space which our inner vision allows us to perceive. This
radiant idea, springing into existence like a will-o'-the-wisp, dies out
never to return; an ephemeral life, like that of babes who give their
parents such infinite joy and sorrow; a sort of still-born blossom in
the fields of the mind. Sometimes an idea, instead of springing forcibly
into life and dying unembodied, dawns gradually, hovers in the unknown
limbo of the organs where it has its birth; exhausts us by long
gestation, develops, is itself fruitful, grows outwardly in all the
grace of youth and the promising attributes of a long life; it can
endure the closest inspection, invites it, and never tires the sight;
the investigation it undergoes commands the admiration we give to works
slowly elaborated. Sometimes ideas are evolved in a swarm; one brings
another; they come linked together; they vie with each other; they fly
in clouds, wild and headlong. Again, they rise up pallid and misty, and
perish for want of strength or of nutrition; the vital force is lacking.
Or again, on certain days, they rush down into the depths to light up
that immense obscurity; they terrify us and leave the soul dejected.

"Ideas are a complete system within us, resembling a natural kingdom, a
sort of flora, of which the iconography will one day be outlined by some
man who will perhaps be accounted a madman.

"Yes, within us and without, everything testifies to the livingness of
those exquisite creations, which I compare with flowers in obedience to
some unutterable revelation of their true nature!

"Their being produced as the final cause of man is, after all, not more
amazing than the production of perfume and color in a plant. Perfumes
_are_ ideas, perhaps!

"When we consider the line where flesh ends and the nail begins contains
the invisible and inexplicable mystery of the constant transformation
of a fluid into horn, we must confess that nothing is impossible in the
marvelous modifications of human tissue.

"And are there not in our inner nature phenomena of weight and motion
comparable to those of physical nature? Suspense, to choose an example
vividly familiar to everybody, is painful only as a result of the law in
virtue of which the weight of a body is multiplied by its velocity. The
weight of the feeling produced by suspense increases by the constant
addition of past pain to the pain of the moment.

"And then, to what, unless it be to the electric fluid, are we to