298 THE REIGN OF LAW 



research. It is literally true that some of the most 

 distant objects in the Universe are more accessible 

 to our observation, and in some respects more in- 

 telligible to our understanding, than the material 

 frame in which we live. Man had discovered 

 much concerning the circulation of the Planets be- 

 fore he had discovered anything concerning the 

 circulation of his own blood.* Yet so near is the 

 current of that blood to him, so much is it a part 

 of himself, that when it stops, in an instant 

 " all his thoughts perish." Nevertheless, the 

 Mind is not conscious of its own dependence on 

 material organs. Even in respect to those exer- 

 tions of the Will which are expressed in move- 

 ments of the Body, we are conscious only of the 

 Will, and of the Will being exerted with suc- 

 cess; but we are entirely unconscious of the 

 machinery which intervenes between the intention 

 and the accomplishment of the act intended. 

 Such movements of the Body appear to us as if 

 they were direct acts of Will. Yet nothing can be 

 more certain than that the communication is not 



* Kepler and Harvey were contemporaries ; but Copernicus had 

 preceded them by nearly a hundred years. 



