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I recently ran across this passage by Fr. Benedict Groeschel: "The account of the Ascension brings us to the edge of physical matter. No scientist would ever be so foolish as to give an explanation of the nature of physical matter, which is one of science's great mysteries. Therefore, any appeal to physics to deny the Resurrection or the Ascension is absurd. We do not know what matter itself is." The Rosary, Ignatius Press (2003), p. 79.

I've never claimed to be a philosopher, but I have read a lot of philosophy--though perhaps more in the vein of Otto West than Etienne Gilson. Yet I've never stumbled across this (seemingly) fundamental philosophical issue: What is matter? There's the question of how do we categorize the matter we see (the problem of universals); the problem of what, ultimately, is there; the problem of knowledge in general; the mind-body problem; free will; etc. But I don't recall reading about the nature of matter. I suspect I have, but I either simply don't remember it or I didn't know what I was reading about (reference back to Otto).

PM Revisited

I get inquiries occasionally about metal investing. I don't write about it as much as I used to, primarily because I scaled back my metal investments after silver went north of $30 an ounce. I had planned on accumulating a lot more precious metals, but I didn't like the stress of storing it: for safety reasons, I didn't like to keep it around my house. So I put the bullion in a bank safe deposit box and stopped buying once the box was full (then shifted over to mining stocks). I realize that safe deposit boxes have their own risks, but I prefer those risks to violent ones.

But yes: I still think precious metals are a good investment, even at $30 an ounce for silver and $1,700 an ounce for gold. I wouldn't "bet the house" on metals, but I personally incline toward the view that everyone should have at least 5% of their net wealth in metals.

And finally:

Happy Halloween. Between the spooky holiday and some travel, blogging might be a little light the next two days.

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