{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2033/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2033","id":"gutenberg_2033","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2033","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Parapsychology"],"text":"Ver.04.29.93*END*\n\n\n\n\nScanned by Dianne Bean of Phoenix, Arizona.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE UNKNOWN GUEST\n\nBY MAURICE MAETERLINCK\n\n\n\n\nTranslated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n1\n\nMy Essay on Death[1] led me to make a conscientious enquiry into\nthe present position of the great mystery, an enquiry which I\nhave endeavoured to render as complete as possible. I had hoped\nthat a single volume would be able to contain the result of these\ninvestigations, which, I may say at once, will teach nothing to\nthose who have been over the same ground and which have nothing\nto recommend them except their sincerity, their impartiality and\na certain scrupulous accuracy. But, as I proceeded, I saw the\nfield widening under my feet, so much so that I have been obliged\nto divide my work into two almost equal parts. The first is now\npublished and is a brief study of veridical apparitions and\nhallucinations and haunted houses, or, if you will, the phantasms\nof the living and the dead; of those manifestations which have\nbeen oddly and not very appropriately described as\n\"psychometric\"; of the knowledge of the future: presentiments,\nomens, premonitions, precognitions and the rest; and lastly of\nthe Elberfeld horses. In the second, which will be published\nlater, I shall treat of the miracles of Lourdes and other places,\nthe phenomena of so called materialization, of the divining-rod\nand of fluidic asepsis, not unmindful withal of a diamond dust of\nthe miraculous that hangs over the greater marvels in that\nstrange atmosphere into which we are about to pass.\n\n[1] Published in English, in an enlarged form, under the title of\nOur Eternity (London and New York, 1913)--Translator's Note.\n\n\n2\n\nWhen I speak of the present position of the mystery, I of course\ndo not mean the mystery of life, its end and its beginnings, nor\nyet the great riddle of the universe which lies about us. In this\nsense, all is mystery, and, as I have said elsewhere, is likely\nalways to remain so; nor is it probable that we shall ever touch\nany point of even the utmost borders of knowledge or certainty.\nIt is here a question of that which, in the midst of this\nrecognized and usual mystery, the familiar mystery of which we\nare almost oblivious, suddenly disturbs the regular course of our\ngeneral ignorance. In themselves, these facts which strike us as\nsupernatural are no more so than the others; possibly they are\nrarer, or, to be more accurate, less frequently or less easily\nobserved. In any case, their deep-seated cause, while being\nprobably neither more remote nor more difficult access, seem\nto lie hidden in an unknown region less often visited by our\nscience, which after all is but a reassuring and conciliatory\nespression of our ignorance. Today, thanks to the labours of the\nSociety for Psychical Research and a host of other seekers, we\nare able to approach these phenomena as a whole with a certain\nconfidence. Leaving the realm of legend, of after-dinner stories,\nold wives' tales, illusions and exaggerations, we find ourselves\nat last on circumscribed but fairly safe ground. This does not\nmean that there are no other supernatural phenomena besides those\ncollected in the publications of the society in question and in a\nfew of the more weighty reviews which have adopted the same\nmethods. Notwithstanding all their diligence, which for over\nthirty years has been ransacking the obscure corners of our\nplanet, it is inevitable that a good many things escape their\nnotice, besides which the rigour of their investigations makes\nthem reject three fourths of those which are brought before them.\nBut we may say that the twenty-six volumes of the society is\nProceedings and the fifteen or sixteen volumes of its Journal,\ntogether with the twenty-three annuals of the Annales des\nSciences Psychiques, to mention only this one periodical of\nsignal excellence, embrace for the moment the whole field of the\nextraordinary and offer some instances of all the abnormal\nmanifestations of the inexplicable. We are henceforth able to\nclassify them, to divide and subdivide them into general, species\nand varieties. This is not much, you may say; but it is thus that\nevery science begins and furthermore that many a one ends. We\nhave therefore sufficient evidence, facts that can scarcely be\ndisputed, to enable us to consult them profitably, to recognize\nwhither they lead, to form some idea of their general character\nand perhaps to trace their sole source by gradually removing the\nweeds and rubbish which for so many hundreds and thousands of\nyears have hidden it from our eyes.\n\n3\n\nTruth to tell, these supernatural manifestations seem less\nmarvelous and less fantastic than they did some centuries ago;\nand we are at first a little disappointed. One would think that\neven the mysterious has its ups and downs and remains subject to\nthe caprices of some strange extra mundane fashion; or perhaps,\nto be more exact, it is evident that the majority of those\nlegendary miracles could not withstand the rigorous scrutiny of\nour day. Those which emerge triumphant from the test and defy our\nless credulous and more penetrating vision are all the more\nworthy of holding our attention. They are not the last survivals\nof the riddle, for this continues to exist in its entirety and\ngrows greater in proportion as we throw light upon it; but we can\nperhaps see in them the supreme or else the first efforts of a\nforce which does not appear to reside wholly in our sphere. They\nsuggest blows struck from without by an Unknown even more unknown\nthan that which we think we know, an Unknown which is not that of\nthe universe, not that which we have gradually made into an\ninoffensive and amiable Unknown, even as we have made the\nuniverse a son of province of the earth, but a stranger arriving\nfrom another world, an unexpected visitor who comes in a rather\nsinister way to trouble the comfortable quiet in which we were\nslumbering, rocked by the firm and watchful hand of orthodox\nscience.\n\n4\n\nLet us first be content to enumerate them. We shall find that we\nhave table-turning, with its raps; the movements and\ntransportations of inanimate objects without contact; luminous\nphenomena; lucidite, or clairvoyance; veridical apparitions or\nhallucinations; haunted houses; bilocations and so forth;\ncommunications with the dead; the divining-rod; the miraculous\ncures of Lourdes and elsewhere; fluidic asepsis; and lastly the\nfamous thinking animals of Elberfeld and Mannheim. These, if I be\nnot mistaken, after eliminating all that is in, sufficiently\nattested, constitute the residue or caput mortuum of this\nlatter-day miracle.\n\nEverybody has heard of table-turning, which may be called the A B\nC of occult science. It is so common and so easily produced that\nthe Society for Psychical Research has not thought it necessary\nto devote special attention to the subject. I need hardly add\nthat we must take count only of movements or \"raps\" obtained\nwithout the hands touching the table, so as to remove every\npossibility of fraud or unconscious complicity. To obtain these\nmovements it is enough, but it is also indispensable that those\nwho form the \"chain\" should include a person endowed with\nmediumistic faculties. I repeat, the experiment is within the\nreach of any one who cares to try it under the requisite\nconditions; and it is as incontestable as the polarization of\nlight or as crystallization by means of electric currents.\n\nIn the same group may be placed the movement and transportation\nof objects without contact, the touches of spirit hands, the\nluminous phenomena and materialization. Like table-turning, they\ndemand the presence of a medium. I need not observe that we here\nfind ourselves in the happy hunting-ground of the impostor and\nthat even the most powerful mediums, those possessing the most\ngenuine and undeniable gifts, such as the celebrated Eusapia\nPaladino, are upon occasion--and the occasion occurs but too\noften--incorrigible cheats. But, when we have made every\nallowance for fraud, there nevertheless remains a considerable\nnumber of incidents so rigorously attested that we most needs\naccept them or else abandon all human certainty.\n\nThe case is not quite the same with levitation and the wonders\nperformed, so travelers tell us, by certain Indian jugglers.\nThough the prolonged burial of a living being is very nearly\nproved and can doubtless be physiologically explained, there are\nmany other tricks on which we have so far no authoritative\npronouncement. I will not speak of the \"mango-tree\" and the\n\"basket-trick,\" which are mere conjuring; but the \"fire-walk\" and\nthe famous \"rope-climbing trick\" remain more of a mystery.\n\nThe fire-walk, or walk on red-hot bricks or glowing coals, is a\nsort of religious ceremony practiced in the Indies, in some of\nthe Polynesian islands, in Mauritius and elsewhere. As the result\nof incantations uttered by the high priest, the bare feet of the\nfaithful who follow him upon the bed of burning pebbles or brands\nseem to become almost insensible to the touch of fire. Travelers\nare anything but agreed whether the heat of the surface traversed\nis really intolerable, whether the extraordinary power of\nendurance is explained by the thickness of the horny substance\nwhich protects the soles of the natives' feet, whether the feet\nare burnt or whether the skin remains untouched; and, under\npresent conditions, the question is too uncertain to make it\nworth while to linger over it.\n\n\"Rope-climbing\" is more extraordinary. The juggler takes his\nstand in an open space, far from any tree or house. He is\naccompanied by a child; and his only impedimenta are a bundle of\nropes and an old canvas sack. The juggler throws one end of the\nrope up in the air; and the rope, as though drawn by an invisible\nhook, uncoils and rises straight into the sky until the end\ndisappears; and, soon after, there come tumbling from the blue\ntwo arms, two legs, a head and so on, all of which the wizard\npicks up and crams into the sack. He next utters a few magic\nwords over it and opens it; and the child steps out, bowing and\nsmiling to the spectators.\n\nThis is the usual form taken by this particular sorcery. It is\npretty rare and seems to be practised only by one sect which\noriginated in the North-West Provinces. It has not yet perhaps\nbeen sufficiently investigated to take its place among the\nevidence mentioned show. If it were really as I have described,\nit could hardly be explained save by some strange hallucinatory\npower emanating from the juggler or illusionist, who influences\nthe audience by suggestion and makes it see what he wishes. In\nthat case the suggestion or hallucination covers a very extensive\narea. In point of fact, onlookers, Europeans, on the balconies of\nhouses at some distance from the crowd of natives, have been\nknown to experience the same influence. This would be one of the\nmost curious manifestations of that \"unknown guest\" of which we\nshall speak again later when, after enumerating its acts and\ndeeds, we try to investigate and note down the eccentricities of\nits character.\n\nLevitation in the proper sense of the word, that is to say, the\nraising, without contact, and floating of an inanimate object or\neven of a person, might possibly be due to the same hallucinatory\npower; but hitherto the instances have not been sufficiently\nnumerous or authentic to allow us to draw any conclusions. Also\nwe shall meet with it again when we come to the chapter treating\nof the materializations of which it forms part.\n\n\nTHE UNKNOWN GUEST\n\nCHAPTER I. PHANTASMS OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD\n\n1\n\nThis brings us without any break to the consideration of\nveridical apparitions and hallucinations and finally to haunted\nhouses. We all know that the phantasms of the living and the dead\nhave now a whole literature of their own, a literature which owes\nits birth to the numerous and conscientious enquiries conducted\nin England, France, Belgium and the United States at the instance\nof the Society for Psychical Research. In the presence of the\nmass of evidence collected, it would be absurd to persist in\ndenying the reality of the phenomena themselves. It is by this\ntime incontestable that a violent or deep emotion can be\ntransmitted instantaneously from one mind to another, however\ngreat the distance that separates the mind experiencing the\nemotion from the mind receiving the communication. It is most\noften manifested by a visual hallucination, more rarely by an\nauditory hallucination; and, as the most violent emotion which\nman can undergo is that which grips and overwhelms him at the\napproach or at the very moment of death, it is nearly always this\nsupreme emotion which he sends forth and directs with incredible\nprecision through space, if necessary across seas and continents,\ntowards an invisible and moving goal. Again, though this occurs\nless frequently, a grave danger, a serious crisis can beget and\ntransmit to a distance a similar hallucination. This is what the\nS. P. R. calls \"phantasms of the living.\" When the hallucination\ntakes place some time after the decease of the person whom it\nseems to evoke, be the interval long or short, it is classed\namong the \"phantasms of the dead.\"\n\nThe latter, the so-called \"phantasms of the dead,\" are the\nrarest. As F. W. H. Myers pointed out in his Human Personality, a\nconsideration of the proportionate number of apparitions observed\nat various periods before and after death shows that they\nincrease very rapidly for the few hours which precede death and\ndecrease gradually during the hours and days which follow; while\nafter about a year's time they become extremely rare and\nexceptional.\n\nHowever exceptional they may be, these apparitions nevertheless\nexist and are proved, as far as anything can be proved, by\nabundant testimony of a very precise character. Instances will be\nfound in the Proceedings, notably in vol. vi., pp. 13-65, etc.\n\nWhether it be a case of the living, the dying, or the dead, we\nare familiar with the usual form which these hallucinations take.\nIndeed their main outlines hardly ever vary. Some one, in his\nbedroom, in the street, on a journey, no matter where, suddenly\nsee plainly and clearly the phantom of a relation or a friend of\nwhom he was not thinking at the time and whom he knows to be\nthousands of miles away, in America, Asia or Africa as the case\nmay be, for distance does not count. As a rule, the phantom says\nnothing; its presence, which is always brief, is but a sort of\nsilent warning. Sometimes it seems a prey to futile and trivial\nanxieties. More rarely, it speaks, though saying but little after\nall. More rarely still, it reveals something that has happened, a\ncrime, a hidden treasure of which no one else could know. But we\nwill return to these matters after completing this brief\nenumeration.\n\n2\n\nThe phenomenon of haunted houses resembles that of the phantasms\nof the dead, except that here the ghost clings to the residence,\nthe house, the building and in no way to the persons who inhabit\nit. By the second year of its existence, that is to say, 1884,\nthe Committee on Haunted Houses of the S. P. R. had selected and\nmade an analysis of some sixty-five cases out of hundreds\nsubmitted to it, twenty-eight of which rested upon first-hand and\nsuperior evidence.[1] It is worthy of remark, in the first place,\nthat these authentic narratives bear no relation whatever to the\nlegendary and sensational ghost-stories that still linger in many\nEnglish and American magazines, especially in the Christmas\nnumbers. They mention no winding-sheets, coffins, skeletons,\ngraveyards, no sulphurous flames, curses, blood-curdling groans,\nno clanking chains, nor any of the time-honoured trappings that\ncharacterize this rather feeble literature of the supernatural.\nOn the contrary, the scenes enacted in houses that appear to be\nreally haunted are generally very simple and insignificant, not\nto say dull and commonplace. The ghosts are quite unpretentious\nand go to no expense in the matter of staging or costume. They\nare clad as they were when, sometimes many years ago, they led\ntheir quiet, unadventurous life within their own home. We find in\none case an old woman, with a thin grey shawl meekly folded over\nher breast, who bends at night over the sleeping occupants of her\nold home, or who is frequently encountered in the hall or on the\nstairs, silent, mysterious, a little grim. Or else it is the\ngentleman with a lacklustre eye and a figured dressing-gown who\nwalks along a passage brilliantly illuminated with an\ninexplicable light. Or again we have another elderly lady,\ndressed in black, who is often found seated in the bay window of\nher drawing-room. When spoken to, she rises and seems on the\npoint of replying, but says nothing. When pursued or met in a\ncorner, she eludes all contact and vanishes. Strings are fastened\nacross the staircase with glue; she passes and the strings remain\nas they were. The ghost--and this happens in the majority of\ncases--is seen by all the people staying in the house: relatives,\nfriends, old servants and new. Can it be a matter of suggestion,\nof collective hallucination? At any rate, strangers, visitors who\nhave had nothing said to them, see it as the others do and ask,\ninnocently: \"Who is the lady in mourning whom I met in the\ndining-room?\"\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. i., pp. 101-115; vol. ii., pp. 137-151;\nvol. viii., pp. 311, 332, etc.\n\n\nIf it is a case of collective suggestion, we should have to admit\nthat it is a subconscious suggestion emitted without the\nknowledge of the participants, which indeed is quite possible.\n\nThough they belong to the same order, I will not here mention the\nexploits of what the Germans call the Poltergeist, which take the\nform of flinging stones, ringing bells, turning mattresses,\nupsetting furniture and so forth. These matters are always open\nto suspicion and really appear to be nothing but quaint frolics\nof hysterical subjects or of mediums indulging their sense of\nhumour. The manifestations of the Poltergeist are fairly numerous\nand the reader will find several instances in the Proceedings and\nespecially in the Journal of the S. P. R.\n\nAs for communications with the dead, I devoted a whole chapter to\nthese in my own essay entitled Our Eternity and will not return\nto them now. It will be enough to recall and recapitulate my\ngeneral impression, that probably the dead did not enter into any\nof these conversations. We are here concerned with purely\nmediumistic phenomena, more curious and mere subtle than those of\ntable-rapping, but of the same character; and these\nmanifestations, however astonishing they may be, do not pierce\nthe terrestrial sphere wherein we are imprisoned.\n\n3\n\nSetting aside the religious hypotheses, which we are not\nexamining here, for they belong to a different order of ideas,[1]\nwe find, as an explanation of the Majority of these phenomena, or\nat least as a means of avoiding an absolute and depressing\nsilence in regard to them, two hypotheses which reach the unknown\nby more or less divergent paths, to wit, the spiritualistic\nhypothesis and the mediumistic hypothesis. The spiritualists, or\nrather the neospiritualists or scientific spiritualists, who must\nnot be confused with the somewhat over-credulous disciples of\nAllan Kardec, maintain that the dead do not die entirely, that\ntheir spiritual or animistic entity neither departs nor disperses\ninto space after the dissolution of the body, but continues an\nactive though invisible existence around us. The\nneospiritualistic theory, however, professes only very vague\nnotions as to the life led by these discarnate spirits. Are they\nmore intelligent than they were when they inhabited their flesh?\nDo they possess a wider understanding and mightier faculties than\nours? Up to the present, we have not the unimpeachable facts that\nwould permit us to say so. It would seem, on the contrary, if the\ndiscarnate spirits really continue to exist, that their life is\ncircumscribed, frail, precarious, incoherent and, above all, not\nvery long. To this the objection is raised that it only appears\nso to our feeble eyes. The dead among whom we move without\nknowing it struggle to make themselves understood, to manifest\nthemselves, but dash themselves against the inpenetrable wall of\nour senses, which, created solely to perceive matter, remain\nhopelessly ignorant of all the rest, though this is doubtless the\nessential part of the universe. That which will survive in us,\nimprisoned in our body, is absolutely inaccessible to that which\nsurvives in them. The utmost that they can do is occasionally to\ncause a few glimmers of their existence to penetrate the fissures\nof those singular organisms known as mediums. But these vagrant,\nfleeting, venturous, stifled, deformed glimmers can but give us a\nludicrous idea of a life which has no longer anything in common\nwith the life--purely animal for the most part- which we lead on\nthis earth. It is possible; and there is something to be said for\nthe theory. It is at any rate remarkable that certain\ncommunications, certain manifestations have shaken the scepticism\nof the coldest and most dispassionate men of science, men utterly\nhostile to supernatural influences. In order to some extent to\nunderstand their uneasiness and their astonishment, we need only\nread--to quote but one instance among a thousand--a disquieting\nbut unassailable article, entitled, Dans les regions inexplorees\nde la biologic humaine. Observations et experiences sur Eusapia\nPaladino, by Professor Bottazzi, Director of the Physiological\nInstitute of the University of Naples.[2] Seldom have experiments\nin the domain of mediums or spirits been conducted with more\ndistrustful suspicion or with more implacable scientific\nstrictness. Nevertheless, scattered limbs, pale, diaphanous but\ncapable hands, suddenly appeared in the little physiological\nlaboratory of Naples University, with its doors heavily padlocked\nand sealed, as it were, mathematically excluding any possibility\nof fraud; these same hands worked apparatus specially intended to\nregister their touches; lastly, the outline of something black,\nof a head, uprose between the curtains of the mediumistic\ncabinet, remained visible for several seconds and did not retire\nuntil itself apparently frightened by the exclamations of\nsurprise drawn from a group of scientists who, after all, were\nprepared for anything; and Professor Bottazzi confesses that it\nwas then that, to quote his own words--measured words, as beseems\na votary of science, but expressive--he felt \"a shiver all\nthrough his body.\"\n\n[1] On the same grounds, we will also leave on one side the\ntheosophical hypothesis, which, like the others, begins by\ncalling for an act of adherence, of blind faith. Its\nexplanations, though often ingenious, are no more than forcible\nbut gratuitous asservations and, as I said in Our Eternity, do\nnot give us the shadow of the commencement of a proof.\n\n[2] Annales des Sciences Psychiques: April November 1907.\n\n\nIt was one of those moments in which a doubt which one had\nthought for ever abolished grips the most unbelieving. For the\nfirst time, perhaps, he looked around him with uncertainty and\nwondered in what world he was. As for the faithful adherents of\nthe unknown, who had long understood that we must resign\nourselves to understanding nothing and he prepared for every sort\nof surprise there was here, all the same, even for them, a\nmystery of another character, a bewildering mystery, the only\nreally strange mystery, more torturing than all the others\ntogether, because it verges upon ancestral fears and touches the\nmost sensitive point of our destiny.\n\n4\n\nThe spiritualistic argument most worthy of attention is that\nsupplied by the apparitions of the dead and by haunted houses. We\nwill take no account of the phantasms that precede, accompany or\nfollow hard upon death: they are explained by the transmission of\na violent motion from one subconsciousness to another; and, even\nwhen they are not manifested until several days after death, it\nmay still he contended that they are delayed telepathic\ncommunications. But what are we to say of the ghosts that spring\nup more than a year, nay, more than ten years after the\ndisappearance of the corpse? They are very rare, I know, but\nafter all there are some that are extremely difficult to deny,\nfor the accounts of their actions are attested and corroborated\nby numerous and trustworthy witnesses. It is true that here\nagain, where it is in most cases a question of apparitions to\nrelations or friends, we may be told that we are in the presence\nof telepathic incidents or of hallucinations of the memory. We\nthus deprive the spiritualists of a new and considerable province\nof their realm. Nevertheless, they retain certain private\ndesmesnes into which our telepathic explanations do not penetrate\nso easily. There have in fact been ghosts that showed themselves\nto people who had never known or seen them in the flesh. They are\nmore or less closely connected with the ghosts in haunted houses,\nto which we must revert for a moment.\n\nAs I said above, it is almost impossible honestly to deny the\nexistence of these houses. Here again the telepathic\ninterpretation enforces itself in the majority of cases. We may\neven allow it a strange but justifiable extension, for its limits\nare scarcely known. It has happened fairly often, for instance,\nthat ghosts come to disturb a dwelling whose occupiers find, in\nresponse to their indications, bones hidden in the walls or under\nthe floors. It is even possible, as in the case of William\nMoir,[1] which was as strictly conducted and supervised as a\njudicial enquiry, that the skeleton is buried at some distance\nfrom the house and dates more than forty years back. When the\nremains are removed and decently interred, the apparitions cease.\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. vi., pp. 35-41.\n\n\nBut even in the case of William Moir there is no sufficient\nreason for abandoning the telepathic theory. The medium, the\n\"sensitive,\" as the English say, feels the presence or the\nproximity of the bones; some relation established between them\nand him--a relation which certainly is profoundly\nmysterious--makes him experience the last emotion of the deceased\nand sometimes allows him to conjure up the picture and the\ncircumstances of the suicide or murder, even as, in telepathy\nbetween living persons, the contact of an inanimate object is\nable to bring him into direct relation with the subconsciousness\nof its owner. The slender chain connecting life and death is not\nyet entirely broken; and we might even go so far as to say that\neverything is still happening within our world.\n\nBut are there cases in which every link, however thin, however\nsubtle we may deem it, is definitely shattered? Who would venture\nto maintain this? We are only beginning to suspect the\nelasticity, the flexibility, the complexity of those invisible\nthreads which bind together objects, thoughts, lives, emotions,\nall that is on this earth and even that which does not yet exist\nto that which exists no longer. Let us take an instance in the\nfirst volume of the Proceedings: M, X. Z., who was known to most\nof the members of the Committee on Haunted Houses, and whose\nevidence was above suspicion, went to reside in a large old\nhouse, part of which was occupied by his friend Mr. G--. Mr. X.\nZ. knew nothing of the history of the place except that two\nservants of Mr. G--'s had given him notice on account of strange\nnoises which they had heard. One night--it was the 22nd of\nSeptember--Mr. X. Z., on his way up to his bedroom in the dark,\nsaw the whole passage filled with a dazzling and uncanny light,\nand in this strange light he saw the figure of an old man in a\nflowered dressing-gown. As he looked, both figure and light\nvanished and he was left in pitch darkness. The next day,\nremembering the tales told by the two servants, he made enquiries\nin the village. At first he could find out nothing, but finally\nan old lawyer told him that he had heard that the grandfather of\nthe present owner of the house had strangled his wife and then\ncut his own throat on the very spot where Mr. X. Z. had seen the\napparition. He was unable to give the exact date of this double\nevent; but Mr. X. Z. consulted the parish register and found that\nit had taken place on a 22nd of September.\n\nOn the 22nd of September of the following year, a friend of Mr.\nG--'s arrived to make a short stay. The morning after his\narrival, he came down, pale and tired, and announced his\nintention of leaving immediately. On being questioned, he\nconfessed that he was afraid, that he had been kept awake all\nnight by the sound of groans, blasphemous oaths and cries of\ndespair, that his bedroom door had been opened, and so forth.\n\nThree years afterwards, Mr. X. Z. had occasion to call on the\nlandlord of the house, who lived in London, and saw over the\nmantelpiece a picture which bore a striking resemblance to the\nfigure which he had seen in the passage. He pointed it out to his\nfriend Mr. G--, saying:\n\n\"That is the man whom I saw.\"\n\nThe landlord, in reply to their questions, said that the painting\nwas a portrait of his grandfather, adding that he had been \"no\ncredit to the family.\"\n\nEvidently, this does not in any way prove the existence of ghosts\nor the survival of man. It is quite possible that, in spite of\nMr. X. Z.'s undoubted good faith, imagination played a subtle but\npowerful part in these marvels. Perhaps it was set going by the\nstories of the two servants, insignificant gossip to which no\nattention was paid at the time, but which probably found its way\ndown into the weird and fertile depths of the subconsciousness.\nThe image was next transmitted by suggestion to the visitor\nfrightened by a sleepless night. As for the recognition of the\nportrait, this is either the weakest or the most impressive part\nof the story, according to the theory that is being defended.\n\nIt is none the less certain that there is some unfairness in\nsuggesting this explanation for every incident of the kind. It\nmeans stretching to the uttermost and perhaps stretching too far\nthe elastic powers of that amiable maid-of-all-work, telepathy.\nFor that matter, there are cases in which the telepathic\ninterpretation is even more uncertain, as in that described by\nMiss R. C. Morton in vol. viii. of the Proceedings.\n\nThe story is too long and complicated to be reproduced here. It\nis unnecessary to observe that, in view of the character of Miss\nMorton, a lady of scientific training, and of the quality of the\ncorroborative testimony, the facts themselves seem incontestable.\n\nThe case is that of a house built in 1860, whose first occupier\nwas an Anglo-Indian, the next tenant being an old man and the\nhouse then remaining unlet for four years. In 1882, when Captain\nMorton and big family moved in, there had never, so far as they\nknew, been any question of its being haunted. Three months\nafterwards, Miss Morton was in her room and on the point of\ngetting into bed, when she heard some one at the door and went to\nit, thinking that it might be her mother. On opening the door,\nshe found no one there, but, going a few steps along the passage,\nshe saw a tall lady, dressed in black, standing at the head of\nthe stair. She did not wish to make the others uneasy and\nmentioned the occurrence to no one except a friend, who did not\nlive in the neighborhood.\n\nBut soon the same figure dressed in black was seen by the various\nmembers of the household, by a married sister on a visit to the\nhouse, by the father, by the other sister, by a little boy, by a\nneighbour, General A--, who saw a lady crying in the orchard and,\nthinking that one of the daughters of the house was ill, sent to\nenquire after her. Even the Mortons' two dogs on more than one\noccasion clearly showed that they saw the phantom.\n\nIt was, as a matter of fact very harmonious: it said nothing; it\nwanted nothing; it wandered from room to room, without any\napparent object; and, when it was spoken to, it did not answer\nand only made its escape. The household became accustomed to the\napparition; it troubled nobody and inspired no terror. It was\nimmaterial, it could not be touched, but yet it intercepted the\nlight. After making enquiries, they succeeded in identifying it\nas the second wife of the Anglo-Indian. The Morton family had\nnever seen the lady, but, from the description which they gave of\nthe phantom to those who had known her, it appeared that the\nlikeness was unmistakable. For the rest, they did not know why\nshe came back to haunt a house in which she had not died. After\n1887, the appearances became less frequent, distinct, ceasing\naltogether in 1889.\n\n5\n\nLet us assume that the facts as reported in the Proceedings are\ncertain and indisputable. We have very nearly the ideal case,\nfree from previous or ambient suggestion. If we refuse to believe\nin the existence of ghosts, if we are absolutely positive that\nthe dead do not survive their death, then we must admit that the\nhallucination took birth spontaneously in the imagination of Miss\nMorton, an unconscious medium, and was subsequently trained by\ntelepathy to all those around her. In my opinion, this\nexplanation, however arbitrary and severe it may be, is the one\nwhich it behooves us to accept, pending further proofs. But it\nmust be confessed that, in thus extending our incredulity, we\nrender it very difficult for the dead to make its existence\nknown.\n\nWe possess a certain number of cases of kind, rigorously\ninvestigated, cases probably representing but an infinitesimal\npart of those which might be collected. Is it possible that they\none and all elude the telepathic explanation? It would be\nnecessary to make a study of them, conducted with the most\nscrupulous and unremitting attention; for the question is not\ndevoid of interest. If the existence of ghosts were\nwell-established, it would mean the entrance into this world,\nwhich we believe to be our world, of a new force that would\nexplain more than one thing which we are still far from\nunderstanding. If the dead interfere at one point, there is a\nreason why they should not interfere at every other point. We\nshould no longer be alone, among ourselves, in our\nhermetically-closed sphere, as we are perhaps only too ready to\nimagine it. We should have to alter more than one of our physical\nand moral laws, more than one of our ideas; and it would no doubt\nbe the most important and the most extraordinary revelation that\nwould be expected in the present state of our knowledge and since\nthe disappearance of the old positive religions. But we are not\nthere yet: the proof of all this is still in the nursery-stage;\nand I do not know if it will ever get beyond that. Nevertheless\nthe fact remains that, in these impenetrable regions of mystery\nwhich we are now exploring, the one weak spot lies here, the one\nwall in which there seems to be a chink--a strange one\nenough--giving a glimpse into the other world. It is narrow and\nvague and behind it there is still darkness; but it is not\nwithout significance and we shall do well not to lose sight of\nit.\n\n6\n\nLet us observe that this survival of the dead, as the\nneospiritualists conceive it, seems much less improbable since we\nhave been studying more closely the manifestations of the\nextraordinary and incontestable spiritual force that lies hidden\nwithin ourselves. It is not dependent in our thought, nor on our\nconsciousness, nor on our will; and very possibly it is not\ndependent either on our life. While we are still breathing on\nthis earth it is already surmounting most of the great obstacles\nthat limit and paralyse our existence. It acts at a distance and\nso to speak without organs. It passes through matter,\ndisaggregates it and reconstitutes it. It seems to possess, the\ngift of ubiquity. It is not subject to the laws of gravity and\nlifts weights out of all proportion with the real and measurable\nstrength of the body whence it is believed to emanate. It\nreleases and removes itself from that body; it comes and goes\nfreely and takes to itself substances and shapes which it borrows\nall around it; and therefore it is no longer so strange to see it\nsurviving for a time that body to which it does not appear to be\nas indissolubly bound as is our conscious existence. Is it\nnecessary to add that this survival of a part of ourselves which\nwe hardly know and which besides seems incomplete, incoherent and\nephemeral is wholly without prejudice to nor fate in the eternity\nof the worlds? But this is a question which we are not called\nupon to study here.\n\nI shall perhaps be asked:\n\n\"If it is becoming increasingly difficult for all these\nfacts--and there are more of them accumulating every day--to be\nembraced in the telepathic or psychometric theory, why not\nfrankly accept the spiritualistic explanation, which is the\nsimplest, which has an answer for everything and which is\ngradually encroaching on all the others?\"\n\nThat is true: it is the simplest theory, perhaps too simple; and,\nlike the religious theory, it dispenses as from all effort or\nseeking. We have nothing to set against it but the mediumistic\ntheory, which doubtless does not account exactly for a good many\nthings, but which at least is on the same side of the hill of\nlife as ourselves and remains among us, upon our earth, within\nreach of our eyes, our hands, our thoughts and our researches.\nThere was a time when lightning, epidemics and earthquakes were\nattributed without distinction to the wrath of Heaven. Nowadays,\nwhen we are more or less familiar with the source of the great\ninfectious diseases, the hand of Providence knows them no more;\nand, though we are still ignorant of the nature of electricity\nand the laws that regulate seismic shocks, we no longer dream,\nwhile waiting to learn more about them, of looking for their\ncauses in the judgment or anger of an imaginary Being. Let us act\nlikewise in the present case. It behooves us above all to avoid\nthose rash explanations which, in their haste, leave by the\nroadside a host of things that appear to be unknown or unknowable\nonly because the necessary effort has not yet been made to know\nthem. After all, while we must not eliminate the spiritualistic\ntheory, neither must we content ourselves with it. It is even\npreferable not to linger over it until it has supplied us with\ndecisive arguments, for it is the duty of this theory which\nsweeps us roughly out of our sphere to furnish us with such\narguments. For the present, it simply relegates to posthumous\nregions, phenomena that appear to occur within ourselves; it adds\nsuperfluous mystery and needless difficulty to the mediumistic\nmystery whence it springs. If we were concerned with facts that\nhad no footing in this world, we should certainly have to turn\nour eyes in another direction; but we see a large number of\nactions performed which are of the same nature as those\nattributed to the spirits and equally inexplicable, actions with\nwhich, however, we know that they have nothing to do. When it is\nproved that the dead exercise some intervention, we will bow\nbefore the fact as willingly as we bow before the mediumistic\nmysteries: it is a question of order, of internal policy and of\nscientific method much more than of probability, preference or\nfear. The hour has not yet come to abandon the principle which I\nhave formulated elsewhere with respect to our communications with\nthe dead, namely, that it is natural that we should remain at\nhome, in our own world, as long as we can, as long as we are not\nviolently driven from it by a series of irresistible and\nincontrovertible proofs coming from the neighbouring abyss. The\nsurvival of a spirit is no more improbable than the prodigious\nfaculties which we are obliged to attribute to the mediums if we\ndeny them to the dead. But the existence of mediums is beyond\ndispute, whereas that of spirits is not; and it is therefore for\nthe spirits or for those who make use of their name to begin by\nproving that they must. Before turning towards the mystery beyond\nthe grave, let us first exhaust the possibilities of the mystery\nhere on earth.\n\n\nCHAPTER II. PSYCHOMETRY\n\n1\n\nNow that we have eliminated the gods and the dead, what have we\nleft? Ourselves and all the life around us; and that is perhaps\nenough. It is, at any rate, much more than we are able to grasp.\n\nLet us now study certain manifestations that are absolutely\nsimilar to those which we attribute to the spirits and quite as\nsurprising. As for these manifestations, there is not the least\ndoubt of their origin. They do not come from the other world;\nthey are born and die upon this earth; and they arise solely and\nincontestably from our own actual living mystery. They are,\nmoreover, of all psychic manifestations, those which are easiest\nto examine and verify, seeing that they can be repeated almost\nindefinitely and that a number of excellent and well-known\nmediums are always ready to reproduce them in the presence of any\none interested in the question. It is no longer a case of\nuncertain and casual observation, but of scientific experiment.\n\nThe manifestations in question are so many phenomena of\nintuition, of clairvoyance or clairaudience, of seeing at a\ndistance and even of seeing the future. These phenomena may\neither be due to pure, spontaneous intuition on the part of the\nmedium, in an hypnotic or waking state, or else produced or\nfacilitated by one of the various empirical methods which\napparently see only to arouse the medium's subconscious faculties\nand to release in some way his subliminal clairvoyance. Among\nsuch methods, those most often employed are, as we all know,\ncards, coffee-grounds, pins, the lines of the hand, crystal\nglobes, astrology, and so on. They possess no importance in\nthemselves, no intrinsic virtue, and are worth exactly what the\nmedium who uses them is worth. As M. Duchatel well says:\n\n\"In reality, there is only one solitary MANCY. The faculty of\nseeing in TIME, like the faculty of seeing in SPACE, is ONE,\nwhatever its outward form or the process employed.