in focus being effected as instantaneously as
thought, enabling us to perceive the smallest microbe or disease-germ,
and to see the planets that revolve about the stars. The step of a fly
is to us as audible as the tramp of a regiment, while we hear the
mechanical and chemical action of a snake's poison on the blood of any
poor creature bitten, as plainly as the waves on the shore. We also
have a chemical and electrical sense, showing us what effect different
substances will have on one another, and what changes to expect in the
weather. The most complex and subtle of our senses, however, is a sort
of second sight that we call intuition or prescience, which we are
still studying to perfect and understand. With our eyes closed it
reveals to us approaching astronomical and other bodies, or what is
happening on the other side of the planet, and enables us to view the
future as you do the past. The eyes of all but the highest angels
require some light, and can be dazzled by an excess; but this attribute
of divinity nothing can obscure, and it is the sense that will first
enable us to know God. By means of these new and sharpened faculties,
which, like children, we are continually learning to use to better
advantage, we constantly increase our knowledge, and this is next to
our greatest happiness."

"Is there any limit," asked Bearwarden, "to human progress on the
earth?"

"Practically none," replied the spirit. "Progress depends largely on
your command of the forces of Nature. At present your principal
sources of power are food, fuel, electricity, the heat of the interior
of the earth, wind, and tide. From the first two you cannot expect
much more than now, but from the internal heat everywhere available,
tradewinds, and falling water, as at Niagara, and from tides, you can
obtain power almost without limit. Were this all, however, your
progress would be slow; but the Eternal, realizing the shortness of
your lives, has given you power with which to rend the globe. You have
the action of all uncombined chemicals, atmospheric electricity, the
excess or froth of which you now see in thunderstorms, and the
electricity and magnetism of your own bodies. There is also molecular
and sympathetic vibration, by which Joshua not understandingly levelled
the walls of Jericho; and the power of your minds over matter, but
little more developed now than when I moved in the flesh upon the
earth. By lowering large quantities