His voice failed him for a moment, and the burning torrent of his words was still. In the rush and clamour of the new ideas, in the immeasurable vastness of the conception, speech would not go on. Then he started, and his face grew paler than before. "Forgive me," he said, "forgive me if I seem to doubt. It is all so incredibly wonderful. But you have really _done_ this, Sir William? You are not merely hoping to do it some day? You are not merely advancing along the road which may some day lead to it?" "I have actually done it, Mr. Megbie, completely, utterly, certainly. And in a few days you shall judge for yourself. But it is certain." "But it is infinite in its possibilities!" the journalist went on. "Another thing that I see quite clearly will result is this. The right man in the right place will be an accomplished fact in the future. We shall find out early in the life of a child exactly in what direction its true power lies. To-day we find that circumstance and the mistakes of parents and guardians are constantly putting children into walks of life for which they are not in the least fitted. The result is a dreadful waste of power. We see on every side clergymen who ought to be business men, business men who ought to be painters or musicians, clerks who are bad clerks, but who would make excellent soldiers. Your marvellous discovery will change all this for ever. Every day the growing brain of the child will be tested. We shall find out exactly what its true thoughts are; children will cease to be inarticulate and unable to give us a true idea of themselves as they so often are at present. Teaching will become an exact science, because every schoolmaster will be able to find out how much his teaching is appreciated and understood, and how little, as the case may be. And we shall discover other and even more portentous secrets! We shall know what is passing in the minds of the dying who cannot speak to us! We shall know the truth about a future state, inasmuch as we shall be able to find out whether the mind does indeed receive warnings and hintings of the other world at the moment of passing! Then, also, I suppose that we shall be able to penetrate into a world that has been closed to us since the human species began! We shall know at last in what strange way animals think! The pictures that pass into the brain of the dog, the horse, the tiger, through the physical eyes, will be made clear for us to see! We shall wrest his secret from the eagle and see the memories of the primeval forest which linger in the minds of the jaguar and ape!"