" On the contrary, he holds--and this does not
square well with the preceding--that the soul is an ethereal fluid
similar to electricity; that the brain is the matrass or bottle into
which the animal transports, according to the strength of the
apparatus, as much as the various organisms can absorb of this fluid,
which issues thence transformed into will; that our sentiments are
movements of the fluid, which proceeds from us by jerks when we are
angry, and which weighs on our nerves when we are in expectation; that
the current of this king of liquids, according to the pressure of
thought and feeling, spreads in waves or diminishes and thins, then
collects again, to gush forth in flashes. He believes also that our
ideas are complete, organized beings (the theosophic notion) which
live in the invisible world and influence our destinies; that,
concentrated in a powerful brain, they can master the brains of other
people, and traverse immense distances in the twinkling of an eye. In
short, he anticipates not a little of the science of the present day,
yet mixing up the true and false in his guesses by the very exuberance
of his fancy. At the close, he gives us his vision of the universe:
"They heard the divers parts of the Infinite forming a living melody;
and, at each pause, when the accord made itself felt like a huge
respiration, the worlds, drawn by this unanimous movement, inclined
themselves towards the immense being who, from his impenetrable
centre, sent everything forth and brought it back to himself.
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