THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 31 



room at night, with a bloody knife in his hand. The man 

 confessed that he had come into the room, Macbeth- 

 like, for the very purpose of committing that murder, 

 and the knife he had clutched was the instrument by 

 which the fatal wound had been given. Yet another 

 man was the actual perpetrator of the crime, one who 

 had just done the deed, and, being startled by 

 approaching footsteps, had fled. 



The would-be murderer had approached the bed 

 with the full intention of committing that crime, when, 

 in horrified bewilderment at finding his secret thought 

 acted out before his eyes, he clutched at no air- drawn 

 dagger, but the real weapon the first murderer had 

 flung down. That strange tale was true, and proved 

 to be so beyond all doubt. Yes ; detected in the 

 chamber of crime, in the slayer's very attitude, holding 

 the actual instrument of death, and (for astonishment, 

 had fixed and not quenched their expression) looking 

 with murder-meaning eyes upon the dying victim, that 

 man was yet only an accessory to the scene the con- 

 comitant, andmtf the CAUSE, of the victim's death. 



If appearances are so deceptive in the familiar world 

 of our fellow men, can we wonder if they often lead 

 us astray in regions so remote from our ordinary per- 

 ceptions as those of which the most powerful micro- 

 scopes can only give us glimpses ? 



Let us consider the three illustrations again : The 

 visitor from another sphere, the traveller, and the 

 witnesses who came upon the would-be murderer. 

 How should we set about to bring the truth to light 

 in each of these cases ? 



(1.) To the visitor we should point out the extreme 

 utility, nay absolute necessity, in a sanitary point of 



