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Students often at first find it difficult to understand how in such an experiment the shape of the article dealt with can be preserved. It has been remarked that if any metallic object— say, for example, a key—be melted and raised to a vaporous state by heat, when the heat is withdrawn it \\4ill certainly return to the solid state, but it will no longer be a key, but merely a lump of metal. The point is well taken, though as a matter of fact the apparent analogy does not hold good. The elemental essence which informs the key would be dissipated by the alteration in its , condition—not that the essence itself can be affected by the action of heat, but that when its temporary body is destroyed (as a solid) it pours back into the great reservoir of such essence, much as the higher principles of a man, though entirely unaffected by heat or cold, are yet forced out of a physical body when it is destroyed by fire.
Consequently, when what had been the key cooled down into the solid condition again, the elemental Essence (of the"earth ” or solid class) which pocired back into it would not be in any way the ( same as that which it contained before, and there would be no reason why the same shape should be retained. But a man who disintegrated a key for the purpose of removing it ajjtral currents frfcm one place to another would be very