Such facts alone, once proved, ought to stand as invincible demonstrations of the continuity of individual life, at least for a certain period after the body has been left by us, either by reason of its being worn out or by accident. But though during its brief sojourn on earth our soul may be assimilated to a light hidden under a bushel, it still shines more or less bright and attracts to itself the influences of kindred spirits; and when a thought of good or evil import is begotten in our brain, it draws to it _impulses_ of like nature as irresistibly as the magnet attracts iron filings. This attraction is also proportionate to the intensity with which the thought-impulse makes itself felt in the ether; and so it will be understood how one man may impress himself upon his own epoch so forcibly, that the influence may be carried—through the ever-interchanging currents of energy between the two worlds, the visible and the invisible—from one succeeding age to another, until it affects a large portion of mankind. How much the authors of the famous work entitled the _Unseen Universe_ may have allowed themselves to think in this direction, it would be difficult to say; but that they have not told _all_ they might will be inferred from the following language: “Regard it as you please, there can be no doubt that the properties of the ether are of a much higher order in the arena of nature _than those of tangible matter_. And, as even the high priests of science still find the latter _far beyond_ their comprehension, except in numerous {182} but minute and often isolated particulars, it would not become us to speculate further. It is sufficient for our purpose to know from what the ether certainly does, that _it is capable of vastly more than any has yet ventured to say_.”