NEW CONCEPTIONS IN SCIENCE 



of what is going on only when the continuity is 

 broken; that the leap is consciousness. 



Such a view would throw back the seat of " the 

 divine faculty" from the nerves to the thin water- 

 and - jelly - like substance in which they are im- 

 mersed. Or, supposing that this especial colloid 

 cannot be fixed upon as the seat of the highest 

 powers of man, they might be thrown upon that 

 extraordinary and rather hypothetical ether, of 

 which the physicists talk so much and know so 

 little. It is too weighty a matter for these pages, 

 for this volume attempts rather a resume" of ac- 

 quired knowledge than a voyage into the dim un- 

 known. 



Whatever be the way the nerve-wave travels, it 

 is certain that something travels, and that this 

 something is what we call an impulse or a wave. 

 For the rate of its travelling can be accurately 

 timed, and, by an ingenious process, Professor 

 Richet, of Paris, believes that he can measure its 

 amplitude as you can the waves of sound or light. 



"Quick as thought" does not mean much. A 

 light -wave would travel seven times round the 

 equator in a second; and the speed of electricity, 

 unretarded, is the same. Even slow-going sound, 

 so slow that you can observe the flash of a gun 

 long before the report comes, does a thousand feet 

 a second. The nerve- wave makes only about a 



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