Matter is indestructible, it changes its forms, but it cannot cease to exist.
The day when [one] grasps that matter has no volition is the day when he grasps
that he has—and this is his birth as a human being.
To grasp the axiom that existence exists, means to grasp the fact that nature,
i.e., the universe as a whole, cannot be created or annihilated, that it cannot
come into or go out of existence. Whether its basic constituent elements are
atoms, or subatomic particles, or some yet undiscovered forms of energy, it is
not ruled by a consciousness or by will or by chance, but by the Law of
Identity. All the countless forms, motions, combinations and dissolutions of
elements within the universe—from a floating speck of dust to the formation of
a galaxy to the emergence of life—are caused and determined by the identities
of the elements involved. Nature is the metaphysically given—i.e., the
nature of nature is outside the power of any volition.