confusedly thrust, and sundry ugly-looking inventions of mechanical
science, were, assuredly, not the articles which a timid proprietor would
guard with jealous care from the chances of robbery. It will be seen
later why I have been thus prolix in description. The morning after I had
met the young stranger by whom I had been so favourably impressed, I was
up as usual, a little before the sun, and long before any of my servants
were astir. I went first into the room I have mentioned, and which I
shall henceforth designate as my study, opened the window, unlocked the
gate, and sauntered for some minutes up and down the silent lace skirting
the opposite wall, and overhung by the chestnut-trees rich in the
garniture of a glorious summer; then, refreshed for work, I re-entered my
study, and was soon absorbed in the examination of that now well-known
machine, which was then, to me at least, a novelty,--invented, if I
remember right, by Dubois-Reymond, so distinguished by his researches into
the mysteries of organic electricity. It is a wooden cylinder fixed
against the edge of a table; on the table two vessels filled with salt and
water are so placed that, as you close your hands on the cylinder, the
forefinger of each hand can drop into the water; each of the vessels has a
metallic plate, and communicates by wires with a galvanometer with its
needle. Now the theory is, that if you clutch the cylinder firmly with
the right hand, leaving the left perfectly passive, the needle in the
galvanometer will move from west to south; if, in like manner, you exert
the left arm, leaving the right arm passive, the needle will deflect from
west to north. Hence, it is argued that the electric current is induced
through the agency of the nervous system, and that, as human Will produces
the muscular contraction requisite, so is it human Will that causes the
deflection of the needle. I imagine that if this theory were
substantiated by experiment, the discovery might lead to some sublime and
unconjectured secrets of science. For human Will, thus actively effective
on the electric current, and all matter, animate or inanimate, having more