Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/423

Rh the records of his race, which he declared was the highest in creation, went back, with great certainty, for myriads of years before all other created beings: that previously to this, their history was somewhat obscure, but had recently been placed upon a much surer footing by some of their most prominent Spirits.

(a.) In the beginning all space was fluid—apparently one universal whitish liquid extended in all directions through what we should call space; so I thought at first that this might have some relation to the "milky way." Its temperature was considerable; and in about every thousand years a torrent of this fluid, of a still higher temperature, passed through space with a kind of gushing rush. It was peopled by myriads of happy spirits floating about in it.

After long ages of happiness a dispute arose between two Spirits as to the possibility of the existence of matter under any other form than that of a fluid. The Power which controlled their destiny, justly angry at their presumption, threw into the fluid a very small piece of what, as far as I could understand, was like organic matter.

(b.) The effect was astounding: all the fluid in contact with this intrusive piece of matter gradually lost its fluidity, and a new state of matter or of space arose which had been unknown in all past time. The change advanced slowly but certainly, on every side of the intruded matter. In its new form, as far as I could make out, space became elastic gelatinous matter. The two quarrelsome Spirits were the first to be surrounded in it. None in the immediate presence of this new kind of space could move away, and absorption went on rapidly imprisoning millions of beings.

A great controversy arose as to the state of those embedded in the jelly. Some supposed that they were miserably squeezed,