familiar, almost commonplace. The man in the street has grown used to the idea of ether waves that are received after a journey of thousands of miles, having been guided on their journey.
True, the physiologist is again on the track of the inventor, finding new parallels in the light of the new projection. Luys and others show how the action of nerve cells resembles that of the particles in a coherer and de-coherer of a Marconi instrument, and Mr. Collins confirms this, saying that the human body "has every essential for communication at a distance, without the aid of any mechanical instruments." And this declaration was one which might be expected, if precedent counts for anything. For hitherto at least work, or rather tools, have already held a prophecy. They have always foreshadowed the next great discovery as to the nature and functioning of bodily organs. If there is not every essential in the body for communication at a distance without the aid of any mechanical instruments, then something quite novel has happened. The workers have invented in a new fashion. They have taken flight, as it were, without any impetus from within.
Certainly it is no part of our task in this book to discuss such precedents and possibilities. They lie far beyond the scope of the work—beyond and out-
