—The more we study the body and the mind, the more we find both to be governed, not by, but _according to_ laws, such as we observe in the larger universe.—You think you know all about _walking_,—don’t you, now? Well, how do you suppose your lower limbs are held to your body? They are sucked up by two cupping vessels, (“cotyloid”—cup-like—cavities,) and held there as long as you live, and longer. At any rate, you think you move them backward and forward at such a rate as your will determines, don’t you?—On the contrary, they swing just as any other pendulums swing, at a fixed rate, determined by their length. You can alter this by muscular power, as you can take hold of the pendulum of a clock and make it move faster or slower; but your ordinary gait is timed by the same mechanism as the movements of the solar system. [My friend, the Professor, told me all this, referring me to certain German physiologists by the name of Weber for proof of the facts, which, however, he said he had often verified. I appropriated it to my own use; what can one do better than this, when one has a friend that tells him anything worth remembering? The Professor seems to think that man and the general powers of the universe are in partnership. Some one was saying that it had cost nearly half a million to move the Leviathan only so far as they had got it already.—Why,—said the Professor,—they might have hired an EARTHQUAKE for less money!] Just as we find a mathematical rule at the bottom of many of the bodily movements, just so thought may be supposed to have its regular cycles. Such or such a thought comes round periodically, in its turn. Accidental suggestions, however, so far interfere with the regular cycles, that we may find them practically beyond our power of recognition. Take all this for what it is worth, but at any rate you will agree that there are certain particular thoughts that do not come up once a day, nor once a week, but that a year would hardly go round without your having them pass through your mind. Here is one which comes up at intervals in this way. Some one speaks of it, and there is an instant and eager smile of assent in the listener or listeners. Yes, indeed; they have often been struck by it. _All at once a conviction flashes through us that we have been in the same precise circumstances as at the present instant_, _once or many times before_. O, dear, yes!—said one of the company,—everybody has had that feeling. The landlady didn’t know anything about such notions; it was an idee in folks’ heads, she expected. The schoolmistress said, in a hesitating sort of way, that she knew the feeling well, and didn’t like to experience it; it made her think she was a ghost, sometimes.