第63章 BOOK III.(3)

"Are you a man,or a spectre that is able to affect our senses?""I WAS a man,"replied the spirit,"and I have given myself visible and tangible form to warn you of danger.My colleagues and I watched you when you left the cylinder and when you shot the birds,and,seeing your doom in the air,have been trying to communicate with you.""What were the strange shadows and prismatic colours that kept passing across our table?"asked Bearwarden.

"They were the obstructions and refractions of light caused by spirits trying to take shape,"replied the shade.

"Do you mind our asking you questions?"said Cortlandt.

"No,"replied their visitor."If I can,I will answer them.""Then,"said Cortlandt,"how is it that,of the several spirits that tried to become embodied,we see but one,namely,you?""That,"said the shade,"is because no natural law is broken.On earth one man can learn a handicraft better in a few days than another in a month,while some can solve with ease a mathematical problem that others could never grasp.So it is here.Perhaps Iwas in a favourable frame of mind on dying,for the so-called supernatural always interested me on earth,or I had a natural aptitude for these things;for soon after death I was able to affect the senses of the friends I had left.""Are we to understand,then,"asked Cortlandt,"that the reason more of our departed do not reappear to us is because they cannot?""Precisely,"replied the shade."But though the percentage of those that can return and reappear on earth is small,their number is fairly large.History has many cases.We know that the prophet Samuel raised the witch of Endor at the behest of Saul;that Moses and Elias became visible in the transfiguration;and that after his crucifixion and burial Christ returned to his disciples,and was seen and heard by many others.""How,"asked Bearwarden deferentially,"do you occupy your time?""Time,replied the spirit,"has not the same significance to us that it has to you.You know that while the earth rotates in twenty-four hours,this planet takes but about ten;and the sun turns on its own axis but once in a terrestrial month;while the years of the planets vary from less than three months for Mercury to Neptune's one hundred and sixty-four years.Being insensible to heat and cold,darkness and light,we have no more changing seasons,neither is there any night.When a man dies,"he continued with solemnity,"he comes at once into the enjoyment of senses vastly keener than any be possessed before.Our eyes--if such they can be called--are both microscopes and telescopes,the change in focus being effected as instantaneously as thought,enabling us to perceive the smallest microbe or disease-germ,and to see the planets that revolve about the stars.The step of a fly is to us as audible as the tramp of a regiment,while we hear the mechanical and chemical action of a snake's poison on the blood of any poor creature bitten,as plainly as the waves on the shore.We also have a chemical and electrical sense,showing us what effect different substances will have on one another,and what changes to expect in the weather.The most complex and subtle of our senses,however,is a sort of second sight that we call intuition or prescience,which we are still studying to perfect and understand.With our eyes closed it reveals to us approaching astronomical and other bodies,or what is happening on the other side of the planet,and enables us to view the future as you do the past.The eyes of all but the highest angels require some light,and can be dazzled by an excess;but this attribute of divinity nothing can obscure,and it is the sense that will first enable us to know God.By means of these new and sharpened faculties,which,like children,we are continually learning to use to better advantage,we constantly increase our knowledge,and this is next to our greatest happiness.""Is there any limit,"asked Bearwarden,"to human progress on the earth?""Practically none,"replied the spirit."Progress depends largely on your command of the forces of Nature.At present your principal sources of power are food,fuel,electricity,the heat of the interior of the earth,wind,and tide.From the first two you cannot expect much more than now,but from the internal heat everywhere available,tradewinds,and falling water,as at Niagara,and from tides,you can obtain power almost without limit.Were this all,however,your progress would be slow;but the Eternal,realizing the shortness of your lives,has given you power with which to rend the globe.You have the action of all uncombined chemicals,atmospheric electricity,the excess or froth of which you now see in thunderstorms,and the electricity and magnetism of your own bodies.There is also molecular and sympathetic vibration,by which Joshua not understandingly levelled the walls of Jericho;and the power of your minds over matter,but little more developed now than when I moved in the flesh upon the earth.By lowering large quantities of high-powered explosives to the deepest parts of the ocean bed,and exploding them there,you can produce chasms through which some water will be forced towards the heated interior by the enormous pressure of its own weight.At a comparatively slight depth it will be converted into steam and produce an earthquake.