He whistled, and a small bird that I had not noticed, flew down from the top of one of the cupboards and settled on his shoulder. It was a tame robin. As my companion poured out a number of liquids from various bottles into a glass dish, he told me that he had tamed it about six months ago, and that it lived chiefly out of doors and found its own food, but that it now nearly always slept in one of the rooms. Taking it in his hands, he said--"As soon as its development in this form is complete, it will die. If the body is injured in such a way as to make it useless, it will find another; but there is a way of temporarily causing a life to become dormant. If during that time I dissolve the body into its gaseous particles, the life, on awaking to consciousness, will draw these particles back into their previous shape." Whilst he was speaking he softly stroked the bird, and its head fell back. When the little thing was mesmerized he laid it down, a heap of ruffled feathers, beside the bowl. "That condition of trance will last one minute," he said, as he placed the body in the bowl. A slight vapour rose from the liquid, and in a moment all sign of the bird had disappeared. I looked into the pure watery fluid, but could see nothing left there. "It is over there," he said; pointing to the shelf above me, and there the robin, without any sign of injury, stood pluming its feathers. "I have shown you this," he continued, "not to convince you of the truth of what I was saying, for of course any second-rate conjuror could apparently bring about a similar result; but because this illustrates an important law of nature, viz. that life, which is indestructible, is everything, and the body merely a temporary convenience." "But," I said, "do you mean to tell me that the life of a bird is eternal?" "Everything is eternal," he replied, "and everything is slowly progressing towards perfection." "Yet," I answered, "do you really think that heaven will be full of the spirits of dead birds?" He sat down and laughed. "For a reasonable man," he said, "you have some of the most extraordinary, childlike views; but I ought not to laugh, for after all how little do any of us know; but I will tell you what I think. "From the lowest life in the flower to the highest created spirit in the universe, there is one law of growth; life meets life, uniting and strengthening. As one atom joining apparently with others becomes what we call a molecule, and these molecules continue to unite and form new substances, even thus do lives join and mingle to form more perfect life." "Why," I exclaimed, "do you mean to say that my life is but the amalgamation of countless other lives?"