THO UGHT-EEAD1NG. 333 



action, an undulation or wave in the circumambient, 

 all-embracing ether we should have what I will call 

 Brain-Waves proceeding from every brain when in 

 action. 



' ' Each acting, thinking brain, then, would become 

 a centre of undulations transmitted from it in all 

 directions through space. . . . Why do not such 

 undulations, when meeting with and falling upon duly 

 sensitive substances, as if upon the sensitised paper of 

 the photographer, produce impressions, dim portraits 

 of thoughts, as undulations of light produce portraits 

 of objects ? 



" The sound-wave passes on through myriads o 

 bodies, and among a million makes but one thing 

 sound or shake to it ; a sympathy of structure makes- 

 it sensitive, and it alone. A voice or tone may pass 

 unnoticed by ten thousand ears, but strike and vibrate 

 one into a madness of recollection. In the same way 

 the brain-wave of Damon, passing through space,, 

 producing no perceptible effect, meets somewhere 

 with the sensitised and sympathetic brain of Pythias,, 

 falls upon it, and fills it with a familiar movement. 

 The brain of Pythias is affected as by a tone, a 

 perfume, a colour with which he has been used to 

 associate his friend ; he knows not how or why, but 

 Damon comes into his thoughts, and the things con- 

 cerning him by association live again. If the last 

 brain- waves of life be frequently intensest convulsive 

 in their energy, as the firefly's dying flash is its 

 brightest, and as oftentimes the ' lightening before 



