Is G.o.d, then, material?

_V._ No. [_This reply startled me very much._]

_P._ What then is he?

_V._ [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see--but it is a thing difficult to tell. [_Another long pause._] He is not spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_. But there are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter _unparticled_--without particles--indivisible--_one_ and here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all things--and thus _is_ all things within itself. This matter is G.o.d. What men attempt to embody in the word "thought," is this matter in motion.

_P._ The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the former.

_V._ Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the action of _mind_--not of _thinking_. The unparticled matter, or G.o.d, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of its unity and omniprevalence; _how_ I know not, and now clearly see that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in motion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.

_P._ Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the unparticled matter?

_V._ The matters of which man is cognizant, escape the senses in gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop of water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the luminiferous ether. Now we call all these things matter, and embrace all matter in one general definition; but in spite of this, there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct than that which we attach to a metal, and that which we attach to the luminiferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost irresistible inclination to cla.s.s it with spirit, or with nihility. The only consideration which restrains us is our conception of its atomic const.i.tution; and here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of an atom, as something possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic const.i.tution and we should no longer be able to regard the ether as an ent.i.ty, or at least as matter. For want of a better word we might term it spirit. Take, now, a step beyond the luminiferous ether--conceive a matter as much more rare than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the metal, and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique ma.s.s--an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in the s.p.a.ces between them is an absurdity. There will be a point--there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms are sufficiently numerous, the inters.p.a.ces must vanish, and the ma.s.s absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic const.i.tution being now taken away, the nature of the ma.s.s inevitably glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it is impossible to conceive spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have merely deceived our understanding by the consideration of infinitely rarified matter.

_P._ There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea of absolute coalescence;--and that is the very slight resistance experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through s.p.a.ce--a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in _some_ degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know that the resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their density. Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no inters.p.a.ces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely dense, would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star than would an ether of adamant or of iron.

_V._ Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in the ratio of its apparent unanswerability.--As regards the progress of the star, it can make no difference whether the star pa.s.ses through the ether _or the ether through it_. There is no astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles the known r.e.t.a.r.dation of the comets with the idea of their pa.s.sage through an ether: for, however rare this ether be supposed, it would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far briefer period than has been admitted by those astronomers who have endeavored to slur over a point which they found it impossible to comprehend. The r.e.t.a.r.dation actually experienced is, on the other hand, about that which might be expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the instantaneous pa.s.sage through the orb. In the one case, the r.e.t.a.r.ding force is momentary and complete within itself--in the other it is endlessly acc.u.mulative.

_P._ But in all this--in this identification of mere matter with G.o.d--is there nothing of irreverence? [_I was forced to repeat this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my meaning_.]

_V._ Can you say _why_ matter should be less reverenced than mind? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in all respects, the very "mind" or "spirit" of the schools, so far as regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the "matter" of these schools at the same time. G.o.d, with all the powers attributed to spirit, is but the perfection of matter.

_P._ You a.s.sert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is thought?

_V._ In general, this motion is the universal thought of the universal mind. This thought creates. All created things are but the thoughts of G.o.d.

_P._ You say, "in general."

_V._ Yes. The universal mind is G.o.d. For new individualities, _matter_ is necessary.

_P._ But you now speak of "mind" and "matter" as do the metaphysicians.

_V._ Yes--to avoid confusion. When I say "mind," I mean the unparticled or ultimate matter; by "matter," I intend all else.

_P._ You were saying that "for new individualities matter is necessary."

_V._ Yes; for mind, existing unincorporate, is merely G.o.d. To create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized. Divested of corporate invest.i.ture, he were G.o.d. Now, the particular motion of the incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the thought of man; as the motion of the whole is that of G.o.d.