MODERN CONCEPTION OF MATTER 33 



its entirety is nothing else but one individual 

 being ; that is to say, the outermost heavenly sphere, 

 together with all included therein, is, as regards 

 individuality, beyond all question, a single being, 

 like Said and Omar. The variety of its substances 

 — I mean the substances of that sphere and of all 

 its component parts — is like the variety of the 

 substances of a human being ; just as Said is one 

 individual, consisting of various solid substances, 

 such as flesh, bones, sinews, various humours, 

 various spiritual elements." 



The more men thought, the more men knew, 

 the more mysterious appeared the properties of 

 dead matter ; and the more philosophers and 

 scientists strove to simplify and explain it, the 

 more it seemed necessary to endow it again with 

 life and motion, or to dematerialise it in some way. 

 Look at the philosophical theories of the last few 

 hundreds of years ! Have not they all recognised 

 the dynamical character of matter } Have not 

 most of them attached to matter some psychical 

 significance, or put matter under some psychical 

 control, or found in matter some inner mystery 

 beyond bodily vision } Giordano Bruno, that 

 brave monk who was burned alive in the sixteenth 

 century, felt it necessary to conceive of matter 

 as made of Monads — ultimate spherical points, 

 regarded as possessing both spiritual and material 



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