(4) Matter is Eternal. It is the Upâdhi, or Physical Basis, for the One Infinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations. Therefore, the Esotericists maintain that there is no inorganic or “dead” matter in Nature, the distinction between the two made by Science being as unfounded as it is arbitrary and devoid of reason. Whatever Science may think, however—and _exact_ Science is a fickle dame, as we all know by experience—Occultism knows and teaches differently, as it has done from time immemorial, from Manu and Hermes down to Paracelsus and his successors. Thus, Hermes, the Thrice Great, says: Oh, my son, matter _becomes_; formerly it _was_; for matter is the vehicle of becoming. Becoming is the mode of activity of the uncreate and foreseeing God. Having been endowed with the germ of becoming, [objective] matter is brought into birth, for the creative force fashions it _according to the ideal forms_. Matter not yet engendered had no form; it becomes, when it is put into operation.(417) To this the late Dr. Anna Kingsford, the able translator and compiler of the Hermetic Fragments, remarks in a footnote: Dr. Ménard observes that in Greek the same word signifies _to be born_ and _to become_. The idea here is, that the material of the world is in its essence eternal, but that before creation or “becoming” it is in a passive and motionless condition. Thus it “was” before being put into operation; now it “becomes,” that is, it is mobile and progressive. And she adds the purely Vedântic doctrine of the Hermetic philosophy that: Creation is thus the period of activity [Manvantara] of God, who, according to Hermetic thought [or _which_, according to the Vedântin], has two modes—Activity or Existence, God evolved (Deus explicitus); and Passivity of Being [Pralaya], God involved (Deus implicitus). Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the waking and sleeping states of man. Fichte, the German philosopher, distinguished Being (Seyn) as One, which we know only through existence (Daseyn) as the Manifold. This view is thoroughly Hermetic. The “Ideal Forms” ... are the archetypal or formative ideas of the Neo‐Platonists; the eternal and subjective concepts of things subsisting in the Divine Mind, prior to “creation” or becoming. Or, as in the philosophy of Paracelsus: Everything is the product of one universal creative effort.... There is nothing _dead_ in Nature. _Everything is organic and living_, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living organism.(418)