\"\n\nWe will not linger now over those manifestations which, under\nappearances that are sometimes childish and vulgar, often conceal\nsurprising and incontestable truths, but will devote the present\nchapter exclusively to a series of phenomena which includes\nalmost all the others and which has been classed under the\ngeneric and rather ill-chosen and ill-constructed title of\n\"psychometry.\" Psychometry, to borrow Dr. Maxwell's excellent\ndefinition, is \"the faculty possessed by certain persons of\nplacing themselves in relation, either spontaneously or, for the\nmost part, through the intermediary of some object, with unknown\nand often very distant things and people.\"\n\nThe existence of this faculty is no longer seriously denied; and\nit is easy for any one who cares to do so to verify it for\nhimself; for the mediums who possess it are not extremely rare,\nnor are they inaccessible. It has formed the subject of a number\nof experiments (see, among others, M. Warcollier's report in the\nAnnales des Sciences Psychiques of July, 1911) and of a few\ntreatises, in the front rank of which I would mention M.\nDuchatel's Enquete sur des Cas de Psychometrie and Dr. Otty's\nrecently published book, Lucidite et Intuition, which is the\nfullest, most profound and most conscientious work that we\npossess on the matter up to the present. Nevertheless it may be\nsaid that these regions quite lately annexed by metaphysical\nscience are as yet hardly explored and that fruitful surprises\nare doubtless awaiting earnest seekers.\n\n2\n\nThe faculty in question is one of the strangest faculties of our\nsubconsciousness and beyond a doubt contains the key to most of\nthe manifestations that seem to proceed from another world. Let\nus begin by seeing, with the aid of a living and typical example,\nhow it is exercised.\n\nMme. M--, one of the best mediums mentioned by Dr. Osty, is given\nan object which belonged to or which has been touched and handled\nby a person about whom it is proposed to question her. Mme. M--\noperates in a state of trance; but there are other noted\npsychometers, such as Mme. F-- and M. Ph. M. de F--, who retain\nall their normal consciousness, so that hypnotism or the\nsomnambulistic state is in no way indispensable to the awakening\nof this extraordinary faculty of clairvoyance.\n\nWhen the object, which is usually a letter, has been handed to\nMme. M--, she is asked to place herself in communication with the\nwriter of the letter or the owner of the object. Forthwith, Mme.\nM-- not only sees the person in question, his physical\nappearance, his character, his habits, his interests, his state\nof health, but also, in a series of rapid and changing visions\nthat follow upon one another like cinematograph pictures,\nperceives and describes exactly his immediate surroundings, the\nscenery outside his window, the rooms in which he lives, the\npeople who live with him and who wish him well or ill, the\npsychology and the most secret and unexpected intentions of all\nthose who figure in his existence. If, by means of your\nquestions, you direct her towards the past, she traces the whole\ncourse of the subject's history. If you turn her towards the\nfuture, she seems often to discover it as clearly as the past.\nBut we will for the moment reserve this latter point, to which we\nshall return later in a chapter devoted to the knowledge of the\nfuture.\n\n3\n\nIn the presence of these phenomena, the first thought that\nnaturally occurs to the mind is that we are once more concerned\nwith that astonishing and involuntary communication between one\nsubconsciousness and another which has been invested with the\nname of telepathy. And there is no denying that telepathy plays a\ngreat part in these intuitions. However, to explain their\nworking, nothing is equal to an example based upon a personal\nexperience. Here is one which is in no way remarkable, but which\nplainly shows the normal course of the operation. In September,\n1913, while I was at Elberfeld, visiting Krall's horses, my wife\nwent to consult Mme. M--, gave her a scrap of writing in my\nhand--a note dispatched previous to my journey and containing no\nallusion to it--and asked her where I was and what I was doing.\nWithout a second's hesitation, Mme. M-- declared that I was very\nfar away, in a foreign country where they spoke a language which\nshe did not understand. She saw first a paved yard, shaded by a\nbig tree, with a building on the left and a garden at the back: a\nrough but not inapt description of Krall's stables, which my wife\ndid not know and which I myself had not seen at the time when I\nwrote the note. She next perceived me in the midst of the horses,\nexamining them, studying them with an absorbed, anxious and tired\nair. This was true, for I found those visits, which overwhelmed\nme with a sense of the marvelous and kept my attention on the\nrack, singularly exhausting and bewildering. My wife asked her if\nI intended to buy the horses. She replied:\n\n\"Not at all; he is not thinking of it.\"\n\nAnd, seeking her words as though to express an unaccustomed and\nobscure thought, she added:\n\n\"I don't know why he is so much interested; it is not like him.\nHe has no particular passion for horses. He has some lofty idea\nwhich I can't quite discover. . . .\"\n\nShe made two rather curious mistakes in this experiment. The\nfirst was that, at the time when she saw me in Krall's\nstable-yard, I was no longer there. She had received her vision\njust in the interval of a few hours between two visits.\nExperience shows, however, that this is a usual error among\npsychometers. They do not, properly speaking, see the action at\nthe very moment of its performance, but rather the customary and\nfamiliar action, the principal thing that preoccupies either the\nperson about whom they are being consulted or the person\nconsulting them. They frequently go astray in time. There is not,\ntherefore, necessarily any simultaneity between the action and\nthe vision; and it is well never to take their statements in this\nrespect literally.\n\nThe other mistake referred to our dress: Krall and I were in\nordinary town clothes, whereas she saw us in those long coats\nwhich stable-lads wear when grooming their horses.\n\nLet us now make every allowance for my wife's unconscious\nsuggestions: she knew that I was at Elberfeld and that I should\nbe in the midst of the horses, and she knew or could easily\nconjecture my state of mind. The transmission of thought is\nremarkable; but this is a recognized phenomenon and one of\nfrequent occurrence and we need not therefore linger over it.\n\nThe real mystery begins with the description of a place which my\nwife had never seen and which I had not seen either at the time\nof writing the note which established the psychometrical\ncommunication. Are we to believe that the appearance of what I\nwas one day to see was already inscribed on that prophetic sheet\nof paper, or more simply and more probably that the paper which\nrepresented myself was enough to transmit either to my wife's\nsubconsciousness or to Mme. M--, whom at that time I had never\nmet, an exact picture of what my eyes beheld three or four\nhundred miles away? But, although this description is exceedingly\naccurate--paved yard, big tree, building on the left, garden at\nthe back--is it not too general for all idea of chance\ncoincidence to be eliminated? Perhaps, by insisting further,\ngreater precision might have been obtained; but this is not\ncertain, for as a role the pictures follow upon one another so\nswiftly in the medium's vision that he has no time to perceive\nthe details. When all is said, experiences of this kind do not\nenable us to go beyond the telepathic explanation. But here is a\ndifferent one, in which subconscious suggestion cannot play any\npart whatever.\n\nSome days after the experiment which I have related, I received\nfrom England a request for my autograph. Unlike most of those\nwhich assail an author of any celebrity, it was charming and\nunaffected; but it told me nothing about its writer. Without even\nnoticing from what town it was sent to me, after showing it to my\nwife, I replaced it in its envelope and took it to Mme. M--. She\nbegan by describing us, my wife and myself, who both of us had\ntouched the paper and consequently impregnated it with our\nrespective \"fluids.\"\n\nI asked her to pass beyond us and come to the writer of the note.\nShe then saw a girl of fifteen or sixteen, almost a child, who\nhad been in rather indifferent health, but who was now very well\nindeed. The girl was in a beautiful garden, in front of a large\nand luxurious house standing in the midst of rather hilly\ncountry. She was playing with a big, curly-haired, long-eared\ndog. Through the branches of the trees one caught a glimpse of\nthe sea.\n\nOn inquiry, all the details were found to be astonishingly\naccurate; but, as usual, there was a mistake in the time, that is\nto say, the girl and her dog were not in the garden at the\ninstant when the medium saw them there. Here again an habitual\naction had obscured a casual movement; for, as I have already\nsaid, the vision very rarely corresponds with the momentary\nreality.\n\n4\n\nThere is nothing exceptional in the above example; I selected it\nfrom among many others because it is simple and clear. Besides,\nthis kind of experience is already, so to speak, classical, or at\nleast should be so, were it not that everything relating to the\nmanifestations of our subconsciousness is always received with\nextraordinary suspicion. In any case, I cannot too often repeat\nthat the experiment is within everybody's reach; and it rarely\nfails to achieve absolute success with capable psychometers, who\nare pretty well known and whom it is open to any one to consult.\n\nLet us add that it can be extended much further. If, for\ninstance, I had acted as I did in similar cases and asked the\nmedium questions about the young girl's home-circle, about the\ncharacter of her father, the health of her mother, the tastes and\nhabits of her brothers and sisters, she would have answered with\nthe same certainty, the same precision as one might do who was\nnot only a close acquaintance of the girl's, but endowed with\nmuch more penetrating faculties of intuition than a normal\nobserver. In short, she would have felt and expressed all that\nthis girl's subconsciousness would have felt with regard to the\npersons mentioned. But it must be admitted that, as we are here\nno longer speaking of facts that are easily verified,\nconfirmation becomes infinitely more difficult.\n\nThere could be no question, in the circumstances, of transmission\nof thought, since both the medium and I were ignorant of\neverything. Besides, other experiments, easily devised and\nrepeated and more rigourously controlled, do away with that\ntheory entirely. For instance, I took three letters written by\nintimate friends, put each of them in a double envelope and gave\nthem to a messenger unacquainted with the contents of the\nenvelopes and also with the persons in question to take to Mme.\nM--. On arriving at the house, the messenger handed the\nclairvoyant one of the letters, selected at random, and did\nnothing further beyond putting the indispensable questions,\nlikewise at random, and taking down the medium's replies in\nshorthand. Mme. M-- began by giving a very striking physical\nportrait of the lady who had written the letter; followed this up\nwith an absolutely faithful description of her character, her\nhabits, her tastes, her intellectual and moral qualities; and\nended by adding a few details concerning her private life, of\nwhich I myself was entirely unaware and of which I obtained the\nconfirmation shortly afterwards. The experiment yielded just as\nremarkable results when continued with the two other letters.\n\nIn the face of this mystery, two explanations may be offered,\nboth equally perplexing. On the one hand, we shall have to admit\nthat the sheet of paper handed to the psychometer and impregnated\nwith human \"fluid\" contains, after the manner of some\nprodigiously compressed gas, all the incessantly renewed,\nincessantly recurring images that surround a person, all his past\nand perhaps his future, his psychology, his state of health, his\nwishes, his intentions, often unknown to himself, his most secret\ninstincts, his likes and dislikes, all that is bathed in light\nand all that is plunged in darkness, his whole life, in short,\nand more than his personal and conscious life, besides all the\nlives and all the influences, good or bad, latent or manifest, of\nall who approach him. We should have here a mystery as\nunfathomable and at least as vast as that of generation, which\ntransmits, in an infinitesimal particle, the mind and matter,\nwith all the qualities and all the faults, all the acquirements\nand all the history, of a series of lives of which none can tell\nthe number.\n\nOn the other hand, if we do not admit that so much energy can lie\nconcealed in a sheet of paper, continuing to exist and develop\nindefinitely there, we must necessarily suppose that an\ninconceivable network of nameless forces is perpetually radiating\nfrom this same paper, forces which, cleaving time and space,\ndetect instantaneously, anywhere and at any distance, the life\nthat gave them life and place themselves in complete\ncommunication, body and soul, senses and thoughts, past and\nfuture, consciousness and subconsciousness, with an existence\nlost amid the innumerous host of men who people this earth. It\nis, indeed, exactly what happens in the experiments with mediums\nin automatic speech or writing, who believe themselves to be\ninspired by the dead. Yet, here it is no longer a discarnate\nspirit, but an object of any kind imbued with a living \"fluid\"\nthat works the miracle; and this, we may remark in passing, deals\na severe blow to the spiritualistic theory.\n\nNevertheless, there are two rather curious objections to this\nsecond explanation. Granting that the object really places the\nmedium in communication with an unknown entity discovered in\nspace, how comes it that the image or the spectacle created by\nthat communication hardly ever corresponds with the reality at\nthe actual moment? On the other hand, it is indisputable that the\npsychometer's clairvoyance, his gift of seeing at a distance the\npictures and scenes surrounding an unknown being, is exercised\nwith the same certainty and the same power when the object that\nsets his strange faculty at work has been touched by a person who\nhas been dead for years. Are we, then, to admit that there is an\nactual, living communication with a human being who is no more,\nwho sometimes--, for instance, in a case of incineration--has\nleft no trace of himself on earth, in short, with a dead man who\ncontinues to live at the place and at the moment at which he\nimpregnated the object with his \"fluid\" and who seems to be\nunaware that he is dead?\n\nBut these objections are perhaps less serious than one might\nbelieve. To begin with, there are seers, so-called\n\"telepsychics,\" who are not psychometers, that is to say, they\nare able to communicate with an unknown and distant person\nwithout the intermediary of an object; and in these seers, as in\nthe psychometers, the vision very rarely corresponds with the\nactual facts of the moment: they too perceive above all the\ngeneral impression, the usual and characteristic actions. Next,\nas regards communications with a person long since dead, we are\nconfronted with one of two things: either confirmation will be\nalmost impossible when it concerns revelations on the subject of\nthe dead man's private deeds and actions, which are unknown to\nany living person or else communication will be established not\nwith the deceased, but with the living person, who necessarily\nknows the facts which he is called upon to confirm. As Dr. Osty\nvery rightly says:\n\n\"The conditions are then those of perception by the intermediary\nof the thoughts of a living person; and the deceased is perceived\nthrough a mental representation. The experiment, for this reason,\nis valueless as evidence of the reality of retrospective\npsychometry and consequently of the recording part played by the\nobject.\n\n\"The only class of experiment that could be of value from this\npoint of view, would be that in which confirmation would come\nsubsequently from documents whose contents remained unknown to\nany living person until after the clairvoyance sitting. It might\nthen be proved that the object can latently register the human\npersonalities which have touched it and that it is sufficient in\nitself to allow of a mental reconstruction of those personalities\nthrough the interpretation of the register by a clairvoyant or\npsychometer.\"\n\n5\n\nIt may be imagined that experiments of this sort, in which there\nis no crack, no leak on the side of the living, are anything but\neasy to carry through. In the case of a murder, for instance, it\ncan always be maintained that the medium discovers the body and\nthe circumstances of the tragedy through the involuntary and\nunconscious intermediary of the murderer, even when the latter\nescapes prosecution and suspicion altogether. But a recent\nincident, related by Dr. Osty with the utmost precision of detail\nand the most scrupulous verification in the Annales des Sciences\nPsychiques of April, 1914, perhaps supplies us with one of those\nexperiments which we have not been able to achieve until this\nday. I give the facts in a few words.\n\nOn the 2nd of March of this year, M. Etienne Lerasle, an old man\nof eighty-two, left his son's house at Cours-les-Barres (Cher)\nfor his daily walk and was not seen again. The house stands in\nthe middle of a forest on Baron Jaubert's estate. Vain searches\nwere made in every direction for the missing man's traces; the\nponds and pools were dragged to no purpose; and on the 8th of\nMarch a careful and systematical exploration of the wood, in\nwhich no fewer than twenty-four people took part, led to no\nresult. At last, on the 18th of March, M. Louis Mirault, Baron\nJaubert's agent, thought of applying to Dr. Osty, and supplied\nhim with a scarf which the old man had worn. Dr. Osty went to his\nfavourite medium, Mme. M--. He knew only one thing, that the\nmatter concerned an old man of eighty-two, who walked with a\nslight stoop; and that was all.\n\nAs soon as Mme. M-- had taken the scarf in her hands, she saw the\ndead body of an old man lying on the damp ground, in a wood, in\nthe middle of a coppice, beside a horse-shoe pond, near a sort of\nrock. She traced the road taken by the victim, depicted the\nbuildings which he had passed, his mental condition impaired by\nage, his fixed intention of dying, his physical appearance, his\nhabitual and characteristic way of carrying his stick, his soft\nstriped shirt, and so on.\n\nThe accuracy of the description caused the greatest astonishment\namong the missing man's friends. There was one detail that\npuzzled them a little: the mention of a rock in a part of the\ncountry that possessed none. The search was resumed on the\nstrength of the data supplied by the clairvoyant. But all the\nrocks in a forest are more or less alike; the indications were\nnot enough; and nothing was found.\n\nIt so happened that the second and third interviews with Mme. M--\nhad to be postponed until the 30th of March and the 6th of April\nfollowing. At each of these sittings, the details of the vision\nand of the road taken became clearer and clearer and were given\nwith startling precision, so much so that, by pursuing step by\nstep the indications of the medium, the man's friends ended by\ndiscovering the body, dressed as stated, lying in the middle of a\ncoppice, just as described, close to a huge stump of a tree all\ncovered with moss, which might easily be mistaken for a rock, and\non the edge of a crescent-shaped piece of water. I may add that\nthese particular indications applied to no other part of the\nwood.\n\n6\n\nI refer the reader to Dr. Osty's conscientious and exhaustive\narticle for the numerous details which I have been obliged to\nomit; but those which I have given are enough to show the\ncharacter of this extraordinary case. To begin with, we have one\ncertainty which appears almost unassailable, namely, that there\ncan be no question of a crime. No one had the least interest in\nprocuring the old man's death. The body bore no marks of\nviolence; besides, the minds of those concerned did not for a\nmoment entertain the thought of an assault. The poor man, whose\nmental derangement was known to all those about him, obsessed by\nthe desire and thought of death, had gone quietly and obstinately\nto seek it in the nearest coppice. There was therefore no\ncriminal in the case, in other words, there was no possible or\nimaginable communication between the medium's subconsciousness,\nand that of any living person. Hence we are compelled to admit\nthat the communication was established with the dead man or with\nhis subconsciousness, which continued to live for nearly a month\nafter his death and to wander around the same places; or else we\nmust agree that all this coming tragedy, all that the old man was\nabout to see, do and suffer was already irrevocably contained and\ninscribed in the scarf at the moment when he last wore it.\n\nIn this particular case, considering that all relations with the\nliving were definitely and undeniably severed, I can see no other\nexplanations beyond these two. They are both equally astounding\nand land us suddenly in a world of fable and enchantment which we\nthought that we had left for good and all. If we do not adopt the\ntheory of the tell-tale scarf, we must accept that of the\nspiritualists, who maintain that the spirits communicate with us\nfreely. It is possible that they may find a serious argument in\nthis case. But a solitary fact is not enough to support a theory,\nall the more so as the one in question will never be absolutely\nsafe from the objection that could be raised if the case were one\nof murder, which is possible, after all, and cannot be actually\ndisproved. We must, therefore, while awaiting other similar and\nmore decisive facts, if any such are conceivable, return to those\nwhich are, so to speak, laboratory facts, facts which are only\ndenied by those who will not take the trouble to verify them; and\nto interpret these facts there are only the two theories which we\nmentioned above, before this digression; for, in these cases,\nwhich are unlike those of automatic speech or writing, we have\nnot as a rule to consider the possibility of any intervention of\nthe dead. As a matter of fact, the best-known psychometers are\nvery rarely spiritualists and claim no connection with the\nspirits. They care but little, as a rule, about the source of\ntheir intuitions and seem very little interested in their exact\nworking and origin. Now it would be exceedingly surprising if,\nacting and speaking in the name of the departed, they should be\nso consistently ignorant of the existence of those who inspire\nthem; and more surprising still if the dead, whom in other\ncircumstances we see so jealously vindicating their identity,\nshould not here, when the occasion is so propitious, seek to\ndeclare themselves, to manifest themselves and to make themselves\nknown.\n\n7\n\nDismissing for the time being the intervention of the dead, I\nbelieve then that, in most of the cases which I will call\nlaboratory cases, because they can be reproduced at will, we are\nnot necessarily reduced to the theory of the vitalized object\nrepresenting wholly, indefinitely and inexhaustibly, through all\nthe vicissitudes of time and spice, every one of those who have\nheld it in their hands for a little while. For we must not forget\nthat, according to this theory, the object in question will\nconceal and, through the intermediary of the medium, will reveal\nas many distinct and complete personalities as it has undergone\ncontacts. It will never confuse or mix those different\npersonalities. They will remain there in definite strata,\ndistinct one from another; and, as Dr. Osty puts it, \"the medium\ncan interpret each of them from beginning to end, as though he\nwere in communication with the far-off entity.\"\n\nAll this makes the theory somewhat incredible, even though it be\nnot much more so than the many other phenomena in which the shock\nof the miraculous has been softened by familiarity. We can find\nmore or less everywhere in nature that prodigious faculty of\nstoring away inexhaustible energies and ineffaceable tram,\nmemories and impressions in space. There is not a thing in this\nworld that is lost, that disappears, that ceases to be, to retain\nand to propagate life. Need we recall, in this connection, the\nincessant mission of pictures perceived by the sensitized plate,\nthe vibrations of sound that accumulate in the disks of the\ngramophone, the Hertzian waves that lose none of their strength\nin space, the mysteries of reproduction and, in a word, the\nincomprehensibility of everything around us?\n\n8\n\nPersonally, if I had to choose, I should, in most of these\nlaboratory cases, frankly adopt the theory that the object\ntouched serves simply to detect, among the prodigious crowd of\nhuman beings, the one who impregnated it with his \"fluid.\"\n\n\"This object,\" says Dr. Osty, \"has no other function than to\nallow the medium's sensitiveness to distinguish a definite force\nfrom among the innumerable forces that assail it.\"\n\nIt seem more and more certain that, as the cells of an immense\norganism, we are connected with everything that exists by an\ninextricable network of vibrations, waves, influences, of\nnameless, numberless and uninterrupted fluids. Nearly always, in\nnearly all men, everything carried along by these invisible wires\nfalls into the depths of the unconsciousness and passes\nunperceived, which does not mean that it remains inactive. But\nsometimes an exceptional circumstance--in the present case, the\nmarvellous sensibility of a first-class medium--suddenly reveals\nto us, by the vibrations and the undeniable action of one of\nthose wires, the existence of the infinite network. I will not\nspeak here of trails discovered and followed in an almost\nmediumistic manner, after an object of some sort has been sniffed\nat. Such stories, though highly probable, as yet lack adequate\nsupport. But, within a similar order of ideas, and in a humbler\nworld and one with more modest limits, the dog, for instance, is\nincessantly surrounded by different scents and smells to which he\nappears indifferent until his attention is aroused by one or\nother of these vagrant effluvia, when he extricates it from the\nhopeless tangle. It would seem as though the trail took life,\nvibrating like a chord in unison with the animal's wishes,\nbecoming irresistible, and taking it to its goal after\ninnumerable winds and turns.\n\nWe see the mysterious network revealed also in\n\"cross-correspondence.\" Two or three mediums who do not know one\nanother, who are often separated by seas; or continents, who are\nignorant of the whereabouts of the one who is to complete their\nthought, each write a part of a sentence which, as it stands,\nconveys no meaning whatever. On piecing the fragments together,\nwe perceive that they fit to perfection and acquire an\nintelligible and obviously premeditated sense. We here find once\nmore the same faculty that permits the medium to detect, among\nthousands of others, a definite force which was wandering in\nspace. It is true that, in these cases, the spiritualists\nmaintain that the whole experiment is organized and directed by a\ndiscarnate intelligence, independent of the mediums, which means\nto prove its existence and its identity in this manner. Without\nincontinently rejecting this theory, which is not necessarily\nindefensible, we will merely remark that, since the faculty is\nmanifested in psychometry without the intervention of the\nspirits, there can be no sufficient reason for attributing it to\nthem in cross-correspondence.\n\n9\n\nBut in whom does it reside? Is it hidden in ourselves or in the\nmedium? According to Dr. Osty, the clairvoyants are mirrors\nreflecting the intuitive thought that is latent in each of us. In\nother words--it is we ourselves who are clairvoyant, and they but\nreveal to us nor own clairvoyance. Their mission is to stir, to\nawaken, to galvanize, to illumine the secrets of our\nsubconsciousness and to bring them to the surface of our normal\nlives. They act upon our inner darkness exactly as, in the\nphotographic dark-room, the developing-bath acts upon the\nsensitized plate, I am convinced that the theory is accurate as\nregards intuition and clairvoyance proper, that is to say, in all\ncases where we are in the medium's presence and more or less\ndirectly in touch with him. But is it so in psychometry? Is it we\nwho, unknown to ourselves, know all that the object contains, or\nis it the medium alone who discovers it in the object itself,\nindependently of the person who produces the object? When, for\ninstance, we receive a letter from a stranger, does this letter,\nwhich has absorbed like a sponge the whole life and by choice the\nsubconscious life of the writer, disgorge all that it contained\ninto our subconsciousness? Do we instantly learn all that\nconcerns its author, absolutely as though he were standing before\nus in the flesh and, above all, with his soul laid bare, though\nwe remain profoundly ignorant of the fact that we have learnt it\nuntil the medium's intervention tells us so?\n\nThis, if you like, is simply shifting the question. Let it be the\nmedium or myself that discovers the unknown personality in the\nobject or tracks it across time and space: all that we do is to\nwiden the scope of our riddle, while leaving it no less obscure.\nNevertheless, there is some interest in knowing whether we have\nto do with a general faculty latent in all men or an inexplicable\nprivilege reserved to rare individuals. The exceptional should\nalways be eliminated, if possible, and not left to hang over the\nabyss like an unfinished bridge leading to nothing. I am well\naware that the compulsory intervention of the medium implies\nthat, in spite of all, we recognize his possession of abnormal\nfaculties; but at any rate we reduce their power and their extent\nappreciably and we return sooner and more easily to the ordinary\nlaws of the great human mystery. And it is of importance that we\nshould be ever coming back to that mystery and ever bringing all\nthings back to it. But, unfortunately, actual experience does not\nadmit of this generalization. It is clearly a case of a special\nfaculty, one peculiar to the medium, one which is wholly unknown\nto our latent intuition. We can easily assure ourselves of this\nby causing the medium to receive through a third party and\nenclosed in a series of three envelopes, as in the experiment\ndescribed above, a letter of which we know the writer, but of\nwhich both the source and the contents are absolutely unknown to\nthe messenger. These unusual circumstances, in which all\nsubconscious communications between consultant and consulted are\nstrictly cut off, will in no way hamper the medium's\nclairvoyance; and we may fairly conclude that it is actually the\nmedium himself who discovers directly, without any intermediary,\nwithout \"relays,\" to use M. Duchatel's expression, all that the\nobject holds concealed. It, therefore, seems certain that there\nis, at least in psychometry, something more than the mere mirror\nof which Dr. Osty speaks.\n\n10\n\nI consider it necessary to declare for the last time that these\npsychometric phenomena, astonishing though they appear at first,\nare known, proved and certain and are no longer denied or doubted\nby any of those who have studied them seriously. I could have\ngiven full particulars of a large number of conclusive\nexperiments; but this seemed to me as superfluous and tedious as\nwould be, for instance, a string of names of the recognized\nchemical reactions that can be obtained in a laboratory. Any one\nwho pleases is at liberty to convince himself of the reality of\nthe facts, provided that he applies to genuine mediums and keeps\naloof from the inferior \"seers\" and especially the shams and\nimposters who swarm in this region more than in any other. Even\nwith the best of them, he will have to be careful of the\ninvoluntary, unconscious and almost inevitable interference of\ntelepathy, which is also very interesting, though it is a\nphenomenon of a different class, much less surprising and\ndebatable than pure psychometry. He must also learn the art of\ninterrogating the medium and refrain from asking incoherent and\nrandom questions about casual or future events. He will not\nforget that \"clairvoyance is strictly limited to the perception\nof human personality,\" according to the role so well formulated\nby Dr. Osty. Experiments have been made in which a psychometer,\non touching the tooth of a prehistoric animal, saw the landscapes\nand the cataclysms of the earth's earliest ages displayed before\nhis eyes; in which another medium, on handling a jewel, conjured\nup, it would seem with marvellous exactness, the games and\nprocessions of ancient Greece, as though the objects permanently\nretained the recollection or rediscovered the \"astral negatives\"\nof all the events which they once witnessed. But it will be\nunderstood that, in such cases, any effective control is, so to\nspeak, impossible and that the part played by telepathy cannot be\ndecided. It is important, therefore, to keep strictly to that\nwhich can be verified.\n\nEven when thus limiting his scope, the experimenter will meet\nwith many surprises. For instance, though the revelations of two\npsychometers to whom the same letter is handed in succession most\noften agree remarkably in their main outlines, it can also happen\nthat one of them perceives only what concerns the writer of the\nletter, whereas the other will be interested only in the person\nto whom the letter was addressed or to a third person who was in\nthe room where the letter was written. It is well to be forearmed\nagainst these first mistakes, which, for that matter, in the\nfrequent cases where strict control is possible, but confirm the\nexistence and the independence of the astounding faculty.\n\n11\n\nAs for the theories that attempt to explain it, I am quite\nwilling to grant that they are still somewhat confused. The\nimportant thing for the moment is the accumulation of claims and\nexperiments that go feeling their way farther and farther along\nall the paths of the unknown. Meanwhile, that one unexpected door\nwhich sheds at the back of our old convictions more than one\nunexpected door, which sheds upon the life and habits of our\nsecret being sufficient light to puzzle us for many a long day.\nThis brings us back once more to the omniscience and perhaps the\nomnipotence of our hidden guest, to the brink of the mysterious\nreservoir of every manner of knowledge which we shall meet with\nagain when we come to speak of the future, of the talking horses,\nof the divining-rod, of materializations and miracles, in short,\nin every circumstance where we pass beyond the horizon of our\nlittle daily life. As we thus advance, with slow and cautious\nfootsteps, in them as yet deserted and very nebulous regions of\nmetapsychics, we are compelled to recognize that there must exist\nsomewhere, in this world or in others, a spot in which everything\nis known, in which everything is possible, to which everything\ngoes, from which everything comes, which belongs to all, to which\nall have access, but of which the long-forgotten roads must be\nlearnt again by our stumbling feet. We shall often meet those\ndifficult roads in the course of our present quest and we shall\nhave more than one occasion to refer again to those depths into\nwhich all the supernatural facts of our existence flow, unless\nindeed they take their source there. For the moment, that which\nmost above all engage our attention in these psychometric\nphenomena is their purely and exclusively human character. They\noccur between the living and the living, on this solid earth of\nours, in the world that lies before our eyes; and the spirits,\nthe dead, the gods and the interplanetary intelligences know them\nnot. Hardly anywhere else, except in the equally perplexing\nmanifestations of the divining-rod and in certain\nmaterializations, shall we find with the same clearness this same\nspecific character, if we may call it so. This is a valuable\nlesson. It tells us that our every-day life provides phenomena as\ndisturbing and of exactly the same kind and nature as those\nwhich, in other circumstances, we attribute to other forces than\nours. It teaches us also that we must first direct and exhaust\nour enquiries here below, among ourselves, before passing to the\nother side; for our first care should be to simplify the\ninterpretations and explanations and not to seek elsewhere, in\nopposition, what probably lies hidden within us in reality.\nAfterwards, if the unknown overwhelm us utterly, if the darkness\nengulf us beyond all hope, there will still be time to go, none\ncan tell where, to question the deities or the dead.\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE\n\n1\n\nPremonition or precognition leads us to still more mysterious\nregions, where stands, half merging from an intolerable darkness,\nthe gravest problem that can thrill mankind, the knowledge of the\nfuture. The latest, the best and the most complete study devoted\nto it is, I believe, that recently published by M. Ernest\nBozzano, under the title Des Phenomenes Premonitoires. Availing\nhimself of excellent earlier work, notably that of Mrs. Sidgwick\nand Myers[1] and adding the result of his own researches, the\nauthor collects some thousand cases of precognition, of which he\ndiscusses one hundred and sixty, leaving the great majority of\nthe others on one side. Not because they are negligible, but\nbecause he does not wish to exceed too flagrantly the normal\nlimits of a monograph.\n\n[1] Proceedings, Vols.  V. and XI.\n\n\nHe begins by carefully eliminating all the episodes which, though\napparently premonitory, may be explained by self-suggestion (as\nin the case, for instance, where some one smitten with a disease\nstill latent seems to foresee this disease and the death which\nwill be its conclusion), by telepathy (when a sensitive is aware\nbeforehand of the arrival of a person or a letter), or lastly by\nclairvoyance (when a man dreams of a spot where he will find\nsomething which he has mislaid, or an uncommon plant, or an\ninsect sought for in vain, or of the unknown place which he will\nvisit at some later date).\n\nIn all these cases, we have not, properly speaking, to do with a\npure future, but rather with a present that is not yet known.\nThus reduced and stripped of all foreign influences and\nintrusions the number of instances in which there is a really\nclear and incontestable perception of a fragment of the future\nremains large enough, contrary to what is generally believed, to\nmake it impossible for us to speak of extraordinary accidents or\nwonderful coincidences. There must be a limit to everything, even\nto distrust, even to the most extensive incredulity, otherwise\nall historical research and a good deal of scientific research\nwould become decidedly impracticable. And this remark applies as\nmuch to the nature of the incidents related as to the actual\nauthenticity of the narratives. We can contest or suspect any\nstory whatever, any written proof, any evidence; but\nthenceforward we must abandon all certainty or knowledge that is\nnot acquired by means of mathematical operations or laboratory\nexperiments, that is to say, three-fourths of the human phenomena\nwhich interest us most. Observe that the records collected by the\ninvestigators of the S. P. R., like those discussed by M.\nBozzano, are all told at first hand and that those stories of\nwhich the narrators were not the protagonists or the direct\nwitnesses have been ruthlessly rejected. Furthermore, some of\nthese narratives are necessarily of the nature of medical\nobservations; as for the others, if we attentively examine the\ncharacter of those who have related them and the circumstances\nwhich corroborate them, we shall agree that it is more just and\nmore reasonable to believe in them than to look upon every man\nwho has an extraordinary experience as being a priori a liar, the\nvictim of an hallucination, or a wag.\n\n2\n\nThere could be no question of giving here even a brief analysis\nof the most striking cases. It would require a hundred pages and\nwould alter the whole nature of this essay, which, to keep within\nits proper dimensions, most take it for granted that most of the\nmaterials which it examines are familiar. I therefore refer the\nreader who may wish to form an opinion for himself to the\neasily-accessible sources which I have mentioned above. It will\nsuffice, to give an accurate idea of the gravity of the problem\nto any one who has not time or opportunity to consult the\noriginal documents if I sum up in a few words some of these\npioneer adventures, selected among those which seem least open to\ndispute; for it goes without saying that all have not the same\nvalue, otherwise the question would be settled. There are some\nwhich, while exceedingly striking at first sight and offering\nevery guarantee that could be desired to authenticity,\nnevertheless do not imply a real knowledge of the future and can\nbe interpreted in another manner. I give one, to serve as an\ninstance; it is reported by Dr. Alphonse Teste in his Manuel\npratique du magnetisme animal.\n\nOn the 8th of May, Dr. Teste magnetizes Mme. Hortense--in the\npresence of her husband. She is no sooner asleep than she\nannounces that she has been pregnant for a fortnight, that she\nwill not go her full time, that \"she will take fright at\nsomething,\" that she will have a fall and that the result will be\na miscarriage. She adds that, on the 12th of May, after having\nhad a fright, she will have a fainting-fit which will last for\neight minutes; and she then describes, hour by hour, the course\nof her malady, which will end in three days' loss of reason, from\nwhich she will recover.\n\nOn awaking, she retains no recollection of anything that has\npassed; it is kept from her; and Dr. Teste communicates his notes\nto Dr. Amidee Latour. On the 12th of May, he calls on M. and\nMme.--, finds them at table and puts Mme.-- to sleep again,\nwhereupon she repeats word for word what she told him four days\nbefore. They wake her up. The dangerous hour is drawing near.\nThey take every imaginable precaution and even close the\nshutters. Mme.--, made uneasy by these extraordinary measures\nwhich she is quite unable to understand, asks what they are going\nto do to her. Half-past three o'clock strikes. Mme.-- rises from\nthe sofa on which they have made her sit and wants to leave the\nroom. The doctor and her husband try to prevent her.