The substance was handed over to the Ooaromo, who saw that it would supply the test they wanted; for it was but slightly sensitive to the presence of animals, and its sensitiveness gradually vanished as they tried it with lower and lower species of animals; whilst it quivered near men, less near young men and women, only slightly near infants, but with quick tremors when near the older and wiser Umanorans, who had suffered and thought through long centuries. They came to the conclusion that this residuum was the essence of some element in the ether that responded to the energy of the higher faculties, as the magnet responded to electricity. They had in fact found at last a true test of soul, that refinement of the higher animal energies which has assumed a new grade in life, the consciousness of itself, and the power of keeping its own form and essence as an entity for ever separate from all other beings and things. It was not long before the Ooaromo had made from it an apparatus which would test the presence of soul and measure its force. In this ooaran or psychometer they were at last furnished with an instrument that would give organic unity and new purpose to their science. They would now be able to watch and measure the growth of soul in the child, and the ebb and flow of its strength in youth; and thus would they give new vigour and life to the creative function of their science. They had now an exact basis for education; as guides of parents and proparents in tuition they would walk in the full day, where before they had groped in dim twilight; in every case would they be able to advise with the same certainty as the medical elders advised on the health of the body. For the mature men and women would they act as true father-confessors, and do what the priests of so many religions pretended to do, but did not do; they would be able to tell everyone, who desired it, whether his soul had advanced or receded in power after any series of sufferings and deeds, or any line of conduct, and thus to give advice as to what should be done or omitted in the future. And when the elders had come near what had before seemed the utmost limit of life, they would be able to tell them whether their nausea of existence was only fleeting and subjective, or whether the roots of their soul were loosening themselves from the soil of the body. CHAPTER II AN ACCIDENT BUT so vast an expansion of science and the unveiling of so many outlooks into the future left no room for the thought of death. The pace of life quickened perceptibly, and the energy of every dweller on the island was strained to its utmost to meet the requirements of the new additions to the force of the country and of all the new inventions. It was impossible to think of anything but the tasks in hand. None had an idle thought, none a leisure moment to waste on mere introspection or dreams.