A CONNECTING MEDIUM smell, it is not very gross; still, with the senses hitherto enumerated we should never have be- come aware of the ether. A stroke of lightning might have smitten our bodies back into their inorganic constituents, or a torpedo-fish might have inflicted on us a strange kind of torment; but from these violent tutors we should have learnt little more than a schtool-boy learns from the once ever-ready cane. But it so happens that the whole surface of our skin is sensitive in yet another way, and a small portion of it is astoundingly and beautifully sensitive, to an impression of an altogether dif- ferent character—one not necessarily associated with any form of ordinary matter—one that will occur equally well through space from which all solid, liquid, or gaseous matter has been removed. Hold your hand near a fire, put your face in the sunshine, and what is it you feel? You are now conscious of something not arriving by ordinary matter atall. You are now as directly conscious as you can be of the ethereal medium, True the process is not very direct. You cannot apprehend the ether as you can matter, by touching or tasting or even smelling it; but the process is analogous to the kind of perception we might get of ordinary matter if we had the sense of hearing alone. It is something akin to vibra- tions in the ether that our skin and our eyes feel. It may be rightly asserted that it is not the ar