\n\n\"But what is the matter with you?\" she asks. \"I simply must go\nout.\"\n\n\"No, madame, you shall not: I speak in the interest of your\nhealth.\"\n\n\"Well, then, doctor,\" she replies, with a smile, \"if it is in the\ninterest of my health, that is all the more reason why you should\nlet me go out.\"\n\nThe excuse is a plausible one and even irresistible; but the\nhusband, wishing to carry the struggle against destiny to the\nlast, declares that he will accompany his wife. The doctor\nremains alone, feeling somewhat anxious, in spite of the rather\nfarcical turn which the incident has taken. Suddenly, a piercing\nshriek is heard and the noise of a body falling. He runs out and\nfinds Mme.-- wild with fright and apparently dying in her\nhusband's arms. At the moment when, leaving him for an instant,\nshe opened the door of the place where she was going, a rat, the\nfirst seen there for twenty years, rushed at her and gave her so\ngreat a start that she fell flat on her back. And all the rest of\nthe prediction was fulfilled to the letter, hour by hour and\ndetail by detail.\n\n3\n\nTo make it quite clear in what spirit I am undertaking this study\nand to remove at the beginning any suspicion of blind or\nsystematic credulity, I am anxious, before going any further, to\nsay that I fully realize that cases of this kind by no means\ncarry conviction. It is quite possible that everything happened\nin the subconscious imagination of the subject and that she\nherself created, by self-suggestion, her illness, her fright, her\nfall and her miscarriage and adapted herself to most of the\ncircumstances which she had foretold in her secondary state. The\nappearance of the rat at the fatal moment is the only thing that\nwould suggest a precise and disquieting vision of an inevitable\nfuture event. Unfortunately, we are not told that the rat was\nperceived by other witnesses than the patient, so that there is\nnothing to prove that it also was not imaginary. I have therefore\nquoted this inadequate instance only because it represents fairly\nwell the general aspect and the indecisive value of many similar\ncases and enable us to note once and for all the objections which\ncan be raised and the precautions which we should take before\nentering these suspicious and obscure regions.\n\nWe now come to an infinitely more significant and less\nquestionable case related by Dr. Joseph Maxwell, the learned and\nvery scrupulous author of Les Phenomenes Psychiques, a work which\nhas been translated into English under the title of Metapsychical\nPhenomena. It concerns a vision which was described to him eight\ndays before the event and which he told to many people before it\nwas accomplished. A sensitive perceived in a crystal the\nfollowing scene: a large steamer, flying a flag of three\nhorizontal bars, black, white and red, and bearing the name\nLeutschland, was sailing in mid-ocean. The boat was suddenly\nenveloped in smoke; a great number of sailors, passengers and men\nin uniform rushed to the upper deck; and the boat went down.\n\nEight days afterwards, the newspapers announced the accident to\nthe Deutschland, whose boiler had burst, obliging the steamboat\nto stand to.\n\nThe evidence of a man like Dr. Maxwell, especially when we have\nto do with a so-to-speak personal incident, possesses an\nimportance on which it is needless to insist. We have here,\ntherefore, several days beforehand, the very clear prevision of\nan event which, moreover, in no way concerns the percipient: a\ncurious detail, but one which is not uncommon in these cases. The\nmistake in reading Leutschland for Deutschland, which would have\nbeen quite natural in real life, adds a note of probability and\nauthenticity to the phenomenon. As for the final act, the\nfoundering of the vessel in the place of a simple heaving to, we\nmust see in this, as Dr. J. W. Pickering and W. A. Sadgrove\nsuggest, \"the subconscious dramatization of a subliminal\ninference of the percipient.\" Such dramatization, moreover, are\ninstinctive and almost general in this class of visions.\n\nIf this were an isolated case, it would certainly not be right to\nattach decisive importance to it; \"but,\" Dr. Maxwell observes,\n\"the same sensitive has given me other curious instances; and\nthese cases, compared with others which I myself have observed or\nwith those of which I have received first-hand accounts, render\nthe hypothesis of coincidence very improbable, though they do not\nabsolutely exclude it.\"[1]\n\n[1] Maxwell: Metapsychical Phenomena, p. 202.\n\n\n4\n\nAnother and perhaps more convincing case, more strictly\ninvestigated and established, a case which clearly does not admit\nof explanation, by the theory of coincidence, worthy of all\nrespect though this theory be, is that related by M. Theodore\nFlournoy, science professor at the university of Geneva, in his\nremarkable work, Esprits et Mediums. Professor Flournoy is known\nto be one of the most learned and most critical exponents of the\nnew science of metapsychics. He even carries his fondness for\nnatural explanations and his repugnance to admit the intervention\nof superhuman powers to a point where it is often difficult to\nfollow him. I will give the narrative as briefly as possible. It\nwill be found in full on pp. 348 to 362 of his masterly book.\n\nIn August, 1883, a certain Mme. Buscarlet, whom he knew\npersonally, returned to Geneva after spending three years with\nthe Moratief family at Kazan as governess to two girls. She\ncontinued to correspond with the family and also with a Mme.\nNitchinof, who kept a school at Kazan to which Mlles. Moratief,\nMme. Buscarlet's former pupils, went after her departure.\n\nOn the night of the 9th of December (O. S.) of the same year,\nMme. Buscarlet had a dream which she described the following\nmorning in a letter to Mme. Moratief, dated 10 December. She\nwrote, to quote her own words:\n\n\"You and I were on a country-road when a carriage passed in front\nof us and a voice from inside called to us. When we came up to\nthe carriage, we saw Mlle. Olga Popoi lying across it, clothed in\nwhite, wearing a bonnet trimmed with yellow ribbons. She said to\nyou:\n\n\"'I called you to tell you that Mme. Nitchinof will leave the\nschool on the 17th.'\n\n\"The carriage then drove on.\"\n\nA week later and three days before the letter reached Kazan, the\nevent foreseen in the dream was fulfilled in a tragic fashion.\nMme. Nitchinof died on the 16th of an infectious disease; and on\nthe 17th her body was carried out of the school for fear of\ninfection.\n\nIt is well to add that both Mme. Buscarlet's letter and the\nreplies which came from Russia were communicated to Professor\nFlournoy and bear the postmark dates.\n\nSuch premonitory dreams are frequent; but it does not often\nhappen that circumstances and especially the existence of a\ndocument dated previous to their fulfilment give them such\nincontestable authenticity.\n\nWe may remark in passing the odd character of this premonition,\nwhich however is fully in accordance with the habits of our\nunknown guest. The date is fixed precisely; but only a veiled and\nmysterious allusion (the woman lying across the carriage and\ncloaked in white) is made to the essential part of the\nprediction, the illness and death.\n\nWas there a coincidence, a vision of the future pure and simple,\nor a vision of the future suggested by telepathic influence? The\ntheory of coincidence can be defended, if need be, here as\neverywhere else, but would be very extraordinary in this case. As\nfor telepathic influence, we should have to suppose that, on the\n9th of December, a week before her death, Mme. Nitchinof had in\nher subconsciousness a presentiment of her end and that she\ntransmitted this presentiment across some thousands of miles,\nfrom Kazan to Geneva, to a person with whom she had never been\nintimate. It is very complex, but possible, for telepathy often\nhas these disconcerting ways. If this were so, the case which\nwould be one of latent illness or even of self-suggestion; and\nthe preexistence of the future, without being entirely disproved,\nwould be less clearly established.\n\n5\n\nLet us pass to other examples. I quote from an excellent article\nof the importance of precognitions, by Messrs. Pickering and\nSadgrove, which appeared in the Annales des Sciences Psychiques\nfor 1 February 1908, the summary of an experiment by Mrs. A. W.\nVerrall told in full detail in Vol. XX of the Proceedings. Mrs.\nVerrall is a celebrated \"automatist\"; and her\n\"cross-correspondence\" occupy a whole volume of the Proceedings.\nHer good faith, her sincerity, her fairness and her scientific\nprecision are above suspicion; and she is one of the most active\nand respected members of the Society for Psychical Research.\n\nOn the 11th of May, 1901, at 11.10 p.m., Mrs. Verrall wrote as\nfollows:\n\n\"Do not hurry date this hoc est quod volui--tandem. {greek\nhere} A. W. V. {greek here}. calx pedibus inhaerens difficultatem\nsuperavit. magnopere adiuvas persectando semper. Nomen inscribere\niam possum--sic, en tibi!\"[1]\n\n[1] Xenoglossy is well known not to be unusual in automatic\nwriting; sometimes even the 'automatist' speaks or writes\nlanguages of which he is completely ignorant. The Latin and Greek\npassages are translated as follows:\n\n\"This is what I have wanted at last. Justice and joy speak a word\nto the wise. A.W.V. and perhaps someone else. Chalk sticking to\nthe feet has got over the difficulty. You help greatly by always\npersevering. Now I can write a name--thus, here it is!\"\n\n\nAfter the writing comes a humorous drawing representing a bird\nwalking.\n\nThat same night, as there were said to be \"uncanny happenings\" in\nsome rooms near the London Law Courts, the watchers arranged to\nsit through the night in the empty rooms. Precautions were taken\nto prevent intrusion and powdered chalk was spread on the floor\nof the two smaller rooms, \"to trace anybody or anything that\nmight come or go.\" Mrs. Verrall knew nothing of the matter. The\nphenomena began at 12:43 A.M. and ended at 2:09 A.M. The watchers\nnoticed marks on the powdered chalk. On examination it was seen\nthat the marks were \"clearly defined bird's footprints in the\nmiddle of the floor, three in the left-hand room and five in the\nright-hand room.\" The marks were identical and exactly 2 3/4\ninches in width; they might be compared to the footprints of a\nbird about the size of a turkey. The footprints were observed at\n2:30 A. M.; the unexplained phenomena had begun at 12:43 that\nsame morning. The words about \"chalk sticking to the feet\" are a\nsingularly appropriate comment on the events; but the remarkable\npoint is that Mrs. Verrall wrote what we have said ONE HOUR AND\nTHIRTY-THREE MINUTES BEFORE THE EVENTS TOOK PLACE.\n\nThe persons who watched in the two rooms were questioned by Mr.\nJ. G. Piddington, a member of the council of the S. P. R., and\ndeclared that they had not any expectation of what they\ndiscovered.\n\nI need hardly add that Mrs. Verrall had never heard anything\nabout the happenings in the haunted house and that the watchers\nwere completely ignorant of Mrs. Verrall's existence.\n\nHere then is a wry curious prediction of an event, insignificant\nin itself, which is to happen, in a house unknown to the one who\nforetells it, to people whom she does not know either. The\nspiritualists, who score in this case, not without some reason,\nwill have it that a spirit, in order to prove its existence and\nits intelligence, organized this little scene in which the\nfuture, the present and the past are all mixed up together. Are\nthey right? Or is Mrs. Verrall's subconsciousness roaming like\nthis, at random, in the future? It is certain that the problem\nhas seldom appeared under a more baffling aspect.\n\n6\n\nWe will now take another premonitory dream, strictly controlled\nby the committee of the S. P. R.[1] Early in September, 1893,\nAnnette, wife of Walter Jones, tobacconist, of Old Gravel Lane,\nEast London, had her little boy ill. One night she dreamt that\nshe saw a cart drive up and stop near when she was. It contained\nthree coffins, \"two white and one blue. One white coffin was\nbigger than the other; and the blue was the biggest of the\nthree.\" The driver took out the bigger white coffin and left it\nat the mother's feet, driving off with the others. Mrs. Jones\ntold her dream to her husband and to a neighbour, laying\nparticular stress on the curious circumstance that one of the\ncoffins was blue.\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 493.\n\n\nOn the 10th of September, a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Jones was\nconfined of a boy, who died on the 29th of the same month. Their\nown little boy died on the following Monday, the 2nd of October,\nbeing then sixteen months old. It was decided to bury the two\nchildren on the same day. On the morning of the day chosen, the\nparish priest informed Mr. and Mrs. Jones that another child had\ndied in the neighbourhood and that its body would be brought into\nchurch along with the two others. Mrs. Jones remarked to her\nhusband:\n\n\"If the coffin is blue, then my dream will come true. For the two\nother coffins were white.\"\n\nThe third coffin was brought; it was blue. It remains to be\nobserved that the dimensions of the coffins corresponded exactly\nwith the dream premonitions, the smallest being that of the child\nwho died first, the next that of the little Jones boy, who was\nsixteen months old, and the largest, the blue one, that of a boy\nsix years of age.\n\nLet us take, more or less at random, another case from the\ninexhaustible Proceedings.[1] The report is written by Mr. Alfred\nCooper and attested by the Duchess of Hamilton, the Duke of\nManchester and another gentleman to whom the duchess related the\nincident before the fulfilment of the prophetic vision:\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 505.\n\n\n\"A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L.--,\" says Mr.\nCooper, \"in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill\nStreet, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing\nhim, we went into the drawing-room where the duchess was, and the\nduke said to me:\n\n\"'Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?'\n\n\"The duchess said, 'What earl?' and, on my answering, 'Lord L--,'\nshe replied:\n\n\"'That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I\nwent to bed, but, after being in bed a short time, I was not\nexactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play\nbefore me. The actors in it were Lord L--, in a chair, as if in a\nfit, with a man standing near him with a red beard. He was by the\nside of a bath, over which bath a red lamp was distinctly shown.'\n\n\"I then said:\n\n\"'I am attending Lord L-- at present; there is very little the\nmatter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right\nvery soon.'\n\n\"Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but, at the\nend of six or seven days after this, I was called to see him\nsuddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.\n\n\"I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead\nman. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been\ntaken ill. But, when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess\nwas exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the\nearl and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath\nwith the red lamp over it; and this brought the story to my mind.\n\n\"The vision seen by the duchess was told two weeks before the\ndeath of Lord L--. It is a most remarkable thing.\"\n\n7\n\nBut it is impossible to find space for the many instances\nrelated. As I have said, there are hundreds of them, making their\ntracks in every direction across the plains of the future. Those\nwhich I have quoted give a sufficient idea of the predominating\ntone and the general aspect of this sort of story. It is\nnevertheless right to add that many of them are not at all tragic\nand that premonition opens its mysterious and capricious vistas\nof the future in connection with the most diverse and\ninsignificant events. It cares but little for the human value of\nthe occurrence and puts the vision of a number in a lottery in\nthe same plane as the most dramatic death. The roads by which it\nreaches us are also unexpected and varied. Often, as in the\nexamples quoted, it comes to us in a dream. Sometimes, it is an\nauditory or visual hallucination which seizes upon us while\nawake; sometimes, an indefinable but clear and irresistible\npresentiment, a shapeless but powerful obsession, an absurd but\nimperative certainty which rises from the depths of our inner\ndarkness, where perhaps lies hidden the final answer to every\nriddle.\n\nOne might illustrate each of these manifestations with numerous\nexamples. I will mention only a few, selected not among the most\nstriking or the most attractive, but among those which have been\nmost strictly tested and investigated.[1] A young peasant from\nthe neighbourhood of Ghent, two months before the drawing for the\nconscription, announces to all and sundry that he will draw\nnumber 90 from the urn. On entering the presence of the\ndistrict-commissioner in charge, he asks if number 90 is still\nin. The answer is yes.\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 545.\n\n\n\"Well then, I shall have it!\"\n\nAnd, to the general amazement, he does draw number 90.\n\nQuestioned as to the manner in which he acquired this strange\ncertainty, he declared that, two months ago, just after he had\ngone to bed, he saw a huge, indescribable form appear in a corner\nof his room, with the number 90 standing out plainly in the\nmiddle, in figures the size of a man's hand. He sat up in bed and\nshut and opened his eyes to persuade himself that he was not\ndreaming. The apparition remained in the same place, distinctly\nand undeniably.\n\nProfessor Georges Hulin, of the university of Ghent, and M. Jules\nvan Dooren, the district commissioner, who report the incident,\nmention three other similar and equally striking cases witnessed\nby M. van Dooren during his term of office. I am the less\ninclined to doubt their declaration inasmuch as I am personally\nacquainted with them and know that their statements, as regards\nthe objective reality of the facts, are so to speak equivalent to\na legal deposition. M. Bozzano mentions some previsions which are\nquite as remarkable in connection with the gaming-tables at Monte\nCarlo.\n\nI repeat, I am aware that, in the case of these occurrences and\nthose which resemble them, it is possible once again to invoke\nthe theory of coincidence. It will be contended that there are\nprobably a thousand predictions of this kind which are never\ntalked about, because they were not fulfilled, whereas, if one of\nthem is accomplished, which is bound by the law of probabilities\nto happen some day or other, the astonishment is general and free\nrein is given to the imagination. This is true; nevertheless, it\nis well to enquire whether these predictions are as frequent as\nis loosely stated. In the matter of those which concern the\nconscription-drawings, for instance, I have had the opportunity\nof interrogating more than we constant witness of these little\ndramas of fate; and all admitted that, on the whole, they are\nmuch clearer than one would believe. Next, we must not forget\nthat there can be no question here of scientific proofs. We are\nin the midst of a slippery and nebulous region, where we would\nnot dare to risk a step if we were not allowing ourselves to be\nguided by our feelings rather than by certainties which we are\nnot forbidden to hope for, but which are not yet in sight.\n\n8\n\nWe will abridge our subject still further, referring readers who\nwish to know the details to the originals, lest we should never\nhave done; or rather, instead of attempting an abridgment, which\nwould still be too long, so plentiful are the materials, we will\ncontent ourselves with enumerating a few instances, all taken\nfrom Bozzano's Des Phenomenes premonitoires. We read there of a\nfuneral procession seen on a high-road several days before it\nactually passed that way; or, again, of a young mechanic who, in\nthe beginning of November, dreamt that he came home at half-past\nfive in the afternoon and saw his sister's little girl run over\nby a tram-car while crossing the street in front of the house. He\ntold his dream, in great distress; and, on the 13th of the same\nmonth, in spite of all the precautions that had been taken, the\nchild was run over by the tram-car and killed at the hour named.\nWe find the ghost, the phantom animal or the mysterious noise\nwhich, in certain families, is the traditional herald of a death\nor of an imminent catastrophe. We find the celebrated vision\nwhich the painter Segantini had thirteen days before his decease,\nevery detail of which remained in his mind and was represented in\nhis last picture, Death. We find the Messina disaster dearly\nforeseen, twice over, by a little girl who perished under the\nruins of the ill-fated city; and we read of a dream which, three\nmonths before the French invasion of Russia, foretold to Countess\nToutschkoff that her husband would fall at Borodino, a village so\nlittle known at the time that those interested in the dream\nlooked in vain for its name on the maps. Until now we have spoken\nonly of the spontaneous manifestations of the future. It would\nseem as though coming events, gathered in front of our lives,\nbear with crushing weight upon the uncertain and deceptive dike\nof the present, which is no longer able to contain them. They\nooze through, they seek a crevice by which to reach us. But, side\nby side with these passive, independent and intractable\npremonitions, which are but so many vagrant and furtive\nemanations of the unknown, are others which do yield to entreaty,\nallow themselves to be directed into channels, are more or less\nobedient to our orders and will sometimes reply to the questions\nwhich we put to them. They come from the same inaccessible\nreservoir, are no less mysterious, but yet appear a little more\nhuman than the others; and, without drugging ourselves with\npuerile or dangerous illusions, we may be permitted to hope that,\nif we follow them and study them attentively, they will one day\nopen to us the hidden paths that join that which is no more to\nthat which is not yet.\n\nIt is true that here, where we must needs mix with the somewhat\nlawless world of professional mystery-mongers, we have to\nincrease our caution and walk with measured steps on very\nsuspicious ground. But in this region of pitfalls we glean a\ncertain number of facts that cannot reasonably be contested. It\nwill be enough to recall, for instance, the symbolic premonitions\nof the famous \"seeress of Prevorst,\" Frau Hauffe, whose prophetic\nspirit was awakened by soap bubbles, crystals and mirrors;[1] the\nclairvoyant who, eighteen years before the event, foretold the\ndeath of a girl by the hand of her rival in 1907, in a written\nprophecy which was presented to the court by the mother of the\nmurdered girl;[1] A. J. C. Kerner: Die Scherin von Prevorst 141\n[1] the gypsy who, also in writing, foretold all the events in\nMiss Isabel Arundel's life, including the name of her husband,\nBurton, the famous explorer;[2] the sealed letter addressed to M.\nMorin, vice-president of the Societe du Mesmerisme, describing\nthe most unexpected circumstances of a death that occurred a\nmonth later;[3] the famous \"Marmontel prediction,\" obtained by\nMrs. Verrall's cross-correspondences, which gives a vision, two\nmonths and a half before their accomplishment, of the most\ninsignificant actions of a traveller in an hotel bedroom;[4] and\nmany others.\n\n[1] Light, 1907, p. 219. The crime was committed in Paris and\nmade a great stir at the time.\n\n[2] Lady Burton: The Life of Captain Sir Richd. F. Burton,\nK.C.M.G., vol.i., p.253.\n\n[3] Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. ix., p.\n15.\n\n[4] Proceedings, vol. xx., p. 331.\n\n\n9\n\nI will not review the various and very often grotesque methods of\ninterrogating the future that are most frequently practised\nto-day: cards, palmistry, crystal-gazing, fortune-telling by\nmeans of coffee-grounds, tea-leaves, magnetic needles and white\nof egg, graphology, astrology and the rest. These methods, as I\nhave already said, are worth exactly what the medium who employs\nthem is worth. They have no other object than to arouse the\nmedium's subconsciousness and to bring it into relation with that\nof the person questioning him. As a matter of fact, all these\npurely empirical processes are but so many, often puerile forms\nof self-manifestation adopted by the undeniable gift which is\nknown as intuition, clairvoyance or, in certain cases,\npsychometry. I have spoken at sufficient length of this last\nfaculty not to linger over it now. All that we have still to do\nis to consider it for a moment in its relations with the\nforetelling of the future. A large number of investigations,\nnotably those conducted by M. Duchatel and Dr. Osty, show that,\nin psychometry, the notion of time, as Dr. Joseph Maxwell\nobserves, is very loose, that is to say, the past, present and\nfuture nearly always overlap. Most of the clairvoyant or\npsychometric subjects, when they are honest, do not know, \"do not\nfeel,\" as M. Duchatel very ably remarks, \"what the future is.\nThey do not distinguish it from the other tenses; and\nconsequently they succeed in being prophets, but unconscious\nprophets.\" In a word--and this is a very important indication\nfrom the point of view of the probable coexistence of the three\ntenses--it appears that they see that which is not yet with the\nsame clearness and on the same plane as that which is no more,\nbut are incapable of separating the two visions and picking out\nthe future which alone interests us. For a still stronger reason,\nit is impossible for them to state dates with precision.\nNevertheless, the fact remains that, when we take the trouble to\nsift their evidence and have the patience to await the\nrealization of certain events which are sometimes not due for a\nlong time to come, the future is fairly often perceived by some\nof these strange soothsayers.\n\nThere are psychometers, however, and notably Mme. M--, Dr. Osty's\nfavorite medium, who never confuse the future and the past. Mme.\nM-- places her visions in time according to the position which\nthey occupy in space. Thus she sees the future in front of her,\nthe past behind her and the present beside her. But,\nnotwithstanding these distinctly-graded visions, she also is\nincapable of naming her dates exactly; in fact, her mistakes in\nthis respect are so general that Dr. Osty looks upon it as a pure\nchronological coincidence when a prediction is realized at the\nmoment foretold.\n\nWe should also observe that, in psychometry, only those events\ncan be perceived which relate directly to the individual\ncommunicating with the percipient, for it is not so much the\npercipient that sees into us as we that read in our own\nsubconsciousness, which is momentarily lighted by his presence.\nWe must not therefore ask him for predictions of a general\ncharacter, whether, for instance, there will be a war in the\nspring, an epidemic in the summer or an earthquake in the autumn.\nThe moment the question concerns events, however important, with\nwhich we are not intimately connected, he is bound to answer, as\ndo all the genuine mediums, that he sees nothing.\n\nThe area of his vision being thus limited, does he really\ndiscover the future in it? After three years of numerous,\ncautious and systematic experiments with some twenty mediums, Dr.\nOsty categorically declares that he does:\n\n\"All the incidents,\" he says, \"which filled these three years of\nmy life, whether wished for by me or not, or even absolutely\ncontrary to the ordinary routine of my life, had always been\nforetold to me, not all by each of the clairvoyant subjects, but\nall by one or other of them. As I have been practising these\ntests continually, it seems to me that the experience of three\nyears wholly devoted to this object should give some weight to my\nopinion on the subject of predictions.\"\n\nThis is incontestable; and the sincerity, scientific\nconscientiousness and high intellectual value of Dr. Osty's fine\nwork inspire one with the most entire confidence. Unfortunately,\nhe contents himself with quoting too summarily a few facts and\ndoes not, as he ought, give us in extenso the details of his\nexperiments, controls and tests. I am well aware that this would\nbe a thankless and wearisome task, necessitating a large volume\nwhich a mass of puerile incidents and inevitable repetitions\nwould make almost readable. Moreover, it could scarcely help\ntaking the form of an intimate and indiscreet autobiography; and\nit is not easy to bring one's self to make this sort of public\nconfession. But it has to be done. In a science which is only in\nits early stages, it is not enough to show the object attained\nand to state one's conviction; it is necessary above all to\ndescribe every path that has been taken and, by an incessant and\ninfinite accumulation of investigated and attested facts, to\nenable every one to draw his own conclusions. This has been the\ncumbrous and laborious method of the Proceedings for over thirty\nyears; and it is the only right one. Discussion is possible and\nfruitful only at that price. In all these extraconscious matters,\nwe have not yet reached the stage of definite deduction, we are\nstill bringing up materials to the scene of operations.\n\nOnce more, I know that, in these cases, as I have seen for\nmyself, the really convincing facts are necessarily very rare;\nindeed, nowhere else do we meet with the same difficulty. If the\nmedium tells you, for instance, as Mme. M. seems easily to do,\nhow you will employ your day from the morning onwards, if she\nsees you in a certain house in a certain street meeting this or\nthat person, it is impossible to say that, on the one hand, she\nis not already reading your as yet unconscious plans or\nintentions, or that, on the other hand, by doing what she has\nforeseen, you are not obeying a suggestion against which you\ncould not fight except by violently doing the opposite to what it\ndemands of you, which again would be a case of inverted\nsuggestion. None therefore would have any value save predictions\nof unlikely happenings, clearly defined and outside the sphere of\nthe person interested. As Dr. Osty says:\n\n\"The ideal prognostication would obviously be that of an event so\nrare, so sudden and unexpected, implying such a change in one's\nmode of life that the theory of coincidence could not decently be\nput forward. But, as everybody is not, in the peaceful course of\nhis threatened by such an absolutely convincing event, the\nclairvoyant cannot always reveal to the person experimenting--and\nreveal it for a more or less approximate date--one of those\nincidents whose accomplishment would carry irresistible\nconviction.\"\n\nIn any case, the question of psychometric prognostications calls\nfor further enquiry, although it is easy even at the present day\nto forsee the results.\n\n10\n\nLet us now return to our spontaneous premonitions, in which the\nfuture comes to seek us of its own accord and, so to speak, to\nchallenge us at home. I know from personal experience that, when\nwe embark upon these disconcerting matters, the first impression\nis scarcely favourable. We are very much inclined to laugh, to\ntreat as wearisome tales, as hysterical hallucinations, as\ningenious or interested fictions most or those incidents which\ngive too violent a shock to the narrow and limited idea which we\nhave of our human life. To smile, to reject everything beforehand\nand to pass by with averted head, as was done, I remember, in the\ntime of Galvani, and in the early days of hypnotism, is much more\neasy and seems more respectable and prudent than to stop, admit\nand examine. Nevertheless we must not forget that it is to some\nwho did not smile so lightly that we owe the best part of the\nmarvels from whose heights we are preparing to smile in our turn.\nFor the rest, I grant that, thus presented, hastily and\nsummarily, without the details that throw light upon them and the\nproofs that support them, the incidents in question do not show\nto advantage and, inasmuch as they are isolated and sparingly\nchosen, lose all the weight and authority derived from the\ncompact and imposing mass whence they are arbitrarily detached.\nAs I said above, nearly a thousand cases have been collected,\nrepresenting probably not the tenth part of those which a more\nactive and general search might bring together. The number is\nevidently of importance and denotes the enormous pressure of the\nmystery; but, if there were only half a dozen genuine cases--and\nDr. Maxwell's, Professor Flournoy's, Mrs. Verrall's, the\nMarmontel, Jones and Hamilton cases and some others are\nundoubtedly genuine--they would be enough to show that, under the\nerroneous idea which we form of the past and the present, a new\nverity is living and moving, eager to come to light.\n\nThe efforts of that verity, I need hardly say, display a very\ndifferent sort of force after we have actually and attentively\nread those hundreds of extraordinary stories which, without\nappearing to do so, strike to the very roots of history. We soon\nlose all inclination to doubt. We penetrate into another world\nand come to a stop all out of countenance. We no longer know\nwhere we stand; before and after overlap and mingle. We no longer\ndistinguish the insidious and factitious but indispensable line\nwhich separates the years that have gone by from the years that\nare to come. We clutch at the hours and days of the past and\npresent to reassure ourselves, to fasten on to some certainty, to\nconvince ourselves that we are still in our right place in this\nlife where that which is not yet seems as substantial, as real,\nas positive, as powerful as that which is no more. We discover\nwith uneasiness that time, on which we based our whole existence,\nitself no longer exists. It is no longer the swiftest of our\ngods, known to us only by its flight across all things: it alters\nits position no more than space, of which it is doubtless but the\nincomprehensible reflex. It reigns in the centre of every event;\nand every event is fixed in its centre; and all that comes and\nall that goes passes from end to end of our little life without\nmoving by a hair's breadth around its motionless pivot. It is\nentitled to but one of the thousand names which we have been wont\nto lavish upon its power, a power that seemed to us manifold and\ninnumerable: yesterday, recently, formerly, erewhile, after,\nbefore, tomorrow, soon, never, later fall like childish masks,\nwhereas to-day and always completely cover with their united\nshadows the idea which we form in the end of a duration which has\nno subdivisions, no breaks and no stages, which is pulseless,\nmotionless and boundless.\n\n11\n\nMany are the theories which men have imagined in their attempts\nto explain the working of the strange phenomenon; and many others\nmight be imagined.\n\nAs we have seen, self-suggestion and telepathy explain certain\ncases which concern events already in existence, but still latent\nand perceived before the knowledge of them can reach us by the\nnormal process of the senses or the intelligence. But, even by\nextending these two theories to their uttermost point and\npositively abusing their accommodating elasticity, we do not\nsucceed in illumining by their aid more than a rather restricted\nportion of the vast undiscovered land. We must therefore look for\nsomething else.\n\nThe first theory which suggests itself and which on the surface\nseems rather attractive is that of spiritualism, which may be\nextended until it is scarcely distinguishable from the\ntheosophical theory and other religious suppositions. It assumes\nthe revival of spirits, the existence of discarnate or other\nsuperior and more mysterious entities which surround us, interest\nthemselves in our fate, guide our thoughts and our actions and,\nabove all, know the future. It is, as we recognized when speaking\nof ghosts and hanted houses, a very acceptable theory; and any\none to whom it appears can adopt it without doing violence to his\nintelligence. But we must confess that it seems less necessary\nand perhaps even less clearly proved in this region than in that.\nIt starts by begging the question: without the intervention of\ndiscarnate beings, the spiritualists say, it is impossible to\nexplain the majority of the premonitory phenomena; therefore we\nmust admit the existence of these discarnate beings. Let us grant\nit for the moment, for to beg the question, which is merely an\nindefensible trick of the superficial logic of our brain, does\nnot necessarily condemn a theory and neither takes away from nor\nadds to the reality of things. Besides, as we shall insist later,\nthe intervention or non-intervention of the spirits is not the\npoint at issue; and the crux of the mystery does not lie there.\nWhat most interest us is far less the paths or intermediaries by\nwhich prophetic warnings reach us than the actual existence of\nthe future in the present. It is true--to do complete justice to\nneospiritualism--that its position offers certain advantages from\nthe point of view of the almost inconceivable problem of the\npreexistence of the future. It can evade or divert some of the\nconsequences of that problem. The spirits, it declares, do not\nnecessarily see the future as a whole, as a total past or\npresent, motionless and immovable, but they know infinitely\nbetter than we do the numberless causes that determine any agent,\nso that, finding themselves at the luminous source of those\ncauses, they have no difficulty in foreseeing their effects. They\nare, with respect to the incidents still in process of formation,\nin the position of an astronomer who foretells, within a second,\nall the phases of an eclipse in which a savage sees nothing but\nan unprecedented catastrophe which he attributes to the anger of\nhis idols of straw or clay. It is indeed possible that this\nacquaintance with a greater number of causes explains certain\npredictions; but there are plenty of others which presume a\nknowledge of so many causes, causes so remote and so profound,\nthat this knowledge is hardly to be distinguished from a\nknowledge of the future pure and simple. In any case, beyond\ncertain limits, the preexistence of causes seems no clearer than\nthat of effects. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the\nspiritualists gain a slight advantage here.\n\nThey believe that they gain another when they say or might say\nthat it is still possible that the spirits stimulate us to\nrealize the events which they foretell without themselves clearly\nperceiving them in the future. After announcing, for instance,\nthat on a certain day we shall go to a certain place and do a\ncertain thing, they urge us irresistibly to proceed to the spot\nnamed and there to perform the act prophesied. But this theory,\nlike those of self-suggestion and telepathy, would explain only a\nfew phenomena and would leave in obscurity all those cases,\ninfinitely more numerous because they make up almost the whole of\nour future, in which either chance intervenes or some event in no\nway dependent upon our will or the spirit's, unless indeed we\nsuppose that the latter possesses an omniscience and an\nomnipotence which take us back to the original mysteries of the\nproblem.\n\nBesides, in the gloomy regions of precognition, it is almost\nalways a matter of anticipating a misfortune and very rarely, if\never, of meeting with a pleasure or a joy. We should therefore\nhave to admit that the spirits which drag me to the fatal place\nand compel me to do the act that will have tragic consequences\nare deliberately hostile to me and find diversion only in the\nspectacle of my suffering. What could those spirits be, from what\nevil world would they arise and how should we explain why our\nbrothers and friends of yesterday, after passing through the\naugust and peace-bestowing gates of death, suddenly become\ntransformed into crafty and malevolent demons? Can the great\nspiritual kingdom, in which all passions born of the flesh should\nbe stilled, be but a dismal abode of hatred, spite and envy? It\nwill perhaps be said that they lead us into misfortune in order\nto purify us; but this brings us to religious theories which it\nis not our intention to examine.\n\n12\n\nThe only attempt at an explanation that can hold its own with\nspiritualism has recourse once again to the mysterious powers of\nour subconsciousness. We must needs to recognize that, if the\nfuture exists to-day, already such as it will be when it becomes\nfor us the present and the past, the intervention of discarnate\nminds or of any other spiritual entity adrift from another sphere\nis of little avail. We can picture an infinite spirit\nindifferently contemplating the past and future in their\ncoexistence; we can imagine a whole hierarchy of intermediate\nintelligences taking a more or less extensive part in the\ncontemplation and transmitting it to our subconsciousness. But\nall this is practically nothing more than inconsistent\nspeculation and ingenious dreaming in the dark; in any case, it\nis adventitious, secondary and provisional. Let us keep to the\nfacts as we see them: an unknown faculty, buried deep in our\nbeing and generally inactive, perceives, on rare occasions,\nevents that have not yet taken place. We possess but one\ncertainty on this subject, namely, that the phenomenon\nactually occurs within ourselves; it is therefore within\nourselves that we must first study it, without burdening\nourselves with suppositions which remove it from its centre and\nsimply shift the mystery. The incomprehensible mystery is the\npreexistence of the future; once we admit this--and it seems very\ndifficult to deny--there is no reason to attribute to imaginary\nintermediaries rather than to ourselves the faculty of descrying\ncertain fragments of that future. We see, in regard to most of\nthe mediumistic manifestations, that we possess within ourselves\nall the unusual forces with which the spiritualists endow\ndiscarnate spirits; and why should it be otherwise as concerns\nthe powers of divination? The explanation taken from the\nsubconsciousness is the most direct, the simplest, the nearest,\nwhereas the other is endlessly circuitous, complicated and\ndistant. Until the spirits testify to their existence in an\nunanswerable fashion, there is no advantage in seeking in the\ngrave for the solution of a riddle that appears indeed to lie at\nthe roots of our own life.