I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?
SPIRIT.--Yes.
I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?
SPIRIT.--You are.
I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
which you bear to science, help me!
SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
form the universal lens.
I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?
SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.
I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
surmounted?
SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!
I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens.
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