esperides
of the mind, the Avalon buried in our soul."

Mr. Crane put his fingertips together. "Yes?"

"Personally, I think that some day man will realize just what he is
searching for and will invent a machine that will enable the child to
project, just as a film throws an image on a screen, the visions in his
psyche.

"I see you're interested," he continued. "You would be, naturally, since
you're a professor of philosophy. Now, let's call the toy a
specterscope, because through it the subject sees the spectres that
haunt his unconscious. Ha! Ha! But how does it work? If you'll keep it
to yourself, Mr. Crane, I'll tell you something: My native country's
scientists have developed a rather simple device, though they haven't
published anything about it in the scientific journals. Let me give you
a brief explanation: Light strikes the retina of the eye; the rods and
cones pass on impulses to the bipolar cells, which send them on to the
optic nerve, which goes to the brain ..."

"Elementary and full of gaps," said Jack's father.

"Pardon me," said Mister. "A bare outline should be enough. You'll be
able to fill in the details. Very well. This specterscope breaks up the
light going into the eye in such a manner that the rods and cones
receive only a certain wavelength. I can't tell you what it is, except
that it's in the visual red. The scope also concentrates like a
burning-glass and magnifies the power of the light.

"Result? A hitherto-undiscovered chemical in the visual purple of the
rods is activated and stimulates the optic nerve in a way we had not
guessed possible. An electrochemical stimulus then irritates the
subconscious until it fully wakes up.

"Let me put it this way. The subconscious is not a matter of location
but of organization. There are billions of possible connections between
the neurons of the cortex. Look at those potentialities as so many cards
in the same pack. Shuffle the cards one way and you have the common
workaday _cogito, ergo sum_ mind. Reshuffle them, and, bingo! you have
the combination of neurons, or cards, of the unconscious. The
specterscope does the redealing. When the subject gazes through it, he
sees for the first time the full impact and result of his underground
mind's workings in other perspectives than dreams or symbolical
behavior. The subjective Garden of Eden is resurrected. It is my
contention that this specterscope will some day be available to all
children.

"When