\n\n13\n\nIt is true that this explanation does not explain much; but the\nothers are just as ineffectual and are open to the same\nobjections. These objections are many and various; and it is\neasier to raise them than to reply to them. For instance, we can\nask ourselves why the subconsciousness or the spirits, seeing\nthat they read the future and are able to announce an impending\ncalamity, hardly ever give us the one useful and definite\nindication that would allow us to avoid it. What can be the\nchildish or mysterious reason of this strange reticence? In many\ncases it is almost criminal; for instance, in a case related by\nProfessor Hyslop[1] we see the foreboding of the greatest\nmisfortune that can befall a mother germinating, growing, sending\nout shoots, developing, like some gluttonous and deadly plant, to\nstop short on the verge of the last warning, the one detail,\ninsignificant in itself but indispensable, which would have saved\nthe child. It is the case of a woman who begins by experiencing a\nvague but powerful impression that a grievous \"burden\" was going\nto fall upon her family. Next month, this premonitory feeling\nrepeats itself very frequently, becomes more intense and ends by\nconcentrating itself upon the poor woman's little daughter. Each\ntime that she is planning something for the child's future, she\nhears a voice saying:\n\n\"She'll never need it.\"\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xiv., p. 266.\n\n\nA week before the catastrophe, a violent smell of fire fills the\nhouse. From that time, the mother begins to be careful about\nmatches, seeing that they are in safe places and out of reach.\nShe looks all over the house for them and feels a strong impulse\nto burn all matches of the kind easily lighted. About an hour\nbefore the fatal disaster, she reaches for a box to destroy it;\nbut she says to herself that her eldest boy is gone out, thinks\nthat she may need the matches to light the gas-stove and decides\nto destroy them as soon as he comes back. She takes the child up\nto its crib for its morning sleep and, as she is putting it into\nthe cradle, she hears the usual mysterious voice whisper in her\near:\n\n\"Turn the mattress.\"\n\nBut, being in a great hurry, she simply says that she will turn\nthe mattress after the child has taken its nap. She then goes\ndownstairs to work. After a while, she hears the child cry and,\nhurrying up to the room, finds the crib and its bedding on fire\nand the child so badly burnt that it dies in three hours.\n\n14\n\nBefore going further and theorizing about this case, let us once\nmore state the matter precisely. I know that the reader may\nstraightway and quite legitimately deny the value of anecdotes of\nthis kind. He will say that we have to do with a neurotic who has\ndrawn upon her imagination for all the elements that give a\ndramatic setting to the story and surround with a halo of mystery\na sad but commonplace domestic accident. This is quite possible;\nand it is perfectly allowable to dismiss the case. But it is none\nthe less true that, by thus deliberately rejecting everything\nthat does not bear the stamp of mathematical or judicial\ncertainty, we risk losing as we go along most of the\nopportunities or clues which the great riddle of this world\noffers us in its moments of inattention or graciousness. At the\nbeginning of an enquiry we must know how to content ourselves\nwith little. For the incident in question to be convincing,\nprevious evidence in writing, more or less official statements\nwould be required, whereas we have only the declarations of the\nhusband, a neighbour and a sister. This is insufficient, I agree;\nbut we must at the same time confess that the circumstances are\nhardly favourable to obtaining the proofs which we demand. Those\nwho receive warnings of this kind either believe in them or do\nnot believe in them. If they believe in them, it is quite natural\nthat they should not think first of all of the scientific\ninterest of their trouble, or of putting down in writing and thus\nauthenticating its premonitory symptoms and gradual evolution. If\nthey do not believe in them, it is no less natural that they\nshould not proceed to speak or take notice of inanities of which\nthey do not recognize the value until after they have lost the\nopportunity of supplying convincing proofs of them. Also, do not\nforget that the little story in question is selected from among a\nhundred others, which in their turn are equally indecisive, but\nwhich, repeating the same facts and the same tendencies with a\nstrange persistency, and by weakening the most inveterate\ndistrust.[1]\n\n[1] See, in particular, Bozzano's cases xlix. and lxvii. These\ntwo, especially case xlix., which tells of a personal experience\nof the late W. T. Stead, are supported by more substantial\nproofs. I have quoted Professor Hyslop's case, because the\nreticence is more striking.\n\n\n15\n\nHaving said this much, in order to conciliate or part company\nwith those who have no intention of leaving the terra firma of\nscience, let us return to the case before us, which is all the\nmore disquieting inasmuch as we may consider it a sort of\nprototype of the tragic and almost diabolical reticence which we\nfind in most premonitions. It is probable that under the mattress\nthere was a stray match which the child discovered and struck;\nthis is the only possible explanation of the catastrophe, for\nthere was no fire burning on that floor of the house. If the\nmother had turned the mattress, she would have seen the match;\nand, on the other hand, she would certainly have turned the\nmattress if she had been told that there was a match underneath\nit. Why did the voice that urged her to perform the necessary\naction not add the one word that was capable of ensuring that\naction? The problem moreover is equally perturbing and perhaps\nequally insoluble whether it concerns our own subconscious\nfaculties, or spirits, or strange intelligences. Those who give\nthese warnings must know that they will be useless, because they\nmanifestly foresee the event as a whole; but they must also know\nthat one last word, which they do not pronounce, would be enough\nto prevent the misfortune that is already consummated in their\nprevision. They know it so well that they bring this word to the\nvery edge of the abyss, hold it suspended there, almost let it\nfall and recapture it suddenly at the moment when its weight\nwould have caused happiness and life to rise once more, to the\nsurface of the mighty gulf. What then is this mystery? Is it\nincapacity or hostility? If they are incapable, what is the\nunexpected and sovereign force that interposes between them and\nus? And, if they are hostile, on what, on whom are they revenging\nthemselves? What can be the secret of those inhuman games, of\nthose uncanny and cruel diversions on the most slippery and\ndangerous peaks of fate? Why warn, if they know that the warning\nwill be in vain? Of whom are they making sport? Is there really\nan inflexible fatality by virtue of which that which has to be\naccomplished is accomplished from all eternity? But then why not\nrespect silence, since all speech is useless? Or do they, in\nspite of all, perceive a gleam, a crevice in the inexorable wall?\nWhat hope do they find in it? Have they not seen more clearly\nthan ourselves that no deliverance can come through that crevice?\nOne could understand this fluttering and wavering, all these\nefforts of theirs, if they did not know; but here it is proved\nthat they know everything, since they foretell exactly that which\nthey might prevent. If we press them with questions, they answer\nthat there is nothing to be done, that no human power could avert\nor thwart the issue. Are they mad, bored, irritable, or accessory\nto a hideous pleasantry? Does our fate depend on the happy\nsolution of some petty enigma or childish conundrum, even as our\nsalvation, in most of the so-called revealed religious, is\nsettled by a blind and stupid cast of the die? Is all the liberty\nthat we are granted reduced to the reading of a more or less\ningenious riddle? Can the great soul of the universe be the soul\nof a great baby?\n\n16\n\nBut, rather than pursue this subject, let us be just and admit\nthat there is perhaps no way out of the maze and that our\nreproaches are as incomprehensible as the conduct of the spirits.\nIndeed, what would you have them do in the circle in which our\nlogic imprisons them? Either they foretell us a calamity which\ntheir predictions cannot avert, in which case there is no use in\nforetelling it, or, if they announce it to us and at the same\ntime give us the means to prevent it, they do not really see the\nfuture and are foretelling nothing, since the calamity is not to\ntake place, with the result that their action seems equally\nabsurd in both cases.\n\nIt is obvious: to whichever side we turn, we find nothing but the\nincomprehensible. On the one hand, the preestablished,\nunshakable, unalterable future which we have called destiny,\nfatality or what you will, which suppresses man's entire\nindependence and liberty of action and which is the most\ninconceivable and the dreariest of mysteries; on the other,\nintelligences apparently superior to our own, since they know\nwhat we do not, which, while aware that their intervention is\nalways useless and very often cruel, nevertheless come harassing\nus with their sinister and ridiculous predictions. Must we resign\nourselves once more to living with our eyes shut and our reason\ndrowned in the boundless ocean of darkness; and is there no\noutlet?\n\n17\n\nFor the moment we will not linger in the dark regions of\nfatality, which is the supreme mystery, the desolation of every\neffort and every thought of man. What is clearest amid this\nincomprehensibility is that the spiritualistic theory, at first\nsight the most seductive, declares itself, on examination, the\nmost difficult to justify. We will also once more put aside the\ntheosophical theory or any other which assumes a divine intention\nand which might, to a certain extent, explain the hesitations and\nanguish of the prophetic warnings, at the cost, however, of other\npuzzles, a thousand times as hard to solve, which nothing\nauthorizes us to substitute for the actual puzzle, formless and\ninfinite, presented to our uninitiated vision.\n\nWhen all is said, it is perhaps only in the theory which\nattributes those premonitions to our subconsciousness that we are\nable to find, if not a justification, at least a sort of\nexplanation of that formidable reticence. They accord fairly well\nwith the strange, inconsistent, whimsical and disconcerting\ncharacter of the unknown entity within us that seems to live on\nnothing but nondescript fare borrowed from worlds to which nor\nintelligence as yet has no access. It lives under our reason, in\na sort of invisible and perhaps eternal palace, like a casual\nguest, dropped from another planet, whose interests, ideas,\nhabits, passions have naught in common with ours. If it seems to\nhave notions on the hereafter that are infinitely wider and more\nprecise than those which we possess, it has only very vague\nnotions on the practical needs of our existence. It ignores us\nfor years, absorbed no doubt with the numberless relations which\nit maintains with all the mysteries of the universe; and, when\nsuddenly it remembers us, thinking apparently to please us, it\nmakes an enormous, miraculous, but at the same time clumsy and\nsuperfluous movement, which upsets all that we believed we knew,\nwithout teaching us anything. Is it making fun of us, is it\njesting, is it amusing itself, is it facetious, teasing, arch, or\nsimply sleepy, bewildered, inconsistent, absent-minded? In any\ncase, it is rather remarkable that it evidently dislikes to make\nitself useful. It readily performs the most glamorous feats of\nsleight-of-hand, provided that we can derive no profit from them.\nIt lifts up tables, moves the heaviest articles, produces flowers\nand hair, sets strings vibrating, gives life to inanimate objects\nand passes through solid matter, conjures up ghosts, subjugates\ntime and space, creates light; but all, it seems, on one\ncondition, that its performances should be without rhyme or\nreason and keep to the province of supernaturally vain and\npuerile recreations. The case of the divining-rod is almost the\nonly one in which it lends us any regular assistance, this being\na sort of game, of no great importance, in which it appears to\ntake pleasure. Sometimes, to say all that can be said, it\nconsents to cure certain ailments, cleanses an ulcer, closes a\nwound, heals a lung, strengthens or makes supple an arm or leg,\nor even sets bones, but always as it were by accident, without\nreason, method or object, in a deceitful, illogical and\npreposterous fashion. One would set it down as a spoilt child\nthat has been allowed to lay hands on the most tremendous secrets\nof heaven and earth; it has no suspicion of their power, jumbles\nthem all up together and turns them into paltry, inoffensive\ntoys. It knows everything, perhaps, but is ignorant of the uses\nof its knowledge, It has its arms laden with treasures which it\nscatters in the wrong manner and at the wrong time, giving bread\nto the thirsty and water to the hungry, overloading those who\nrefuse and stripping the suppliant bare, pursuing those who flee\nfrom it and fleeing from those who pursue it. Lastly, even at its\nbest moments, it behaves as though the fate of the being in whose\ndepths it dwells interested it hardly at all, as though it had\nbut an insignificant share in his misfortunes, feeling assured,\none might almost think, of an independent and endless existence.\n\nIt is not surprising, therefore, when we know its habits, that\nits communications on the subject of the future should be as\nfantastic as the other manifestations of its knowledge or its\npower. Let us add, to be quite fair, that, in those warnings\nwhich we would wish to see efficacious, it stumbles against the\nsame difficulties as the spirits or other alien intelligences\nuselessly foretelling the event which they cannot prevent, or\nannihilating the event by the very fact of foretelling it.\n\n18\n\nAnd now, to end the question, is our unknown guest alone\nresponsible? Does it explain itself badly or do we not understand\nit? When we look into the matter closely, there is, under those\nanomalous and confused manifestations, in spite of efforts which\nwe feel to be enormous and persevering, a sort of incapacity for\nself expression and action which is bound to attract our\nattention. Is our conscious and individual life separated by\nimpenetrable worlds from our subconscious and probably universal\nlife? Does our unknown guest speak an unknown language and do the\nwords which it speaks and which we think that we understand\ndisclose its thought? Is every direct road pitilessly barred and\nis there nothing left to it but narrow, dosed paths in which the\nbest of what it had to reveal to us is lost? Is this the reason\nwhy it seeks those odd, childish, roundabout ways of automatic\nwriting, cross-correspondence, symbolic premonition and all the\nrest? Yet, in the typical case which we have quoted, it seems to\nspeak quite easily and plainly when it says to the mother:\n\n\"Turn the mattress.\"\n\nIf it can utter this sentence, why should it find it difficult or\nimpossible to add:\n\n\"You will find the matches there that will set fire to the\ncurtains.\"\n\nWhat forbids it to do so and closes its mouth at the decisive\nmoment? We relapse into the everlasting question: if it cannot\ncomplete the second sentence because it would be destroying in\nthe womb the very event which it is foretelling, why does it\nutter the first?\n\n19\n\nBut it is well in spite of everything to seek an explanation of\nthe inexplicable; it is by attacking it on every side, at all\nhazards, that we cherish the hope of overcoming it; and we may\ntherefore say to ourselves that our subconsciousness, when it\nwarns us of a calamity that is about to fall upon us, knowing all\nthe future as it does, necessarily knows that the calamity is\nalready accomplished. As our conscious and unconscious lives\nblend in it, it distresses itself and flutters around our\noverconfident ignorance. It tries to inform us, through\nnervousness, through pity, so as to mitigate the lightning\ncruelty of the blow. It speaks all the words that can prepare us\nfor its coming, define it and identify it; but it is unable to\nsay those which would prevent it from coming, seeing that it has\ncome, that it is already present and perhaps past, manifest,\nineffaceable, on another plane than that on which we live, the\nonly plane which we are capable of perceiving. It finds itself,\nin a word, in the position of the man who, in the midst of\npeaceful, happy and unsuspecting folk, alone knows some bad news.\nHe is neither able nor willing to announce it nor yet to hide it\ncompletely. He hesitates, delays, makes more or less transparent\nallusions, but does not either say the last word that would, so\nto speak, let loose the catastrophe in the hearts of the people\naround him, for to those who do not know of it the catastrophe is\nstill as though it were not there. Our subconsciousness, in that\ncase, would act towards the future as we act towards the past,\nthe two conditions being identical, so much so that it often\nconfuses them, as we can see more particularly in the celebrated\nMarmontel case, where it evidently blunders and reports as\naccomplished an incident that will not take place until several\nmonths later. It is of course impossible for us, at the stage\nwhich we have reached, to understand this confusion or this\ncoexistence of the past, the present and the future; but that is\nno reason for denying it; on the contrary, what man understands\nleast is probably that which most nearly approaches the truth.\n\n20\n\nLastly, to complicate the question, it may be very justly\nobjected that, though premonitions in general are useless and\nappear systematically to withhold the only indispensable and\ndecisive words, there are, nevertheless, some that often seem to\nsave those who obey them. These, it is true, are rarer than the\nfirst, but still they include a certain number that are well\nauthenticated. It remains to be seen how far they imply a\nknowledge of the future.\n\nHere, for instance, is a traveler who, arriving at night in a\nsmall unknown town and walking along the ill-lighted dock in the\ndirection of an hotel of which he roughly knows the position, at\na given moment tech an irresistible impulse to turn and go the\nother way. He instantly obeys, though his reason protests and\n\"berates him for a fool\" in taking a roundabout way to his\ndestination. The next day he discovers that, if he had gone a few\nfeet farther, he would certainly have slipped into the river;\nand, as he was but a feeble swimmer, he would just as certainly,\nbeing alone and unaided in the extreme darkness, have been\ndrowned.[1]\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 422.\n\n\nBut is this a prevision of an event? No, for no event is to take\nplace. There is simply an abnormal perception of the proximity of\nsome unknown water and consequently of an imminent danger, an\nunexplained but fairly frequent subliminal sensitiveness. In a\nword, the problem of the future is not raised in this case, nor\nin any of the numerous cases that resemble it.\n\nHere is another which evidently belongs to the same class, though\nat first sight it seems to postulate the preexistence of a fatal\nevent and a vision of the future corresponding exactly with a\nvision of the past. A traveler in South America is descending a\nriver in a canoe; the party are just about to run close to a\npromontory when a sort of mysterious voice, which he has already\nheard at different momentous times of his life, imperiously\norders him immediately to cross the river and gain the other\nshore as quickly as possible. This appears so absurd that he is\nobliged to threaten the Indians with death to force them to take\nthis course. They have scarcely crossed more than half the river\nwhen the promontory falls at the very place where they meant to\nround it.[1]\n\n[1] Flournoy: Esprits et mediums, p. 316.\n\n\nThe perception of imminent danger is here, I admit, even more\nabnormal than in the previous example, but it comes under the\nsame heading. It is a phenomenon of subliminal hypersensitiveness\nobserved more than once, a sort of premonition induced by\nsubconscious perceptions, which has been christened by the\nbarbarous name of \"cryptaesthesia.\" But the interval between the\nmoment when the peril is signalled and that at which it is\nconsummated is too short for those questions which relate to a\nknowledge or a preexistence of the future to arise in this\ninstance.\n\nThe case is almost the same with the adventure of an American\ndentist, very carefully investigated by Dr. Hodgson. The dentist\nwas bending over a bench on which was a little copper in which he\nwas vulcanizing some rubber, when he heard a voice calling, in a\nquick and imperative manner, these words:\n\n\"Run to the window, quick! Run to the window, quick!\"\n\nHe at once ran to the window and looked out to the street below,\nwhen suddenly he heard a tremendous report and, looking round,\nsaw that the copper had exploded, destroying a great part of the\nworkroom.[1]\n\n[1] Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 424.\n\n\nHere again, a subconscious cautiousness was probably amused by\ncertain indications imperceptible to our ordinary senses. It is\neven possible that there exists between things and ourselves a\nsort of sympathy or subliminal communion which makes us\nexperience the trials and emotions of matter that has reached the\nlimits of its existence, unless, as is more likely, there is\nmerely a simple coincidence between the chance idea of a possible\nexplosion and its realization.\n\nA last and rather more complicated case is that of Jean Dupre,\nthe sculptor, who was driving alone with his wife along a\nmountain road, skirting a perpendicular cliff. Suddenly they both\nheard a voice that seemed to come from the mountain crying:\n\n\"Stop!\"\n\nThey turned round, saw nobody and continued their road. But the\ncries were repeated again and again, without anything to reveal\nthe presence of a human being amid the solitude. At last the\nsculptor alighted and saw that the left wheel of the carriage,\nwhich was grazing the edge of the precipice, had lost its\nlinch-pin and was on the point of leaving the axle-tree, which\nwould almost inevitably have hurled the carriage into the abyss.\n\nNeed we, even here, relinquish the theory of subconscious\nperceptions? Do we know and can the author of the anecdote, whose\ngood faith is not in question, tell us that certain unperceived\ncircumstances, such as the grating of the wheel or the swaying of\nthe carriage, did not give him the first alarm? After all, we\nknow how easily stories of this kind involuntarily take a\ndramatic turn even at the actual moment and especially\nafterwards.\n\n21\n\nThese examples--and there are many more of a similar kind--are\nenough, I think, to illustrate this class of premonitions. The\nproblem in these cases is simpler than when it relates to\nfruitless warnings; at least it is simpler so long as we do not\nbring into discussion the question of spirits, of unknown\nintelligences, or of an actual knowledge of the future; otherwise\nthe same difficulty reappears and the warning, which this time\nseems efficacious, is in reality just as vain. In fact, the\nmysterious entity which knows that the traveler will go to the\nwater's edge, that the wheel will be on the point of leaving the\naxle, that the copper will explode, or that the promontory will\nfall at a precise moment, must at the same time know that the\ntraveler will not take the last fatal step, that the carriage\nwill not be overturned, that the copper will not hurt anybody and\nthat the canoe will pull away from the promontory. It is\ninadmissible that, seeing one thing, it will not see the other,\nsince everything happens at the same point, in the course of the\nsame second. Can we say that, if it had not given warning, the\nlittle saving movement would not have been executed? How can we\nimagine a future which, at one and the same time, has parts that\nare steadfast and others that are not? If it is foreseen that the\npromontory will fall and that the traveler will escape, thanks to\nthe supernatural warning, it is necessarily foreseen that the\nwarning will be given; and, if so, what is the point of this\nfutile comedy? I see no reasonable explanation of it in the\nspiritist or spiritualistic theory, which postulates a complete\nknowledge of the future, at least at a settled point and moment.\nOn the other hand, if we adhere to the theory of a subliminal\nconsciousness, we find there an explanation which is quite worthy\nof acceptation. This subliminal consciousness, though, in the\nmajority of cases, it has no clear and comprehensive vision of\nthe immediate future, can nevertheless possess an intuition of\nimminent danger, thanks to indications that escape our ordinary\nperception. It can also have a partial, intermittent and so to\nspeak flickering vision of the future event and, if doubtful, can\nrisk giving an incoherent warning, which, for that matter, will\nchange nothing in that which already is.\n\n22\n\nIn conclusion, let us state once more that fruitful premonitions\nnecessarily annihilate events in the bud and consequently work\ntheir own destruction, so that any control becomes impossible.\nThey would have an existence only if they prophesied a general\nevent which the subject would not escape but for the warning. If\nthey had said to any one intending to go to Messina two or three\nmonths before the catastrophe, \"Don't go, for the town will be\ndestroyed before the month is out,\" we should have an excellent\nexample. But it is a remarkable thing that genuine premonitions\nof this kind are very rare and nearly always rather indefinite in\nregard to events of a general order. In M. Bozzano's excellent\ncollection, which is a sort of compendium of Premonitory\nphenomena, the only pretty clear cases are nos. cli, and clviii.,\nboth of which are taken from the Journal of the S.P.R. In the\nfirst,[1] a mother sent a servant to bring home her little\ndaughter, who had already left the house with the intention of\ngoing through the \"railway garden,\" a strip of ground between the\nse. wall and the railway embankment, in order to sit on the great\nstone, by the seaside and see the trains pass by. A few minutes\nafter the little girl's departure, the mother had distinctly and\nrepeatedly heard a voice within her say:\n\n\"Send for her back, or something dreadful will happen to her.\"\n\n[1] Journal, vol. viii., p. 45.\n\n\nNow, soon after, a train ran off the line and the engine and\ntender fell, breaking through the protecting wall and crashing\ndown on the very stones where the child was accustomed to sit.\n\nIn the other case,[1] into which Professor W. F. Barrett made a\nspecial enquiry, Captain MacGowan was in Brooklyn with his two\nboys, then on their holidays. He promised the boys that he would\ntake them to the theatre and booked seats on the previous day;\nbut on the day of the proposed visit he heard a voice within him\nconstantly saying:\n\n\"Do not go to the theatre; take the boys back to school.\"\n\n[1] Ibid., vol. i., p. 283.\n\n\nHe hesitated, gave up his plan and resumed it again. But the\nwords kept repeating themselves and impressing themselves upon\nhim; and, in the end, he definitely decided not to go, much to\nthe two boys' disgust. That night the theatre was destroyed by\nfire, with a loss of three hundred lives.\n\nWe may add to this the prevision of the Battle of Borodino, to\nwhich I have already alluded, I will give the story in fuller\ndetail, as told in the journal of Stephen Grellet the Quaker.\n\nAbout three months before the French army entered Russia, the\nwife of General Toutschkoff dreamt that she was at an inn in a\ntown unknown to her and that her father came into her room,\nholding her only son by the hand, and said to her, in a pitiful\ntone:\n\n\"Your happiness is at an end. He\"--meaning Countess Toutschkoff's\nhusband--\"has fallen. He has fallen at Borodino.\"\n\nThe dream was repeated a second and a third time. Her anguish of\nmind was such that she woke her husband and asked him:\n\n\"Where is Borodino?\" They looked for the name on the map and did\nnot find it.\n\nBefore the French armies reached Moscow, Count Toutschkoff was\nplaced at the head of the army of reserve; and one morning her\nfather, holding her son by the hand, entered her room at the inn\nwhere she was staying. In great distress, as she had beheld him\nin her dream, he cried out:\n\n\"He has fallen. He has fallen at Borodino.\"\n\nThen she saw herself in the very same room and through the\nwindows beheld the very same objects that she had seen in her\ndreams. Her husband was one of the many who perished in the\nbattle fought near the River Borodino, from which an obscure\nvillage takes its name.[1]\n\n[1] Memoirs of the Life and Labours of Stephen Grellet, vol i.,\np. 434.\n\n\n23\n\nThis is evidently a very rare and perhaps solitary example of a\nlong-dated prediction of a great historic event which nobody\ncould foresee. It stirs more deeply than any other the enormous\nproblems of fatality, free-will and responsibility. But has it\nbeen attested with sufficient rigour for us to rely upon it? That\nI cannot say. In any case, it has not been sifted by the S.P.R.\nNext, from the special point of view that interests us for the\nmoment, we are unable to declare that this premonition had any\nchance of being of avail and preventing the general from going to\nBorodino. It is highly probable that he did not know where he was\ngoing or where he was; besides, the irresistible machinery of war\nheld him fast and it was not his part to disengage his destiny.\nThe premonition, therefore, could only have been given because it\nwas certain not to be obeyed.\n\nAs for the two previous cases, nos. clv. and clviii., we must\nhere again remark the usual strange reservations and observe how\ndifficult it is to explain these premonitions save by attributing\nthem to our subconsciousness. The main, unavoidable event is not\nprecisely stated; but a subordinate consequence seems to be\naverted, as though to make us believe in some definite power of\nfree will. Nevertheless, the mysterious entity that foresaw the\ncatastrophe must also have foreseen that nothing would happen to\nthe person whom it was warning; and this brings us back to the\nuseless farce of which we spoke above. Whereas, with the theory\nof a subconscious self, the latter may have--as in the case of\nthe traveler, the promontory, the copper or the carriage-not this\ntime by inferences or indications that escape our perception, but\nby other unknown means, a vague presentiment of an impending\nperil, or, as I have already said, a partial, intermittent and\nunsettled vision of the future event, and, in its doubt, may\nutter its cry of alarm.\n\nWhereupon let us recognize that it is almost forbidden to human\nreason to stray in these regions; and that the part of a prophet\nis, next to that of a commentator of prophecies, one of the most\ndifficult and thankless that a man can attempt to sustain the\nworld's stage.\n\n24\n\nI am not sure if it is really necessary, before closing this\nchapter, to follow in the wake of many others and broach the\nproblem of the preexistence of the future, which includes those\nof fatality, of free will, of time and of space, that is to say,\nall the points that touch the essential sources of the great\nmystery of the universe. The theologians and the metaphysicians\nhave tackled these problems from every side without giving us the\nleast hope of solving them. Among those which life sets us, there\nis none to which our brain seems more definitely and strictly\nclosed; and they remain, if not as unimaginable, at least as\nincomprehensible as on the day when they were first perceived.\nWhat corresponds, outside us, with what we call time and space?\nWe know nothing about it; and Kant, speaking in the name of the\n\"apriorists,\" who hold that the idea of time is innate in us,\ndoes not teach us much when he tells us that time, like space, is\nan a priori form of our sensibility, that is to say, an intuition\npreceding experience, even as Guyau, among the \"empiricists,\" who\nconsider that this idea is acquired only by experience, does not\nenlighten us any more by declaring that this same time is the\nabstract formula of the changes in the universe. Whether space,\nas Leibnitz maintains, be an order of coexistence and time an\norder of sequences, whether it be by space that we succeed in\nrepresenting time or whether time be an essential form of any\nrepresentation, whether time be the father of space or space the\nfather of time, one thing is certain, which is that the efforts\nof the Kantian or neo-Kantian apriorists and of the pure\nempiricists and the idealistic empiricists all end in the same\ndarkness; that all the philosophers who have grappled with the\nformidable dual problem, among whom one may mention\nindiscriminately the names of the greatest thinkers of yesterday\nand to-day--Herbert Spencer, Helmholtz, Renouvier, James Sully,\nStumpf, James Ward, William James, Stuart Mill, Ribot, Fouillee,\nGuyau, Bain, Lechalas, Balmes, Dunan and endless others--have\nbeen unable to tame it; and that, however much their theories may\ncontradict one another, they are all equally defensible and alike\nstruggle vainly in the darkness against shadows that are not of\nour world.\n\n25\n\nTo catch a glimpse of this strange problem of the preexistence of\nthe future, as it shows itself to each of us, let us essay more\nhumbly to translate it into tangible images, to place it as it\nwere upon the stage. I am writing these lines sitting on a stone,\nin the shade of some tall beeches that overlook a little Norman\nvillage. It is one of those lovely summer days when the sweetness\nof life is almost visible in the azure vase of earth and sky. In\nthe distance stretches the immense, fertile valley of the Seine,\nwith its green meadows planted with restful trees, between which\nthe river flows like a long path of gladness leading to the misty\nhills of the estuary. I am looking down on the village-square,\nwith its ring of young lime-trees. A procession leaves the church\nand, amid prayers and chanting, they carry the statue of the\nVirgin around the sacred pile. I am conscious of all the details\nof the ceremony: the sly old cure perfunctorily bearing a small\nreliquary; four choirmen opening their mouths to bawl forth\nvacantly the Latin words which convey nothing to them; two\nmischievous serving-boys in frayed cassocks; a score of little\ngirls, young girls and old maids in white, all starched and\nflounced, followed by six or seven village notables in baggy\nfrockcoats. The pageant disappears behind the trees, comes into\nsight again at the bend of the road and hurries back into the\nchurch. The clock in the steeple strikes five, as though to ring\ndown the curtain and mark in the infinite history of events which\nnone will recollect the conclusion of a spectacle which never\nagain, until the end of the world and of the universe of worlds,\nwill be just what it was during those seconds when it beguiled my\nwandering eyes.\n\nFor in vain will they repeat the procession next year and every\nyear after: never again will it be the same. Not only will\nseveral of the actors probably have disappeared, but all those\nwho resume their old places in the ranks will have undergone the\nthousand little visible and invisible changes wrought by the\npassing days and weeks. In a word, this insignificant moment is\nunique, irrecoverable, inimitable, as are all the moments in the\nexistence of all things; and this little picture, enduring for a\nfew seconds suspended in boundless duration, has lapsed into\neternity, where henceforth it will remain in its entirety to the\nend of time, so much so that, if a man could one day recapture in\nthe past, among what some one has called the \"astral negatives,\"\nthe image of what it was, he would find it intact, unchanged,\nineffaceable and undeniable.\n\n26\n\nIt is not difficult for us to conceive that one can thus go back\nand see again the astral negative of an event that is no more; and\nretrospective clairvoyance appears to us a wonderful but not an\nimpossible thing. It astonishes but does not stagger our reason.\nBut, when it becomes a question of discovering the same picture\nin the future, the boldest imagination flounders at the first\nstep. How are we to admit that there exists somewhere a\nrepresentation or reproduction of that which has not yet existed?\nNevertheless, some of the incidents which we have just been\nconsidering seem to prove in an almost conclusive manner not only\nthat such representations are possible, but that we may arrive at\nthem more frequently, not to say more conveniently, than at those\nof the past. Now, once this representation preexists, as we are\nobliged to admit in the case of certain number of premonitions,\nthe riddle remains the same whether the preexistence be one of a\nfew hours, a few years or several centuries. It is therefore\npossible--for, in these matters, we must go straight to extremes\nor else leave them alone--it is therefore possible that a seer\nmightier than any of to-day, some god, demigod or demon, some\nunknown, universal or vagrant intelligence, saw that procession a\nmillion years ago, at a time when nothing existed of that which\ncomposes and surrounds it and when the very earth on which it\nmoves had not yet risen from the ocean depths. And other seers,\nas mighty as the first, who from age to age contemplated the same\nspot and the same moment, would always have perceived, through\nthe vicissitudes and upheavals of seas, shores and forests, the\nsame procession going round the same little church that still lay\nslumbering in the oceanic ooze and made up of the same persons\nsprung from a race that was perhaps not yet represented on the\nearth.\n\n27\n\nIt is obviously difficult for us to understand that the future\ncan thus precede chaos, that the present is at the same time the\nfuture and the past, or that that which does not yet exists\nalready at the same time at which it is no more. But, on the\nother hand, it is just as hard to conceive that the future does\nnot preexist, that there is nothing before the present and that\neverything is only present or past. It is very probable that, to\na more universal intelligence than ours, everything is but an\neternal present, an immense punctum stans, as the metaphysicians\nsay, in which all the events are on one plane; but it is no less\nprobable that we ourselves, so long as we are men, in order to\nunderstand anything of this eternal present, will always be\nobliged to divide it into three parts. Thus caught between two\nmysteries equally baffling to our intelligence, whether we deny\nor admit the preexistence of the future, we are really only\nwrangling over words: in the one case, we give the name of\n\"present,\" from the point of view of a perfect intelligence, to\nthat which to us is the future; in the other, we give the name of\n\"future\" to that which, from the point of view of a perfect\nintelligence, is the present. But, after all, it is incontestable\nin both cases that, at least from our point of view, the future\npreexists, since preexistence is the only name by which we can\ndescribe and the only form under which we can conceive that which\nwe do not yet see in the present.\n\n28\n\nAttempts have been made to shed light on the riddle by\ntransferring it to space. It is true that it there loses the\ngreater part of its obscurity; but this apparently is because, in\nchanging its environment, it has completely changed its nature\nand no longer bears any relation to what it was when it was\nplaced in time. We are told, for instance, that innumerable\ncities distributed over the surface of the earth are to us as if\nthey were not, so long as we have not seen them, and only begin\nto exist on the day when we visit them. That is true; but space,\noutside all metaphysical speculations, has realities for us which\ntime does not possess. Space, although very mysterious and\nincomprehensible once we pass certain limits, is nevertheless\nnot, like time, incomprehensible and illusory in all its parts.\nWe are certainly quite able to conceive that those towns which we\nhave never seen and doubtless never will see indubitably exist,\nwhereas we find it much more difficult to imagine that the\ncatastrophe which, fifty years hence, will annihilate one of them\nalready exists as really as the town itself. We are capable of\npicturing a spot whence, with keener eyes than these which we\nboast to-day, we should see in one glance all the cities of the\nearth and even those of other worlds, but it is much less easy\nfor us to imagine a point in the ages whence we should\nsimultaneously discover the past, the present and the future\nbecause the past, the present and the future are three orders of\nduration which cannot find room at the same time in our\nintelligence and which inevitably devour one other. How can we\npicture to ourselves, for instance, a point in eternity at which\nour little procession already exists, while it is not yet and\nalthough it is no more? Add to this the thought that it is\nnecessary and inevitable, from the millenaries which had no\nbeginning, that, at a given moment, at a given place, the little\nprocession should leave the little church in a given manner and\nthat no known or imaginable will can change anything in it, in\nthe future any more than in the past; and we begin to understand\nthat there is no hope of understanding.\n\n29\n\nWe find among the cases collected by M. Bozzano a singular\npremonition wherein the unknown factors of space and time are\ncontinued in a very curious fashion. In August, 1910, Cavalliere\nGiovanni de Figueroa, one of the most famous fencing masters at\nPalermo, dreamt that he was in the country, going along a road\nwhite with dust, which brought him to a broad ploughed field. In\nthe middle of the field stood a rustic building, with a\nground-floor used for store-rooms and cow-sheds and on the right\na rough hut made of branches and a cart with some harness lying\nin it.\n\nA peasant wearing dark trousers, with a black felt hat on his\nhead, came forward to meet him, asked him to follow him and took\nhim round behind the house. Through a low, narrow door they\nentered a little stable with a short, winding stone staircase\nleading to a loft over the entrance to the house. A mule fastened\nto a swinging manger was blocking the bottom step; and the\nchevalier had to push it aside before climbing the staircase. On\nreaching the loft, he noticed that from the ceiling were\nsuspended strings of melons, tomatoes, onions and Indian corn. In\nthis room were two women and a little girl; and through a door\nleading to another room he caught sight of an extremely high bed,\nunlike any that he had ever seen before. Here the dream broke\noff. It seemed to him so strange that he spoke of it to several\nof his friends, whom he mentions by name and who are ready to\nconfirm his statements.