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The term "SPIRIT" is applied to the UNCHANGING REALITY— this essence, nature, substance, and principle of All-that-is— not in the Spirit of close or arbitrary definition. Such an attempt would be absurd and most unphilosophical, for the very facts of its being render Spirit undefinable. It is over and above comparison and resemblance to any of the things of phenomenal appearance. It can be expressed only in its own terms. It is elusive and ever-evasive. As Spinoza said, "To define God is to deny Him." The term "Spirit" has been employed merely because it is the one term in the language which seems to lend itself to the idea or conception of Ultimate REALITY. It indicates essential substance, essential energy, essential being, essential life, essential mind, and essential nature.

As Edgar Allan Poe once said of the term: "This merest of words, and some other expressions of which the equivalents exist in nearly all languages, is by no means the expression of an idea, but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man needed a term by which to point out the direction of this effort—the cloud behind which lay, forever invisible, the object of this attempt. A word, in fine, was demanded by means of which one human being might put himself in relation at once with another human being and with a certain tendency of the human intellect. Out of this arose this term, which is thus the representative but of the thought of a thought .…The fact is that, upon the enunciation of any one of that class of terms to which this belongs,—the class representing thoughts of thought ,—he who has a right to say that he thinks at all feels himself called upon not to entertain a conception, but simply to direct his mental vision toward some given point in the intellectual firmament where lies a nebula never to be solved. To solve it, indeed, he makes no effort, for with a rapid instinct he comprehends, not only the impossibility, but, as regards all human purposes, the inessentiality of its solution. He sees at once how it lies out of the brain of man, and even how , if not exactly why , it lies out of it."

G. E. Moore says: "Common to all meanings of ‘Spirit' is the conception of that which is conscious. Consciousness itself is not conceived as being Spirit, but as being an attribute of it; so that Spirit is conceived as something capable of existing even when it is not conscious. On the other hand, there is no positive conception of what this permanent element in Spirit is; it is only conceived abstractly as that (whatever it may be) which is the substance or subject of consciousness , and negatively as not identical with any known quality."

So it will be seen that we use the term "Spirit" merely from its convenience and general fitness, and not from any desire to insist upon an arbitrary definition of that which defies definition. If the word "Being" seems better to fit the requirements of any individual student, by all means let him use it. We are concerned with ideas , not with words. For him who would ask for a synonymous concept, we suggest the association of our term "Spirit" with Herbert Spencer's " Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed. " As we go on, the idea of Spirit will be brought out more clearly by contrast with phenomenal appearances and qualities.

In the following chapters the term "SPIRIT" is employed in the place and sense of "REALITY."

Table of Content

STATEMENT: SPIRIT is Substance; its Substance is the only Substance, and all the Substance there is, yet it is Immaterial Substance.

THIS STATEMENT announces the fact of the All-Substance of Spirit. We have seen that "Substance" means "that which underlies all outward manifestations; that which constitutes anything what it is; real and existing essence, nature, or being; that which constitutes the Thing-in-Itself as distinguished from its appearances or outward manifestations." The statement also announces the fact of the Immateriality of Spiritual Substance.

The reason demands substantiality in any and every thing. It is unable to think of an unsubstantial thing. The very idea of Thingness is bound up with that of Substance. When we think of "mind" or "Spirit," we are really picturing a subtle, refined state of substance. A non-substantial thing is a Nothing. In theology the term "Substance" is used in connection with Deity, in connection with "essence, nature, and being."

The report of the reason is that Spirit not only must be Substantial but also that it must be Substance itself. As Spirit is held to be the "essence, nature, substance , and very being of All-that-is," it follows that it must be Substance and All-Substance. It is Substance by reason of the very facts of its nature. It is All-Substance because there is nothing else to furnish Substance, or to be Substance. Spirit being All-there-is in REALITY, then if Substance is in REALITY it must be identical with Spirit. The REALITY of Substance is reported by the reason. Therefore Substance must be considered as of Spirit, for there is nothing else for it to be, and nothing else to be it.

IMMATERIALITY OF SUBSTANCE.

In the same manner the reason reports the Immateriality of Substance. The illusion of the naive mind that Substance and Matter are identical is exposed by the trained reason. Matter is perceived by science and philosophy to be naught but a form of energy. It is composed of minute atoms, which in turn are composed of infinitesimal particles called ions or electrons , which are perceived to be but centers of energy and motion, and which are held to be but "appearances" in a hypothetical Something called the Universal Ether. Matter has melted into Immateriality, and is recognized as purely phenomenal and having no existence as ultimate fact.

THE UNIVERSAL ETHER.

The Universal Ether, which science now holds to be the basis of Matter and Material Energy, is a purely hypothetical Something-Nothing which science is compelled to postulate in order to account for certain forms of phenomena. It possesses none of the qualities of Matter, and is really Immaterial Substance. As one authority says, "It must be Matter possessing the qualities of a vacuum." It is held to be one, continuous, indivisible, inseparable, and not composed of parts of particles.

Dolbear, a scientific authority on the subject, says: "If the Ether that fills all space is not atomic in structure, presents no friction to bodies passing through it, and is not subject to gravitation, it does not seem proper to call it Matter. One might speak of it as ‘Substance' if he wants another name for it. As for myself, I make a sharp distinction between the Ether and Matter, and feel somewhat confused to hear one speak of the Ether as Matter."

Stockwell, another authority, says: "The Ether is coming to be apprehended as immaterial , superphysical Substance, filling all space, carrying in its infinite throbbing bosom the specks of aggregated dynamic force called worlds. It embodies the ultimate Spiritual principle , and represents the unity of those forces and energies from which spring, as their source, all phenomena, physical, mental, and Spiritual, as they are known to man.…That the Ether is not Matter in any of its forms practically all scientists are agreed."

Bigelow says: "You are all more or less familiar with that extraordinary entity upon whose inferential existence the lines of modern scientific thought seem to converge, the interstellar Ether, which seems likely to prove the ultimate form of matter out of which everything comes and everything must eventually return. You know the seemingly contradictory qualities which the hypothesis involves,—how it is perfectly rigid and perfectly elastic, perfectly dense and perfectly penetrable, hot and cold, heavy and light, and so on as far as we like to go. But antinomies cannot condition existence; and all this simply means that the Ether is unconditioned, an entity of no properties, or, more exactly, not an entity at all, but an infinite possibility ."