What is the WILL? Can “exact science” tell? What is the nature of that intelligent, intangible, and powerful something which reigns supreme over all inert matter? The great Universal Idea willed, and the cosmos sprang into existence. I _will_, and my limbs obey. I _will_, and, my thought traversing space, which does not exist for it, envelops the body of another individual who is not a part of myself, penetrates through his pores, and, superseding his own faculties, if they are weaker, forces him to a predetermined action. It acts like the fluid of a galvanic battery on the limbs of a corpse. The mysterious effects of attraction and repulsion are the _unconscious_ agents of that will; fascination, such as we see exercised by some animals, by serpents over birds, for instance, is a _conscious_ action of it, and the result of thought. Sealing-wax, glass, and amber, when rubbed, _i.e._, when the latent heat which exists in every substance is awakened, attract light bodies; they exercise unconsciously, _will_; for inorganic as well as organic matter possesses a particle of the _divine_ essence in itself, however infinitesimally small it may be. And how could it be otherwise? Notwithstanding that in the progress of its evolution it may from beginning to end have passed through millions of various forms, it must ever retain its germ-point of that _preëxistent matter_, which is the first manifestation and emanation of the Deity itself. What is then this inexplicable power of attraction but an atomical portion of that essence that scientists and kabalists equally recognize as the “principle of life” the _akasa_? Granted that the attraction exercised by such bodies may be blind; but as we ascend higher the scale of the organic beings in nature, we find this principle of life developing attributes and faculties which become more determined and marked with every rung of the endless ladder. Man, the most perfect of organized beings on earth, in whom matter and spirit—_i.e._, _will_—are the most developed and powerful, is alone allowed to give a conscious impulse to that principle which emanates from him; and only he can impart to the magnetic fluid opposite and various impulses without limit as to the direction. “He wills,” says Du Potet, “and _organized_ matter obeys. It has _no poles_.” Dr. Brierre de Boismont, in his volume on _Hallucinations_, reviews a wonderful variety of visions, apparitions, and ecstasies, generally termed hallucinations. “We cannot deny,” he says, “that in certain diseases we see developed a great surexcitation of sensibility, which {145} lends to the senses a prodigious acuteness of perception. Thus, some individuals will perceive at considerable distances, others will announce the approach of persons who are really on their way, although those present can neither hear nor see them coming.”[261]