believe unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced,
for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that
they experienced exactly the same thing. Well, observe, no two
persons ever experience exactly the same dream. If this were an
ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results
that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency
permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite
end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is,
that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain
had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does
occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain
put into action and invested with a semisubstance. That this brain
is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it
is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must
have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have
sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the
dog,--had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing
resistance in my will."

"It killed your dog,--that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that
no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat.
Rats and mice are never found in it."

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to
their existence. Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it
has a resisting power more supreme. But enough; do you comprehend
my theory?"

"Yes, though imperfectly,--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the