“But that,” said Mr. Dodson, “would overthrow all the so-called inductive sciences.” “If so, I cannot help it,” replied Mr. Merton. “The inductive philosophers have accumulated a mass of rich and valuable facts by their observations and experiments, for which I am grateful to them; but I set no great store by the ever-changing theories which they imagine or invent to explain these facts. But let this pass. If Mr. Sowerby’s mesmeric or odic force does not explain all the phenomena in the case, I presume that he will concede that it is not the sole principle of their production.” “Certainly,” replied Mr. Sowerby. “This odic agent, is it not a simple natural principle or force, and without reason or intelligence?” “It is in itself unintelligent, I admit.” “But in the phenomena there are evident marks of intelligence, which proceed neither from the mesmerizer nor the mesmerized. How do you explain that?” “The intelligence is the instinctive or involuntary intelligence proceeding from the back part of the brain,” answered Mr. Dodson. “Back part of whose brain?” asked Mr. Merton. “The mesmerized or psychologized,” replied that philosophic gentleman. “But there cannot proceed, voluntarily or involuntarily, instinctively or rationally, from the back brain or the front brain, what is not in it, or an intelligence which its owner does not possess. I do not now speak of the intelligence of either the operator or the one operated upon, but of an intelligence of a third party. In the recorded and undeniable phenomena to be explained there appears a third party, which acts intelligently, and gives information unknown to either of the other parties. Take the case of the spectre that appeared to Brutus before the battle of Pharsalia, or that which appeared to Julian on the eve of the battle in which he fell mortally wounded, and hundreds of similar cases.” “They are mere hallucinations,” interposed Dr. Corning. “What proves the contrary,” replied Mr. Merton, “is the fact that they had accurate knowledge of future events, which hallucinations have not. I place no stress on the fact that a prediction was uttered, or seemingly uttered, for that might be a hallucination; the point to be attended to is its literal fulfilment, showing a knowledge of the future not possessed by the individual to whom the prediction was made, nor, supposing mesmerism employed, by the mesmerizer. Here was an intelligent third party.