There is, perhaps, no better description on record of the sensations of a speaker, when the synchronous action of the two minds is perfect, than that given by Daniel Webster. A friend had asked him how it happened that he was able, without preparation, to make such a magnificent effort when he replied to Hayne. The reply was (quoting from memory) substantially as follows: "In the first place, I have made the Constitution of the United States the study of my life; and on that occasion it seemed to me that all that I had ever heard or read on the subject under discussion was passing like a panorama before me, arranged in perfectly logical order and sequence, and that all I had to do was to cull a thunderbolt and hurl it at him." Two important conclusions are deducible from the premises here laid down. The first is that it is essential to the highest mental development that the objective and subjective faculties be cultivated harmoniously, if the latter are cultivated at all. The second conclusion is of the most transcendent interest and importance. It is that the subjective mind should never be allowed to usurp control of the dual mental organization. Important as are its functions and transcendent as are its powers, it is hedged about with such limitations that it must be subjected to the imperial control of the objective mind, which alone is endowed with the power to reason by all methods. To sum up in a few words: To believe in the reality of subjective visions is to give the subjective mind control of the dual mental organization; and to give the subjective mind such control is for Reason to abdicate her throne. The suggestions of the subjective mind then become the controlling power. The result, in its mildest form of manifestation, is a mind filled with the grossest superstitions,--a mind which, like the untutored mind of the savage, "sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind." Its ultimate form of manifestation is insanity. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 7: Scott's poems are good illustrations. They are not ranked as first class for the sole reason that they are too objective.] [Footnote 8: Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table.] [Footnote 9: Philosophy of Mystery, p. 93.] [Illustration] CHAPTER VI. PERCEPTION OF THE FIXED LAWS OF NATURE.