\n\nOn the 12th of October in the same year, in order to support a\nfellow-townsman in a duel, he accompanied the seconds, by\nmotorcar, from Naples to Marano, a place which he had never\nvisited nor even heard of. As soon as they were some way in the\ncountry, he was curiously impressed by the white and dusty road.\nThe car pulled up at the side of a field which he at once\nrecognized. They lighted; and he remarked to one of the seconds:\n\"This is not the first time that I have been here. There should\nbe a house at the end of this path and on the right a hut and a\ncart with some harness in it.\"\n\nAs a matter of fact, everything was as he described it. An\ninstant later, at the exact moment foreseen by the dream, the\npeasant in the dark trousers and the black felt hat came up and\nasked him to follow him. But, instead of walking behind him, the\nchevalier went in front, for he already knew the way. He found\nthe stable and, exactly at the place which it occupied two months\nbefore, near its swinging manger, the mule blocking the way to\nthe staircase. The fencing master went up the steps and once more\nsaw the loft, with the ceiling hung with melons, onions and\ntomatoes, and, in a corner on the right, the two silent women and\nthe child, identical with the figures in his dream, while in the\nnext room he recognized the bed whose extraordinary height had so\nmuch impressed him.\n\nIt really looks as if the facts themselves, the extramundane\nrealities, the eternal verities, or whatever we may be pleased to\ncall them, have tried to show us here that time and space are one\nand the same illusion, one and the same convention and have no\nexistence outside our little day-spanned understanding; that\n\"everywhere\" and \"always\" are exactly synonymous terms and reign\nalone as soon as we cross the narrow boundaries of the obscure\nconsciousness in which we live. We are quite ready to admit that\nCavaliere de Figueroa may have had by clairvoyance an exact and\ndetailed vision of places which he was not to visit until later:\nthis is a pretty frequent and almost classical phenomenon, which,\nas it affects the realities of space, does not astonish us beyond\nmeasure and, in any case, does not take us out of the world which\nour senses perceive. The field, the house, the hut, the loft do\nnot move; and it is no miracle that they should be found in the\nsame place. But, suddenly, quitting this domain where all is\nstationary, the phenomenon is transferred to time and, in those\nunknown places, at the foretold second, brings together all the\nmoving actors of that little drama in two acts, of which the\nfirst was performed some two and a half months before, in the\ndepths of some mysterious other life where it seemed to be\nmotionlessly and irrevocably awaiting its terrestrial\nrealization. Any explanation would but condense this vapour of\npetty mysteries into a few drops in the ocean of mysteries. Let\nus note here again, in passing, the strange freakishness of the\npremonitions. They accumulate the most precise and circumstantial\ndetails as long as the scene remains insignificant, but come to a\nsudden stop before the one tragic and interesting scene of the\ndrama: the duel and its issue. Here again we recognize the\ninconsistent, impotent, ironical or humorous habits of our\nunknown guest.\n\n30\n\nBut we will not prolong these somewhat vain speculations\nconcerning space and time. We are merely playing with words that\nrepresent very badly ideas which we do not put into form at all.\nTo sum up, if it is difficult for us to conceive that the future\npreexists, perhaps it is even more difficult for us to understand\nthat it does not exist; moreover, a certain number of facts tend\nto prove that it is as real and definite and has, both in time\nand in eternity, the same permanence and the same vividness as\nthe past. Now, from the moment that it preexists, it is not\nsurprising that we should be able to know it; it is even\nastonishing, granted that it overhangs us on every side, that we\nshould not discover it oftener and more easily. It remains to be\nlearnt what would become of our life if everything were foreseen\nin it, if we saw it unfolding beforehand, in its entirety, with\nits events which would have to be inevitable, because, if it were\npossible for us to avoid them, they would not exist and we could\nnot perceive them. Suppose that, instead of being abnormal,\nuncertain, obscure, debatable and very unusual, prediction\nbecame, so to speak, scientific, habitual, clear and infallible:\nin a short time, having nothing more to foretell, it would die of\ninanition. If, for instance, it was prophesied to me that I must\ndie in the course of a journey in Italy, I should naturally\nabandon the journey; therefore it could not have been predicted\nto me; and thus all life would soon be nothing but inaction,\npause and abstention, a soft of vast desert where the embryos of\nstill-born events would be gathered in heaps and where nothing\nwould grow save perhaps one or two more or less fortunate\nenterprises and the little insignificant incidents which no one\nwould trouble to avoid. But these again are questions to which\nthere is no solution; and we will not pursue them further.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE ELBERFELD HORSES\n\n1\n\nI will first sum up as briefly as possible, for who so may still\nbe ignorant of them, the facts which it is necessary to know if\none would fully understand the marvelous story of the Elberfeld\nhorses. For a detailed account, I can refer him to Herr Karl\nKrall's remarkable work, Denkende Tiere (Leipsig, 1912), which is\nthe first and principal source of information amid a bibliography\nthat is already assuming considerable dimensions.\n\nSome twenty years ago there lived in Berlin an old misanthrope\nnamed Wilhelm von Osten. He was a man with a small private\nincome, a little eccentric in his ways and obsessed by one idea,\nthe intelligence of animals. He began by undertaking the\neducation of a horse that gave him no very definite results. But,\nin 1900, he became the owner of a Russian stallion who, under the\nname of Hans, to which was soon added the Homeric and well-earned\nprefix of Kluge, or Clever, was destined to upset all our notions\nof animal psychology and to raise questions that rank among the\nmost unexpected and the most absorbing problems which man has yet\nencountered.\n\nThanks to Von Osten, whose patience, contrary to what one might\nthink, was in no wise angelic but resembled rather a frenzied\nobstinacy, the horse made rapid and extraordinary progress. This\nprogress is very aptly described by Professor E. Clarapede, of\nthe university of Geneva, who says, in his excellent monograph on\nthe Elberfeld horses:\n\n\"After making him familiar with various common ideas, such as\nright, left, top, bottom and so on, his master began to teach him\narithmetic by the intuitive method. Hans was brought to a table\non which were placed first one, then two, then several small\nskittles. Von Osten, kneeling beside Hans, uttered the\ncorresponding numbers, at the same time making him strike as many\nblows with his hoof as there were skittles on the table. Before\nlong, the skittles were replaced by figures written on a\nblackboard. The results were astonishing. The horse was capable\nnot only of counting (that is to say, of striking as many blows\nas he was asked), but also of himself making real calculations,\nof solving little problems. . . .\n\n\"But Hans could do more than mere sums: he knew how to read; he\nwas a musician, distinguishing between harmonious and dissonant\nchords. He also had an extraordinary memory: he could tell the\ndate of each day of the current week. In short, he got through\nall the tasks which an intelligent schoolboy of fourteen is able\nto perform.\"\n\n2\n\nThe rumour of these curious experiments soon spread; and visitors\nflocked to the little stable-yard in which Von Osten kept his\nsingular pupil at work. The newspapers took the matter up; and a\nfierce controversy broke forth between those who believed in the\ngenuineness of the phenomenon and those who saw no more in it\nthan a barefaced fraud. A scientific committee was appointed in\n1904, consisting of professors of psychology and physiology, of\nthe director of a zoological garden, of a circus manager and of\nveterinary surgeons and cavalry-officers. The committee\ndiscovered nothing suspicious, but ventured upon no explanation.\nA second committee was then appointed, numbering among its\nmembers Herr Oskar Pfungst, of the Berlin psychological\nlaboratory. Herr Pfungst, after a long series of experiments,\ndrew up a voluminous and crushing report, in which he maintained\nthat the horse was gifted with no intelligence, that it did not\nrecognize either letters or figures, that it really knew neither\nhow to calculate nor how to count, but merely obeyed the\nimperceptible, infinitesimal and unconscious signs which escaped\nfrom its master.\n\nPublic opinion veered round suddenly and completely. People felt\na sort of half-cowardly relief at beholding the prompt collapse\nof a miracle which was threatening to throw confusion into the\nself satisfied little fold of established truths. Poor Von Osten\nprotested in vain: no one listened to him; the verdict was given.\nHe never recovered from this official blow; he became the\nlaughing-stock of all those whom he had at first astounded; and\nhe died, lonely and embittered, on the 29th of June, 1909, at the\nage of seventy-one.\n\n3\n\nBut he left a disciple whose faith had not been shaken by the\ngeneral defection. A well-to-do Elberfeld manufacturer, Herr\nKrall, had taken a great interest in Von Osten's labours and,\nduring the latter years of the old man's life, had eagerly\nfollowed and even on occasion directed the education of the\nwonderful stallion. Von Osten left Kluge Hans to him by will; on\nhis own side, Krall had bought two Arab stallions, Mohammed and\nZarif whose prowess soon surpassed that of the pioneer. The whole\nquestion was reopened, events took a vigorous and decisive turn\nand, instead of a weary, eccentric old man, discouraged almost to\nsullenness and with no weapons for the struggle, the critics of\nthe miracle found themselves faced by a new adversary, young and\nhigh-spirited, endowed with remarkable scientific instinct,\nquick-witted, scholarly and well able to defend himself.\n\nHis educational methods also differ materially from Von Osten's.\nIt was a strange thing, but deep down in the rather queer,\ncross-grained soul of the old enthusiast there had grown up\ngradually a sort of hatred for his four-legged pupil. He felt the\nstallion's proud and nervous will resisting his with an obstinacy\nwhich he qualified as diabolical. They stood up to each other\nlike two enemies: and the lessons almost assumed the form of a\ntragic and secret struggle in which the animal's soul rebelled\nagainst man's domination.\n\nKrall, on the other hand, adores his pupils; and this atmosphere\nof affection has in a manner of speaking humanized them. There\nare no longer those sudden movements of wild panic which reveal\nthe ancestral dread of man in the quietest and best-trained\nhorse. He talks to them long and tenderly, as a father might talk\nto his children; and we have the strange feeling that they listen\nto all that he says and understand it. If they appear not to\ngrasp an explanation or a demonstration, he will begin it all\nover again, analyze it, paraphrase it ten times in succession,\nwith the patience of a mother. And so their progress has been\nincomparably swifter and more astounding than that of old Hans.\nWithin a fortnight of the first lesson Mohammed did simple little\naddition and subtraction sums quite correctly. He had learnt to\ndistinguish the tens from the units, striking the latter with his\nright foot and the former with his left. He knew the meaning of\nthe symbols plus and minus. Four days later, he was beginning\nmultiplication and division. In four months' time, he knew how to\nextract square and cubic roots; and, soon after, he learnt to\nspell and read by means of the conventional alphabet devised by\nKrall.\n\nThis alphabet, at the first glance, seems rather complicated. For\nthat matter, it is only a makeshift; but how could one find\nanything better? The unfortunate horse, who is almost voiceless,\nhas only one way in which to express himself: a clumsy hoof,\nwhich was not created to put thought into words. It became\nnecessary, therefore, to contrive, as in table-turning, a special\nalphabet, in which each letter is designated by a certain number\nof blows struck by the right foot and the left. Here is the copy\nhanded to visitors at Elberfeld to enable them to follow the\nhorse's operations:\n\n-- 1  2  3  4  5  6\n10 E  N  R  S  M  C\n20 A  H  L  T  A: CH\n30 I  D  G  W  J SCH\n40 O  B  F  K  O: --\n50 U  V  Z  P  U: --\n60 EI AU EU X  Q  --\n\nTo mark the letter E, for instance, the stallion will strike one\nblow with his left foot and one with his right; for the letter L,\ntwo blows with his left foot and three with his right; and so on.\nThe horses have this alphabet so deeply imprinted in their memory\nthat, practically speaking, they never make a mistake; and they\nstrike their hoofs so quickly, one after the other, that at first\none has some difficulty in following them.\n\nMohammed and Zarif--for Zarif's progress was almost equal to that\nof his fellow-pupil, though he seems a little less gifted from\nthe standpoint of higher mathematics-Mohammed and Zarif in this\nway reproduce the words spoken in their presence, spell the names\nof their visitors, reply to questions put to them and sometimes\nmake little observations, little personal and spontaneous\nreflections to which we shall return presently. They have created\nfor their own use an inconceivably fantastic and phonetic system\nof spelling which they stubbornly refuse to relinquish and which\noften makes their writing rather difficult to read. Deeming most\nof the vowels useless, they keep almost exclusively to the\nconsonants; thus Zucker, for instance, becomes Z K R; Pferd, P F\nR T, or F R T, and so on.\n\nI will not set forth in detail the many different proofs of\nintelligence lavished by the singular inhabitants of this strange\nstable. They are not only first-class calculators, for whom the\nmost repellent fractions and roots possess hardly any secrets:\nthey distinguish sounds, colours, and scents, read the time on\nthe face of a watch, recognize certain geometrical figures,\nlikenesses and photographs.\n\nFollowing on these more and more conclusive experiments and\nespecially after the publication of Krall's great work, Denkende\nTiere, a model of precision and arrangement, men's minds were\nfaced with clear and definite problem which, this time, could not\nbe challenged. Scientific committees followed one another at\nElberfeld; and their reports became legion. Learned men of every\ncountry--including Dr. Edinger, the eminent Frankfort\nneurologist; Professors Dr. H. Kraemer and H. E. Ziegler, of\nStuttgart; Dr. Paul Saresin, of Bale; Professor Ostwald, of\nBerlin; Professor A. Beredka, of the Pasteur Institute; Dr. E.\nClarapede, of the university of Geneva; Professor Schoeller and\nProfessor Gehrke, the natural philosopher, of Berlin; Professor\nGoldstein, of Darmstadt; Professor von Buttel-Reepen, of\nOldenburg; Professor William Mackenzie, of Genoa; Professor R.\nAssagioli, of Florence; Dr. Hartkopf, of Cologne; Dr.\nFreudenberg, of Brussels; Dr. Ferrari, of Bologna, etc., etc.,\nfor the list is lengthening daily--came to study on the spot the\ninexplicable phenomenon which Dr. Clarapede proclaims to be \"the\nmost sensational event that has ever happened in the\npsychological world.\"\n\nWith the exception of two or three sceptics or convinced\nmisoneists and of those who made too short a stay at Elberfeld,\nall were unanimous in recognizing that the facts were as stated\nand that the experiments were conducted with absolute fairness.\nDisagreement begins only when it becomes a matter of commenting\non them, interpreting them and explaining them.\n\n4\n\nTo complete this short preamble, it is right to add that, for\nsome time past, the case of the Elberfeld horses no longer stands\nquite alone. There exists at Mannheim a dog of a rather doubtful\nbreed who performs almost the same feats as his equine rivals. He\nis less advanced than they in arithmetic, but does little\nadditions, subtractions and multiplications of one or two figures\ncorrectly. He reads and writes by tapping with his paw, in\naccordance with an alphabet which, it appears, he has thought out\nfor himself; and his spelling also is simplified and phoneticized\nto the utmost. He distinguishes the colour in a bunch of flowers,\ncounts the money in a purse and separates the marks from the\npfennigs. He knows how to seek and find words to define the\nobject or the picture placed before him. You show him, for\ninstance, a bouquet in a vase and ask him what it is.\n\n\"A glass with little flowers,\" he replies.\n\nAnd his answers are often curiously spontaneous and original. In\nthe course of a reading-exercise in which the word Herbst,\nautumn, chanced to attract attention, Professor William Mackenzie\nasked him if he could explain what autumn was.\n\n\"It is the time when there are apples,\" Rolf replied.\n\nOn the same occasion, the same professor, without knowing what it\nrepresented, held out to him a card marked with red and blue\nsquares:\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"Blue, red, lots of cubes,\" replied the dog.\n\nSometimes his repartees are not lacking in humour.\n\n\"Is there anything you would like me to do for you?\" a lady of\nhis acquaintance asked, one day.\n\nAnd Master Rolf gravely answered:\n\n\"Wedelen,\" which means, \"Wag your tail!\"\n\nRolf, whose fame is comparatively young, has not yet, like his\nillustrious rivals of the Rhine Province, been the object of\nminute enquiries and copious and innumerable reports. But the\nincidents which I have just mentioned and which are vouched for\nby such men as Professor Mackenzie and M. Duchatel, the learned\nand clear-sighted vice-president of the Societe Universelle\nd'Etudes Psychiques,[1] who went to Mannheim for the express\npurpose of studying them, appear to be no more controvertible\nthan the Elbenfeld occurrences, of which they are a sort of\nreplica or echo. It is not unusual to find these coincidences\namongst abnormal phenomena. They spring up simultaneously in\ndifferent quarters of the globe, correspond with one another and\nmultiply as though in obedience to a word of command. It is\nprobable therefore that we shall see still more manifestations of\nthe same class. One might almost say that a new spirit is passing\nover the world and, after awakening in man forces whereof he was\nnot aware, is now reaching other creatures who with us inhabit\nthis mysterious earth, on which they live, suffer and die, as we\ndo, without knowing why.\n\n[1] See the interesting lecture by M. Edmond Duchatel, published\nin the Annales des Sciences Psychiques, October 1913.\n\n\n5\n\nI have not been to Mannheim, but I made my pilgrimage to\nElberfeld and stayed long enough in the town to carry away with\nme the conviction shared by all those who have undertaken the\njourney.\n\nA few months ago, Herr Krall, whom I had promised the year before\nthat I would come and see his wonderful horses, was kind enough\nto repeat his invitation in a more pressing fashion, adding that\nhis stable would perhaps be broken up after the 15th of September\nand that, in any case, be would be obliged, by his doctor's\norders, to interrupt for an indefinite period a course of\ntraining which he found exceedingly fatiguing.\n\nI at once left for Elberfeld, which, as everybody knows, is an\nimportant manufacturing-town in Rhenish Prussia and is, in fact,\nmore quaint, pleasing and picturesque than one might expect. I\nhad long since read everything that had been published on the\nquestion; and I was wholly persuaded of the genuineness of the\nincidents. Indeed it would be difficult to have any doubts after\nthe repeated and unremitting supervision and verification to\nwhich the experiments are subjected, a supervision which is of\nthe most rigorous type, often hostile and almost ill-mannered. As\nfor their interpretation, I was convinced that telepathy, that is\nto say, the transmission of thought from one subconsciousness to\nanother, remained, however strange it might be in this new\nregion, the only acceptable theory; and this in spite of certain\ncircumstances that seemed plainly to exclude it. In default of\ntelepathy proper, I inclined toward the mediumistic or subliminal\ntheory, which was very ably outlined by M. de Vesmes in a\nremarkable lecture delivered, on the 22nd of December, 1912,\nbefore the Societe Universelle d'Etudes Psychiques. It is true\nthat telepathy, especially when carried to its extreme limits,\nappeals above all to the subliminal forces, so that the two\ntheories overlap at more than one point and it is often difficult\nto make out where the first ends and the second begins. But this\ndiscussion will be more appropriate a little later.\n\n6\n\nI found Herr Krall in his goldsmith's shop, a sort of palace of\nGolconda, streaming and glittering with the most precious pearls\nand stones on earth. Herr Krall, it is well to remember, in order\nto dispel any suspicion of pecuniary interest, is a rich\nmanufacturer whose family for three generations, from father to\nson, have conducted one of the most important jewelry businesses\nin Germany. His researches, so far from bringing him the least\nprofit, cost him a great deal of money, take up all his leisure\nand some part of the time which he would otherwise devote to his\nbusiness and, as usually happens, procure him from his fellow\ncitizens and from not a few scientific men more annoyance, unfair\ncriticism and sarcasm than consideration or gratitude. His work\nis preeminently the disinterested and thankless task of the\napostle and pioneer.\n\nFor the rest, Herr Kraft, though his faith is active, zealous and\ninfectious, has nothing in common with the visionaries or\nilluminati. He is a man of about fifty, vigorous, alert and\nenthusiastic, but at the same time well-balanced; accesible to\nevery idea and even to every dream, yet practical and methodical,\nwith a ballast of the most invincible common-sense. He inspires\nfrom the outset that fine confidence, frank and unrestrained,\nwhich instantly disperses the instinctive doubt, the strange\nuneasiness and the veiled suspicion that generally separate two\npeople who meet for the first time; and one welcomes in him, from\nthe very depths of one's being, the honest man, the staunch\nfriend whom one can trust and whom one is sorry not to have known\nearlier in life.\n\nWe go together through the streets and along the bustling quays\nof Elberfeld to the stable, situated at a few hundred steps from\nthe shop. The horses are taking the air outside the doors of\ntheir boxes, in the yard shaded by a lime-tree. There are four of\nthem: Mohammed, the most intelligent, the most gifted of them\nall, the great mathematician of the party; his double, Zarif, a\nlittle less advanced, less tractable, craftier, but at the same\ntime more fanciful, more spontaneous and capable of occasional\ndisconcerting sallies; next, Hanschen, a little Shetland pony,\nhardly bigger than a Newfoundland dog, the street-urchin of the\nband, always quivering with excitement, roguish, flighty,\nuncertain and passionate, but ready in a moment to work you out\nthe most difficult addition and multiplication sums with a\nfurious scrape of the hoof; and lastly the latest arrival, the\nplump and placid Berto, an imposing black stallion, quite blind\nand lacking the sense of smell. He has been only a few months at\nschool and is still, so to speak, in the preparatory class, but\nalready does--a little more clumsily, but more good humouredly\nand conscientiously--small addition and subtraction sums quite as\nwell as many a child of the same age.\n\nIn a corner, Kama, a young elephant two or three years old, about\nthe size of an outrageously \"blown\" donkey, rolls his mischievous\nand almost knavish eye, under the shelter of his wide ears, each\nresembling a great rhubarb-leaf, and with his stealthy,\ninsinuating trunk carefully picks up whatever he considers fit to\neat, that is to say, pretty well everything that lies about on\nthe stones. Great things were hoped of him, but hitherto he has\ndisappointed all expectations: he is the dunce of the\nestablishment. Perhaps he is too young still: his little\nelephant-soul no doubt resembles that of a sucking-babe which, in\nthe place of its feet and hands, plays with the stupendous nose\nthat must first explore and question the universe. It is\nimpossible to grip his attention; and, when they set out before\nhim his alphabet of movable letters, instead of naming those\nwhich are pointed out to him he applies himself to pulling them\noff their stems, in order to swallow them surreptitiously. He has\ndisheartened his kind master, who, pending the coming of the\nreason and wisdom promised by the proboscidian legends, leaves\nhim in a contented state of ignorance made more blissful by an\nalmost insatiable appetite.\n\n7\n\nBut I ask to see the great pioneer, Kluge Hans, Clever Hans. He\nis still alive. He is old: he must be sixteen or seventeen; but\nhis old age, alas, is not exempt from the baneful troubles from\nwhich men themselves suffer in their decline! Hans has turned out\nbadly, it appears, and is never mentioned save in ambiguous\nterms. An imprudent or vindictive groom, I forget which, having\nintroduced a mare into the yard, Hans the Pure, who till then had\nled an austere and monkish existence, vowed to celibacy, science\nand the chaste delights of figures, Hans the Irreproachable\nincontinently lost his head and cut himself open on the\nhanging-rail of his stall. They had to force back his intestines\nand sew up his belly. He is now rusticating miserably in a meadow\noutside the town. So true it is that a life cannot be judged\nexcept at its close and that we are sure of nothing until we are\ndead.\n\n8\n\nBefore the sitting begins, while the master is making his morning\ninspection, I go up to Muhamed, speak to him and pat him, looking\nstraight into his eyes meanwhile in order to catch a sign of his\ngenius. The handsome creature, well-bred and in hard condition,\nis as calm and trusting as a dog; he shows himself excessively\ngracious and friendly and tries to give me some huge licks and\nmighty kisses which I do my best to avoid because they are a\nlittle unexpected and overdemonstrative. The expression of his\nlimpid antelope-eyes is deep, serious and remote, but it differs\nin no wise from that of his brothers who, for thousands of years,\nhave seen nothing but brutality and ingratitude in man. If we\nwere able to read anything there, it would not be that\ninsufficient and vain little effort which we call thought, but\nrather an indefinable, vast anxiety, a tear-dimmed regret for the\nboundless, stream-crossed plains where his sires sported at will\nbefore they knew man's yoke. In any case, to see him thus\nfastened by a halter to the stable-door, beating off the flies\nand absently pawing the cobbles, Muhamed is nothing more than a\nwell-trained horse who seems to be waiting for his saddle or\nharness and who hide, his new secret as profoundly as all the\nothers which nature has buried in him.\n\n9\n\nBut they are summoning me to take my place in the stable where\nthe lessons are given. It is a small room, empty and bare, with\npeat-moss litter bedding and white-washed walls. The horse is\nseparated from the people present by breast-high wooden\npartitions. Opposite the four-legged scholar is a black-board,\nnailed to the wall; and on one side a corn-bin which forms a seat\nfor the spectators. Muhamed is led in. Krall, who is a little\nnervous, makes no secret of his uneasiness. His horses are fickle\nanimals, uncertain, capricious and extremely sensitive. A trifle\ndisturbs them, confuses them, puts them off. At such times,\nthreats, prayers and even the irresistible charm of carrots and\ngood rye-bread are useless. They obstinately refuse to do any\nwork and they answer at random. Everything depends on a whim, the\nstate of the weather, the morning meal or the impression which\nthe visitor makes upon them. Still, Krall seems to know, by\ncertain imperceptible signs, that this is not going to be a bad\nday. Muhamed quivered with excitement, snorts loudly through his\nnostrils, utters a series of indistinct little whinnyings:\nexcellent symptoms, it appears. I take my seat on the corn-bin.\nThe master, standing beside the black-board, chalk in hand,\nintroduces me to Muhamed in due form, as to a human being:\n\n\"Muhamed, attention! This is your uncle\"--pointing to me--\"who\nhas come all the way to honour you with a visit. Mind you don't\ndisappoint him. His name is Maeterlinck.\" Krall pronounced the\nfirst syllable German-fashion: Mah. \"You understand: Maeterlinck.\nNow show him that you know your letters and that you can spell a\nname correctly, like a clever boy. Go ahead, we're listening.\"\nMuhamed gives a short neigh and, on the small, movable board at\nhis feet, strikes first with his right hoof and then with his\nleft the number of blows which correspond with the letter M in\nthe conventional alphabet used by the horses. Then, one after the\nother, without stopping or hesitating, he marks the letters A D R\nL I N S H, representing the unexpected aspect which my humble\nname assumes in the equine mind and phonetics. His attention is\ncalled to the fact that there is a mistake. He readily agrees and\nreplaces the S H by a G and then the G by a K. They insist that\nhe must put a T instead of the D; but Muhamed, content with his\nwork, shakes his head to say no and refuses to make any further\ncorrections.\n\n10\n\nI assure you that the first shock is rather disturbing, however\nmuch one expected it. I am quite aware that, when one describes\nthese things, one is taken for a dupe too readily dazzled by the\ndoubtless childish illusion of an ingeniously contrived scene.\nBut what contrivances, what illusions have we here? Do they lie\nin the spoken word? Why, to admit that the horse understands and\ntranslates his master's words is just to accept the most\nextraordinary part of the phenomenon! Is it a case of\nsurreptitious touches or conventional signs? However\nsimple-minded one may be, one would nevertheless notice them more\neasily than a horse, even a horse of genius. Krall never lays a\nhand on the animal; he moves all round the little table, which\ncontains no appliances of any sort; for the most part, he stands\nbehind the horse which is unable to see him, or comes and sits\nbeside his guest on the innocuous corn-bin, busying himself,\nwhile lecturing his pupil, in writing up the minutes of the\nlesson. He also welcomes with the most serene readiness any\nrestrictions or tests which you propose. I assure you that the\nthing itself is much simple, and clearer than the suspicions of\nthe arm-chair critics and that the most distrustful mind world\nnot entertain the faintest idea of fraud in the frank, wholesome\natmosphere of the old stable.\n\n\"But,\" some one might have said, \"Krall, who knew that you were\ncoming to Elberfeld, had of course thoroughly rehearsed his\nlittle exercise in spelling, which apparently is only an exercise\nin memory.\"\n\nFor conscience' sake, though I did not look upon the objection as\nserious, I submitted it to Krall, who at once said: \"Try it for\nyourself. Dictate to the horse any German word of two or three\nsyllables, emphasizing it strongly. I'll go out of the stable and\nleave you alone with him.\"\n\nBehold Muhamed and me by ourselves. I confess that I am a little\nfrightened. I have many a time felt less uncomfortable in the\npresence of the great ones or the kings of the earth. Whom am I\ndealing with exactly? However, I summon my courage and speak\naloud the first word that occurs to me, the name of the hotel at\nwhich I am staying: Weidenhof. At first, Muhamed, who seems a\nlittle puzzled by his master's absence, appears not to hear me\nand does not even deign to notice that I am there. But I repeat\neagerly, in varying tones of voice, by turns insinuating,\nthreatening, beseeching and commanding:\n\n\"Weidenhof! Weidenhof! Weidenhof!\"\n\nAt last, my mysterious companion suddenly makes up his mind to\nlend me his ears and straightway blithely raps out the following\nletters, which I write down on the black-board as they come:\n\nWEIDNHOZ.\n\nIt is a magnificent specimen of equine spelling! Triumphant and\nbewildered, I call in friend Krall, who, accustomed as he is to\nthe prodigy, thinks it quite natural, but knits his brows:\n\n\"What's this, Muhamed? You've made a mistake again. It's an F you\nwant at the end of the word, not a Z. Just correct it at once,\nplease.\"\n\nAnd the docile Muhamed, recognizing his blunder, gives the three\nblows with his right hoof, followed by the four blows with his\nleft, which represent the most unexceptionable F that one could\nask for.\n\nObserve, by the way, the logic of his phonetic writing: contrary\nto his habit, he strikes the mute E after the W, because it is\nindispensable; but, finding it included in the D, he considers it\nsuperfluous and suppresses it with a high hand.\n\nYou rub your eyes, question yourself, ask yourself in the\npresence of what humanized phenomenon, of what unknown force, of\nwhat new creature you stand. Was all this what they hid in their\neyes, those silent brothers of ours? You blush at arm's long\ninjustice. You look around you for some sort of trace, obvious or\nsubtle, of the mystery. You feel yourself attacked in your\ninnermost citadel, where you held yourself most certain and most\nimpregnable. You have felt a breath from the abyss upon your\nface. You would not be more astonished if you suddenly heard the\nvoice of the dead. But the most astonishing thing is that you are\nnot astonished for long. We all, unknown to ourselves, live in\nthe expectation of the extraordinary; and, when it comes, it\nmoves us much less than did the expectation. It is as though a\nsort of higher instinct, which knows everything and is not\nignorant of the miracles that hang over our heads, were\nreassuring us in advance and helping us to make an easy entrance\ninto the regions of the supernatural. There is nothing to which\nwe grow accustomed more readily than to the marvellous; and it is\nonly afterwards, upon reflection, that our intelligence, which\nknows hardly anything, appreciates the magnitude of certain\nphenomena.\n\n11\n\nBut Muhamed gives unmistakable signs of impatience to show that\nhe has had enough of spelling. Thereupon, as a diversion and a\nreward, his kind master suggests the extraction of a few square\nand cubic roots. Muhamed appears delighted: these are his\nfavourite problems: for he takes less interest than formerly in\nthe most difficult multiplications and divisions. He doubtless\nthinks them beneath him.\n\nKrall therefore writes on the blackboard various numbers of which\nI did not take note. Moreover, as nobody now contests the fact\nthat the horse works them with ease, it would hardly be\ninteresting to reproduce here several rather grim problems of\nwhich numerous variants will be found in the accounts and reports\nof experiments signed by Drs. Mackenzie and Hartkopff, by\nOverbeck, Clarapede and many others. What strikes one\nparticularly is the facility, the quickness, I was almost saying\nthe joyous carelessness with which the strange mathematician\ngives the answers. The last figure is hardly chalked upon the\nboard before the right hoof is striking off the units, followed\nimmediately by the left hoof marking the tens. There is not a\nsign of attention or reflection; one is not even aware of the\nexact moment at which the horse looks at the problem: and the\nanswer seems to spring automatically from an invisible\nintelligence. Mistakes are rare or frequent according as it\nhappens to be a good or bad day with the horse; but, when he is\ntold of them, he nearly always corrects them. Not unseldom, the\nnumber is reversed: 47, for instance, becomes 74; but he puts it\nright without demur when asked.\n\nI am manifestly dumbfounded; but perhaps these problems are\nprepared beforehand? If they were, it would be very\nextraordinary, but yet less surprising than their actual\nsolution. Krall does not read this suspicion in my eyes, because\nthey do not show it; nevertheless, to remove the least shade of\nit, he asks me to write a number of my own on the black-board for\nthe horse to find the root.\n\nI must here confess the humiliating ignorance that is the\ndisgrace of my life. I have not the faintest idea of the\nmysteries concealed within these recondite and complicated\noperations. I did my humanities like everybody else; but, after\ncrossing the useful and familiar frontiers of multiplication and\ndivision I found it impossible to advance any farther into the\ndesolate regions, bristling with figures, where the square and\ncubic roots hold sway, together with all sorts of other monstrous\npowers, without shapes or faces, which inspired me with\ninvincible terror. All the persecutions of my excellent\ninstructors wore themselves out against a dead wall of stolidity.\nSuccessively disheartened, they left me to my dismal ignorance,\nprophesying a most dreary future for me, haunted with bitter\nregrets. I must say that, until now, I had scarcely experienced\nthe effects of these gloomy predictions; but the hour has come\nfor me to expiate the sins of my youth. Nevertheless, I put a\ngood face upon it: and, taking at random the first figures that\nsuggest themselves to my mind, I boldly write on the black-board\nan enormous and most daring number. Muhamed remains motionless.\nKrall speaks to him sharply, telling him to hurry up. Muhamed\nlifts his right hoof, but does not let it fall. Krall loses\npatience, lavishes prayers, promises and threats; the hoof\nremains poised, as though to bear witness to good intentions that\ncannot be carried out. Then my host turns round, looks at the\nproblem and asks me:\n\n\"Does it give an exact root?\"\n\nExact? What does he mean? Are there roots which. . .? But I dare\nnot go on: my shameful ignorance suddenly flashes before my eyes.\nKrall smiles indulgently and, without making any attempt to\nsupplement an education which is too much in arrears to allow of\nthe slightest hope, laboriously works out the problem and\ndeclares that the horse was right in refusing to give an\nimpossible solution.\n\n12\n\nMuhamed receives our thanks in the form of a lordly portion of\ncarrots; and a pupil is introduced whose attainments do not tower\nso high above mine: Hanschen, the little pony, quick and lively\nas a big rat. Like me, he has never gone beyond elementary\narithmetic: and so we shall understand each other better and meet\non equal terms.\n\nKrall asks me for two numbers to multiply. I give him 63 X 7. He\ndoes the sum and writes the product on the board, followed by the\nsign of division: 441 / 7. Instantly Hanschen, with a celerity\ndifficult to follow, gives three blows, or rather three violent\nscrapes with his right hoof and six with his left, which makes\n63, for we must not forget that in German they say not\nsixty-three, but three-and-sixty. We congratulate him; and, to\nevince his satisfaction, he nimbly reverses the number by marking\n36 and then puts it right again by scraping 63. He is evidently\nenjoying himself and juggling with the figures. And additions,\nsubtractions, multiplications and divisions follow one after the\nother, with figures supplied by myself, so as to remove any idea\nof collusion. Hanschen seldom blunders; and, when he does, we\nreceive a very clear impression that his mistake is voluntary: he\nis like a mischievous schoolboy playing a practical joke upon his\nmaster. The solutions fall thick as hail upon the little\nspring-board; the correct answer is released by the question as\nthough you were pressing the button of an electric push. The\npony's flippancy is as surprising as his skill. But in this\nunruly flippancy, in this hastiness which seems inattentive there\nis nevertheless a fixed and permanent idea. Hanschen paws the\nground, kicks, prances, tosses his head, looks as if he cannot\nkeep still, but never leaves his spring-board. Is he interested\nin the problems, does he enjoy them? It is impossible to say; but\nhe certainly has the appearance of one accomplishing a duty or a\npiece of work which we do not discuss, which is important,\nnecessary and inevitable.\n\nBut the lesson suddenly ends with a joke carried rather too far\nby the pupil, who catches his good master by the seat of his\ntrousers, into which he plants disrespectful teeth. He is\nseverely reprimanded, deprived of his carrots and sent back in\ndisgrace to his private apartments.\n\n13\n\nNext comes Bette, who is like a big, sleek Norman horse. He makes\nthe calm, dignified, peaceful entrance of a blind giant. His\nlarge, dark, brilliant eyes are quite dead, deprived of any\nreflex power. He feels about with his hoof for the board on which\nhe is to rap his answers. He has not yet gone beyond the\nrudiments of mathematics; and the early part of his education was\nparticularly difficult. They managed to make him understand the\nvalue and meaning of the numbers and of the addition- and\nmultiplication-signs by means of little taps on his sides. Krall\nspeaks to him as a father might speak to the youngest of his\nsons. He explains to him fondly the easy sums which I suggest his\ndoing: two plus three, eight minus four, four times three; he\nsays:\n\n\"Mind! It's not plus three or minus three this time, but four\nmultiplied by three!\"\n\nBerto hardly ever makes a mistake. When he does not understand\nthe question, he waits for it to be written with the finger on\nhis side; and the careful way in which he works it out like some\nbackward and afflicted child is an infinitely pathetic sight. He\nis much more zealous and conscientious than his fellow-pupils;\nand we feel that, in the darkness wherein he dwells, this work\nis, next to his meals, the only spark of light and interest in\nhis existence. He will certainly never rival Muhamed, for\ninstance, who is the arithmetical prodigy, the Inaudi, of horses;\nbut he is a valuable and living proof that the theory of\nunconscious and imperceptible signs, the only one which the\nGerman theorists have hitherto seriously considered, is now\nclearly untenable.