entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon
obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but
what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from
the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent
death! Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or
devils was a promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the
fulfilment of which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were
always unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own
inexperience and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my
instructors. And thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems,
mingling, like an unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and
floundering desperately in a very slough of multifarious knowledge,
guided by an ardent imagination and childish reasoning, till an
accident again changed the current of my ideas. When I was about
fifteen years old we had retired to our house near Belrive, when we
witnessed a most violent and terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from
behind the mountains of Jura, and the thunder burst at once with
frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens. I remained,
while the storm lasted, watching its progress with curiosity and
delight. As I stood at the door, on a sudden I beheld a stream of fire
issue from an old and beautiful oak which stood about twenty yards from
our house; and so soon as the dazzling light vanished, the oak had
disappeared, and nothing remained but a blasted stump. When we visited
it the next morning, we found the tree shattered in a singular manner.
It was not splintered by the shock, but entirely reduced to thin
ribbons of wood. I never beheld anything so utterly destroyed.

Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of
electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural