than absolute fact—the direct contact of my inner being with the truths here related: hence I hesitate not for an instant in challenging the guesses of even a Newton, and offsetting against them the results of my own personal inspection of the phenomena whereof his Principia treats. In the first place, there are many different kinds of light: in the present instance, there were two sorts in operation; first, the rays of solar light fell upon the printed page, and with it a still finer, and more subtle, white and velvet light, from the eyes of the man himself; which proved to me, that men gain a knowledge of external things by means of an absolute and positive irradiation from the soul itself, whose seat is in the central brain; and this, through the medium of the optic nerves, retina and other delicate organs. In proportion to the central power of the soul, it suffuses and bathes everything in, and with, a subtle aura; and this aura is that mysterious telegraphic apparatus, by means of which it issues its behests, and receives information.
While gazing upon this beautiful sight I distinctly heard a bell ring; and yet that bell was not sounded within two hundred miles of the spot where at that very moment the body of the writer lay wrapped in a death-like pall of insensibility, as was proved by the actions of the man within the house, near which I stood, investigating the sublimest of all phenomena—namely, the Human Soul, its phases, modes and nature.
The student instantly laid down the book and rose to his feet; not, however, to respond to the ringing, but to bid his three or four little mischief-loving prattlers be quiet, make less noise, put aside the hand-bell, and not disturb him by its tinkling.
All this was deeply interesting; but what most