\n\nI have not yet spoken of Zarif. He is not in the best of tempers;\nand besides, in arithmetic, he is only a less learned and more\ncapricious Muhamed. He answers most of the questions at random,\nstubbornly raising his foot and declining to lower it, so as\nclearly to mark his disapproval; but he solves the last problem\ncorrectly when he is promised a panful of carrots and no more\nlessons for that morning. The groom enters to lead him away and\nmakes some movement or other at which the horse starts, rears and\nshies.\n\n\"That's his bad conscience,\" says Krall, gravely.\n\nAnd the expression assumes a singular meaning and importance in\nthis hybrid atmosphere, steeped in an indefinable something from\nanother world.\n\nBut it is half-past one, the sacred German dinner-hour. The\nhorses are taken back to their racks and the men separate,\nwishing one another the inevitable Mahlzeit.\n\nAs he walks with me along the quays of the black and muddy\nWupper, Krall says:\n\n\"It is a pity that you did not see Zarif in one of his better\nmoods. He is sometimes more startling than Muhamed and has given\nme two or three surprises that seem incredible. One morning, for\ninstance, I came to the stable and was preparing to give him his\nlesson in arithmetic. He was no sooner in front of the\nspring-board than he began to stamp with his foot. I left him\nalone and was astounded to hear a whole sentence, an absolutely\nhuman sentence, come letter by letter from his hoof: 'Albert has\nbeaten Hanschen,' was what he said to me that day. Another time,\nI wrote down from his dictation, 'Hanschen has bitten Kama.' Like\na child seeing its father after an absence, he felt the need to\ninform me of the little doings of the stable; he provided me with\nthe artless chronicle of a humble and uneventful life.\"\n\nKrall, for that matter, living in the midst of his miracle, seems\nto think this quite natural and almost inevitable. I, who have\nbeen immersed in it for only a few hours, accept it almost as\ncalmly as he does. I believe without hesitation what he tells me;\nand, in the presence of this phenomenon which, for the first time\nin man's existence, gives us a sentence that has not sprung from\na human brain, I ask myself whither we are tending, where we\nstand and what lies ahead of us.. . .\n\n14\n\nAfter dinner, the experiments begin again, for my host is\nuntiring. First of all, pointing to me, he asks Muhamed if he\nremembers what his uncle's name is. The horse raps out an H.\nKrall is astonished and utters fatherly reprimands:\n\n\"Come, take care! You know it's not an H.\"\n\nThe horse raps out an E. Krall becomes a little impatient: he\nthreatens, he implores, he promises in turn, carrots and the\ndirest punishments, such as sending for Albert, the groom, who,\non special occasions, recalls idle and inattentive pupils to a\nsense of duty and decorum, for Krall himself never chastises his\nhorses, lest he should lose their friendship or their confidence.\nSo he continues his reproaches:\n\n\"Come now, are you going to be more careful and not rap out your\nletters anyhow?\"\n\nMuhamed obstinately goes his own way and strikes an R. Then\nKrall's open face lights up:\n\n\"He's right,\" he says. \"You understand: H E R, standing for Herr.\nHe wanted to give you the title to which every man wearing a top\nhat or a bowler has the right. He does it only very rarely and I\nhad forgotten all about it. He probably heard me call you Herr\nMaeterlinck and wanted to get it perfectly. This special\npoliteness and this excess of zeal augur a particularly good\nlesson. You've done very well, Mohammed, my child; you've done\nvery well and I beg your pardon. Now kiss me and go on.\"\n\nBut Mohammed, after giving his master a hearty kiss, still seems\nto be hesitating. Then Krall, to put him on the right track\nobserves that the first letter of my name is the same as the\nfirst letter of his own. Mohammed strikes a K, evidently thinking\nof his master's name. At last, Krall draws a big M on the\nblack-board, whereupon the horse, like one suddenly remembering a\nword which he could not think of, raps out, one after the other\nand without stopping, the letters M A Z R L K, which, stripped of\nuseless vowels, represent the curious corruption which my name\nhas undergone, since the morning, in a brain that is not a human\nbrain. He is told that this is not correct. He seems to agree,\ngropes about a little and writes, M A R Z L E G K. Krall repeats\nmy name and asks which is the first letter to be altered. The\nstallion marks an R.\n\n\"Good, but what letter will you put instead?\"\n\nMohammed strikes an N.\n\n\"No, do be careful!\"\n\nHe strikes a T.\n\n\"Very good, but in what place will the T come?\"\n\n\"In the third,\" replies the horse; and the corrections continue\nuntil my patronomic comes out of its strange adventure almost\nunscathed.\n\nAnd the spelling, the questioning, the sums, the problems are\nresumed and follow upon one another, as wonderful, as bewildering\nas before, but already a little dimmed by familiarity, like any\nother prolonged miracle. It is important, besides, to notice that\nthe instances which I have given are not to be classed among the\nmost remarkable feats of our magic horses. Today's is a good\nordinary lesson, a respectable lesson, not illumined by flashes\nof genius. But in the presence of other witnesses the horses\nperformed more startling exploits which broke down even more\ndecisively the barrier, which is undoubtedly an imaginary one,\nbetween animal and human nature. One day, for instance, Zarif;\nthe scamp of the party, suddenly stopped in the middle of his\nlesson. They asked him the reason.\n\n\"Because I am tired.\"\n\nAnother time, he answered:\n\n\"Pain in my leg.\"\n\nThey recognize and identify pictures shown to them, distinguish\ncolours and scents. I have made a point of stating only what I\nsaw with my own eyes and heard with my own ears; and I declare\nthat I have done so with the same scrupulous accuracy as though I\nwere reporting a criminal trial in which a man's life depended on\nmy evidence.\n\nBut I was practically convinced of the truth of the incidents\nbefore going to Elberfeld; and it was not to check them that I\nmade the journey. I was anxious to make certain if the telepathic\ntheory, which was the only one that I considered admissible,\nwould withstand the tests which I intended to apply to it. I\nopened my mind on the subject to Krall, who at first did not\nquite grasp what I was asking. Like most men who have not made a\nspecial study of the questions, he imagined that telepathy meant\nabove all a deliberate and conscious transmission of thought; and\nhe assured me that he never made any effort to transmit his and\nthat, for the most part, the horses gave a reply which was the\nexact opposite of what he was expecting. I did not doubt this for\na moment; in fact, direct and deliberate transmission of thought\nis, even among men, a very rare, difficult and uncertain,\nphenomenon, whereas involuntary, unpremeditated and unsuspected\ncommunications between one subconsciousness and another can no\nlonger be denied except by those who of set purpose ignore\nstudies and experiments that are within the reach of any one who\nwill take the trouble to engage in them. I was persuaded\ntherefore that the horses acted exactly like the \"tipping-tables\"\nwhich simply translate the subliminal ideas of one or another of\nthose present by the aid of conventional little taps. When all is\nsaid, it is much less surprising to see a horse than a table lift\nits foot and much more natural that the living substance of an\nanimal rather than the inert matter of a thing should be\nsensitive and susceptible to the mysterious influence of a\nmedium. I knew quite well that experiments had been made in order\nto eliminate this theory. People, for instance, prepared a\ncertain number of questions and put them in sealed envelopes.\nThen, on entering the presence of the horse, they would take one\nof the envelopes at random, open it and write down the problem on\nthe black-board; and Mohammed or Zarif would answer with the same\nfacility and the same readiness as though the solution had been\nknown to all the onlookers. But was it really unknown to their\nsubconsciousness? Who could say for certain? Tests of this kind\nrequire extraordinary precautions and a special dexterity; for\nthe action of the subconsciousness is so subtle, takes such\nunexpected turns, delves in the museum of so many forgotten\ntreasures and operates at such distances that one is never sure\nof escaping it. Were those precautions taken? I was not convinced\nthat they were; and, without pretending to decide the question, I\nsaid to myself that my blissful ignorance of mathematics might\nperhaps be of service in shedding light upon some part of it.\n\nFor this ignorance, however deplorable from other points of view,\ngave me a rare advantage in this case. It was in fact extremely\nunlikely that my subliminal consciousness, which had never known\nwhat a cubic root was or the root of any other power, could help\nthe horse. I therefore took from a table a list containing\nseveral problems, all different and all equally unpleasant\nlooking, covered up the solutions, asked Krall to leave the\nstable and, when alone with Zarif, copied out one of them on the\nblack-board. In order not to overload these pages with details\nwhich would only be a repetition of one another, I will at once\nsay that none of the antitelepathic tests succeeded that day. It\nwas the end of the lesson and late in the afternoon; the horses\nwere tired and irritable; and, whether Krall was there or not,\nwhether the problem was elementary or difficult, they gave only\nabsurd replies, wilfully \"putting their foot in it,\" as one might\nsay with very good reason. But, next morning, on resuming their\ntask, when I proceeded as described above, Mohammed and Zarif,\ndoubtless in a better temper and already more accustomed to their\nnew examiner, gave in rapid succession correct answers to nearly\nevery problem set them. I am bound in fairness to say that there\nwas no appreciable difference between these results and those\nwhich are obtained in the presence of Krall or other onlookers\nwho, consciously or unconsciously, are already aware of the\nanswer required.\n\nI next thought of another and much simpler test, but one which,\nby virtue of its very simplicity, could not be exposed to any\nelaborate and farfetched suspicions. I saw on one of the shelves\nin the stable a panel of cards, about the size of an octavo\nvolume, each bearing an arabic numeral on one of its sides. I\nonce more asked my good friend Krall, whose courtesy is\ninexhaustible, to leave me alone with his pupil. I then shuffled\nthe cards and put three of them in a row on the spring-board in\nfront of the horse, without looking at them myself. There was\ntherefore, at that moment, not a human soul on earth who knew the\nfigures spread at the feet of my companion, this creature so full\nof mystery that already I no longer dare call him an animal.\nWithout hesitation and unasked, he rapped out correctly the\nnumber formed by the cards. The experiment succeeded, as often as\nI cared to try it, with Hanschen, Mohammed and Zarif alike.\nMohammed did even more: as each figure was of a different colour,\nI asked him to tell me the colour--of which I myself was\nabsolutely ignorant--of the first letter on the right. With the\naid of the conventional alphabet, he replied that it was blue,\nwhich proved to be the case. Of course, I ought to have\nmultiplied these experiments and made them more exhaustive and\ncomplicated by combining, with the aid of the cards and under the\nsame conditions, exercises in multiplication, division and the\nextracting of roots. I had not the time; but, a few days after I\nleft, the subject was resumed and completed by Dr. H. Hamel. I\nwill sum up his report of the experiments: the doctor, alone in\nthe stable with the home (Krall was away, travelling), puts down\non the black-board the sign + and then places before and after\nthis sign, without looking at either of them, a card marked with\na figure which he does not know. He next asks Mohammed to add up\nthe two numbers. Mohammed at first gives a few heedless taps with\nhis hoof. He is called to order and requested to be serious and\nto attend. He then gives fifteen distinct taps. The doctor next\nreplaces the sign + by X and, again without looking at them,\nplaces two cards on the blackboard and asks the horse not to add\nup the two figures this time, but to multiply them. Mohammed taps\nout, \"27,\" which is right, for the black-board says, \"9 X 3.\" The\nsame success follows with other multiplication sums: 9 X 2, 8 X\n6. Then the doctor takes from an envelope a problem of which he\ndoes not know the solution: fourth root of 7890481. Mohammed\nreplies, \"53.\" The doctor looks at the back of the paper: once\nmore, the answer is perfectly correct.\n\n16\n\nDoes this mean that every risk of telepathy is done away with? It\nwould perhaps be rash to make a categorical assertion. The power\nand extent of telepathy are as yet, we cannot too often repeat,\nindefinite, indiscernible, untraceable and unlimited. We have but\nquite lately discovered it, we know only that its existence can\nno longer be denied; but, as for all the rest, we are at much the\nsame stage as that whereat Galvani was when he gave life to the\nmuscles of his dead frogs with two little plates of metal which\nroused the jeers of the scientists of his time, but contained the\ngerm of all the wonders, of electricity.\n\nNevertheless, as regards telepathy in the sense in which we\nunderstand and know it to-day, my mind is made up. I am persuaded\nthat it is not in this direction that we must seek for an\nexplanation of the phenomenon; or, if we are determined to find\nit there, the explanation becomes complicated with so many\nsubsidiary mysteries that it is better to accept the prodigy as\nit stands, in its original obscurity and simplicity. When, for\ninstance, I was copying out one of the grisly problems which I\nhave mentioned, it is quite certain that my conscious\nintelligence could make neither head nor tail of it. I did not so\nmuch as know what it meant or whether the exponent 3. 4. 5 called\nfor a multiplication, a division or some other mathematical\noperation which I did not even try to imagine; and, rack MY\nmemory as I may, I cannot remember any moment in my life when I\nknew more about it than I do now. We should therefore have to\nadmit that MY subliminal self is a born mathematician, quick,\ninfallible and endowed with boundless learning. It is possible\nand I feel a certain pride at the thought. But the theory simply\nshifts the miracle by making it pass from the horse's soul to\nmine; and the miracle becomes no clearer by the transfer, which,\nfor that matter, does not sound probable. I need hardly add that,\na fortiori, Dr. Hamel's experiments and many others which I have\nnot here the space to describe finally dispose of the theory.\n\n17\n\nLet us see how those who have interested themselves in these\nextraordinary manifestations have attempted to explain them.\n\nAs we go along, we will just shear through the feeble undergrowth\nof childish theories. I shall not, therefore, linger over the\nsuggestions of cheating, of manifest signs addressed to the eye\nor ear, of electrical installations that are supposed to control\nthe answers, nor other idle tales of an excessively clumsy\ncharacter. To realize their inexcusable inanity we have but to\nspend a few minutes in the honest Elberfeld stable.\n\nAt the beginning of this essay, I mentioned the attack made by\nHerr Pfungst. Herr Pfungst, the reader will remember, claims to\nprove that all the horse's replies are determined by\nimperceptible and probably unconscious movement on the part of\nthe person putting the questions. This interpretation, which\nfalls to the ground, like all the others, in the face of the\nactual facts, would not deserve serious discussion, were it not\nthat the Berlin psychologist's report created an immense\nsensation some years ago and has succeeded in intimidating the\ngreater part of the official German scientific world to this day.\nIt is true that the report in question is a monument of useless\npedantry, but we are none the less bound to admit that, such as\nit was, it annihilated poor Von Oaten, who, being no\ncontroversialist and not knowing how to proclaim the truth which\nwas struggling for utterance, died in gloom and solitude.\n\nTo make an end of this cumbrous and puerile theory, is it\nnecessary to emphasize again that experiments in which the animal\ndoes not see the questioner are as regularly successful as the\nothers? Krall, if you ask him, will stand behind the horse, will\nspeak from the end of the room, will leave the stable altogether;\nand the results are just the same. They are the same again when\nthe tests are made in the dark or when the animal's head is\ncovered with a close-fitting hood. They do not vary either in the\ncase of Berto, who is stone-blind, or when any other person\nwhatever sets the problem in Krall's absence. Will it be\nmaintained that this outsider or that stranger is acquainted\nbeforehand with the imperceptible signs that are to dictate the\nsolution which he himself often does not know?\n\nBut what is the use of prolonging this fight against a cloud of\nsmoke? None of it can bear examination; and it calls for a\ngenuine effort of the will to set one's self seriously to refute\nsuch pitiful objections.\n\n18\n\nOn the ground thus cleared and at the portal of this unlooked-for\nriddle, which comes to disturb our peace in a region which we\nthought to be finally explored and conquered, there are only two\nways, if not of explaining, at least of contemplating the\nphenomenon: to admit purely and simply the almost human\nintelligence of the horse, or to have recourse to an as yet very\nvague and indefinite theory which, for lack of a better\ndesignation, we will call the mediumistic or subliminal theory\nand of which we will strive presently--and no doubt vainly--to\ndispel the grosser darkness. But, whatever interpretation we\nadopt, we are bound to recognize that it plunges us into a\nmystery which is equally profound and equally astonishing on\neither side, one directly related to the greatest mysteries that\noverwhelm us; and it is open to us to accept it with resignation\nor rejoicing, according as we prefer to live in a world wherein\neverything is within the reach of our intelligence or a world\nwherein everything is incomprehensible.\n\nAs for Krall, he does not doubt for an instant that his horses\nsolve for themselves, without any assistance, without any outside\ninfluence, simply by their own mental powers, the most arduous\nproblems set them. He is persuaded that they understand what is\nsaid to them and what they say, in short, that their brain and\ntheir will perform exactly the same functions as a human brain\nand will. It is certain that the facts seem to prove him right\nand that his opinion carries way great weight, for, after all, he\nknows his horses better than any one does; he has beheld the\nbirth or rather the awakening of that dormant intelligence, even\nas a mother beholds the birth or the awakening of intelligence in\nher child; he has perceived its first gropings, known its first\nresistance and its first triumphs; he has watched it taking\nshape, breaking away and gradually rising to the point at which\nit stands to-day; in a word, he is the father and the principal\nand sole perpetual witness of the miracle.\n\n19\n\nYes, but the miracle comes as such a surprise that, the moment we\nset foot in it, a sort of instinctive aberration seizes us,\nrefusing to accept the evidence and compelling us to search in\nevery direction to see if there is not another outlet. Even in\nthe presence of those astounding horses and while they are\nworking before our eyes, we do not yet sincerely believe that\nwhich fills and subdues our gaze. We accept the facts, because\nthere is no means of escaping them; but we accept them only\nprovisionally and with all reserve, putting off till later the\ncomfortable explanation which will give us back our familiar,\nshallow certainties. But the explanation does not come; there is\nnone in the homely and not very lofty regions wherein we hoped to\nfind one; there is neither fault nor flaw in the mighty evidence;\nand nothing delivers us from the mystery.\n\nIt must be confessed that this mystery, springing from a point\nwhere we least expected to come upon the unknown, bears enough\nwithin itself to scatter all our convictions. Remember that,\nsince man appeared upon this earth, he has lived among creatures\nwhich, from immemorial experience, he thought that he knew as\nperfectly as he knows an object fashioned by his hands. Out of\nthese creatures he chose the most docile and, as he called them,\nthe most intelligent, attaching in this case to the word\nintelligence a sense so narrow as to be almost ridiculous. He\nobserved them, scrutinized them, tried them, analyzed them and\ndissected them in every imaginable way; and whole lives were\ndevoted to nothing but the study of their habits, their\nfaculties, their nervous system, their pathology, their\npsychology, their instincts. All this led to certainties which,\namong those supported by our unexplained little existence on an\ninexplicable planet, would seem to be the least doubtful, the\nleast subject to revision. There is no disputing, for instance,\nthat the horse is gifted with an extraordinary memory, that he\npossesses the sense of direction, that he understands a few signs\nand even a few words and that he obeys them. It is equally\nundeniable that the anthropoid apes are capable of imitating a\ngreat number of our actions and of our attitudes: but it is also\nmanifest that their bewildered and feverish imagination perceives\nneither their object nor their scope. As for the dog, the one of\nall these privileged animals who lives closest to us, who for\nthousands and thousands of years has eaten at our table and\nworked with us and been our friend, it is manifest that, now and\nthen, we catch a rather uncanny gleam in his deep, watchful eyes.\nIt is certain that he sometimes wanders in a curious fashion\nalong the mysterious border that separates our own intelligence\nfrom that which we grant to the other creatures inhabiting this\nearth with us. But it is no less certain that he has never\ndefinitely passed it. We know exactly how far he can go; and we\nhave invariably found that our efforts, our patience, our\nencouragement, our passionate appeals, have hitherto failed to\ndraw him out of the somewhat narrow, darkly enchanted circle\nwherein nature seems to have imprisoned him once and for all.\n\n20\n\nThere remains, it is true, the insect-world, in which marvellous\nthings happen. It includes architects, geometricians,\nmechanicians, engineers, weavers, physicists, chemists and\nsurgeons who have forestalled most of our human inventions. I\nneed not here remind the reader of the wasps' and bees' genius\nfor building, the social and economic organization of the hive\nand the ant-hill, the spider's snares, the eumenes' nest and\nhanging egg, the odynerus' cell with its neat stacks of game, the\nsacred beetle's filthy but ingenius ball, the leafcutter's\nfaultless disks, the brick-laying of the mason-bee, the three\ndagger-thrusts which the aphex administers to the three\nnerve-centres of the cricket, the lancet of the cerceris, who\nparalyses her victims without killing them and preserves them for\nan indefinite period as fresh meat, nor a thousand other features\nwhich it would be impossible to enumerate without recapitulating\nthe whole of Henri Fabre's work and completely altering the\nproportions of the present essay. But here such silence and such\ndarkness reign that we have nothing to hope for. There exists, so\nto speak, no bench-mark, no means of communication between the\nworld of insects and our own; and we are perhaps less far from\ngrasping and fathoming what takes place in Saturn or Jupiter than\nwhat is enacted in the ant-hill or the hive. We know absolutely\nnothing of the quality, the number, the extent or even the nature\nof their senses. Many of the great laws on which our life is\nbased do not exist for them: those, for instance, which govern\nfluids are completely reversed. They seem to inhabit our planet,\nbut in reality move in an entirely different world. Understanding\nnothing of their intelligence pierced with disconcerting gaps, in\nwhich the blindest stupidity suddenly comes and destroys the\nablest and most inspired schemes, we have given the name of\ninstinct to that which we could not apprehend, postponing our\ninterpretation of a word that touches upon life's most insoluble\nriddles. There is, therefore, from the point of view of the\nintellectual faculties, nothing to be gathered from those\nextraordinary creatures who are not, like the other animals, our\n\"lesser brothers,\" but strangers, aliens from we know not where,\nsurvivors or percursors of another world.\n\n21\n\nWe were at this stage, slumbering peacefully in our\nlong-established convictions, when a man entered upon the scene\nand suddenly showed us that we were wrong and that, for long\ncenturies, we had over looked a truth which was scarcely even\ncovered with a very thin veil. And the strangest thing is that\nthis astonishing discovery, is in no wise the natural consequence\nof a new invention, of processes or methods hitherto unknown. It\nowes nothing to the latest acquirements of our knowledge. It\nsprings from the humblest idea which the most primitive man might\nhave conceived in the first days of the earth's existence. It is\nsimply a matter of having a little more patience, confidence and\nrespect for all that which shares our lot in a world whereof we\nknow none of the purposes. It is simply a matter of having a\nlittle less pride and of looking a little more fraternally upon\nexistences that are much more fraternal than we believed. There\nis no secret about the almost puerile ingenuousness of Von\nOsten's methods and Krall's. They start with the principle that\nthe horse is an ignorant but intelligent child; and they treat\nhim as such. They speak, explain, demonstrate, argue and mete out\nrewards or punishments like a schoolmaster addressing little boys\nof five or six. They begin by placing a few skittle-pins in front\nof their strange pupil. They count them and make him count them\nby alternately lifting and lowering the horse's hoof. He thus\nobtains his first notion of numbers. They next add one or two\nmore skittles and say, for instance:\n\n\"Three skittles and two skittles are five skittles.\"\n\nIn this way, they explain and teach addition; next, by the\nreverse process, subtraction, which is followed by\nmultiplication, division and all the rest.\n\nAt the beginning, the lessons are extremely laborious and demand\nan untiring and loving patience, which is the whole secret of the\nmiracle. But; as soon as the first barrier of darkness is passed,\nthe progress becomes bewilderingly rapid.\n\nAll this is incontestable; and the facts are there, before which\nwe must need bow. But what upsets all our convictions or, more\ncorrectly, all the prejudices which thousands of years have made\nas invincible as axioms, what we do not succeed in understanding\nis that the horse at once understands what we want of him; it is\nthat first step, the first tremor of an unexpected intelligence,\nwhich suddenly reveals itself as human. At what precise second\ndid the light appear and was the veil rent under? It is\nimpossible to say; but it is certain that, at a given moment,\nwithout any visible sign to reveal the prodigious inner\ntransformation, the horse acts and replies as though he suddenly\nunderstood the speech of man. What is it that sets the miracle\nworking? We know that, after a time, the horse associates certain\nwords with certain objects that interest him or with three or\nfour events whose infinite repetition forms the humble tissue of\nhis daily life. This is only a sort of mechanical memory which\nhas nothing in common with the most elementary intelligence. But\nbehold, one fine day, without any perceptible transition, he\nseems to know the meaning of a host of words which possess no\ninterest for him; which represent to him no picture, no memory;\nwhich he has never had occasion to connect with any sensation,\nagreeable or disagreeable. He handles figures, which even to man\nare nothing but obscure and abstract ideas. He solves problems\nthat cannot possibly be made objective or concrete. He reproduces\nletters which, from his point of view, correspond with nothing\nactual. He fixes his attention and makes observations on things\nor circumstances which in no way affect him, which remain and\nalways will remain alien and indifferent to him. In a word, he\nsteps out of the narrow ring in which he was made to turn by\nhunger and fear--which have been described as the two great\nmoving powers of all that is not human--to enter the immense\ncircle in which sensations go on being shed till ideas come into\nview.\n\n22\n\nIs it possible to believe that the horses really do what they\nappear to do? Is there no precedent for the marvel? Is there no\ntransition between the Elberfeld stallions and the horses which\nwe have known until this day? It is not easy to answer these\nquestions, for it is only since yesterday that the intellectual\npowers of our defenseless brothers have been subjected to\nstrictly scientific experiments. We have, it is true more than\none collection of anecdotes in which the intelligence of animals\nis lauded to the skies; but we cannot rely upon these\nill-authenticated stories. To find genuine and incontestable\ninstances we must have recourse to the works, rare as yet, of\nscientific men who have made a special study of the subject. M.\nHachet-Souplet, for example, the director of the Institut de\nPsychologie Zoologique, mentions the case of a dog who learnt to\nacquire an abstract idea of weight. You put in front of him eight\nrounded and polished stones, all of exactly the same size and\nshape, but of different weights. You tell him to fetch the\nheaviest or the lightest; he judges their weight by lifting them\nand, without mistake, picks out the one required.\n\nThe same writer also tells the story of a parrot to whom he had\ntaught the word \"cupboard\" by showing him a little box that could\nbe hung up on the wall at different heights and in which his\ndaily allowance of food was always ostentatiously put away;\n\n\"I next taught him the names of a number of objects,\" says M.\nHachet-Souplet, \"by holding them out to him. Among them was a\nladder; and I prevailed upon the bird to say, 'Climb,' each time\nthat he saw me mount the steps. One morning, when the parrot's\ncage was brought into the laboratory, the cupboard was hanging\nnear the ceiling, while the little ladder was stowed away in a\ncorner among other objects familiar to the bird. Now the parrot,\nevery day, when I opened the cupboard, used to scream, 'Cupboard!\nCupboard! Cupboard!' with all his might. My problem was,\ntherefore, this: seeing that the cupboard was out of my reach and\nthat, therefore, I could not take his food out of it; knowing, on\nthe other hand, that I was able to raise myself above the level\nof the floor by climbing the ladder; and having the words 'climb'\nand 'ladder' at his disposal: would he employ them to suggest to\nme the idea of using them in order to reach the cupboard? Greatly\nexcited, the parrot flapped his wings, bit the bars of his cage,\nand screamed:\n\n\"'Cupboard! Cupboard! Cupboard!'\"\n\n\"And I got no more out of him that day. The next day, the bird,\nhaving received nothing but millet, for which he did not much\ncare, instead of the hemp-seed contained in the cupboard, was in\nparoxysms of anger; and, after he had made numberless attempts to\nforce open his bars, his attention was at last caught by the\nladder and he said:\n\n\"'Ladder, climb, cupboard!'\"\n\nWe have here, as the author remarks, a marvellous intellectual\neffort. There is an evident association of ideas; cause is linked\nwith effect; and examples such as this lesson appreciably the\ndistance separating our learned horses from their less celebrated\nbrethren. We must admit, however, that this intellectual effort,\nif we observe, animals a little carefully, is much less uncommon\nthan we think. It surprises us in this case because a special\nand, when all is said, purely mechanical arrangement of the\nparrot's organ gives him a human voice. At every moment, I find\nin my own dog associations of ideas no less evident and often\nmore complex. For instance, if he is thirsty, he seeks my eyes\nand next looks at the tap in the dressing-room, thus showing that\nhe very plainly connects the notions of thirst, running water and\nhuman intervention. When I dress to go out, he evidently watches\nall my movements. While I am lacing my boots, he conscientiously\nlicks my hands, in order that my divinity may be good to him and\nespecially to congratulate me on my capital idea of going out for\na constitutional. It is a sort of general and as yet vague\napproval. Boots promise an excursion out of doors, that is to\nsay, space, fragrant roads, long grass full of surprises, corners\nscented with offal, friendly or tragic encounters and the pursuit\nof wholly illusory, game. But the fair vision is still in anxious\nsuspense. He does not yet know if he is going with me. His fate\nis now being decided; and his eyes, melting with anguish, devour\nmy mind. If I buckle on my leather gaiters, it means the sudden\nand utter extinction, of all that constitutes the joy of life.\nThey leave not a ray of hope. They herald the hateful, lonely\nmotorcycle, which he cannot keep up with; and he stretches\nhimself sadly in a dark corner, where he goes back to the gloomy\ndreams of an unoccupied, forsaken dog. But, when I slip my arms\ninto the sleeves of my heavy great-coat, one would think that\nthey were opening the gates of the most dazzling paradise. For\nthis implies the car, the obvious, indubitable motor-car, in\nother words, the radiant summit of the most superlative delight.\nAnd delirious barks, inordinate bounds, riotous, embarrassing\ndemonstrations of affection greet a happiness which, for all\nthat, is but an immaterial idea, built up of artless memories and\ningenuous hopes.\n\n23\n\nI mention these matters only because they are quite ordinary and\nbecause there is nobody who has not made a thousand similar\nobservations. As a rule, we do not notice that these humble\nmanifestations represent sentiments, associations of ideas,\ninferences, deductions, an absolute and altogether human mental\neffort. They lack only speech; but speech is merely a mechanical\naccident which reveals the operations of thought more clearly to\nus. We are amazed that Mohammed or Zarif should recognize the\npicture of a horse, a donkey, a hat, or a man on horseback, or\nthat they should spontaneously report to their master the little\nevents that happen in the stable; but it is certain that our own\ndog is incessantly performing a similar work and that his eyes,\nif we could read them, would tell us a great deal more. The\nprimary miracle of Elberfeld is that the stallions should have\nbeen given the means of expressing what they think and feel. It\nis momentous; but, when closely looked into, it is not\nincomprehensible. Between the talking horses and my silent dog\nthere is an enormous distance, but not an abyss. I am saying this\nnot to detract from the nature or extent of the prodigy, but to\ncall attention to the fact that the theory of animal intelligence\nis more justifiable and less fanciful than one is at first\ninclined to think.\n\n24\n\nBut the second and greater miracle is that man should have been\nable to rouse the horse from his immemorial sleep, to fix and\ndirect his attention and to interest him in matters that are more\nforeign and indifferent to him than the variations of temperature\nin Sirius or Aldebaran are to us. It really seems, when we\nconsider our preconceived ideas, that there is not in the animal\nan organic and insurmountable inability to do what man's brain\ndoes, a total and irremediable absence of intellectual faculties,\nbut rather a profound lethargy and torpor of those faculties. It\nlives in a sort of undisturbed stolidity, of nebulous slumber. As\nDr. Ochorowicz very justly remarks, \"its waking state is very\nnear akin to the state of a man walking in his sleep.\" Having no\nnotion of space or time, it spends its life, one may say, in a\nperpetual dream. It does what is strictly necessary to keep\nitself alive; and all the rest passes over it and does not\npenetrate at all into its hermetically closed imaginings.\nExceptional circumstances--some extraordinary need, wish, passion\nor shock--are required to produce what M. Hachet-Souplet calls\n\"the psychic flash\" which suddenly thaws and galvanizes its\nbrain, placing it for a minute in the waking state in which the\nhuman brain works normally. Nor is this surprising. It does not\nneed that awakening in order to exist; and we know that nature\nnever makes great superfluous efforts.. \"The intellect,\" as\nProfessor Clarapede well says, \"appears only as a makeshift, an\ninstrument which betrays that the organism is not adapted to its\nenvironment, a mode of expression which reveals a state of\nimpotence.\"\n\nIt is probable that our brain at first suffered from the same\nlethargy, a condition, for that matter, from which many men have\nnot yet emerged; and it is even more probable that, compared with\nother modes of existence, with other psychic phenomena, on\nanother plane and in another sphere, the dense sleep in which we\nmove is similar to that in which the lower animals have their\nbeing. It also is traversed, with increasing frequency, by\npsychic flashes of a different order and a different scope.\nSeeing, on the one side, the intellectual movement that seems to\nbe spreading among our lesser brothers and, on the other, the\never more constantly repeated manifestations of our\nsubconsciousness, we might even ask ourselves if we have not\nhere, on two different planes, a tension, a parallel pressure, a\nnew desire, a new attempt of the mysterious spiritual force which\nanimates the universe and which seems to be incessantly seeking\nfresh outlets and fresh conducting rods. Be this as it may, when\nthe flash has passed, we behave very much as the animals do: we\npromptly lapse into the indifferent sleep which suffices also for\nour miserable ways. We ask no more of it, we do not follow the\nluminous trail that summons us to an unknown world, we go on\nturning in our dismal circle, like contented sleep-walkers, while\nIsis' sistrum rattles without respite to rouse the faithful.\n\n25\n\nI repeat, the great miracle of Elberfeld is that of having been\nable to prolong and reproduce at will those isolated \"psychic\nflashes.\" The horses, in comparison with the other animals, are\nhere in the state of a man whose subliminal consciousness had\ngained the upper hand. That man would lead a higher existence, in\nan almost immaterial atmosphere, of which the phenomena of\nmetaphysics, sparks falling from a region which we shall perhaps\none day reach, sometimes give us an uncertain and fleeting\nglimpse. Our intelligence, which is really lethargy and which\nkeeps us imprisoned in a little hollow of space and time, would\nthere be replaced by intuition, or rather by a sort of imminent\nknowledge which would forthwith make us sharers in all that is\nknown to a universe which perhaps knows all things.\nUnfortunately, we have not, or at least, unlike the horses, we\nare not acquainted with a superior being who interests himself in\nus and helps us to throw off our torpor. We have to become our\nown god, to rise above ourselves and to keep ourselves raised by\nour unaided strength. It is almost certain that the horse would\nnever have come out of his nebulous sphere without man's\nassistance; but it is not forbidden to hope that man, with no\nother help than his own courage and high purpose, may yet succeed\nin breaking through the sleep that cramps him and blinds him.\n\n26\n\nTo come back then to our horses and to the main point, which is\nthe isolated \"psychic flash,\" it is admitted that they know the\nvalues of figures, that they can distinguish and identify smells,\ncolours, forms, objects and even graphic reproductions of those\nobjects. They also understand a large number of words, including\nsome of which they were, never taught the meaning, but which they\npicked up as they went along by hearing them spoken around them.\nThey have learnt, with the assistance of an exceedingly\ncomplicated alphabet, to reproduce the words, thanks to which\nthey manage to convey impressions, sensations, wishes,\nassociations of ideas, observations and even spontaneous\nreflections. It has been held that all this implies real acts of\nintelligence. It is, in fact, often very difficult to decide\nexactly how far it is intelligence and how far memory, instinct,\nimitative genius, obedience or mechanical impulse, the effects of\ntraining, or happy coincidences.\n\nThere are cases, however, which admit of little or no hesitation.\nI give a few.\n\nOne day Krall and his collaborator, Dr. Scholler, thought that\nthey would try and teach Mohammed to express himself in speech.\nThe horse, a docile and eager pupil, made touching and fruitless\nefforts to reproduce human sounds. Suddenly, he stopped and, in\nhis strange phonetic spelling, declared, by striking his foot on\nthe spring-board:\n\n\"Ig hb kein gud Sdim. I have not a good voice.\"\n\nObserving that he did not open his mouth, they strove to make him\nunderstand, by the example of a dog, with pictures, and so on,\nthat, in order to speak, it is necessary to separate the jaws.\nThey next asked him:\n\n\"What must you do to speak?\"\n\nHe replied, by striking with his foot:\n\n\"Open mouth.\"\n\n\"Why don't you open yours?\"\n\n\"Weil kan nigd: because I can't.\"\n\nA few days after, Zarif was asked how he talks to Mohammed.\n\n\"Mit Munt: with mouth.\"\n\n\"Why don't you tell me that with your mouth?\"\n\n\"Weil ig kein Stim hbe: because I have no voice.\" Does not this\nanswer, as Krall remarks, allow us to suppose that he has other\nmeans than speech of conversing with his stable-companion?\n\nIn the course of another lesson, Mohammed was shown the portrait\nof a young girl whom he did not know.\n\n\"What's that?\" asked his master.\n\n\"Metgen: a girl?\"\n\nOn the black-board:\n\n\"Why is it a girl?\"\n\n\"Weil lang Hr hd: because she has long hair.