Can matter exist eternally?

Is spirit the product of matter or matter of spirit or are both eternal?

Your speaker believes they are both eternal. There are certain intelligences who contend that matter is the result of spirit and certain others who contend that spirit is the result of matter.

I believe that you cannot separate spirit from matter. I believe that spirit acts on matter―matter changes its forms to satisfy the requirements of spirit.

The mechanic must first have the idea or the thought of the article he wishes to construct before it comes into the objective world.

Here you see spirit behind the form and so I believe it ever is.

But as spirit is dependent for its mode of manifestation on matter, so matter is dependent for its existence on spirit. The two act in concert together. One would be a non-entity without the other.

This world and the world of mind are wedded together. These forms and their indwelling life are wedded together.

Mind and matter go hand in hand throughout eternity, I believe. Matter is transmuted from one form of being to another.

Is it equally true of spirit? Is animal life transmuted into human, human into angelic and back again into human?

The spirit or essence of life, we believe, is the same yesterday, today and forever. In essence, it never changes. It was always perfect, is, will always be perfect. It is only the external that changes.

I may influence the dog or the horse―he may obey my will and to that extent he may become my medium or subject through which my spirit manifests, precisely similar to that which is seen through the physical form. Indeed, the spirit has all forms by which it manifests itself to the external world.

The mechanic manifests his life in constructing these objects. The artist when he pictures his thoughts places his life there. The astronomer when he searches out worlds throws his life there. The geologist when he enters in thought down deep into the heart of the earth throws his life there.

Soul goes everywhere. Soul has dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, over all things that ever have been, are―or ever will be.

All things become mediums through which the soul manifests. You are mistaken when you suppose that these physical forms are the only machines through which the soul, the intelligent part, manifests itself. Look abroad throughout the Universe and you will see that you are mistaken.

Mind is exerted everywhere and you cannot exert your mind on any one object or in any one direction without throwing your life there and that life has become incorporated into the object.

The artist manifests through his glorious landscape, the sculptor through the grand form of marble, which seems as though it would speak. His life is there though the marble utters no sound, though it gives back not even a sigh to your admiration, still the artist's life is there. If you will only search into this glorious science of life, you will see for a certainty that mind is acting everywhere, not only through these forms, but through every conceivable form that has an existence.

―Spirit T. Starr King