1.2 The Basic Elements of the Universe
The Knowledge of the Origin of Things
Humans cannot know the origin of things. On earth, God does not allow everything to be revealed to them.
They will be able to grasp the mystery of things now hidden from them as they become more and more purified, but to understand certain things they need faculties they do not yet have.
Humans can grasp some of nature’s secrets through scientific investigation. Science has been given to them for their advancement in all matters, but they cannot go beyond the limits set by God.
The more humans are allowed to grasp such mysteries, the more they should admire the power and wisdom of the Creator. However, whether through pride or weakness, their own minds often make them victims of illusion, and they pile theory upon theory. Every day they see how many errors they have mistaken for truths and how many truths they have dismissed as errors. These realizations are further blows to their pride.
Outside the realm of scientific investigation, humans can receive communications of a higher order regarding matters that go beyond the scope of their senses. If God deems it useful, God will reveal what science cannot detect.
It is through such communications that humans can, to a certain degree, know about their past and their future destiny.
Spirit and Matter
Only God knows whether matter is eternal like God or was created at some specific time in the past. Nevertheless, reason shows that God, the very personification of love and charity, has never been inactive. No matter how long ago one might imagine the onset of divine action, God cannot be conceived as ever having been idle for even one second.
The usual definitions of matter as that which has extension, that which can impress our senses, and that which is impenetrable are correct from the human point of view, because human beings can only speak about matters familiar to them. Matter, however, also exists in states that are unfamiliar.
The General Elements of the Universe
Matter may be so ethereal and subtle that the senses cannot detect it; it is matter nonetheless, even though it is not perceived as such.
Matter is the tie that enchains spirit; it is the instrument that spirit uses and upon which it simultaneously exerts its action.
From this viewpoint, matter may be called the agent or intermediary that enables spirit to act while at the same time being acted upon by spirit.
Spirit is the intelligent principle of the universe.
Spirit’s innermost nature is not easy to explain in human language. For human beings, it is nothing because it is not something palpable; nevertheless, for spirits it is something. Nothing means nothing, and nothing does not exist.
Intelligence is one of the essential attributes of spirit, but both merge into a common principle; thus, for human beings they are one and the same thing.
Spirit and matter are distinct from each other, but the union of spirit and matter is necessary to enable matter to act intelligently.
For human beings, this union is equally necessary for the manifestation of spirit, because they are not constituted to perceive spirit apart from matter. Their senses are not formed to do so. Here, "spirit" means the intelligent principle rather than the entities designated by that name.
Spirit apart from matter, and matter apart from spirit, may certainly be conceived in thought.
There are two general elements in the universe: matter and spirit. Above everything is God, the Creator and author of all. These three elements comprise the principle of all that exists; they are the universal trinity. However, to the element of matter must be added the universal fluid, which plays an intermediary role between spirit and matter per se, since matter is too dense for spirit to act upon it directly. Although from a certain point of view this fluid may be regarded as part of the material element, it differs from it because of its special properties. If it were simply matter, there would be no reason for spirit not to be matter too. It is placed between spirit and matter, and yet it is a fluid, just as matter is matter. In its countless combinations with matter, and under the direction of spirit, it is capable of producing an infinite variety of things about which very little is still known. As the agent upon which spirit acts, this universal, primitive, or elementary fluid is the principle without which matter would forever remain in a state of dispersion; it would never acquire the properties given to it by gravitation.
What are called the electric and magnetic fluids are both modifications of the one universal fluid. Properly speaking, this fluid is a perfected and subtler matter that may be considered independent of matter per se.
Since spirit is something in and of itself, these two general elements might be labeled "inert matter" and "intelligent matter," but words do not matter much to spirits. It is up to human beings to formulate their language in a way that allows them to understand one another. Their disputes almost always arise because they cannot agree on the meanings of the words they use. Human language is incomplete regarding things that do not touch the senses.
One obvious fact dominates all theories: matter, which is not intelligent, is observed, and an intelligent principle that is independent of matter is also observed; nonetheless, the origin of and connection between these two are unknown. Whether they have a common origin and necessary points of contact between them, whether intelligence has its own independent existence or is only a property or effect, as some claim, or even whether it is an emanation of the Divinity, is unknown. Matter and intelligence are distinct, as far as human beings are concerned; thus, they are regarded as two principles comprising the universe. Above these, however, there is an intelligence dominating and governing all others, and it differs from them because of its essential attributes: it is this supreme intelligence that is called God.
The Properties of Matter
Ponderability is an essential attribute of matter as we understand it, but not of matter considered as the universal fluid. The ethereal and subtle matter that forms this fluid is imponderable to us, and yet it is the very principle of our ponderable matter.
Ponderability is a relative property. Outside the gravitational pull of the globes, there is no weight, just as there is no up or down.
Matter consists of one single primitive element. The bodies regarded as simple are not true elements, but rather transformations of the one primitive matter.
The different properties of matter come from the modifications that the elementary molecules undergo as a result of their combining under certain conditions.
Flavors, odors, colors, sounds, and even the poisonous or healing qualities of certain bodies are no more than modifications of the one and the same primitive substance, and they exist only because of the disposition of the organs meant to perceive them.
This principle is proven by the fact that not all people perceive the qualities of objects in the same way: what one person finds tasty, another might find disgusting; what appears blue to one person may appear red to another; something that is poisonous for some might be harmless or even healthy for others.
The same elementary matter is capable of undergoing all possible modifications and acquiring all possible properties, and this is what should be understood when it is said that "everything is in everything."
The General Elements of the Universe
Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, and all the other elements considered simple are only modifications of the one primitive substance. As it is still impossible for us to go back to this substance except in thought, these elements truly are elements for us, and, without further ado, we may consider them as such until further notice.
This theory affirms the opinion of those who believe that matter has no more than two essential properties, force and movement, and that all the other properties are only secondary effects that vary according to the intensity of the force and the direction of the movement. This opinion is correct, but it should also add: according to the arrangement of the molecules. This may be seen, for example, in an opaque body that becomes transparent, and vice versa.
Molecules have a defined form, but we are incapable of discerning it.
The form is constant for the primitive elementary molecules but variable for the secondary ones, which are only aggregations of the former. However, what is termed a molecule is still very far from being the elementary molecule.
Universal Space
Universal space is infinite. If it had limits, what would be beyond them? This baffles human reason, yet reason itself tells us that it can be no other way. The same is true of the idea of the infinite, which can never be comprehended from the tiny sphere of human thought.
If a limit to space is imagined, no matter how far out thought may place it, reason tells us that there must still be something beyond it, and so on to infinity. Even if there were only an absolute void beyond that limit, there would still be space.
There is no absolute void in any part of universal space. What appears to be a void is actually occupied by matter that cannot be detected by human senses or instruments.