loo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tion and cross-question these gentlemen, and before witnesses, and 

 they maintain their assertion stolidly ; and I believe that they do 

 see in their own mind the chairs doing all they say ; but what this 

 peculiar condition of mind implies I know not. To the majority 

 of readers uch tales appear mere vaporing. I can offer no ex- 

 planation, except that these visions are not delusions, for the 

 perpetrators are reasoning beings and sane ; they are not illusions, 

 for such gentlemen (and ladies, too, I believe, but I have not met 

 them) believe that they are actually moving solid furniture merely 

 by the force of their own suggestion. Such acts, so interpreted, 

 appear to me to be only able to be likened to those of a deity 

 and a deity is beyond our comprehension. They are not due to 

 animal magnetism. They are not dreams. The effect of sugges- 

 tion by means of " hypnotism," with its startling results, has been 

 witnessed by thousands, but any similar explanation breaks 

 down here. If these things be true, then the connection between 

 the animate and inanimate creation is complete. For obvious 

 reasons, names can not be introduced into such a paper as this ; 

 but I believe that I could gain an introduction to one or both 

 of these gentlemen for any person, sufficiently well known, and 

 desirous of investigating such material. 



The lower animals, then, in a degree, do almost all that we can 

 do. Plants do many things that were once considered to be solely 

 the doings of the animal creation. The ultimate sit'uctural ele- 

 ments of either will some day assist in the formation of moun- 

 tains and seas. Therefore, indeed, we are all one animal, plant, 

 mountain, sea. The component elements and molecules of the 

 animal and plant creation have simply become highly idealized 

 and specialized. The marked difference between man and a 

 mountain lies in the constant dissipation of energy by man and 

 its passive retention by the mountain. The mountain is a mere 

 reservoir of energy ; man one of the compounds of elements used 

 for the dissipation of energy. Oentleman's Magazine. 



The difficulties that many Lave experienced in understanding the writings of 

 the alchemists are accounted for by M. M. Pattison Muir by showing that the 

 names they used and which have survived as the names of well-known substances 

 were applied only to certain principles or properties that matter was supposed to 

 possess. Thus the word sulplnir represents the principle of changeability, and 

 the word mercury the principles of malleability and luster which the metals 

 exhibit. The alchemists used expressions of this kind partly to hide their secrets 

 from the uninitiated, and partly to preserve themselves from the suspicion of deal- 

 ing with the evil one, who was considered to be the possessor of the earth. The 

 mystical language was derived, to a large extent, from theology. Possibly the 

 alchemists attached some definite meanings to the fantastic terms they used, but 

 the meanings are lost to us. 



