It must be observed that when the inspiration or inhalation was complete, the raising took place. The object of the inhalation was to fix and concentrate the will power; it demands an undivided act of direction and attention to the object. Any distraction or diversion will be followed by failure. "He who hesitates is lost." It is a most disastrous and weak state of brain when confidence has been lost; the irresolution which invariably follows leads to failure; it is equally true nationally as individually. The want of faith negatives will power. If these functions of brain do not act in harmony, no power can possibly follow. Combine, let them harmonize and act in perfect unison, and the most wonderful results are accomplished.

Half an hour prior to the death of a friend, the author took him out of bed. He was, so far as mere sense of weight is concerned, not heavier than twenty pounds; after his death he was "a dead weight" of 150 pounds. Why this difference? It was the loss of "the vital element."

The most powerful of all the forces known to man is the electrical when concentrated. Yet this very element is essential to our existence.

Cannot we here discover the secret of the phenomena of "table turning" and "spirit knocking?" There may be an imparting of the "vital element" or nervo-vital fluid, which under the will power or function of volition presented phenomena which, to those ignorant of this condition of the nervous system, were attributed to the "supernatural." In a future work this matter will be fully discussed; the author of these pages having been the cause of the origin of the subject known as "spiritualism," as recently developed.

The author in 1845 possessed an hydro-electric machine; the largest ever constructed. It was four times greater than that exhibited in the Polytechnic Institution of London, the experiments with which were so ably demonstrated by his friend Dr. George H. B. Bachhoffner. The huge battery of thirty-six Leyden jars of eighteen inches diameter and two feet high was charged from the machine in one minute. In those empty jars, from a mere disturbance of the equilibrium of the molecules of ethereal matter, was contained a power of momentous force; when the positive and negative surfaces were brought together, and in so doing made to pass through the brain of a large dog, its death was instantaneous. Yet nothing was to be seen. This electrical force was eliminated by the friction of dry steam through small tubes of hard wood. Yet this is not more wonderful than that a fish should generate electricity in water in such quantities as to kill its prey when directed by the will of (the gymnotus) the animal.

The torpedo, the silurus electricus, and the gymnotus are sensible when they have shocked an animal; nor will they exert their electrical powers when touched by an inanimate substance. This is a remarkable fact. The gymnotus has four electrical organs, which it may discharge separately or together: it can give two or three successive shocks, but if the prey has been stunned or killed by the first shock, it never discharges a second, but economizes its force.

The experiments of Wilson Philip in dividing the eighth pair of nerves, which put the stomach in direct communication with the brain, showed that when cut the digestive function ceased, but the moment the cut ends were united by means of a galvanic battery, the secretion of the gastric juices took place as perfectly as it did before the division of the nerves. Some persons immediately after dinner are overcome by an irresistible sleepiness. This arises from the digestive function depriving the brain of a large amount of nervous fluid, leaving the senses in a negative state. All these facts are adduced in order to show that the nervous influence, as it has been denominated, is closely allied to electricity, galvanism, and magnetism. The vital element when secreted by the respiratory organs, and retained in its reservoir, the brain, is conveyed to all parts of the body to subserve the vital functions; the major portion is, however, used nnder the direction of the will power, in the thinking function of brain, or the various muscular movements. The time is not far distant when these facts will be universally received.

Until the physiology of the functions of the nervous system is better understood by the medical profession, the treatment of nervous disease will be futile, as it mostly is; from a deficient knowledge of this department of physiology it is, that these diseases are so difficult to treat successfully.

The exact government and direction of the nervo-vital fluid, so as to produce the greatest possible effect, is exemplified in those persons who have acquired "a knack," as it is called, in raising weights, or in striking a telling blow either with the hammer or the fist. It is by no means the strongest man who is capable of dealing the severest or heaviest blow. Acrobats and prize-fighters have this faculty of using the will so as to exert the greatest amount of force at a given time. On several occasions persons whilst waltzing have ruptured the fibres of the gastrocnemius muscle in consequence of the want of government of the will power. If the exertion was such as to produce ten times the muscular power required, there would necessarily be a too violent contraction of the muscle, inadequate to the motion required, and consequent rupture.

The history of neuralgic disease in its varied forms arises from the irregular distribution of the nervo-vital fluid - the seat of these diseases is in the brain - or from too abundant a supply from the lungs. At this moment a gentleman suffering the most severe form of sciatica is under treatment. In his case the disease has arisen from the brain having been for some thirty years actively employed in literary pursuits; the lungs having established a functional capacity to meet the demand. From a severe mental trial he discontinues his accustomed vocation. The brain not expending the nervous fluid generated, it finds expenditure through another channel, the sciatic nerve. The treatment consists in restoring the lost equilibrium. All those cases of epilepsy, neuralgia, hysteria, and trance indicate a local excess of nervous fluid; whereas paralysis is frequently the consequence of a deficient supply, or from over-exertion with an inadequate capacity, more particularly in the indulgence of the sexual propensity.* It is economy in the use of volition or will power, and the maintenance of the equilibrium, which are the sources of continued health and longevity - the source of happiness, the aim of life.

* This subject of itself is so large and so replete with the most extraordinary physiological phenomena, that it must be reserved until a future occasion, when it will be specially treated in detail, in a work now preparing for publication, entitled "The Phenomena of the Vital Element Artificially Induced."