\"\n\n\"And what has she not?\"\n\n\"Moustache.\"\n\nThey next produced the likeness of man with no moustache.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"Why is it a man?\"\n\n\"Weil kurz Hr hd: because he has short hair.\"\n\nI could multiply these examples indefinitely by drawing on the\nvoluminous Elberfeld minutes, which, I may say in passing, have\nthe convincing force of photographic records. All this, it must\nbe agreed, is unexpected and disconcerting, had never been\nforeseen or suspected and may be regarded as one of the strangest\nprodigies, one of the most stupefying revelations that have taken\nplace since man has dwelt in this world of riddles, Nevertheless,\nby reflecting, by comparing, by investigating, by regarding\ncertain forgotten or neglected landmarks and starting-points, by\ntaking into consideration the thousand imperceptible gradations\nbetween the greatest and the least, the highest and the lowest,\nit is still possible to explain, admit and understand. We can, if\nit comes to that, imagine that, in his secret self, in his tragic\nsilence, our dog also makes similar remarks and reflections. Once\nagain, the miraculous bridge which, in this instance, spans the\ngulf between the animal and man is much more the expression of\nthought than thought itself. We may go further and grant that\ncertain elementary calculations, such as little additions, little\nsubtractions of one or two figures, are, after all, conceivable;\nand I, for my part, am inclined to believe that the horse really\nexecutes them. But where we get out of our depth, where we enter\ninto the realm of pure enchantment is when it becomes a matter of\nmathematical operations on a large scale, notably of the finding\nof roots. We know, for instance, that the extraction of the\nfourth root of a number of six figures calls for eighteen\nmultiplications, ten subtractions and three divisions and that\nthe horse does thirty-one sums in five or six seconds, that is to\nsay, during the brief, careless glance which he gives at the\nblack-board on which the problem is inscribed, as though the\nanswer came to him intuitively and instantaneously.\n\nStill, if we admit the theory of intelligence, we must also admit\nthat the horse knows what he is doing, since it is not until\nafter learning what a squared number or a square root means that\nhe appears to understand or that, at any rate, he gradually works\nout correctly the ever more complicated calculations required of\nhim. It is not possible to give here the details of this\ninstruction, which was astonishingly rapid. The reader will find\nthem on pages 117 et seq. of Krall's book, Denkende Tiere. Krall\nbegins by explaining to Mohammed that 2 squared is equal to 2 X 2\n= 4; that 2 cubed is equal to 2 X 2 X 2 = 6; that 2 is the square\nroot of 4; and so on. In short, the explanations and\ndemonstrations are absolutely similar to those which one would\ngive to an extremely intelligent child, with this difference,\nthat the horse is much more attentive than the child and that,\nthanks to his extraordinary memory, he never forgets what he\nappears to have understood. Let us add, to complete the magical\nand incredible character of the phenomenon that, according to\nKrall's own statement, the horse was not taught beyond the point\nof extracting the square root of the number 144 and that he\nspontaneously invented the manner of extracting all the others.\n\n27\n\nMust we once more repeat, in connection with these startling\nperformances, that those who speak of audible or visible signals,\nof telegraphy and wireless telegraphy, of expedients, trickery or\ndeceit, are speaking of what they do not know and of what they\nhave not seen? There is but one reply to be made to any one who\nhonestly refuses to believe:\n\n\"Go to Elberfeld---the problem is sufficiently important,\nsufficiently big with consequences to make the journey worth\nwhile--and, behind closed doors, alone with the horse, in the\nabsolute solitude and silence of the stable, set Mohammed to\nextract half-a dozen roots which, like that which I have\nmentioned, require thirty-one operations. You must yourself be\nignorant of the solutions, so as to do away with any transmission\nof unconscious thought. If he then gives you, one after the\nother, five or six correct solutions, as he did to me and many\nothers, you will not go away with the conviction that the animal\nis able by its intelligence to extract those roots, because that\nconviction would upset too thoroughly the greater part of the\ncertainties on which your life is based; but you will, at any\nrate, be persuaded that you have been for a few minutes in the\npresence of one of the greatest and strangest riddles that can\ndisturb the mind of man; and it is always a good and salutary\nthing to come into contact with emotions of this order.\"\n\n28\n\nTruth to say, the theory of intelligence in the animal would be\nso extraordinary as to be almost untenable. If we are determined,\nat whatever cost, to pin our faith to it, we are bound to call in\nthe aid of other ideas, to appeal, for instance, to the extremely\nmysterious and essentially uncomprehended and incomprehensible\nnature of numbers. It is almost certain that the science of\nmathematics lies outside the intelligence. It forms a mechanical\nand abstract whole, more spiritual than material and more\nmaterial than spiritual, visible only through its shadow and yet\nconstituting the most immovable of the realities that govern the\nuniverse. From first to last it declares itself a very strange\nforce and, as it were, the sovereign of another element than that\nwhich nourishes our brain. Secret, indifferent, imperious and\nimplacable, it subjugates and oppresses us from a great height or\na great depth, in any case, from very far, without telling us\nwhy. One might say that figures place those who handle them in a\nspecial condition. They draw the cabalistic circle around their\nvictim. Henceforth, he is no longer his own master, he renounces\nhis liberty, he is literally \"possessed\" by the powers which he\ninvokes. He is dragged he knows not whither, into a formless,\nboundless immensity, subject to laws that have nothing human\nabout them, in which each of those lively and tyrannical little\nsigns which move and dance in their thousands under the pen\nrepresents nameless, but eternal, invincible and inevitable\nverities. We think that we are directing them and they enslave\nus. We become weary and breathless following them into their\nuninhabitable spaces. When we touch them, we let loose a force\nwhich we are no longer able to control. They do with us what they\nwill and always end by hurling us, blinded and benumbed, into\nblank infinity or upon a wall of ice against which every effort\nof our mind and will is shattered.\n\nIt is possible, therefore, in the last resort, to explain the\nElberfeld mystery by the no less obscure mystery that surrounds\nnumbers. This really only means moving to another spot in the\ngloom; but it is often just by that moving to another spot that\nwe end by discovering the little gleam of light which shows us a\nthoroughfare. In any case, and to return to more precise ideas,\nmore than one instance has been cited to prove that the gift of\nhandling great groups of figures is almost independent of the\nintelligence proper. One of the most curious is that of an\nItalian shepherd boy, Vito Mangiamele, who was brought before the\nParis Academy of Science in 1837 and who, at the age of ten,\nthough devoid of the most rudimentary education, was able in half\na minute to extract the cubic root of a number of seven figures.\nAnother, more striking still, also mentioned by Dr. Clarapede in\nhis paper on the learned horses, is that of a man blind from\nbirth, an inmate of the lunatic-asylum, at Armentieres. This\nblind man, whose name is Fleury, a degenerate and nearly an\nidiot, can calculate in one minute and fifteen seconds the number\nof seconds in thirty-nine years, three months and twelve days,\nnot forgetting the leap-years. They explain to him what a square\nroot is, without telling him the conventional method of finding\nit; and soon he extracts almost as rapidly as Inaudi himself,\nwithout a blunder, the square roots of numbers of four figures,\ngiving the remainder. On the other hand, we know that a\nmathematical genius like Henri Pomcare confessed himself\nincapable of adding up a column of figures without a mistake.\n\n29\n\n>From the maybe enchanted atmosphere that surrounds numbers we\nshall pass more easily to the even more magic mists of the final\ntheory, the only one remaining to us for the moment: the\nmediumistic or subliminal theory. This, we must remember, is not\nthe telepathic theory proper which decisive experiments have made\nus reject. Let us have the courage to venture upon it. When one\ncan no longer interpret a phenomenon by the known, we must needs\ntry to do so by the unknown. We, therefore, now enter a new\nprovince of a great unexplored kingdom, in which we shall find\nourselves without a guide.\n\nMediumistic phenomena, manifestations of the secondary or the\nsubliminal consciousness, between man and man, are, as we have\nmore than once had occasion to assure ourselves, capricious,\nundisciplined, evasive and uncertain, but more frequent than one\nthought and, to one who examines, them seriously and honestly,\noften undeniable. Have similar manifestations been discovered\nbetween man and the animals? The study of these manifestations,\nwhich is very difficult even in the case of man, becomes still\nmore so when we question witnesses doomed to silence. There are,\nhowever, some animals which are looked upon as \"psychic,\" which,\nin other words, seem indisputably to be sensitive to certain\nsubliminal influences. One usually classes the cat, the dog and\nthe horse in this somewhat ill-defined category. To these\nsuperstitious animals one might perhaps add certain birds, more\nor less birds of omen, and even a few insects, notably the bees.\nOther animals, such as, for instance, the elephant and the\nmonkey, appear to be proof against mystery. Be this as it may, M.\nErnest Bozzano, in an excellent article on Les Perceptions\npsychiques des animaux,[1] collected in 1905 sixty-nine cases of\ntelepathy, presentiments and hallucinations of sight or hearing\nin which the principal actors are cats, dogs and horses. There\nare, even among them, ghosts or phantoms of dogs which, after\ntheir death, return to haunt the homes in which they were happy.\nMost of these cases are taken from the Proceedings of the S. P.\nR., that is to say, they have nearly all been very strictly\ninvestigated. It is impossible, short of filling these pages with\noften striking and touching but rather cumbersome anecdotes, to\nenumerate them here, however briefly. It will be sufficient to\nnote that sometimes the dog begins to howl at the exact moment\nwhen his master loses his life, for instance, on a battlefield,\nhundreds of miles from the place where the dog is. More commonly,\nthe cat, the dog and the horse plainly manifest that they\nperceive, often before men do, telepathic apparitions, phantasms\nof the living or the dead. Horses in particular seem very\nsensitive to places that pass as haunted or uncanny. On the\nwhole, the result of these observations is that we can hardly\ndispute that these animals communicate as much as we do and\nperhaps in the same fashion with the mystery that lies around us.\nThere are moments at which, like man, they see the invisible and\nperceive events, influences and emotions that are beyond the\nrange of their normal senses. It is, therefore, permissible to\nbelieve that their nervous system or some remote or secret part\nof their being contains the same psychic elements connecting them\nwith an unknown that inspires them with as much terror as it does\nourselves. And, let us say in passing, this terror is rather\nstrange; for, after all, what have they to fear from a phantom or\nan apparition, they who, we are convinced have no after-life and\nwho ought, therefore, to remain perfectly indifferent to the\nmanifestations, of a world in which they will never set foot?\n\n[1] Annales des sciences psychiques, August, 1905, pp 422-469.\n\n\nI shall perhaps be told that it is not certain that these\napparitions are objective, that they correspond with an external\nreality, but that it is exceedingly possible that they spring\nsolely from the man's or the animal's brain. This is not the\nmoment to discuss this very obscure point, which raises the whole\nquestion of the supernatural and all the problems of the\nhereafter. The only important thing to observe is that at one\ntime it is man who transmits his terror, his perception or his\nidea of the invisible to the animal and at another the animal\nwhich transmits its sensations to man. We have here, therefore,\nintercommunications which spring from a deeper common source than\nany that we know and which, to issue from it or go back to it,\npass through other channels than those of our customary senses.\nNow all this belongs to that unexplained sensibility, to that\nsecret treasure, to that as yet undetermined psychic power which,\nfor lack of a better term, we call subconsciousness or subliminal\nconsciousness. Moreover, it is not surprising that in the\nanimals, these subliminal faculties not only exist, but are\nperhaps keener and more active than in ourselves, because it is\nour conscious and abnormally individualized life that atrophies\nthem by relegating them to a state of idleness wherein they have\nfewer and fewer opportunities of being exercised, whereas in our\nbrothers who are less detached from the universe,\nconsciousness--if we can give that name to a very uncertain and\nconfused notion of the ego--is reduced to a few elementary\nactions. They are much less separated than ourselves from the\nwhole of the circumambient life and they still possess a number\nof those more general and indeterminate senses whereof we have\nbeen deprived by the gradual encroachment of a narrow and\nintolerant special faculty, our intelligence. Among these senses\nwhich up to the present we have described as instincts, for\nwant--and it is becoming a pressing want--of a more suitable and\ndefinite word, need I mention the sense of direction, migration,\nforeknowledge of the weather, of earthquakes and avalanches and\nmany others which we doubtless do not even suspect? Does all this\nnot belong to a subconsciousness which differs from ours only in\nbeing so much richer?\n\n30\n\nI am fully aware that this explanation by means of the subliminal\nconsciousness will not explain very much and will at most invoke\nthe aid of the unknown to illuminate the incomprehensible. But to\nexplain a phenomenon, a Dr. J. de Modzelwski very truly says, \"is\nto put forward a theory which is more familiar and more easily\ncomprehensible to us than the phenomenon at issue.\" This is\nreally what we are constantly and almost exclusively doing in\nphysics, chemistry, biology and in every branch of science\nwithout exception. To explain a phenomenon is not necessarily to\nmake it as clear and lucid as that two and two are four; and,\neven so, the fact that two and two are four is not, when we go to\nthe bottom of things, as clear and lucid as it seems. What in\nthis case, as in most others, we wrongfully call explaining is\nsimply confronting the unexpected mystery which these horses\noffer us with a few phenomena which are themselves unknown, but\nwhich have been perceived longer and more frequently. And this\nsame mystery, thus explained, will serve one day to explain\nothers. It is in this way that science goes to work. We must not\nblame it: it does what it can; and it does not appear that there\nare other ways.\n\n31\n\nIf we assent to this explanation by means of the subliminal\nconsciousness, which is a sort of mysterious participation in all\nthat happens in this world and the others, many obstacles\ndisappear and we enter into a new region in which we draw\nstrangely nearer to the animals and really become their brothers\nby closer links, perhaps the only essential links in life. They\ntake part from that moment in the great human problems, in the\nextraordinary actions of our unknown guest; and, if, since we\nhave been observing the indwelling force more attentively,\nnothing any longer surprises us of that which it realizes in us,\nno more should anything surprise us of that which it realizes in\nthem. We are on the same plane with them, in some as yet\nundetermined element, when it is no longer the intelligence that\nreigns alone, but another spiritual power, which pays no heed to\nthe brain, which passes by other roads and which might rather be\nthe psychic substance of the universe itself, no longer set in\ngrooves, isolated and specialized by man, but diffused, multiform\nand perhaps, if we could trace it, equal in everything that\nexists.\n\nThere is, henceforth, no reason why the horses should not\nparticipate in most of the mediumistic, phenomena which we find\nexisting between man and man; and their mystery ceases to be\ndistinct from those of human metaphysics. If their subliminal is\nakin to ours, we can begin by extending to its utmost limits the\ntelepathic theory, which has, so to speak, no limits, for, in the\nmatter of telepathy, as Myers has said, all that we are permitted\nto declare is that \"life has the power of manifesting itself to\nlife.\" We may ask ourselves, therefore, if the problem which I\nset to the horse, without knowing the terms of it, is not\ncommunicated to my subliminal, which is ignorant of it, by that\nof the horse, who has read it. It is practically certain that\nthis is possible between human subliminals. Is it I who see the\nsolution and transmit it to the horse, who only repeats it to me?\nBut, suppose that it is a problem which I myself am incapable of\nsolving? Whence does the solution come, then? I do not know if\nthe experiment has been attempted, under the same conditions,\nwith a human medium. For that matter, if it succeeded, it would\nbe very much the same as the no less subliminal phenomenon of the\narithmetical prodigies, or lightning calculators, with which, in\nthis rather superhuman atmosphere, we are almost forced to\ncompare the riddle of the mathematical horses. Of all the\ninterpretations, it is the one which, for the moment, appears to\nme the least eccentric and the most natural.\n\nWe have seen that the gift of handling colossal figures is almost\nforeign to the intelligence proper; one can, even declare that,\nin certain cases, it is evidently and completely independent of\nsuch intelligence. In these cases, the gift is manifested prior\nto any education and from the earliest years of childhood. If we\nrefer to the list of arithmetical prodigies given by Dr.\nScripure,[1] we see that the faculty made its appearance in\nAmpere at the age of three, in Colburn at six, in Gauss at three,\nin Mangiamele at ten, in Safford at six, in Whateley at three,\nand so on. Generally, it lasts for only a few years, becoming\nrapidly enfeebled with age and usually vanishing suddenly at the\nmoment when its possessor begins to go to school.\n\n[1] American Journal of Psychology, 1 April 1891.\n\n\nWhen you ask those children and even most of the lightning\ncalculators who have come to man's estate how they go to work to\nsolve the huge and complicated problems set them, they reply that\nthey know nothing about it. Bidder, for instance, declares that\nit is impossible for him to say how he can instinctively tell the\nlogarithm of a number consisting of seven or eight figures. It is\nthe same with Safford, who, at the age of ten, used to do in his\nhead, without ever making a mistake, multiplication-sums the\nresult of which ran into thirty-six figures. The solution\npresents itself authoritatively and spontaneously; it is a\nvision, an impression, an inspiration, an intuition coming one\nknows not whence, suddenly and indubitably. As a role, they do\nnot even try to calculate. Contrary to the general belief, they\nhave no peculiar methods; or, if method there be, it is more a\npractical way of subdividing the intuition. One would think that\nthe solution springs suddenly from the very enunciation of the\nproblem, in the same way as a veridical hallucination. It appears\nto rise, infallible and ready-done, from a sort of eternal and\ncosmic reservoir wherein the answers to every question lie\ndormant. It must, therefore, be admitted that we have here a\nphenomenon that occurs above or below the brain, by the side of\nthe consciousness and the mind, outside all the intellectual\nmethods and habits; and it is precisely for phenomena of this\nkind that Myers invented the word \"subliminal.\"[1]\n\n[1] I have no need to recall the derivation of the term\nsubliminal: beneath (sub) the threshold (limen) of consciousness.\nLet us add, as M. de Vesme very rightly remarks, that the\nsubliminal is not exactly what classical psychology calls the\nsubconsciousness, which latter records only notions that are\nnormally perceived and possesses only normal faculties, that is\nto say, faculties recognized to-day by orthodox science.\n\n\n32\n\nDoes not all this bring us a little nearer to our calculating\nhorses? From the moment that it is demonstrated that the solution\nof a mathematical problem no longer depends exclusively on the\nbrain, but on another faculty, another spiritual power whose\npresence under various forms has been ascertained beyond a doubt\nin certain animals, it ceases to be wholly rash or extravagant to\nsuggest that perhaps, in the horse, the same phenomenon is\nreproduced and developed in the same unknown, wherein moreover\nthe mysteries of numbers and those of subconsciousness mingle in\na like darkness. I am well aware that an explanation laden to\nsuch an extent with mysteries explains but very little more than\nsilence does; nevertheless, it is at least a silence traversed by\nrestless murmurs, and sedulous whispers that are better than the\ngloomy and hopeless ignorance to which we would have perforce to\nresign ourselves if we did not, in spite of all, to perform the\ngreat duty of man, which is to discover a spark in the darkness.\n\nIt goes without saying that objections are raised from every\nside. Among men, arithmetical prodigies are looked upon as\nmonsters, as a sort of extremely rare teratological phenomenon.\nWe can count, at most, half-a-dozen in a century, whereas, among\nhorses, the faculty would appear to be almost general, or at\nleast quite common. In fact, out of six or seven stallions whom\nKrall tried to initiate into the secrets of mathematics, he found\nonly two that appeared to him too poorly gifted for him to waste\ntime on their education. These were, I believe, two thoroughbreds\nthat were presented to him by the Grand-duke of Mecklenburg and\nsent back by Krall to their sumptuous stables. In the four or\nfive others, taken at random as circumstances supplied them, he\nmet with aptitudes unequal, it is true, but easily developed and\ngiving the impression that they exist normally, latent and\ninactive, at the bottom of every equine soul. From the\nmathematical point of view, is the horse's subliminal\nconsciousness then superior to man's? Why not? His whole\nsubliminal being is probably superior to one, of greater range,\nyounger, fresher, more alive and less heavy, since it is not\nincessantly attacked, coerced and humiliated by the intelligence\nwhich gnaws at it, stifles it, cloaks it and relegates it to a\ndark corner which neither light nor air can penetrate. His\nsubliminal consciousness is always present, always alert; ours is\nnever there, is asleep at the bottom of a deserted well and needs\nexceptional operations, results and events before it can be drawn\nfrom its slumber and its unremembered deeps. All this seems very\nextraordinary; but, in any case, we are here in the midst of the\nextraordinary; and this outlet is perhaps the least hazardous. It\nis not a question, we must remember, of a cerebral operation, an\nintellectual performance, but of a gift of divination closely\nallied to other gifts of the same nature and the same origin\nwhich are not the peculiar attribute of man. No observation, no\nexperiment enables us, up to the present, to establish a\ndifference between the subliminal of human beings and that of\nanimals. On the contrary, the as yet restricted number of actual\ncases reveals constant and striking analogies between the two. In\nmost of those arithmetical operations, be it noted, the\nsubliminal of the horse behaves exactly like that of the medium\nin a rate of trance. The horse readily reverses the figures of\nthe solution; he replies, \"37,\" for instance, instead of \"73,\"\nwhich is a mediumistic phenomenon so well-known and so frequent\nthat it has been styled \"mirror-writing.\" He makes mistakes\nfairly often in the most elementary additions, and subtractions\nand much less frequently in the extraction of the most\ncomplicated roots, which again, in similar cases, such as\n\"xenoglossy\" and psychometry, is one of the eccentricities of\nhuman mediumism and is explained by the same cause, namely, the\ninopportune intervention of the ever fallible intelligence,\nwhich, by meddling in the matter, alters the certainties of a\nsubliminal which, when left to itself, never makes a mistake. It\nis, in fact, quite probable that the horse, being really able to\ndo the small sums, no longer relies solely on his intuition and,\nfrom that moment, gropes and flounders about. The solution hovers\nbetween the intelligence and the subliminal and, passing from the\none, which is not quite sure of it, to the other, which is not\nurgently appealed to, comes out of the conflict as best it may.\nThe case is the same with the psychometric or spiritualistic\nmedium who seeks to profit by what he knows in the ordinary way,\nso as to complete the visions or revelations of his subconscious\nsensibility. He, too, in this instance, is nearly always guilty\nof flagrant and inexplicable blunders.\n\nMany other similarities will be found to exist, notably the way\nin which the lessons vary. Nothing is more uncertain and\ncapricious than manifestations of human mediumism. Whether it be\na question of automatic writing, psychometry, materializations or\nanything else, we meet with series of sittings that yield none\nbut absurd results. Then, suddenly, for reasons as yet\nobscure--the state of the weather, the presence of this or that\nwitness, or I know not what--the most undeniable\nand bewildering manifestations occur one after the other. The\ncase is precisely the same with the horses: their queer fancies,\ntheir unaccountable and disconcerting freaks drive poor Krall to\ndespair. He never opens the door of that uncertain stable, on\nimportant days, without a sinking at the heart. Let the beard or\nthe frown of some learned professor fail to please the horses:\nthey will, forthwith, take an unholy delight in giving the most\nirrelevant answer to the most elementary question, for hours and\neven days on end.\n\nOther common features are the strongly-marked personality of the\nmediumistic \"raps\" and the communications known as \"deferred\ntelepathic communications,\" that is to say, those in which the\nanswer is obtained at the end of a sitting to a question put at\nthe beginning and forgotten by all those present. What at first\nsight seems one of the strongest objections urged against the\nmediumism of the horse even tends to confirm it. If the reply\ncomes from the horse's subconsciousness, it has been asked, how\nis it that it should be necessary first to teach him the elements\nof language, mathematics and so forth, and that Berto, for\ninstance, is incapable of solving the same problems as Mohammed?\nThis objection has been very ably refuted by M. de Vesme, who\nwrites:\n\n\"To produce automatic writing, a medium must have learnt to\nwrite; before Victorien Sardou or Mlle Helene Schmidt could\nproduce their mediumistic drawings and paintings, they had to\npossess an elementary knowledge of drawing and painting; Tartini\nwould never have composed The Devil's Sonata in a dream, if he\nhad not known music; and so forth. Unconscious cerebration,\nhowever wonderful, can only take effect upon elements already\nacquired in some way or another. The subconscious cerebration of\na man blind from birth will not make him see colours.\"\n\nHere, then, in this comparison which might easily be extended,\nare several fairly well- defined features of resemblance. We\nreceive a vivid impression of the same habits, the same\ncontradictions, and the same eccentricities; and we once more\nrecognize the strange and majestic shadow of our unknown guest.\n\n33\n\nOne great objection remains, based upon the very nature of the\nphenomenon, upon the really inseparable distance that separates\nthe whole life of the horse from the abstract and impenetrable\nlife of numbers. How can his subliminal consciousness interest\nitself for a moment in signs that represent nothing to him, have\nno relation to his organism and will never touch his existence?\nBut in the first place, it is just the same with the child or the\nilliterate calculator. He is not interested either in the figures\nwhich he lets loose. He is completely ignorant of the\nconsequences of the problems which he solves. He juggles with\ndigits which have hardly any more meaning to him than to the\nhorse. He is incapable of accounting for what he does; and his\nsubconsciousness also  acts in a sort of indifferent and remote\ndream. It is true that, in his case, we can appeal to heredity\nand to memory; but is this difference enough to settle the\ndifficulty and definitely to separate the two phenomena? To\nappeal to heredity is still to appeal to the subliminal; and it\nis not at all certain that the latter is limited by the interest\nof the organism sheltering it. It appears, on the contrary, in\nmany circumstances, to spread and extend far beyond that organism\nin which it is domiciled, one would say, accidentally and\nprovisionally. It likes to show, apparently, that it is in\nrelation with all that exists. It declares itself, as often as\npossible, universal and impersonal. It has but a very indifferent\ncare, as we have seen in the matter of apparitions and\npremonitions, for the happiness and even the safety of its host\nand protector. It prophesies to its companion of a lifetime\nevents which he cannot avoid or which do not concern him. It\nmakes him see beforehand, for instance, all the circumstances of\nthe death of a stranger whom he will only hear of after the\nevent, when this event is irrevocable. It brings a crowd of\nbarren presentiments and conjures up veridical hallucinations\nthat are wholly alien and idle. With psychometric, typtological\nor materializing mediums, it practises art for art's sake, mocks\nat space and time, passes through personalities, sees through\nsolid bodies, brings into communication thoughts and motions\nworlds apart, reads souls and lives by the light of a flower, a\nrag of a scrap of paper; and all this for nothing, to amuse\nitself, to astonish us, because it adores the superfluous, the\nincoherent, the unexpected, the improbable, the bewildering, or\nrather, perhaps, because it is a huge, rough, undisciplined force\nstill struggling in the darkness and coming to the surface only\nby wild fits and starts, because it is an enormous expansion of a\nspirit striving to collect itself, to achieve consciousness, to\nmake itself of service and to obtain a hearing. In any case, for\nthe time being, it appeals just what we have described, and would\nbe unlike itself if it behaved any otherwise in the case that\npuzzles us.\n\n34\n\nLastly, to close this chapter, let us remark that it is nearly\ncertain that the solution given by calculating children and\nhorses is not of a mathematical nature at all. They do not in any\nway consider the problem or the sum to be worked. They simply\nfind the answer straight away to a riddle, the guessing of which\nis made easy by the actual nature of figures which keep their\nsecrets badly. To any one in the requisite state of mind, it\nbecomes a question of a sort of elementary charade, which hides\nits answer only from those who speak another language. It is\nevident that every problem, however complex it may appear,\ncarries within its very enunciation its one, invariable solution,\nscarce veiled by the indiscreet signs that contain or cover it.\nIt is there, under the numbers that have no other object than to\ngive it life, coming, stirring and ceaselessly proclaiming itself\na necessity. It is not surprising therefore that eyes sharper\nthan ours and ears open to other vibrations should see and hear\nit without knowing what it represents, what it implies or from\nwhat prodigious mass of figures and operations it merges. The\nproblem itself speaks; and the horse but repeats the sign which\nhe hears whispered in the mysterious life of numbers or deep down\nin, the abyss where the eternal verities hold sway. He\nunderstands none of it, he has no need to understand, he is but\nthe unconscious medium who lends his voice or his limbs to the\nmind that inspires him. There is here but a bare and simple\nanswer, bearing no precise significance, seized in an alien\nexistence. There is here but a mechanical revelation, so to\nspeak, a sort of special reflex which we can only record and\nwhich, for the rest, is as inexplicable as any other phenomenon\nof consciousness or instinct. After all, when we think of it, it\nis just as, astonishing that we should not perceive the solution\nas it is that we should discover it. However, I grant that all\nthis is but a venturesome interpretation to be taken for what it\nis worth, an experimental or interim theory with which we must\nneeds content ourselves since all the others have hitherto been\ncontroverted by the facts.\n\n35\n\nLet us now briefly sum up what the Elberfeld experiments have\nyielded us. Having put aside telepathy in the narrow sense--which\nperhaps enters into more than one phenomenon but is not\nindispensable to it, for we see these same phenomena repeated\nwhen telepathy is practically impossible--we cannot help\nobserving that, if we deny the existence or the influence of the\nsubliminal, it is all the more difficult to contest the existence\nand the intervention of the intelligence, at any rate up to the\nextracting of roots, after which there is a steep precipice which\nends in darkness. But, even if we stop at the roots, the sudden\ndiscovery of an intellectual force so similar to our own, where\nwe were accustomed to see but an irremediable impotency, is no\ndoubt one of the most unexpected revelations that we have\nreceived since the invisible and the unknown began to press upon\nus with a persistence and an impatience which they had not\ndisplayed heretofore. It is not easy to foresee as yet the\nconsequences and the promises of this new aspect which the great\nriddle of the intelligence is suddenly adopting. But I believe\nthat we shall soon have to revise some of the essential ideas\nwhich are the foundations of our life and that some rather\nstrange horizons are appearing out of the mists in the history of\npsychology, of morality, of human destiny and of many other\nthings.\n\n36\n\nSo much for the intelligence. On the other hand, what we deny to\nthe intelligence we are constrained to grant to the subliminal;\nand the revelation is even more disconcerting. We should then\nhave to admit that them is in the horse--and hence most probably\nin everything that lives on this earth--a psychic power similar\nto that which is hidden beneath the veil of our reason and which,\nas we learn to know it, astonishes, surpasses and dominates our\nreason more and more. This psychic power, in which no doubt we\nshall one day be forced to recognize the genius of the universe\nitself, appears, as we have often observed, to be all-wise,\nall-seeing and all-powerful. It has, when it is pleased to\ncommunicate with us or when we are allowed to penetrate into it,\nan answer for every question,  and perhaps a remedy for every\nill. We will not enumerate its virtues again. It will be enough\nfor us to recall with what ease it mocks at space, time and all\nthe obstacles that beset our poor human knowledge and\nunderstanding. We believed it, like all that seems to us superior\nand marvellous, the intangible, inalienable and incommunicable\nattribute of man, with even better reason than his intelligence.\nAnd now an accident, strangely belated, it is true, tells us\nthat, at one precise point, the strangest and least foreseen of\nall, the horse and the dog draw more easily and perhaps more\ndirectly than ourselves upon its mighty reservoirs. By the most\ninexplicable of anomalies, though one that is fairly consistent\nwith the fantastic character of the subliminal, they appear to\nhave access to it only at the spot that is most remote from their\nhabits and most unknown to their propensities, for there is\nnothing in the world about which animals trouble less than\nfigures. But is this not, perhaps because we do not see what goes\non elsewhere? It so happens that the infinite mystery of numbers\ncan sometimes be expressed by a very few simple movements which\nare natural to most animals; but there is nothing to tell us\nthat, if we could teach the horse and the dog to attach to these\nsame movements the expression of other mysteries, they would not\ndraw upon them with equal facility. It has been successfully\nattempted to give them a more or less clear idea of the value of\na few figures and perhaps of the course and nature of certain\nelementary operations; and this appears to have been enough to\nopen up to them the most secret regions of mathematics in which\nevery question is answered beforehand. It is not wholly illusive\nto suppose that, if we could impart to them, for instance, a\nsimilar notion of the future, together with a manner of conveying\nto us what they see there, they might also have access to strange\nvisions of another class, which are jealously kept from us by the\ntoo-watchful guardians of our intelligence. There is an\nopportunity here for experiments which will doubtless prove\nexceedingly arduous, for the future is not so easily seen and\nabove all not so easily interpreted and expressed as a number. It\nis possible, moreover, that, when we know how to set about it, we\nshall obtain most of the human mediumistic phenomena; rapping,\nthe moving of objects, materialization even and Heaven knows what\nother surprises held in store for us by that astounding\nsubliminal to whose fancy there appears to be no bounds. In any\ncase, if we accept the divining of numbers, as we are almost\nforced to do, it is almost certain that the divining of other\nmatters must follow. An unexpected breach is made in the wall\nbehind which lie heaped the great secrets that seem to us, as our\nknowledge and our civilization increase, to become stronger and\nmore inaccessible. True, it is a narrow breach; but it is the\nfirst that has been opened in that part of the hitherto\nuncrannied wall which is not turned towards mankind. What will\nissue through it? No one can foretell what we may hope.\n\n37\n\nWhat astonishes us most is that this revelation has been so long\ndelayed. How are we to explain that man has lived to this day\nwith his domestic animals never suspecting that they harboured\nmediumistic or subliminal faculties as extraordinary as those\nwhich he vaguely felt himself to possess. One would have in this\nconnection to study the mysterious practices of ancient India and\nof Egypt; the numerous and persistent legends of animals talking,\nguiding their masters and foretelling the future; and, nearer to\nourselves, in history proper, all that science of augury and\nsoothsaying which derived its omens from the flight of birds, the\ninspection of entrails, the appetite or attitude of the sacred or\nprophetic animals, among which horses were often numbered. We\nhere find one of those innumerous instances of a lost or\nanticipated power which make us suspect that mankind has\nforestalled or forgotten all that we believe ourselves to be\ndiscovering. Remember that there is almost always some distorted,\nmisapprehended or dimly--seen truth at the bottom of the most\neccentric and wildest creeds, superstitions and legends. All this\nnew science of metaphysics or of the investigation of our\nsubconsciousness and of unknown powers, which has scarcely begun\nto unveil its first mysteries, thus finds landmarks and defaced\nbut recognizable traces in the old religions, the most\ninexplicible traditions and the most ancient history. Besides,\nthe probability of a thing does not depend upon undeniably\nestablished precedents. While it is almost certain that there is\nnothing new under the sun or in the eternity preceding the suns,\nit is quite possible that the same forces do not always act with\nthe same energy. As I observed, nearly twenty years ago, in The\nTreasure of the Humble, at a time when I hardly knew at all what\nI know so imperfectly to-day:\n\n\"A spiritual\"--I should have said, a psychic-\"epoch is perhaps\nupon us, an epoch to which a certain number of analogies are\nfound in history. For there are periods recorded when the soul,\nin obedience to unknown laws, seemed to rise to the very surface\nof humanity, whence it gave clearest evidence of its existence\nand of its power. . . . It would seem, at moments such as these,\nas though humanity,\" --and, I would add to-day, all that lives\nwith it on this earth--\"were on the point of struggling from\nbeneath the crushing burden of matter that weighs it down.\"\n\nOne might in fact believe that a shudder which we have not yet\nexperienced is passing over everything that breathes; that a new\nactivity, a new restlessness is permeating the spiritual\natmosphere which surrounds our globe; and that the very animals\nhave felt its thrill. One might say that, by the side of the\nniggardly private spring which would only supply our\nintelligence, other streams are spreading and rising to the same\nlevel in every form of existence. A sort of word of command is\nbeing passed from rank to rank; and the same phenomena are\nbursting forth in every quarter of the globe in order to attract\nour attention, as though the obstinately dumb genius that lay\nhidden in the pregnant silence of the universe, from that of the\nstones, the flowers and the insects to the mighty silence of the\nstars, were at last trying to tell us some secret whereby it\nwould be better known to us or to itself. It is possible that\nthis is but an illusion. Perhaps we are simply more attentive and\nbetter informed than of old. We learn at the very instant what\nhappens in every part of our earth and we have acquired the habit\nof more minutely observing and examining the things that happen.