pull, and in turn draw and strain the man. And thus we are allowed to learn how great is the power of a thought. For bones, which have no sensation, and nerves and fleshy parts charged with humours, and the whole resultant mass in its ponderous quiescence, do yet, as soon as the soul sets something a going in thought and directs its impulse towards it, rise up, alert and tense, a whole which moves to action in all its members, as though it had wings. But it is hard, nay, perhaps, altogether beyond our powers, to take in at one glance the [Sidenote: B] system of excitation, complex strain, and divine prompting, whereby the soul, after conceiving a thought, draws on the mass of the body by the impulses which it gives.[41] Yet whereas a word thus intellectually apprehended excites the soul, while no sort of voice is heard and no action takes place, even so we need not, I think, find it hard to believe that mind may be led by a stronger mind and a more divine soul external to itself, having contact with it after its kind, as word with word or light with reflection. For in actual fact we recognize the thoughts of one another by groping as it were in darkness with the assistance of voice; whereas the thoughts of spirits have light, they shine upon men capable of receiving them, they need not verbs [Sidenote: C] or nouns, those symbols whereby men in their intercourse with men see resemblances and images of the things thought, yet never apprehend the things themselves, save only those upon whom, as we have said, there shines from within a peculiar and spiritual light. And yet what we see happen in the case of the voice may partly reassure the incredulous. The air is impressed with articulate sounds, it becomes all word and voice, and brings the meaning home to the soul of the hearer. Therefore we need not wonder if, in regard to this special mode of thought also, the air is sensitive to the touch of higher beings, and is so modified as to convey to the mind of godlike and extraordinary men the thought of him who thought it. For as the strokes of miners[42] are caught on brazen shields because of the reverberation, [Sidenote: D] when they rise from below ground and fall upon them, whereas falling on any other surface they are indistinct and pass to nothing, even so the words of spirits pass through all Nature, but only sound for those who possess the soul in untroubled calm, holy and spiritual men as we emphatically call them. The view of most people is that spiritual visitations come to men in sleep; that they should be similarly stirred when awake and in their full faculties they think marvellous and beyond belief. As though a musician were thought to use his lyre when the strings are let down, and not to touch or use it when it is strung up and tuned! They do not see the cause, their [Sidenote: E] own inner tunelessness and discord, from which Socrates our friend had been set free, as the oracle given to his father when he was yet a boy declared.