AND THE MICROSCOPE. 21 



veyed by the nerves, as a command to the organ which 

 the will would move. The nerves, therefore, are the 

 peculiarly essential part of the organs of sense, in which we 

 have to seek the intermediate links between mind and 

 body ; if we would use them to instruct ourselves as to the 

 nature of our union with the material world, we must 

 thoroughly inquire into their legitimate action. 



Two points only require especial notice, but these are 

 peculiar enough. The master has a curious way of pro- 

 ceeding with his servants ; he, the mind, translates all that 

 they, the nerves, bring him word of into his own language, 

 and for every one of the servants has he a fellow. Let the 

 fibres of the optic nerve be struck by what they will, let 

 waves of light agitate them, the finger press them, the 

 over-filled vessels pulsate on them or an electric spark dart 

 through them, the mind translates all these different im- 

 pressions into the language of light and colour. If from 

 excitement the blood, distending the vessels, presses upon 

 the nerves, we feel it as pain in the finger, we hear it as a 

 humming in the ear, we see it as dartings of light in the 

 eye. And herein we have the most distinct proof that our 

 ideas are free creations of our mind, that we do not con- 

 ceive the external world as it really is, but that its action 

 upon us gives rise to a peculiar mental activity, the products 

 of which have frequently a certain definite connection with 

 the outer world, but are also frequently totally unconnected 

 with it. We press upon our eye and behold a luminous 

 circle before us, but there exists no luminous body. How 

 full and dangerous a spring of errors of all kinds here flows 

 forth, is at once evident. From the odd shapes of the 

 moonlight cloud-landscape, to the maddening visions of the 

 ghost-seer, we have a series of deceptions, none of which 

 fall to the charge of Nature or her strict conformity, but 



