So far as
I know about it the thing sounds scientific and plausible enough. I
leave you to judge of that. It is only an incident in my story and I
will pass over it quickly. Prescott, then, believes that the elements
are merely progressive variations of an original substance or base
called 'protyle,' from which everything is derived. But this fellow
Prescott goes much further than any of the former theorists. He does
not stop with matter. He believes that he has the secret of life also,
that he can make the transition from the inorganic to the organic,
from inert matter to living protoplasm, and thence from living
protoplasm to mind and what we call soul, whatever that may be."
"And here is where the weird and uncanny part of it comes in,"
commented Craig, turning from the doctor to me to call my attention
particularly to what was about to follow.
"Having arrived at the point where he asserts that he can create and
destroy matter, life, and mind," continued the doctor, as if himself
fascinated by the idea, "Prescott very naturally does not have to
go far before he also claims a control over telepathy and even a
communication with the dead. He even calls the messages which he
receives by a word which he has coined himself, 'telepagrams.' Thus
he says he has unified the physical, the physiological, and the
psychical--a system of absolute scientific monism."
The doctor paused again, then resumed. "One afternoon, about a week
ago, apparently, as far as I am able to piece together the story,
Prescott was demonstrating his marvellous discovery of the unity of
nature.
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