to understand why a spirit whose sense of sight was unimpeded by physiological organs or conditions—a spirit to whom the electric atmosphere, which lies embosomed in the outer air—served as the vehicle of ocular knowledge, should behold it in the same way.
But while studying the answer to the first problem, the solution of the second came to me, and I saw that the similarity of phenomena, viewed from opposite states, was attributable solely to the former habitudes of my mind, and to the association of ideas.
Thotmor saw my embarrassment, and the conclusions on the subject to which I had arrived. "Right!" said he. "But,"—ere another moment elapsed I replied: "I think that Nature is a system of active forces, ever radiating from God as beams from a star—that they go out, and as constantly return to the point whence they emanated." Paradox! Explain!" "I mean that"—here a sudden thought struck me, and I said to the guide, "You have not dealt fairly by me; you are not Thotmor, an Egyptian of the early centuries; on the contrary, I am convinced that you have disguised yourself, and for certain reasons and purposes of your own assumed another name. You are—I feel perfectly convinced that you must be Socrates, the philosopher, come back for a time to pursue the old and honorable avocation,—the teaching and enlightment of the ignorant; for Socrates alone, of all earth's great children of yore, was the one who taught by asking questions of such as sought knowledge and wisdom, where he sat to dispense them. Am I not right?"
The rare being gazed tenderly down into my eyes, and his countenance glowed with a radiance quite glorious and divine, as he replied: "Yes.—No. I am Socrates
