attribute the magic by which the Will enthrones itself so imperiously in
the eye to demolish obstacles at the behest of genius, thunders in the
voice, or filters, in spite of dissimulation, through the human frame?
The current of that sovereign fluid, which, in obedience to the high
pressure of thought or of feeling, flows in a torrent or is reduced to a
mere thread, and collects to flash in lightnings, is the occult agent
to which are due the evil or the beneficent efforts of Art and
Passion--intonation of voice, whether harsh or suave, terrible,
lascivious, horrifying or seductive by turns, thrilling the heart,
the nerves, or the brain at our will; the marvels of the touch, the
instrument of the mental transfusions of a myriad artists, whose
creative fingers are able, after passionate study, to reproduce the
forms of nature; or, again, the infinite gradations of the eye from dull
inertia to the emission of the most terrifying gleams.

"By this system God is bereft of none of His rights. Mind, as a form of
matter, has brought me a new conviction of His greatness."

After hearing him discourse thus, after receiving into my soul his
look like a ray of light, it was difficult not to be dazzled by his
conviction and carried away by his arguments. The Mind appeared to me as
a purely physical power, surrounded by its innumerable progeny. It was a
new conception of humanity under a new form.

This brief sketch of the laws which, as Lambert maintained, constitute
the formula of our intellect, must suffice to give a notion of the
prodigious activity of his spirit feeding on itself. Louis had sought
for proofs of his theories in the history of great men, whose lives, as
set forth by their biographers, supply very curious particulars as to
the operation of their understanding. His memory allowed him to recall
such facts as might serve to support his statements; he had appended
them to each chapter in the form of demonstrations, so as to give to
many of his theories an almost mathematical certainty. The works of
Cardan, a man gifted with singular powers of insight, supplied him with
valuable materials. He had not forgotten that Apollonius of Tyana
had, in Asia, announced the death of a tyrant with every detail of his
execution, at the very hour when it was taking place in Rome; nor that
Plotinus, when far away from Porphyrius, was aware of his friend's
intention to kill himself, and flew to dissuade him; nor the incident
in the