\nBut the illusion would in this case have all the force, all the\nvalue and all the meaning of the reality and would enjoin the\nsame hopes and the same obligation.\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE UNKNOWN GUEST\n\n1\n\nWe have now studied certain manifestations of that which we have\ncalled in turn and more or less indiscriminately the subconscious\nmind, the subliminal consciousness and the unknown guest, names\nto which we might add that of the superior subconsciousness or\nsuperior psychism invented by Dr. Geley. Granting that these\nmanifestations are really proved, it is no longer possible to\nexplain them or rather to classify them without having recourse\nto fresh theories. Now we can entertain doubts on many points, we\ncan cavil and argue; but I defy anyone approaching these facts in\na serious and honest spirit to reject them all. It is permissible\nto neglect the most extraordinary; but there are a multitude of\nothers which have become or, to speak more accurately, are\nacknowledged to be as frequent and habitual as any fact whatever\nin normal, everyday life. It is not difficult to reproduce them\nat will, provided we place ourselves in the condition demanded by\ntheir very nature; and, this being so, there remains no valid\nreason for excluding them from the domain of science in the\nstrict sense of the word.\n\nHitherto, all that we have learnt regarding these occurrences is\nthat their origin is unknown. It will be said that this is not\nmuch and that the discovery is nothing to boast of. I quite\nagree: to imagine that one can explain a phenomena by saying that\nit is produced by an unknown agency would indeed be childish. But\nit is already something to have marked its source; not to be\nstill lingering in the thick of a fog, trying any and every\ndirection in order to find a way out, but to be concentrating our\nattention on a single spot which is the starting-point of all\nthese wonders, so that at each instant we recognize in each\nphenomenon the characteristic customs, methods or features of the\nsame unknown agency. It is very nearly all that we can do for the\nmoment; but this first effort is not wholly to be despised.\n\n2\n\nIt has seemed to us then that it was our unknown guest that\nexpressed itself in the name of the dead in table-turning and in\nautomatic writing and speaking. This unknown guest has appeared\nto us to take within us the place of those who are no more, to\nunite itself perhaps with forces that do not die, to visit the\ngrave with the object of bringing thence inexplicable phantoms\nwhich rise up in front of us fruitlessly or haunt our houses\nwithout telling us why. We have seen it, in experiments in\nclairvoyance and intuition, suppressing all the obstacles that\nbanish or conceal thought and, through bodies that have become\ntransparent, reading in our very souls forgotten secrets of the\npast, sentiments that have not yet taken shape, intentions as yet\nunborn. We have discovered that some object once handled by a\nperson now far away is enough to make it take part in the\ninnermost life of that person, to go deeper and rise higher than\nhe does, to see what he sees and even what he does not see: the\nlandscape that surrounds him, the house which he inhabits and\nalso the dangers that threaten him and the secret passions by\nwhich he is stirred. We have surprised it wandering hither and\nthither, at haphazard, in the future, confounding it with the\npresent and the past, not conscious of where it is but seeing far\nand wide, knowing perhaps everything but unaware of the\nimportance of what it knows, or as yet incapable of turning it to\naccount or of making itself understood, at once neglectful and\noverscrupulous, prolix and reticent, useless and indispensable.\nWe have seen it, lastly, although we had hitherto looked upon it\nas indissolubly and unchangeably human, suddenly emerge from\nother creatures and there reveal faculties akin to ours, which\ncommune with them deep down in the deepest mysteries and which\nequal them and sometimes surpass them in a region that wrongly\nappeared to us the only really unassailable province of mankind,\nI mean the obscure and abstruse province of numbers.\n\nIt has many other no less strange and perhaps more important\nmanifestations, which we propose to examine in a later volume,\nnotably its surprising therapeutic virtues and its phenomena of\nmaterialization. But, without expressing a premature judgment on\nwhat we do not yet know, perhaps we have sketched it with\nsufficient clearness in the foregoing pages to enable us\nhenceforward to disentangle certain general and characteristic\nfeatures from a confusion of often contradictory lines.\n\n3\n\nBut, in the first place, does it really exist, this tragic and\ncomical, evasive and unavoidable figure which we make no claim to\nportray, but at most to divest of some of its shadows? It were\nrash to affirm it too loudly; but meanwhile, in the realms where\nwe suppose it to reign, everything happens as though it did\nexist. Do away with it and you are obliged to people the world\nand burden your life with a host of hypothetical and imaginary\nbeings: gods, demigods, angels, demons, saints, spirits, shells,\nelementals, etherial entities, interplanetary intelligences and\nso on; except it and all those phantoms, without disappearing,\nfor they may very well continue to live in its shadow, become\nsuperfluous or accessory. It is not intolerant and does not\ndefinitely eliminate any of the hypotheses by the aid of which\nman has hitherto striven to explain what he did not understand,\nhypotheses which, in regard to some matters, are not\ninadmissible, although not one of them is confirmed; but it\nbrings him back to itself, absorbs them and rules them without\nannihilating them. If, for instance, to select the most\ndefensible theory, one which it is sometimes difficult to dismiss\nabsolutely, if you insist that the discarnate spirits take part\nin your actions, haunt your house, inspire your thoughts, reveal\nyour future, it will answer:\n\n\"That is true, but it is still I; I am discarnate, or rather I am\nnot wholly incarnate: it is only a small part of my being that is\nembodied in your flesh; and the rest, which is nearly all of me,\ncomes and goes freely both among those who once were and among\nthose who are yet to be; and, when they seem to speak to you, it\nis my own speech that borrows their customs and their voice in\norder to make you listen and to amuse your often slumbering\nattention. If you prefer to deal with superior entities of\nunknown origin, with interplanetary or supernatural\nintelligences, once more it is I; for, since I am not entirely in\nyour body, I must needs be elsewhere; and to be elsewhere when\none is not held back by the weight of the flesh is to be\neverywhere if one so pleases.\"\n\nWe see, it has a reply to everything, it takes every name that we\nwish and there is nothing to limit it, because it lives in a\nworld wherein bounds are as illusory as the useless words which\nwe employ on earth.\n\n4\n\nWhile it has a reply to everything, certain manifestations which\nit deliberately ascribes to the spirits have brought upon it a\nnot undeserved reproach. To begin with, as Dr. Maxwell observes,\nit has no absolutely fixed doctrine. In nearly every country in\nthe world, when it speaks in the name of the spirits, it declares\nthat they undergo reincarnation and readily relates their past\nexistences. In England, on the contrary, it usually asserts that\nthey do not become reincarnated. What does this mean? Surely this\nignorance or this inconsistency on the part of that which appears\nto know everything is very strange! And worse, sometimes it\nattributes to the spirits, sometimes to itself or any one or\nanything the revelations which it makes to us. When exactly is it\nspeaking the truth? At least on two occasions out of three, it\ndeludes itself or deludes us. If it deceive itself, if it is\nmistaken about a matter in which it should be easy for it to know\nthe truth, what can it teach us on the subject of a world of\nwhose most elementary laws it is ignorant, since it does not even\nknow whether it is itself or another that speaks to us in the\nname of that world? Are we to believe that it was in the same\ndarkness as our poor superficial ego, which it pretends so often\nto enlighten and which it does in fact inspire in most of the\ngreat events of life? If it deceives us, why does it do so? We\ncan see no object: it asks for nothing, not for alms, nor\nprayers, nor thoughts, on behalf of those whose mantle it assumes\nfor the sole purpose of leading us astray. What is the use of\nthose mischievous and puerile pranks, of those ghastly graveyard\npleasantries? It must lie then for the mere pleasure of lying;\nand our unknown guest, that infinite and doubtless immortal\nsubconsciousness in which we have placed out last hopes, is after\nall but an imbecile, a buffoon or a rank swindler!\n\n5\n\nI do not believe that the truth is as hideous as this. Our\nunknown guest does not deceive itself any more than it deceives\nus; but it is we who deceive ourselves. It has not the stage to\nitself; and its voice is not the voice that sounds in our ears,\nwhich were never made to catch the echoes of a world that is not\nlike ours. If it could speak to us itself and tell us what it\nknows, we should probably at that instant cease to be on this\nearth. But we are immersed in our bodies, entombed prisoners with\nwhom it cannot communicate at will. It roams around the walls, it\nutters warning cries. It knocks at every door, but all that\nreaches us is a vague disquiet, an indistinct murmur that is\nsometimes translated to us by a half-awakened gaoler who, like\nourselves, is a lifelong captive. The gaoler does his best; he\nhas his own way of speaking, his familiar expressions; he knows,\nand, with the aid of the words which he possesses and those which\nhe hears repeated, he tries to make us understand what he hardly\nunderstands himself. He does not know exactly whence the sounds\ncome which he hears; and, according as tempests, wars or riots\nhappen to be uppermost at the moment, he attributes them to the\nwinds, to tramping soldiers or to frenzied crowds. In other words\nand speaking without metaphor, it is the medium who draws from\nhis habitual language and from that suggested to him by his\naudience the wherewithal to clothe and identify the strange\npresentiments, the unfamiliar visions that come from some unknown\nregion. If he believes that the dead survive, he will naturally\nimagine that it is the dead who speak to him. If he has a\nfavourite spirit, angel, demon or god, he will express himself in\nits name; if he has no preconceived opinion, he will not even\nallude to the origin of the revelations which he is making. The\ninarticulate language of the subconsciousness necessarily borrows\nthat of the normal consciousness; and the two become confused\ninto a sort of shifting and multiform jargon. And our unknown\nguest, which is not thinking of delivering a course of lectures\nupon its entity, but simply giving us as best it can a more or\nless warning or mark of its existence, seems to care but little\nas to the garments in which it is rigged out, having indeed no\nchoice in the matter, for, either because it is unable to\nmanifest itself or because we are incapable of understanding it,\nit has to be content with whatever comes to hand.\n\nBesides, if we attribute too exclusively to the spirits that\nwhich comes from another quarter, the mistake is doubtless no\ngreat one in its eyes; for it is not madness to believe that it\nlives with that which does not die in the dead even as with that\nwhich does not die in ourselves, with that which does not descend\ninto the grave even as with that which does not take flesh at the\nhour of birth.\n\n6\n\nThere is no reason therefore to condemn the other theories\nentirely. Most of them doubtless contain something more than a\nparticle of truth; in particular, the great quarrel between the\nsubconscious school and the spiritualists is based on the whole\nupon a misunderstanding. It is quite possible and even very\nprobable that the dead are all around us, since it is impossible\nthat the dead do not live. Our subconsciousness must mingle with\nall that does not die in them; and that which dies in them or\nrather disperses and loses all its importance is but the little\nconsciousness accumulated on this earth and kept up until the\nlast hour by the frail bonds of memory. In all those\nmanifestations of our unknown guest, it is our posthumous ego\nthat already lives in us while we are still in the flesh and at\nmoments joins that which does not die in those who have quitted\ntheir body. Then does the existence of our unknown guest presume\nthe immortality of a part of ourselves? Can one possibly doubt\nit? Have you ever imagined that you would perish entirely? As for\nme, what I cannot picture is the manner in which you would\npicture that total annihilation. But, if you cannot perish\nentirely, it is no less certain that those who came before you\nhave not perished either; and hence it is not altogether\nimprobable that we may be able to discover them and to\ncommunicate with them. In this wider sense, the spiritualistic\ntheory is perfectly admissible; but what is not at all admissible\nis the narrow and pitiful interpretation which its proponents too\noften give it. They see the dead crowding around us like wretched\npuppets indissolubly attached to the insignificant scene of their\ndeath by the thousand little threads of insipid memories and\ninfantile hobbies. They are supposed to be here, blocking up our\nhomes, more abjectly human than if they were still alive, vague,\ninconsistent, garrulous, derelict, futile and idle, tossing\nhither and thither their desolate shadows, which are being slowly\nswallowed up by silence and oblivion, busying themselves\nincessantly with what no longer concerns them, but almost\nincapable of doing us a real service, so much so that, in short,\nthey would end by persuading us that death serves no purpose,\nthat it neither purifies nor exalts, that it brings no\ndeliverance and that it is indeed a thing of terror and despair.\n\n7\n\nNo, it is not the dead who thus speak and act. Besides, why bring\nthem into the matter unnecessarily? I could understand that we\nshould be obliged to do so if there were no similar phenomena\noutside them; but in the intuition and clairvoyance of\nnonspiritualistic mediums and particularly in psychometry we\nobtain communications between one subconsciousness and another\nand revelations of unknown, forgotten or future incidents which\nare equally striking, though stripped of the vapid gossip and\ntedium reminiscences with which we are overwhelmed by defunct\npersons who are all the more jealous to prove their identity\ninasmuch as they know that they do not exist.\n\nIt is infinitely more likely that there is strange medley of\nheterogeneous forces in the uncertain regions into which we are\nventuring. The whole of this ambiguous drama, with its incoherent\ncrowds, is probably enacted round about the dim estuary where our\nnormal consciousness flows into our subconsciousness. The\nconsciousness of the medium--for we must not forget that there is\nnecessarily always a medium at the sources of these\nphenomena--the consciousness of the medium, obscured by the\ncondition of trance but yet the only one that possesses our human\nspeech and can make itself heard, takes in first and almost\nexclusively what it best understands and what most interests it\nin the stifled and mutilated revelations of our unknown guest,\nwhich for its part communicates with the dead and the living and\neverything that exists. The rest, which is the only thing that\nmatters, but which is less clear and less vivid because it comes\nfrom afar, only very rarely makes its difficult way through a\nforest of insignificant talk. We may add that our\nsubconsciousness, as Dr. Geley very rightly observes, is formed\nof superposed elements, beginning with the unconsciousness that\ngoverns the instinctive movements of the organic life of both the\nspecies and the individual and passing by imperceptible degrees\ntill it rises to the superior psychism whose power and extent\nappear to have no bounds. The voice of the medium, or that which\nwe hear within ourselves when, at certain moments of excitement\nor crisis in our lives, we become our own medium, has therefore\nto traverse three worlds or three provinces: that of the\natavistic instincts which connect us with the animal; that of\nhuman or empirical consciousness; and lastly that of our unknown\nguest or our superior subconsciousness which links us to immense\ninvisible realities and which we may, if we wish, call divine or\nsuperhuman. Hence it is not surprising that the intermediary, be\nhe spiritualist, autonomist, palingenesist or what he will,\nshould lose himself in those wild and troubled eddies and that\nthe truth or message which he brings us, tossed and tumbled in\nevery direction, should reach us broken, shattered and pulverized\nbeyond recognition.\n\nFor the rest, I repeat, were it not for the absurd prominence\ngiven to our dead in the spiritualistic interpretation, this\nquestion of origin would have little importance, since both life\nand death are incessantly joining and uniting in all things.\nThere are assuredly dead people in all these manifestations,\nseeing that we are full of dead people and that the greater part\nof ourselves is at this moment steeped in death, that is to say,\nis already living the boundless life that awaits us on the\nfarther side of the grave.\n\n8\n\nWe should be wrong, however, to fix all our attention on these\nextraordinary phenomena, either those with which we unduly\nconnect the deceased or those no less striking ones in which we\ndo not believe that they take part. They are evidently precious\npoints of emergence that enable us approximately to mark the\nextent, the forms and the habits of our mystery. But it is within\nourselves, in the silence of the darkness of our being, where it\nis ever in motion, guiding our destiny, that we should strive to\nsurprise that mystery and to discover it. And I am not speaking\nonly of the dreams, the presumptions, the vague intuitions, the\nroom or less brilliant inspirations which are so many more\nmanifestations, specific as it were and analogous with those that\nhave occupied us. There is another, a more secret and much more\nactive existence which we have scarcely begun to study and which\nis, if we descend to the bed-rock of truth, our only real\nexistence. From the darkest corners of our ego it directs our\nveritable life, the one that is not to die, and pays no heed to\nour thought or to anything emanating from our reason, which\nbelieves that it guides nor steps. It alone knows the long past\nthat preceded our birth and the endless future that will follow\nour departure from this earth. It is itself that future and that\npast, all those from whom we have sprung and all those who will\nspring from us. It represents the individual not only the species\nbut that which preceded it and that which will follow it; and it\nhas neither beginning nor end: that is why nothing touches it,\nnothing moves it which does not concern that which it represents.\nWhen a misfortune or a joy befall us, it knows their value\ninstantly, knows if they are going to open or to dose the wells\nof life. It is the one thing that is never wrong. In vain does\nreason demonstrate to it, by irresistible arguments, that it is\nhopelessly at fault: silent under its immovable mask, whose\nexpression we have not yet been able to react it pursues its way.\nIt treats us as insignificant children, void of understanding,\nnever answers our objections, refuses what we ask and lavishes\nupon us that which we refuse. If we go to the right, it\nreconducts us to the left. If we cultivate this or that faculty\nwhich we think that we possess or which we would like to possess,\nit hides it under some other which we did not expect and did not\nwish for. It saves us from a danger by imparting to our limbs\nunforeseen and unerring movements and actions which they had\nnever made before and which are contrary to those which they had\nbeen taught to make: it knows that the hour has not yet come when\nit will be useless to defend ourselves. It chooses our love in\nspite of the revolt of our intelligence or of our poor, ephemeral\nheart. It smiles when we are frightened and sometimes it is\nfrightened when we smile. And it is always the winner,\nhumiliating our reason, crushing our wisdom and silencing\narguments and passions alike with the contemptuous hand of\ndestiny. The greatest doctors surround our sick-bed and deceive\nthemselves and us in foretelling our death or our recovery: it\nalone whispers in our car the truth that will not be denied. A\nthousand apparently mortal blows fall upon our head and not a\nlash of its eyelids quivers; but suddenly a tiny shock, which our\nsenses had not even transmitted to our brain, wakes it with a\nstart. It sits up, looks around and understands. It has seen the\ncrack in the vault that separates the two lives. It gives the\nsignal for departure. Forthwith panic spreads from cell to cell;\nand the innumerous city that we are utters yells of horror and\ndistress and hustles around the gates of death.\n\n9\n\nThat great figure, that new being has been there, in our\ndarkness, from all time, though its awkward and extravagant\nactions, until recently attributed to the gods, the demons or the\ndead, am only now asking for our serious attention. It has been\nlikened to an immense block of which our personality is but a\ndiminutive facet; to an iceberg of which we see a few glistening\nprisms that represent our life, while nine-tenths of the enormous\nmass remain buried in the shadows of the sea. According to Sir\nOliver Lodge, it is that part of our being that has not become\ncarnate; according to Gustave Le Bon, it is the \"condensed\" soul\nof our ancestors, which is true, beyond a doubt, but only a part\nof the truth, for we find in it also the soul of the future and\nprobably of many other forces which are not necessarily human.\nWilliam James saw in it a diffuse cosmic consciousness and the\nchance intrusion into our scientifically organized world of\nremnants and bestiges of the primordial chaos. Here are a number\nof images striving to give us an idea of a reality so vast that\nwe are unable to grasp it. It is certain that what we see from\nour terrestrial life is nothing compared with what we do not see.\nBesides, if we think of it, it would be monstrous and\ninexplicable that we should be only what we appear to be, nothing\nbut ourselves, whole and complete in ourselves, separated,\nisolated, circumscribed by our body, our mind, our consciousness,\nour birth and our death. We become possible and probable only on\nthe conditions that we project beyond ourselves on every side and\nthat we stretch in every direction throughout time and space.\n\n10\n\nBut how shall we explain the incredible contrast between the\nimmeasurable grandeur of our unknown guest, the assurance, the\ncalmness, the gravity of the inner life which it leads in us and\nthe puerile and sometimes grotesque incongruities of what one\nmight call its public existence? Inside us, it is the sovereign\njudge, the supreme arbiter, the prophet, almost the god\nomnipotent; outside us, from the moment that it quits its shelter\nand manifests itself in external actions, it is nothing more than\na fortune-teller, a bone-setter, a sort of facetious conjuror or\ntelephone-operator, I was on the verge of saying a mountebank or\nclown. At what particular instant is it really itself? Is it\nseized with giddiness when it leaves its lair? Is it we who no\nlonger hear it, who no longer understand it, as soon as it ceases\nto speak in a whisper and to act in the dark recesses of our\nlife? Are we in regard to it the terrified hive invaded by a huge\nand inexplicable hand, the maddened ant-hill trampled by a\ncolossal and incomprehensible foot? Let us not venture yet to\nsolve the strange riddle with the aid of the little that we know.\nLet us confine ourselves, for the moment, to noting on the way\nsome other, rather easier questions which we can at least try to\nanswer.\n\nFirst of all, are the facts at issue really new? Was it only\nyesterday that the existence of our unknown guest and its\nexternal manifestations were revealed to us? Is it our attention\nthat makes them appear more numerous, or is it the increase in\ntheir number that at last attracts out attention?\n\nIt does indeed seem that, however far we go back in history, we\neverywhere find the same extraordinary phenomena, under other\nnames and often in a more glamorous setting. Oracles, prophecies,\nincantations, haruspication, \"possession,\" evocation of the dead,\napparitions, ghosts, miraculous cures, levitation, transmission\nof thought, apparent resurrections and the rest are the exact\nequivalent, though magnified by the aid of plentiful and obvious\nfrauds of our latter-day supernaturalism. Turning in another\ndirection, we are able to see that psychical phenomena are very\nevenly distributed over the whole surface of the globe. At all\nevents, there does not appear to be any race that is absolutely\nor peculiarly refractory to them. One would be inclined to say,\nhowever, that they manifest themselves by preference among the\nmost civilized nations--perhaps because that is where they are\nmost carefully sought after--and among the most primitive. In\nshort, it cannot be denied that we are in the presence of\nfaculties or senses, more or less latent but at the same time\nuniversally distributed, which form part of the general and\nunvarying inheritance of mankind. But have these faculties or\nsenses undergone evolution, like most of the others? And, if they\nhave not done so on our earth, do they show traces of an\nextraplanetary evolution? Is there progress or reaction? Are they\nwithered and useless branches, or buds swollen with sap and\npromise? Are they retreating before the march of intelligence or\ninvading its domain?\n\n\n11\n\nM. Ernest Bozzano, one of the most learned, most daring and most\nsubtle exponents of the new science that is in process of\nformation, in the course of a remarkable essay in the Annales des\nsciences psychiques,[1] gives it as his opinion that they have\nremained stationary and unchanged. He considers that they have\nbecome in no way diffused, generalized and refined, like so many\nothers that are much less important and useful from the point of\nview of the struggle for life, such as the musical faculty, for\ninstance. It does not even seem, says M. Bozzano, that it is\npossible to cultivate or develop them systematically. The Hindu\nrace in particular, who for thousands of years have been devoting\nthemselves to the study of these manifestations, have arrived at\nnothing but a better knowledge of the empirical methods\ncalculated to produce them in individuals already endowed with\nthese supernormal faculties. I do not know to what extent M.\nBozzano's assertions are beyond dispute. They concern historical\nor remote facts which it is very difficult to verify. In any\ncase, it is something to have perfected , as has been done in\nIndia, the empirical methods favourable to the production of\nsupernormal phenomena. One might even say that it is about all\nthat we have the right to expect, seeing that, by the author's\nown admission, these faculties are latent in every man and that,\nas has frequently been seen, it needs but an illness, a lesion,\nor sometimes even the slightest emotion or a mere passing\nfaintness to make them suddenly reveal themselves in an\nindividual who seemed most hopelessly devoid of them. It is\ntherefore quite possible that, by improving the methods, by\nattacking the mystery from other quarters, we might obtain more\ndecisive results than the Hindus. We must remember that our\nwestern science has but lately interested itself in these\nproblems and that it has means of investigating and experimenting\nwhich the Asiatics never possessed. It may even be declared that\nat no time in the existence of our world has the scientific mind\nbeen better-equipped, better-suited to cope with every task, or\nmore exact, more skilful and more penetrating than it is today.\nBecause the oriental empirics have failed, there is no reason to\nbelieve that it will not succeed in awakening and cultivating in\nevery man those faculties which would often be of greater use to\nhim than those of the intellect itself. It is not overbold to\nsuggest that, from certain points of view, the true history of\nmankind has hardly begun.\n\n[1] September, 1906.\n\n\n\n12\n\nNevertheless, in so far as concerns the natural evolution of\nthose faculties, M. Bozzano's assertion seem fairly well-\njustified. We do not, in fact, observe a startling or even\nappreciable difference between what they were and what they are.\nAnd this anomaly is the more surprising in as much as it is\nalmost universally accepted that a sense or a faculty becomes\ndeveloped in proportion to its usefulness; and there are few, I\nthink, that would have been not only more useful but even more\nnecessary to man. He has always had a keen and primitive interest\nin knowing without delay the most secret thoughts of his\nfellow-man, who is often his adversary and sometimes his mortal\nenemy. He has always had an interest no less great in immediately\ntransmitting those thoughts through space, in seeing beyond the\ncontinents and seas, in going back into the past, in advancing\ninto the future, in being able to find in his memory at will not\nonly all the acquirements of his personal experience but also\nthose of his ancestors, in communicating with the dead and\nperhaps with the sovereign intelligence diffused over the\nuniverse, in discovering hidden springs and treasures, in\nescaping the harsh and depressing laws of matter and gravity, in\nrelieving pain, in curing the greater number of his disorders and\neven in restoring his limbs, not to mention many other miracles\nwhich he could work if he knew all the mighty forces that\ndoubtless slumber in the dark recesses of his life.\n\nIs this once more an unexpected character of the eccentric\nphysiology of our unknown guest? Here are faculties more precious\nthan the most precious faculties that have made us what we are,\nfaculties whose magic buds sprout on every side underneath our\nintelligence but have never burst into flower, as though a wind\nfrom another sphere had killed them with its icy breath. Is it\nbecause it occupies itself first and foremost with the species\nthat it thus neglects the individual? But, after all, the species\nis only an aggregate of successive individuals; and its evolution\nconsequently depends upon their evolution. There would therefore\nhave been an evident advantage to the species in developing\nfaculties that would perhaps have carried it much farther and\nmuch higher than has been done by its brain-power, which alone\nhas progressed. If there is no evolution for them here, do they\ndevelop elsewhere? What are those powers which exist outside and\nindependent of the laws of this earth? Do they then belong to\nother worlds? But, if so, what are they doing in ours? One would\nsometimes think, at the sight of so much neglectfulness,\nuncertainty and inconsistency, that man's evolution had been\nintentionally retarded by a superior will, as though that will\nfeared that he was going too fast, that he was anticipating some\npre established order and moving prematurely out of his appointed\nplane.\n\n13\n\n\nAnd the riddles accumulate which we cannot hope to solve. It has\nbeen said that these abnormal faculties are communications or\ninfiltrations, themselves abnormal, which have found their way\nthrough the partitions that separate our consciousness from our\nsubconsciousness. This is very likely, but it is only a minor\nside of the question. It would be important before all to know\nwhat that subconsciousness represents, whither it tends and with\nwhat it itself is communicating. Is the impersonal form of\nknowledge a necessary or an accidental stage? Is the impersonal\nform which it takes in the subconsciousness the only true one? Is\nthere really, as everything seems to prove, a hopeless\nincompatibility between our intellectual faculties and those\nfamilies of uncertain origin, to such an extent that the latter\nare unable to manifest themselves except when the former are\nweakened or temporarily suspended? It has, at any rate, been\nobserved that they are hardly ever exercised simultaneously. Are\nwe to believe that, at a given moment, mankind or the genius that\npresides over its destinies had to make an exclusive and awful\nchoice between cerebral energy and the mysterious forces of the\nsubconsciousness and that we still find traces of its hesitations\nin our organism? What would have become of a race of man in which\nthe subconsciousness had triumphed over the brain? Is not this\nthe case with animals; and would not the race have remained\npurely animal? Or else would not this preponderance of a\nsubconscious more powerful than that of the animals and almost\nindependent of our body have resulted in the disappearance of\nlife as we know it; and should we not even now be trading the\nlife which we shall probably lead when we are dead? Here are a\nnumber of questions to which there are no answers and which are\nnevertheless perhaps not so idle as one might at first believe.\n\n14\n\nAmidst this antagonism, whose triumph are we to hope for? Is any\nalliance between the two opposing forces for ever impossible so\nlong as we are in the flesh? What are we to do meanwhile? If a\nchoice be inevitable, which way will our choice incline; and\nwhich victim shall we sacrifice? Shall we listen to those who\ntell us that there is nothing more to be gained or learnt in\nthose inhospitable regions where all our bewildering phenomena\nhave been known since man first was man? Is it true that\noccultism--as it is very improperly called, for the knowledge\nwhich it seeks is no more occult than any other--is it true that\noccultism is marking time, that it is becoming hopelessly\nentangled in the same doubtful facts and that it has not taken a\nsingle step forward since its renaissance more than fifty years\nago? One must be entirely ignorant of the wonderful efforts of\nthose fruitful years to venture upon such an assertion. This is\nnot the place to discuss the question, which would require full\nand careful treatment; but we may safely say that until now there\nis no science which in so short a time has brought order out of\nsuch a chaos, ascertained, checked and classified such a quantity\nof facts, or more rapidly awakened, cultivated and trained in man\ncertain faculties which he had never seriously been believed to\npossess; and furthermore none which has caused to be recognized\nas incontestable and thus introduced into the circle of the\nrealities whereon we base our lives a number of unlikely\nphenomena which had hitherto been contemptuously passed over. We\nare still, it is true, waiting for the domestication of the new\nforce, its practical application to daily use. We are waiting for\nthe all-revealing, decisive manifestation which will remove our\nlast doubts and throw light upon the problem down to its very\nsource. But let us admit that we are likewise waiting for this\nmanifestation in the great majority of sciences. In my case, we\nare already in the presence of an astonishing mass of\nwell-weighed and verified materials which, until now, had been\ntaken for the refuse of dreams, fragments of wild legends,\nmeaningless and unimportant. For more than three centuries, the\nscience of electricity remained at very much the same point at\nwhich our psychical sciences stand to-day. Men were recording,\naccumulating, trying to interpret a host of odd and futile\nphenomena, toying with Ramsden's machine, with Leyden jars, with\nVolta's rough battery. They thought that they had discovered an\nagreeable pastime, an ingenious plaything for the laboratory or\nstudy; and they had not the slightest suspicion that they were\ntouching the sources of an universal, irresistible, inexhaustible\npower, invisibly present and active in all things, that would\nsoon invade the surface of our globe. Nothing tells us that the\npsychic forces of which we are beginning to catch a glimpse have\nnot similar surprises in store for us, with this difference, that\nwe are here concerned with energies and mysteries which are\nloftier, grander and doubtless fraught with graver consequences,\nsince they affect our eternal destinies, traverse alike our life\nand our death and extend beyond our planet.\n\n15\n\nIt is not true therefore that the psychical sciences have said\ntheir last word and that we have nothing more to expect from\nthem. They have but just awakened or reawakened; and, to postdate\nGuyau's prediction by a hundred years, we might say, with them in\nour minds, that the twentieth century \"will end with discoveries\nas ill-formulated but perhaps as important in the moral world as\nthose of Newton and Laplace in the astronomical world.\" But,\nthough we have much to hope from them, that is no reason why we\nshould look to them for everything and abandon in their favour\nthat which has brought us where we are. The choice of which we\nspoke, between the brain and the subconsciousness, has been made\nlong ago; and it is not our part to make it over again. We are\ncarried along by a force acquired in the course of two or three\nthousand years; and our methods, like our intellectual habits,\nhave of themselves become transformed into sort of minor\nsubconsciousness superposed upon the major subconsciousness and\nsometimes mingling with it. Henri Bergson, in his very fine\npresidential address to the Society for Psychical Research on the\n28th of May, 1913, said that he had sometimes wondered what would\nhave happened if modern science, instead of setting out from\nmathematics, instead of bringing all its forces to converge on\nthe study of matter, had begun by the consideration of mind; if\nKepler, Galileo and Newton, for instance, had been psychologists:\n\n\"We should certainly,\" said he, \"have had a psychology of which\nto-day we can form no idea, any more than before Galileo we could\nhave imagined what our physics would be; a psychology that\nprobably would have been to our present psychology what our\nphysics is to Aristotle's. Foreign to every mechanistic idea, not\neven conceiving the possibility of an explanation, science would\nhave enquired into, instead of dismissing a priori facts, such as\nthose which you study; perhaps 'psychical research' would have\nstood out as its principal preoccupation. The most general laws\nof mental activity once discovered (as, in fact, the fundamental\nlaws of mechanics were discovered), we should have passed from\nmind, properly so-called, to life; biology would have been\nconstituted, but a vitalist biology, quite different from ours,\nwhich would have sought behind the sensible forms of living\nbeings the inward, invisible force of which the sensible forms\nare the manifestations.\"\n\nIt would therefore in the very first days of its activity have\nencountered all these strange problems: telepathy,\nmaterializations, clairvoyance, miraculous cures, knowledge of\nthe future, the possibility of survival, interplanetary\nintelligence and many others, which it has neglected hitherto and\nwhich, thanks to its neglect, are still in their infancy. But, as\nthe human mind is not able to follow two diametrically opposite\ndirections at the same time, it would necessarily have rejected\nthe mathematical sciences. A steamship coming from another\nhemisphere, one in which men's minds had taken, unknown to\nourselves, the road which our own has actually taken, would have\nseemed to us as wonderful, as incredible as the phenomena of our\nsubconsciousness seem to us to-day. We should have gone very\nfar in what at present we call the unknown or the occult; but we\nshould have known hardly anything of physics, chemistry or\nmechanics, unless, which is very probable, we had come upon them\nby another road as we travelled round the occult. It is true that\ncertain nations, the Hindus particularly, the Egyptians and\nperhaps the Incas, as well as others, in all probability, who\nhave not left sufficient traces, thus went to work the other way\nand obtained nothing decisive. Is this again a consequence of the\nhopeless incompatibility between the faculties of the brain and\nthose of the subconsciousness? Possibly; but we must not forget\nthat we are speaking of nations which never possessed our\nintellectual habits, our passion for precision, for verification,\nfor experimental certainty; indeed, this passion has only been\nfully developed in ourselves within the last two or three\ncenturies. It is to be presumed therefore that the European would\nhave gone much farther in the other direction than the Oriental.\nWhere would he have arrived? Endowed with a different brain,\nnaturally clearer, more exacting, more logical, less credulous,\nmore practical, closer to realities, more attentive to details,\nbut with the scientific side of his intelligence uncultivated,\nwould he have gone astray or would he have met the truths which\nwe are still seeking and which may well be more important than\nall our material conquests. Ill-prepared, ill-equipped,\nill-balanced, lacking the necessary ballast of experiments and\nproofs, would he have been exposed to the dangers familiar to all\nthe too-mystical nations? It is very difficult to imagine so. But\nthe hour has now perhaps come to try without risk what he could\nnot have done without grave peril. While abandoning no whit of\nhis understanding, which is small compared with the boundless\nscope of the subconsciousness, but which is sure, tried and\ndocile, he can now embark upon the great adventure and try to do\nthat which has not been done before. It is a matter of\ndiscovering the connecting link between the two forces. We are\nstill ignorant of the means of aiding, encouraging, developing\nand taming the greater of the two and of bringing it closer to\nus; the quest will be the most difficult, the most mysterious\nand, in certain respects, the most dangerous that mankind has\never undertaken. But we can say to ourselves, without fear of\nbeing very far wrong, that it is the best task at the moment. In\nany case, this is the first time since man has existed that he\nwill be fronting the unknown with such good weapons, even as it\nis also the first time since its awakening that his intelligence,\nwhich has reached a summit from which it can understand almost\neverything, will at last receive help from outside and hear a\nvoice that is something more than the echo of its own.","title":"The Unknown Guest","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":58540}