a man can lift in a hard day's work, and the opus calorificum, the quantity of ice his body will cause to melt during the same time."

I believe this will prove to be a very inadequate account of the way in which the force received into the body again passes from it. The body is a system of solidified gases, or concentrated forces, (for particulars, see them as bottled up separately at the Kensington Museum,) in constant fluxinflux and efflux-with everything around. No mention is here made of the electricity which is constantly flowing from the body in quantities more or less, as the nervous or other temperaments predominate in its structure. Nothing is said. of the Odyle, to Reichenbach's sensitives visibly streaming from the extremities, and other parts of the body; or of the nervous force, composed perhaps of both the above, and which constitutes the peculiar strength of the magnetiser.

But the most elaborate apparatus in the body is that for the production of mental force. Here no doubt is the expenditure of the greater part of the fourteen million pounds lifting force that enters through the food, and the great question is what becomes of it? The writer above truly says, "Intense mental effort cannot by itself be measured by the physiologist," and yet in this direction lies the future course of a psychology based on physiology. And also Herbert Spencer—“Those modes of the unknowable which we call motion, heat, light, chemical affinity, &c., are alike transformable into each other, and into those modes of the unknowable which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought: these, in their turns, being directly or indirectly re-transformable into the original shapes." Exactly, "re-transformable!"-but when, where, and how? What becomes of every thought, as it is turned out of its "form" or mould in the brain? We know it is the exact equivalent of the physical force expended in producing it, and

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sometimes, to our cost, if we make a man angry, we get its exact equivalent in physical force again: but where it takes the form of muscular motion or of heat, is, I think, the exception, not the rule. Many facts now point to an atmosphere, or reservoir of thought, the result of cerebration, into which the thought and feeling generated by the brain is continuously passing. The brains and nervous systems of the whole sensitive existence are increasing and intensifying this mental atmosphere. The question is, does force exist more commonly as physical force or as mental? Does thought passing from us become free thought, or does it join some odylic or other medium? and does each separate thought retain its identity, that is, the form impressed upon it by our organization; or does it change its form, lose its consciousness, and thus no longer be thought and feeling? The Manifestationists, we are told by Professor Masson, hold the doctrine," which, if developed, would assert nothing less than the phenomenal recoverability within the Cosmos of all sentiency that had ever belonged to it."* It is the general belief that force cannot exist by itself, but must belong to something else-must be the force of something; but I think I have previously shown that this belief is untenable. Bacon says:

"The magnetic or attractive energy allows of interposed media without destruction, and, be the medium what it may, the energy is not impeded. But if that energy or action has nothing to do with the interposed body, it follows that there is, at an actual time and in an actual place, an energy or natural action subsisting without body; since it subsists neither in the terminal nor in the intermediate bodies. Wherefore magnetic action may serve as an Instance of Divorce in relation to corporeal nature and natural action.

*Recent British Philosophy, p. 297.

To this may be added, by way of corollary, the following important result: that a proof thus be had, even by the mere philosopher of sense, of the existence of separate and incorporeal entities and substances. For if natural energy and action emanating from a body can exist, at a time and in a place, entirely without body, it is pretty clear that it may originally emanate from an incorporeal substance. For a corporeal nature seems just as much required for supporting and conveying as for exciting or generating natural action.”*

We have no difficulty in conceiving of electricity as existing freely throughout space; but thought or mind, and electricity, are the same force in different forms or modes of manifestation. Electricity, although apparently in existence everywhere, only manifests itself to us through some kind of machine or body, so free thought can only manifest itself to us through some kind of organization. We know that physical force everywhere is in direct communication; that the remotest star is influencing our earth and our earth it; that every centre of force or body is acting upon every other body. It is not less so in the force which we call mind. Mind is in connection with all other mind.

There are certain individuals and nomadic tribes, in whom the vital system so predominates and the vital powers are so strong that they may literally be cut in two-lose legs and arms and life not be destroyed; and there are others in whom the nervous system so predominates that thought and feeling, are generated so rapidly and in such quantities that there is no time for their re-correlation or re-transformation through the bodily organization, and they flow over into the general reservoir of mind. Nervous force may also be made to overflow into other bodily systems.

* Novum Organon, Lib. xi., Aph. 37.

То

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what extent, and in what way conscious thought and feeling, nervous force, electricity, and odyle, differ from each other or are necessary to each other, has not, I think, been correctly determined.

The interesting experiments of Dubois Raymond demonstrate the difference between nervous force and electricity, but Matteucci shewed that nervous force is capable of being transformed into electricity, under the influence of a peculiar structure, as illustrated in electrical fishes. Raymond's instruments may correctly measure the rate of the current along the nerve, but such experiments only show forcibly how much requires to be done. It is a step only in the right direction. When our philosophers, like Tyndall, pay the same attention to vital and mental forces as they now do to physical, we may hope to advance rapidly.

I know that it is the general belief, even of the spiritualists, that mind cannot exist apart from organization, but if force can exist apart from body, mind, which is only another form of force, may do so also. Thought and feeling are transformed force and cannot cease to exist, and the question is when it passes from us, in what form does it exist? Does it retain consciousness, that is, remain thought and feeling? In sleep what becomes of it? There I think it takes another form and is added to the vital force, as I have said before; but under a slight pressure on the brain, or temporary stoppage of the action of the heart, what becomes of it then? It is impossible to say what mind may be out of the body, as nothing can be known to us but in its action upon us— that is relatively-mind therefore cannot be known to us but in connection with organization, that is, our own organization. Sentiency is known to us only in connection with the brain and nervous system, and consciousness is reflection upon this sentiency, and is known to us only in

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connection with the highest intelligence here, that is, Man. That some kind of feeble sentiency attends the vitality of plants I think is very probable. We cannot go further down, for although every atom acts intelligently, that is, towards a given purpose, the consciousness is of it, not in it.

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When I speak then of a thought" atmosphere, a "mental" atmosphere, or a 'general" mind, I mean either mind or sentiency, or that condition of force which immediately precedes mind or consciousness, and which must exist in the brain, when from a slight pressure upon it, consciousness

ceases.

To the transference of nervous force, and even mental states with it, from one body to another, and to the union of individual mind with the mental atmosphere, are owing I think it will be found, all the varied phenomena of somnambulism, mesmerism, and clairvoyance, and of what is called spiritualism.

The Senses are considered to be the only inlets of the world without to the mind within, but they are also the regulators by which no more of the influx of the general mind is admitted than is good for our conduct and happiness in common life, in the sphere of duties in which we are placed. A Somnambule is enabled to do without the senses, and in a state of trance or mesmerism the barrier between individual and general mind seems partially broken down.

The Conditions attending Influx or Inspiration.

The bodily conditions requisite to induce this state seem to be that the "meddling senses" should be laid asleep, and that all other parts of the body should have as little to do as possible. Prayer and fasting and solitude are particularly efficacious to this end. In solitude the senses are quiet, and under long and continued fasting the vital system having