the visible body we can call Man; and the remaining portions are Lime, Soda, Iron, Salt, Potass, Phosphorus, &c. When therefore, we think of and glory in the "Well-knit frame of man," man the beautiful,-the perfect,-and that spirit cannot exist, but as displayed in the physical structure of man-legs, arms, &c., we are taking a very limited range of divine power, a range which cannot be maintained on a thoughtful consideration of the chemical constituents of that Body; a mere tissue of water, albumen, and lime, with a sprinkling of salt by way of seasoning; the tissue to us is pleasing and perfect; so doubtless is the body of a frog to a frog; and to suppose, that the spirit,-acting on, and making that tissue of substances, cannot exist, cannot live, when the chemicals are slightly altered, so as to render them invisible to our organ of sight, the eye, is to narrow our intellectual powers of discrimination ;—is to live in our fortress, and assert it impossible that we, or any one else, can live, or act, or defend ourselves in any other shaped picce of substance. To illustrate the foolishness of the idea, let us take Man, man in his perfection of mind and body; let him lead a soldier's life, and have his legs and arms shot off;-look at him, what constitutes the man? his body? No. HIS SPIRIT. The spirit can think, plan, and order in all its powers and vigour, without either arms or legs: consider a moment, but for the chemical waste going on requiring a stomach, &c., man could be deprived of the whole of his body from the chin downwards, and still be the man; the spirit, as active, as ingenious, as analyzing, as effective for mental exertion, as ever. Look at him now in your imagination, in shape a sphere-about 6 inches in diameter -a mere football in size, shape, and appearance; despise, laugh, and deride that shape as you will, the spirit is still there, in all its power, and its intellectuality, allied to a few ounces of water, lime, and phosphorus; and as we shall hereafter perceive, ready and willing to remain there, so long as the required chemicals are in a healthy state; but let disease, or

in other words, a change in the chemicals take place; the spirit then no longer approves of the union, and like a man in a damp house, the mustiness and ill-favour of the dwelling forces him to leave for elsewhere; and our privilege it will be to show that there is an elsewhere; and that the spirit is there to be found; as active and as vigorous as heretofore; but, owing to its increased elasticity, lightness, and improved position, capable of effecting consequences as much more intellectual and useful, as the enjoyments of the man are superior to the child playing with his rattle. Having proved that man physically is a composition of chemicals, we are naturally to expect that the chemicals will show the same affinities and repulsions while mortared in the shape of a body, instinct or pervaded by the living principle called life; and if Water, Salt, Iron, Potass, Phosphorus, give out lights in their native state; we have to expect the presence of those lights, or soul emanations, wherever they may be; and according to their relative quantity. Man's body being found to consist of earth's elements or dust (from the scum) of the earth; we have to expect in that body the medicinal or other powers usual to those elements: the knowledge of these facts will assist the student of nature, in understanding a portion of the phenomena developed by "Mesmerine," or human effluvia, or soul essence; ever exuding from man, when absorbed as in miasma by any individual while in a negative or receptive condition.

Having thus traversed the solid-or, Body of nature in several of its developments; and asserted the fact of soul or apparitional emanations issuing from each division of that body; the path seems opened naturally to consider more fully the second portion of our subject: SOUL.

D

SECTION IV.

THE SOUL,

OR,

(APPARITIONAL FORM),

Is a body absorbed by the solid, attached by chemical affinity to, and acts with, or independent of, the solid body, be it mineral, vegetable, or animal. The soul, under ordinary circumstances, is unseen by the optical powers of man, because of its ethereality, when compared with the solid and comparatively opaque substance called the eye.

COMETS, are the emblems or representatives of the Soul in action without the solid or earth, yet a substance; they speed through the universe. Sometimes they are seen as if to part company, and like two race-horses neck and neck, fleeing in space, fleeing in the same route, having a light in and of themselves; our sun has no effect on them, they speed beyond his range. Onward, onward they flee, and after generations. of men have lived and passed away, true to the day and hour, they reappear; not wandering, not erratic, but regular, subtile, powerful, they pursue their track in space, and perform their allotted tasks; their stream-lights may be as with Donetti's comet, millions of miles in length, and thousands of miles in thickness, yet so ethereal in substance, that stars are seen through them with increased vividness.

