the mechanical action. During the
last month I have written a great deal on that subject. You will
find some curious notes and observations there. In short, I should be
inclined to put all my faith in work, to place health in the harmonious
working of all the organs, a sort of dynamic therapeutics, if I may
venture to use the expression."

He had gradually grown excited, forgetting his approaching death in his
ardent curiosity about life. And he sketched, with broad strokes, his
last theory. Man was surrounded by a medium--nature--which irritated
by perpetual contact the sensitive extremities of the nerves. Hence the
action, not only of the senses, but of the entire surface of the body,
external and internal. For it was these sensations which, reverberating
in the brain, in the marrow, and in the nervous centers, were there
converted into tonicity, movements, and thoughts; and he was convinced
that health consisted in the natural progress of this work, in receiving
sensations, and in giving them back in thoughts and in actions, the
human machine being thus fed by the regular play of the organs. Work
thus became the great law, the regulator of the living universe. Hence
it became necessary if the equilibrium were broken, if the external
excitations ceased to be sufficient, for therapeutics to create
artificial excitations, in order to reestablish the tonicity which is
the state of perfect health. And he dreamed of a whole new system of
treatment--suggestion, the all-powerful authority of the physician,
for the senses; electricity, friction, massage for the skin and for the
tendons; diet for the stomach; air cures on high plateaus for the
lungs, and, finally, transfusion, injections of distilled water, for the
circulatory system. It was the undeniable and purely mechanical action
of these latter that had put him on the track; all he did now was to
extend the hypothesis, impelled by his generalizing spirit; he saw the
world saved anew in this perfect equilibrium, as much work given as
sensation received, the balance of the world restored by unceasing
labor.

Here he burst into a frank laugh.

"There! I have started off again. I, who was firmly convinced that the
only wisdom was not to interfere, to let nature take its course. Ah,
what an incorrigible old fool I am!"

Ramond caught his hands in an outburst of admiration and affection.

"Master, master! it is of enthusiasm, of folly like yours that genius is
made. Hav