Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  general features - it would be supererogation to demonstrate ; nor

  shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration ;

  to-day. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am

  impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail

  without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy,

  occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.

  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

  assent - 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 passes

  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 passes._] 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 GOD. [_This was said in a

  low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound

  veneration_.]

  _P._ What then is God ?

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

  _P._ Is not God 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 God 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 God, 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 God.

  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

  God, 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 class

  it with spirit, or with nihility. The only consideration which

  restrains us is our conception of its atomic constitution ; 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 constitution and we should no

  longer be able to regard the ether as an entity, 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

  mass - an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite

  littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in

  the spaces 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 interspaces must vanish, and the mass

  absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic

  constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass 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 space

  - 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

  interspaces, 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 passes

  through the ether _or the ether through it_. There is no

  astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles the

  known retardation of the comets with the idea of their passage

  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

  retardation actually experienced is, on the other hand, about that

  which might be expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the

  instantaneous passage through the orb. In the one case, the

  retarding force is momentary and complete within itself - in the

  other it is endlessly accumulative.

  _P._ But in all this - in this identification of mere matter

  with God - 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. God, with all the powers attributed to

  spirit, is but the perfection of matter.

  _P._ You assert, 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 God.

  _P._ You say, "in general."

  _V._ Yes. The universal mind is God. 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 God. To

  create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate

  portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized. Divested of