Substance is that which occupies space. In its more compact and rigid forms substance is perceptible by the senses, and is then called matter; but in its finer and more ethereal forms, when it cannot be perceived by the senses, substance is still matter, and is essentially the same. The apparently many substances of nature are in reality only varying forms of one Substance; the differences between them are due to varying degrees of pressure, and to the form and rate of vibration of the atoms which compose them. Ice is a solid substance; water a partially fluid substance; the vapor arising from water verges on the gaseous state; and oxygen and hydrogen are gases. But a piece of ice may be brought back through all these stages, and converted into oxygen and hydrogen, and no change is made in it except that in the fluid state the atoms are less firmly pressed together than in the solid state; and in the gaseous state the bond of cohesion is still weaker, and the atoms circulate or roll around each other more freely than in the fluid state. It is now a well-known fact that nearly all the growth of the vegetable kingdom comes from the atmosphere; trees, plants and flowers are solidified air. The furniture in our homes, and the walls of the houses in which we live are merely solidified gases; burn them, and they return to their original state, leaving only a handful of ashes as “material” evidence of their existence, and if we learn to treat these ashes with the right agencies, they, too, will vanish into the ethereal realm. The earth itself, so firm and solid under our feet, was indisputably once a ball of flaming gases and vapors, and in the stage before that, must it not have been still more ethereal? It is all solidified atmosphere. Our own bodies are compounds of gases; in the crematory the human form vanishes. All things came out from the ether, and all things are ether, _changed_ to more or less solid forms by differences in atomic pressure and cohesion. All this brings us to the conclusion that the many seemingly different substances--iron, wood, coal, lime, water, etc., are merely different forms of one thing; that there is only one elemental substance, from which all created things are shaped. As we find that solid things are the gaseous atmosphere, solidified by an increased atomic pressure, so we shall no doubt find that the gases are produced from one ether, being brought to the semi fluid state by increased pressure, and at last we must conclude that there is one perfectly fluid substance, of which are made all the things which do appear. This One Substance is the stupendous reality behind all the appearances of the material world.