thoughts passed along the years of his life, until they
stopped for a moment, arrested by an incident worthy of being
chronicled. I have said that Leon lay in his boat, face skyward, and
allowed his bark to drift whither it would. Thus he had not noted his
progress until a crunching sound startled him, and he became aware
that his boat had found a landing-place, having grounded amidst the
sands of a little cove, sheltered by a high rock and overhanging
shrubbery. Forced thus from his abstraction into some cognizance of
his whereabouts, Leon, without raising his head, merely became aware
of the branches and leaves overhead, and peered through them. Almost
in the midst of the green, he saw what seemed to be a brilliant but
monstrous diamond, pendent from a branch. In the next instant he
recognized that he was gazing upon Venus, the morning star, which had
risen during his reverie, and now shone resplendent and most
beautiful. It was just at this moment, that the incident occurred to
which I have alluded. Suddenly it seemed to him that the whole of his
surroundings were familiar. Everything had occurred before. His boat
drifting into the cove, the shrubbery overhead, and Venus in the sky;
all that he now realized, in the most minute detail, had held a place
in his experience before. Such a phenomenon is not uncommon. All of us
have been impressed similarly. Indeed, some Theosophists, trying to
prove a previous life for man, have reverted to this well-known
feeling, and have claimed that here is a recollection of a former
visit to this earth. But Leon, young philosopher though he was, would
have laughed in scorn at such an argument. He had considered this
problem, and had solved it satisfactorily for himself. His explanation
was thus. Man's brain is divided into two hemispheres. Usually they
act co-ordinately, but it is possible that, at least momentarily, they
may operate independently. It is a fact that the phenomenon under
consideration seldom, or never occurs, except when the mind is greatly
interested or occupied. Something, perhaps in itself the merest
trifle, diverts the mind from the intensity of its attention. This
diversion leads by a train of circumstances to a long-forgotten
memory, and one hemisphere of the brain reverts to a moment in the
past, the other continuing intent upon its surroundings. Within an
infinitesimal period of time, a period too brief to be calculable,
both hemispheres are again acting in uni