Scientific Lectures. 26 L 



of one material utterly unlike the product which is brought to us. 

 [Applause.] I am sitting in my room, and the heat gently stealing 

 over me, I raise my eyes, and they fall upon a fine work of art upon 

 my mantel; my ear, at the same time, may be delighted with pleasant 

 sounds, and a yet more pleasant voice on my right hand. Here are 

 three forms of motion stealing upon my body, and transformed into 

 an atmosphere of quiet and delicious comfort. Of these products of 

 the mind, these three external conditions, tlie physicist can say 

 nothing more than they are all one, all some form of motion. Thus 

 what he loses sight of in the physical world as one thing reappears 

 in the intellectual world as entirely distinct and diverse forms of 

 knowledge. The mind, by its own necromancy, pours from one 

 bottle every variety of wine. From one state of a homogeneous gray 

 mass, which the physical inquirer only knows as a phase of motion, 

 the mind reaches the elevation of thought, the warmth of emotion, the 

 firmness of purpose. 



Suppose this black-board were a mirror. I should see at once the 

 entire audience, and I should construct in the depths of that mirror 

 a space in which to place that audience. Now, the mind does all 

 this. I know that the audience in reality exists. I see this external 

 fact, and I see at the same time the picture in the mirror. Every- 

 thing is reversed as compared to the external fact. Yet, of these 

 weaves of motion, by my mental power, I can spread out an imagin- 

 ary space, and create at once an entire equivalent to this external 

 fact — an equivalent which has no existence save as my thought first 

 creates it, and then looks upon it. The light coming to the board is 

 thrown direct upon the eye, placing behind it this image of the 

 mind. How little is the world except as the mind lays hold of it 

 and makes it something. How much of power, of creative art, does 

 it require to give due extension to the picture. If the poet is a cre- 

 ator, almost in the same degree is he who listens to the poetr}' in the 

 spirit of the poet also a creator. 



Scientific Conceptions. 

 Passing from the senses, I invite your attention to the scientific 

 conceptions for a second illustration of the power of the mind. 

 Take, for instance, such a conception as that of the solar system. 

 The mind needs to be powerfully trained in order to bring that 

 conception with any great clearness before it — the sun in the center 

 of the system, each planet with its satellite revolving about it. This 



