e, but which could not legally have taken place
as told. Thus it is whenever the mind begins, unconsciously, to admit
the shadow of the Supernatural; the Obvious is lost to the eye that
plunges its gaze into the Obscure. Almost immediately afterwards you
become acquainted with a young stranger, whose traits of character
interest and perplex, attract yet revolt you. All this time you are
engaged in a physiological work which severely tasks the brain, and in
which you examine the intricate question of soul distinct from mind.

"And, here, I can conceive a cause deep-hid amongst what metaphysicians
would call latent associations, for a train of thought which disposed
you to accept the fantastic impressions afterwards made on you by
the scene in the Museum and the visionary talk of Sir Philip Derval.
Doubtless, when at college you first studied metaphysical speculation
you would have glanced over Beattie's 'Essay on Truth' as one of the
works written in opposition to your favourite, David Hume."

"Yes, I read the book, but I have long since forgotten its arguments."

"Well in that essay, Beattie(1) cites the extraordinary instance of
Simon Browne, a learned and pious clergyman, who seriously disbelieved
the existence of his own soul; and imagined that, by interposition of
Divine power, his soul was annulled, and nothing left but a principle of
animal life, which he held in common with the brutes! When, years ago, a
thoughtful imaginative student, you came on that story, probably enough
you would have paused, revolved in your own mind and fancy what kind
of a creature a man might be, if, retaining human life and merely
human understanding, he was deprived of the powers and properties which
reasoners have ascribed to the existence of soul. Something in this
young man, unconsciously to yourself, revives that forgotten train of
meditative ideas. His dread of death as the final cessation of being,
his brute-like want of sympathy with his kind, his incapacity to
comprehend the motives which carry man on to scheme and to build for a
future that extends beyond his grave,--all start up before you at the
very moment your reason is overtasked, your imagination fevered, in
seeking the solution of problems which, to a philosophy based upon your
system, must always remain insoluble. The young man's conversation not
only thus excites your fancies,--it disturbs your affections. He speaks
not only of drugs that renew youth, but of charms t