SUPPLEMENTAL PROPOSITION II.--_The rates of vibration of the Particles of Substance may be likened to "Mental States"; and a high degree of the same may be called an "Excitement." This "Excitement" may be, and is, communicated from the Particles of the body manifesting it, to the Particles of other bodies--the medium of such communication being a Mental Connection or Mental Relation existing between the two bodies of Substance, without the employment of any material medium--and which Excitement, so communicated, reproduces in the second body the vibrations manifested in the first body, subject, always, to the counteracting efforts of the second body to maintain its accustomed, and former, rate of vibration, and Mental State._ CHAPTER XIII THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX It is with no light emotion, or jaunty air, that the writer approaches this part of his subject. On the contrary, he feels something like awe when he contemplates the nature of that great Something which he is called upon to attempt to "explain" in a few pages. He feels, in only a lighter degree, the emotion that one experiences when, in occasional moments, his mind leads to a contemplation of The Infinite. He feels that that which men mean when they say "Gravitation" and "The Ether," are but symbols and feeble concepts of Something so far above human experience that the Mind of Man may grasp only its lowest shadings, the greater and higher part of it, like the higher rays of the Spectrum, being hidden from the experience of Man. In his endeavor to pass on to you his ideas regarding the Something that explains both Gravitation and the Ether, he must ask you to endeavor to form a Mental Picture of a "Something." This Something must fill all Space within the Limits of the Universe, or Cosmos--if limits it has. It must be an expression of the first of the attributes of The Infinite--the one called Omnipresence, or Presence-everywhere--and _yet it must not be The Infinite Presence_. It also must be an expression of the second of the attributes of the Infinite--the one called Omnipotence, or All-Power--and _yet it must not be The Infinite Power_. It also must be an expression of the third attribute of The Infinite--the one called Omniscience, or All-Knowing--and _yet it must not be The Infinite Wisdom_. It must be an expression of All the Attributes that _we think of_ as belonging to The Infinite--_and yet through them All we may see The Infinite, Itself, in the background, viewing its expressions_. This Something that you are asked to think of is that Something regarding which the mystics have dreamed; the philosophers have speculated; the scientists have sneered and smiled--that Something that Men have thought of as The Universal Mind or the Cosmic Mind.