secondly, because I cannot believe that I was dreaming, consequently
the thing could not have been real."

"Hypnotism is a good enough word," answered Ah Ben; "but that which
men generally understand by the real, and that which they consider
the unreal, are not so far apart as they suppose. You say the room
was not real, and yet you saw it; had you wished, you might have
touched it, which is certainly all the evidence you have of the
existence of the room in which we are now sitting. Hypnotism is not a
cause of hallucination, as is commonly supposed, but of fact. Its
effects are not illusory, but real. Perhaps it would be more correct
to say that they are _as real_ as anything else, and that _all_ the
phenomena of nature are mere illusions of the senses, which they
undoubtedly are. But whichever side we take, all appearances are the
result of the same general cause--that of mental vibration. Matter
has no real existence."

Paul was meditating on what he had seen and what he was now hearing.
Ah Ben's words were endowed with an added force by the vision of the
mysterious room.

"When you tell me that there is practically no difference between the
real and the unreal, and that matter has no real existence, I must
confess to some perplexity," observed Henley.

Ah Ben looked up and smoothed the furrows in his withered cheek
thoughtfully for a minute before he answered:

"Unfortunately, Mr. Henley, language is not absolute or final in its
power to convey thought, and the best we can do is to use it as