"But surely you believe in a Divine Being?" replied Villebois, looking very shocked. "That too I cannot accept." "Oh! what a dreadful man," cried Madame Villebois, absolutely horrified. "My dear," she whispered to her husband, "how could you invite an infidel to our house who does not believe in anything?" "On the contrary, madame, I believe in many things," said Delapine, who overheard her remark, "although, unlike most people, I claim no credit for doing so. But one thing we must all admit, whatever we believe cannot alter the facts. People believe in a God because it acts as a Deus ex machina, to account for the difficulties which surround them on every side, and dispenses with their need of thinking. Besides, it flatters their vanity when they are told that God made man in His own image. Whereas, as a matter of fact, it is the other way about. Man made God in Man's own image. The idea of a God is based on that of a gigantic man, or at least on something which has dimensions, and possesses certain human attributes and passions on a vast scale, although if we were to judge by the way the average person prays, his God would not make a decent sized man. On the other hand philosophy convinces me that the Eternal can have no shape, or attributes, or passions, such as we can conceive of. A Divine Being is open to the same objection. A Being implies a material form--something which exists. Now the Eternal cannot be anything which exists, at least not in the same sense that is attached to matter as we know it, since everything which exists must have had a beginning, and therefore cannot be eternal. Take a bucketful of the ocean, you have water. Take a sample of the atmosphere and you have air. Take a handful of space and you have Mind. "This eternal Mind is the 'Fons et Origo' of everything. It is the source of all energy and all matter. It alone is eternal. All else is evanescent and unsubstantial. Did not Virgil make that profound remark:-- "Mens agitat Molem et magna corpore miscet."[5] "Do we not find Marian Capella at the beginning of the Christian era mentioning Mind as being the fifth or fundamental element? Consider these facts well, for they form the key to all spiritualistic phenomena. At the end of the eighteenth century we find the great Russian poet Derchavin uttering the same idea in the following words of which I give the translation:-- "O Thou Eternal Mind whose presence bright, All space doth occupy, all motion guide; Unchanged through Time's all-devastating flight-- Thou only God, there is no God beside. Being above all beings Mighty One, Whom none can comprehend and none explore; Who fills existence with Thyself alone, Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er; Being whom we call God and know no more.