"Does it not seem to you," he continued, "that when skillful mechanics on the earth's surface are able to adjust balances so delicately that in the face of friction of metal, friction of air, inertia of mass, the thousandth part of a grain can produce motion of the great beams and pans of such balances, we, in this location where there is no friction and no opposing medium--none at all--should be able to induce mass motion?" "I can not imagine how it is possible, unless we shove each other apart. There is no other object to push against,--but why do you continue to hold me so tightly?" I interrupted myself to ask, for he was clasping me firmly again. "In order that you may not leave me," he replied. "Come, you trifle," I said somewhat irritated; "you have just argued that we are immovably suspended in a frictionless medium, and fixed in our present position; you ask me to suggest some method by which we can create motion, and I fail to devise it, and almost in the same sentence you say that you fear that I will leave you. Cease your incongruities, and advise with me rationally." "Where is the bar of iron?" he asked. I turned towards its former location; it had disappeared. "Have you not occasionally felt," he asked, "that in your former life your mind was a slave in an earthly prison? Have you never, especially in your dreams, experienced a sensation of mental confinement?" "Yes." "Know then," he replied, "that there is a connection between the mind and the body of mortal beings, in which matter confines mind, and yet mind governs matter. How else could the will of men and animals impart voluntary motion to earthy bodies? With beings situated as are the animals on the surface of the earth, mind alone can not overcome the friction of matter. A person could suspend himself accurately on a string, or balance himself on a pivot, and wish with the entire force of his mind that his body would revolve, and still he would remain at perfect rest." "Certainly. A man would be considered crazy who attempted it," I answered. "Notwithstanding your opinion, in time to come, human beings on the surface of the earth will investigate in this very direction," he replied, "and in the proper time mental evolution will, by experimentation, prove the fact of this mind and matter connection, and demonstrate that even extraneous matter may be made subservient to mind influences. On earth, mind acts on the matter of one's body to produce motion of matter, and the spirit within, which is a slave to matter, moves with it. Contraries rule here. Mind force acts on pure space motion, moving itself and matter with it, and that, too, without any exertion of the material body which now is a nonentity, mind here being the master." "How can I believe you?" I replied. "Know, then," he said, "that we are in motion now, propelled by my will power." "Prove it." "You may prove it yourself," he said; "but be careful, or we will separate forever."