CHAPTER XVII.
"IF I MEET THE MAN!"
When Edward opened the morning paper, which he did while waiting for the return of the professor, who had wandered away before breakfast, he was shocked by the announcement of Montjoy's defeat. The result of the vote in the remote county had been secured by horseback service organized by an enterprising journal, and telegraphed. The official returns were given.
Already the campaign had drifted far into the past with him; years seemed to have gone by when he arose from the sick-bed and now it scarcely seemed possible that he, Edward Morgan, was the same man who labored among the voters, shouted himself hoarse and kept the headquarters so successfully. It must have been a dream.
But Mary! That part was real. He wrote her a few lines expressing his grief.
And then came the professor, with his adventure! He had met a young man out making photographs and had interested him with descriptions of recent successful attempts to photograph in colors. And then they had gone to the wing-room and examined the results of the young man's efforts to produce pictures upon living substances. "He has some of the most original theories and ideas upon the subject I have heard," said the German. "Not wild beyond the possibilities of invention, however, and I am not sure but that he has taught me a lesson in common sense. 'Find how nature photographs upon living tissue,' said the young man, 'and when you have reduced your pictures to the invisible learn to re-enlarge them; perhaps you will learn to enlarge nature's invisibles.'
"He has discovered that the convolutions of the human brain resemble an embryo infant and that the new map which indicates the nerve lines centering in the brain from different parts of the body shows them entering the corresponding parts of the embryo. He lingers upon the startling idea that the nerve is a formative organ, and that by sensations conveyed, and by impressions, it actually shapes the brain. When sensations are identical and persistent they establish a family form. The brain is a bas-relief composite picture, shaped by all the nerves. Theoretically a man's brain carefully removed, photographed and enlarged ought to show the outlines of a family form, with all the modifications.
"You will perceive that he is working along hereditary lines and not psychologic. And I am not sure but that in this he is pursuing the wisest course, heredity being the primer."
"You believe he has made a new discovery, then?"