In looking over some of my notes I have found things which I have deemed worthy of preservation. I let some of these follow in a promiscuous manner. This, it must be admitted, is not in accordance with scientific usage. But I am not a scientist, simply an amateur; and take advantage of the privileges this fact gives me. If I were to conform to strict scientific rules and "etiquette," years might elapse before I could get these matters into proper shape. It will always remain a mystery to me, however, why these things should have come to me at all--so unworthy, so unadapted to their proper exposition. In order to do them justice, they should have come to one complete master of his time, young, strong, possessed of a wide range of knowledge and a deep insight. I will now let follow some of the matters I have spoken of: My personality and my work must go together, until others relieve me of the latter by making it _their_ work to the same extent that I have made it mine. You cannot separate the fiddle from the fiddler, neither having any significance apart from each other, except by the fiddler perpetuating that which the fiddle produces--the composition,--by writing it down, thus transmitting it to others. This I am trying to do by this book. No doubt some of the things which have come under my observation in some form or other are already known to science, and are, therefore, a corroboration, or an explanation, only, of things already known. With me, nevertheless, _all_ is original; and I may therefore justly claim that if any of these matters have been discovered before, I, at least, have _re-discovered_ them. If I were an institution possessing a guaranty of continued existence I might value the present lightly, knowing a future would come when these matters will be fully understood. Being a creature of the present, however, which may be turned into the past--especially at my time of life--at almost any moment, these matters should become known at the earliest opportunity; some of them being of so subtle a nature that they may require personal explanation and illustration. They have been hidden from us in the past; should they fail to be made known now, _the same opportunity may not arise again for centuries_. * * * * * I do not claim any special sagacity over others for having made these discoveries, and disbelieve altogether in miraculous interposition. Yet I do not want to be prejudiced in any direction. We are surrounded by the mysterious and the miraculous; and that which is called "natural" as a rule is far more mysterious than that which is called "miraculous."