_V._ There is no immateriality—it is a mere word. That which is not matter, is not at all—unless qualities are things. _P._ Is God, then, material? _V._ No. [_This reply startled me very much._] _P._ What, then, is he? _V._ [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see—but it is a thing difficult to tell. [_Another long pause._] He is not spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_. But there are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter _unparticled_—without particles—indivisible—_one;_ and here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all things; and thus _is_ all things within itself. This matter is God. What men attempt to embody in the word “thought,” is this matter in motion. _P._ The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the former. _V._ Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the action of _mind_, not of _thinking_. The unparticled matter, or God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men call mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of its unity and omniprevalence; _how_ I know not, and now clearly see that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in motion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking. _P._ Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the unparticled matter?