_is_. A luminous body imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether.
The vibrations generate similar ones within the retina; these again
communicate similar ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar
ones to the brain; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled
matter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of
which perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the
mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world; and
this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the
idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized life, the
external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a substance having
affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no other intervention than that
of an infinitely rarer ether than even the luminiferous; and to this
ether--in unison with it--the whole body vibrates, setting in motion
the unparticled matter which permeates it. It is to the absence of
idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly
unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs
are the cages necessary to confine them until fledged.

_P._ You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other rudimental
thinking beings than man?

_V._ The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulae,
planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulae, suns,
nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for the
idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings. But for
the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life, there
would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is tenanted by a
distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking creatures. In all,
the organs vary with the features of the place tenanted. At death,
or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate
life--immortality--and cognizant of all secrets but _the one_, act all
things and pass everywhere by mere volition:--indwelling, not the stars,
which to us seem the sole palpabilities, and for the accommodation
of which we blindly deem space created--but that SPACE itself--that
infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the
star-shadows--blotting them out as non-entities from the perception of
the angels.

_P._ You say that "but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental life" there
would have been no stars. But why this necessity?

_V._ In the inorganic life, as well as i