The Deity never creates in vain. What is the use of comets? Lacking a better solution from elsewhere, I conceive that comets are THE TONERS of the stars, they are the phosphorescent substances called into existence, as positives and negatives to the worlds in space, giving to and taking from those worlds a due supply of their substance as need requires. Though not possessed of solidity or mineral denseness, they are endowed with power and MOTION from some source beyond the earth-balls of our solar system. They prove that there

are ethereal substances, luminous substances, not attached to, or dependent upon our earth or sun, for existence or life; therefore, well they may be the emblems of the soul, a substance allied to, but not dependent on, the body of man for existence and life, yet existent and capable, though so ethereal a body or substance, of being controlled and subject to laws as firmly as is this earth, and must be therefore recognised as a body, yet devoid of solidity. If earth's denseness can by a process be transformed into the semi-transparent substance called flesh, in which state, life or spirit can control, cumbersome though that flesh may be—so may the ethereal, by a process also be transformed into a soul-flesh, or body of parts and members; in which state, life or spirit can control, and that more energetically, more instantaneously, than when it has the severer task of solid matter to vitalize and move.

Cometary bodies have their existent body or substance ethereal though they be,-they, like the earth, have a separate existence, though acting in concert with our sun, as the sun has in its affinity with mightier suns in the far-off prairies of the universe. Dare I reason from effect to cause, and conceive, that in far-off space there is the embodiment of surrounding elements in the substance cometary, as life in seed; and that the internal ebullition throws portions of that substance off into space, as the asteroids from the broken-up planet were thrown off and have each a separate place in space, and flee in their orbits in what with astronomers are called "eccentric," but what in fact appears to be the great creative orbit form of the universe-the egg shape, a shape the essence of beauty in the human form, and acknowledged in the fine arts as the principle of beauty in all the works of man?

A Comet, therefore, is the representative of the Soul; in the heavens it speeds its course-it is without solid, without spirit and intelligence. A comet gives the answer to the fallacious specious statement of the mere materialist, that spirit and soul cannot live unless incorporated with the solid, be it mine

ral, vegetable, or animal. Tell me what a comet is, and I will tell you what the soul is; tell me its powers, its duties, and I will tell the powers and duties of the soul. Without solid and without spirit, its movements are as regular and systematic as the solid orbs which flee in space. It has shape and dimensions, and yet, as I before stated, it is so ethereal, that the stars in the heavens can be seen through it with even greater brilliancy. In solids atom is like atom, pile them, and they become mountains; mountains so high, so abrupt, that the human foot has never trod their pinnacles. Atom on atom constitutes the solid earth on which we exist; so is it with a comet, atom on atom of its ethereality pile themselves; they cohere, they are thousands of miles in height, in breadth, in thickness, and yet so refined in essence, that they are not only transparent but luminously transparent. The surface of a comet has its mountains and its valleys as earth has; it moves in its orbit, though that orbit may take five hundred and fifty years travelling at the rate of 880,000 miles per second-cast and comprehend the distance if you can. Atom of solid marble to atom six feet by eighteen inches broad and ten inches thick chiselled into shape, make the form of man. Atoms of comet body six feet by eighteen inches broad, ten inches thick, and clouded into the shape of man, are not invisible at the same distance; the solid is visible to the eye at a few yards, but the cometary body so finely formed is invisible even at arm's length. Both have powers each in its order, but both are without spirit, life, or intelligence. Spirit being more subtile, more ethereal, than either earth or comet, can by reason of its superior ethereality, penetrate the soul and body, as electricity does every separate atom of granite, earth, water, fish, bird, and animal on our globe, as well as every atom of comet body. Reasoning from the evidences around us, it is an easier task for spirit to incorporate itself with soul than with body, because of its less resisting power. The proofs of the existence and intelligent action of a power in nature, superior to either earth or comet, I will hereafter produce. In the mean