refer to any volition which is dependent on the known action of the brain, but to a hidden faculty, the germ perhaps of some higher faculty, now folded within the present life like the wings of a chrysalis, which looks through or beyond the material existence, and obtains a truer and finer perception of the spiritual than can be filtered through the coarser organs of sight and hearing." "Vilalba, you are evidently a disciple of Des Cartes. Your theory is based on the idealistic principle, 'I think, therefore I am.' I confess that I could never be satisfied with mere subjective consciousness on a point which involves the cooperation of another mind. Nothing less than the most positive and luminous testimony of the senses could ever persuade me that two minds could meet and commune, apart from material intervention." "I know," answered Vilalba, "that it is easier to feel than to reason about things which lie without the pale of mathematical demonstration. But some day, my friend, you will learn that beyond the arid abstractions of the schoolmen, beyond the golden dreams of the poets, there is a truth in this matter, faintly discerned now as the most dim of yonder stars, but as surely a link in the chain which suspends the Universe to the throne of God. However, your incredulity is commendable, for doubt is the avenue to knowledge. I admit that no testimony is conclusive save that of the senses, and such witness I have received. "You speak perpetual enigmas, and I suspect you--for the second time--of tampering with the black arts. Do you mean to say that you are a believer in the doctrine of palpable spiritual manifestation?" "I might say in its favor," was the reply, "that apart from the pretences and the plausibilities of to-day, many of which result from the independent action of the mind through clairvoyance, and others from mere excitation of the nervous sensibilities, the truth of that theory is possibly implied in the wants of the soul; for a want proves the existence of an antidote as effectually as a positive and negative interchangeably bear witness to each other's existence. But if you will have patience to listen to a story of my own life, I can better explain how my convictions have been beguiled into the credence which appears to you unphilosophical, if not absurd." "I will listen with pleasure,--first lighting another cigar to dispel the weird shapes which will probably respond to your incantation." Vilalba smiled slightly. "Do not be disturbed. The phantoms will not visit you, not, I fear, myself either. But you must promise faith in my veracity; for I am about to tell you a tale of fact, and not of fancy.