ceived. I now braced myself to the task of tracing an order in
these random observations. I was soon stimulated by perceiving that my
statistics seemed to confirm the justice of the reasoning which at
first roused my suspicion. More and more plainly did man's experience
respond to the results I had dared to predict. Trivial circumstances,
noted in remote times and disconnected places, pointed in one direction,
and there beat the regular pulse of Nature.

It is perhaps a little humiliating to mention, what I afterwards
discovered, that the doctrine which I endeavored to reach had been
already conceived and passed upon by a not very eminent scientist in one
of the Western States. But at that time absorption in the search for
attainable truth was necessary to my welfare; and, with very brief
intervals for rest and refreshment, I continued my pursuit until the
afternoon-hour for visiting the library.

The President and Treasurer entered the building at five o'clock.

For some minutes I had stood before the massive doors of the Mather
Safe, wondering if any of its mysterious contents could be more singular
than the consignment about to be made to its keeping.

"Is Mr. Clifton of Foxden in the library?" inquired the President.

"I am here to represent him," I replied. "He made a strange mistake in
the day of appointment, and was compelled to leave town this morning.
The package which he wished to deposit in the Mather Safe I hold in my
hand."

"_Lex Universalis Naturae_; THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ABSOLUTE," exclaimed
the Treasurer, reading the inscription upon the outer parchment. "Poh,
poh! I thought that sort of philosophy had long ago been handed over to
the limbo of fallacies."

"By those who have neither feeling nor imagination enough to care for
anything not transmutable into dollars, perhaps it has," I rejoined,
somewhat tartly.

"Come, come!" said the President, in his good-natured, rolling tones;
"since the days of the great Jonathan, our New-England metaphysicians
have generally been broken-down poets, and should be treated with the
greatest tenderness. Some flighty minds will prefer dangerous trips to
dream-land to the rigid demonstrations of figures; but the mass of our
graduates accept the teaching of their Alma Mater, that only the
mathematician has the right to investigate, and that of all philosophers
only natural philosophers are competent instructors."

"Yet, Sir," I said, "you will remember that the t