ed water with which the plant was nourished,
whose composition was known. But since they are no more to be found
in the seed itself, we can explain their presence in the plant only by
assuming the existence of a primary element common to all the substances
contained in the cress, and also to all those by which we environed
it. Thus the air, the distilled water, the brimstone, and the various
elements which analysis finds in the cress, namely, potash, lime,
magnesia, aluminium, etc., should have one common principle floating in
the atmosphere like light of the sun.

"'From this unimpeachable experiment,' he cried, 'I deduce the existence
of the Alkahest, the Absolute,--a substance common to all created
things, differentiated by one primary force. Such is the net meaning
and position of the problem of the Absolute, which appears to me to
be solvable. In it we find the mysterious Ternary, before whose shrine
humanity has knelt from the dawn of ages,--the primary matter, the
medium, the product. We find that terrible number THREE in all things
human. It governs religions, sciences, and laws.

"'It was at this point,' he went on, 'that poverty put an end to my
researches. You were the pupil of Lavoisier, you are rich, and master of
your own time, I will therefore tell you my conjectures. Listen to the
conclusions my personal experiments have led me to foresee. The PRIME
MATTER must be the common principle in the three gases and in carbon.
The MEDIUM must be the principle common to negative and positive
electricity. Proceed to the discovery of the proofs that will establish
those two truths; you will then find the explanation of all phenomenal
existence.

"'Oh, monsieur!' he cried, striking his brow, 'when I know that I
carry here the last word of Creation, when intuitively I perceive the
Unconditioned, is it LIVING to be dragged hither and thither in the ruck
of men who fly at each other's throats at the word of command without
knowing what they are doing? My actual life is an inverted dream. My
body comes and goes and acts; it moves amid bullets, and cannon, and
men; it crosses Europe at the will of a power I obey and yet despise. My
soul has no consciousness of these acts; it is fixed, immovable, plunged
in one idea, rapt in that idea, the Search for the Alkahest,--for that
principle by which seeds that are absolutely alike, growing in the same
environments, produce, some a white, others a yellow flower. The same
phenom