to study physiology. I
spent three years at the Sorbonne and perfected myself in that branch
of knowledge. Meanwhile, my pursuits had extended far beyond the
purely physical sciences. Psychology engaged me for a time; and then I
ascended into the domain of sociology, which, when adequately
understood, is the summary and final application of all knowledge.

"It was after years of preparation, and as the outcome of all my
studies, that the great idea of my life, which had vaguely haunted me
ever since the Zurich days, assumed at last a well-defined and perfect
form."

The manner of Dr. Rapperschwyll had changed from distrustful
reluctance to frank enthusiasm. The man himself seemed transformed.
Fisher listened attentively and without interrupting the relation. He
could not help fancying that the necessity of yielding the secret, so
long and so jealously guarded by the physician, was not entirely
distasteful to the enthusiast.

"Now, attend, Monsieur," continued Dr. Rapperschwyll, "to several
separate propositions which may seem at first to have no direct
bearing on each other.

"My endeavors in mechanism had resulted in a machine which went far
beyond Babbage's in its powers of calculation. Given the data, there
was no limit to the possibilities in this direction. Babbage's
cogwheels and pinions calculated logarithms, calculated an eclipse. It
was fed with figures, and produced results in figures. Now, the
relations of cause and effect are as fixed and unalterable as the laws
of arithmetic. Logic is, or should be, as exact a science as
mathematics. My new machine was fed with facts, and produced
conclusions. In short, it _reasoned_; and the results of its reasoning
were always true, while the results of human reasoning are often, if
not always, false. The source of error in human logic is what the
philosophers call the 'personal equation.' My machine eliminated the
personal equation; it proceeded from cause to effect, from premise to
conclusion, with steady precision. The human intellect is fallible; my
machine was, and is, infallible in its processes.

"Again, physiology and anatomy had taught me the fallacy of the
medical superstition which holds the gray matter of the brain and the
vital principle to be inseparable. I had seen men living with pistol
balls imbedded in the medulla oblongata. I had seen the hemispheres
and the cerebellum removed from the crania of birds and small animals,
and yet they did not die.