{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37565/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37565","id":"gutenberg_37565","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37565","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Parapsychology"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Juliet Sutherland, eagkw and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  Psychical Miscellanea\n  _Being Papers on\n  Psychical Research, Telepathy,\n  Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc._\n\n  BY\n\n  J. ARTHUR HILL\n  _Author of \"Psychical Investigations,\" \"Man is a Spirit,\"\n  \"Spiritualism; Its History, Phenomena and Doctrine,\" etc._\n\n\n  NEW YORK:\n  HARCOURT, BRACE & HOWE,\n  1920\n\n\n\n\n  _Printed in England_\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nMany friends and correspondents have suggested that I should republish\na number of articles which have appeared from time to time in various\nquarters. The present volume brings these articles together, with some\nwhich have not appeared before.\n\nEach chapter is complete in itself, but there is more or less connexion,\nfor each deals with some aspect of the subject to which I have given\nmost attention during the last twelve years--namely, psychical research.\n\nI thank the editors of the _Holborn Review_, _National Review_, _World's\nWork_, and _Occult Review_ for permission to republish articles which\nhave appeared in their pages.\n                                                       J. A. H.\n  THORNTON,\n      BRADFORD.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                        PAGE\n  DEATH                                                    1\n  IF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?                      11\n  PSYCHICAL RESEARCH; ITS METHOD, EVIDENCE, AND TENDENCY  18\n  THE EVOLUTION OF A PSYCHICAL RESEARCHER                 43\n  DO MIRACLES HAPPEN?                                     52\n  THE TRUTH ABOUT TELEPATHY                               58\n  THE TRUTH ABOUT HYPNOTISM                               63\n  CHRISTIAN SCIENCE                                       75\n  JOAN OF ARC                                             88\n  IS THE EARTH ALIVE?                                     94\n  RELIGIOUS BELIEF AFTER THE WAR                         111\n\n\n\n\nPsychical Miscellanea\n\n\n\n\nDEATH\n\n\nOur feelings with regard to the termination of our earthly existence are\nremarkably varied. In some people, there is an absolutely genuine and\nstrong desire for cessation of individual consciousness, as in the case\nof John Addington Symonds. Probably, however, this is met with only in\nkeenly sensitive natures which have suffered greatly in this life. Such\nunfortunate people are sometimes constitutionally unable to believe in\nanything better than cessation of their pain. Anything better than\nthat is \"too good to be true\", so much too good that they hardly dare\nwish for it. Others, who have had a happy life, naturally desire a\ncontinuance of it, and are therefore eager, like F. W. H. Myers, for\nthat which Symonds dreaded. Others, again, and these are probably the\nmajority, have no very marked feeling in the matter; like the good\nChurchman in the story, they hope to enter into everlasting bliss, but\nthey wish you would not talk about such depressing subjects. This seems\nto suggest that they have secret qualms about the reality of the bliss.\nPerhaps they have read Mark Twain's _Captain Stormfield's Visit to\nHeaven_, and, though inexpressibly shocked by that exuberant work, are\nnevertheless tinged with a sneaking sympathy for its hero, who found the\northodox abode of the blest an unbearably dull place. The harp-playing\nin particular was trying, and he had difficulty in managing his wings.\n\nAnyhow, these people avoid the subject. As Emerson says somewhere,\nreligion has dealings with them three times in their lives: when they\nare christened, when they are married, and when they are buried. And\nundoubtedly its main appeal is in the period prior to this third\nformality, if they happen to have a longish illness. The rich Miss\nCrawley, in _Vanity Fair,_ is typical of many. In days of health and\ngood spirits, this venerable lady had \"as free notions of religion and\nmorals as Monsieur de Voltaire himself could desire\"; but when she was\nin the clutches of disease, and even though in the odour of sanctity, so\nto speak--for she was nursed by Mrs Reverend Bute Crawley, who hoped for\nthe seventy thousand pounds if she could keep Rawdon and Becky off the\ndoorstep--even with this spiritual advantage she was in much fear, and\n\"an utter cowardice took possession of the prostrate old sinner.\"\n\nWell, let those laugh who will. As for me, I have great sympathy with\nMiss Crawley. Probably those who laugh, or are contemptuous of such\ncowardice, are people who have not yet come to close quarters with\ndeath--have not looked him, as the French say, in the white of the\neyes. Let them wait until that happens. If they come back after that\nrencontre, they will be a little more tolerant of the cowardice of those\nwhom they called weaker brethren.\n\nFear of death may be divided into classes, according to its cause, i.e.,\nthe intellectual state out of which it seems to arise. It may be due to\nthe expectation of physical suffering; or, as in such cases as Cowper's\nand Dr Johnson's, to expectation of what may happen after death, in\nthat undiscovered country from which Hamlet said no traveller returned,\nthough he had just been talking with his father's ghost, piping hot--as\nGoldsmith has it in his Essay on Metaphor--from Purgatory. In my own\ncase, I think the fear is a little of both. And I admit that in both\ndirections the fear is irrational. As to the physical part, it is\nprobable that when my time comes I shall depart without much of what is\nusually called pain, for the heart seems to be my weak place, and I may\nreasonably hope that even though if attacked by other ailments, it\nwill be the heart that will give way. There will probably be suffering\nthrough difficulty of breathing, and I dread this somewhat, for I know\nhow unpleasant it has been in the attacks which I have survived. Still,\nit can hardly be compared with the agonising pain of many diseases.\nRationally, then, I ought not to have much fear on the physical side.\n\nOn the spiritual side I confess with Oliver Wendell Holmes that I have\nnever quite got from under the shadow of the orthodox hell. I had a\nPuritan upbringing, not severe in its home theology I am thankful\nto say, but involving attendance at an Independent Chapel where the\nminister--a good man and no hypocrite--was wont to preach very terrible\nsermons. I shall never quite get over the baneful effect of those\ndamnatory fulminations. They branded my soul. They caused me more pain\nthan anything else has ever done throughout my life--and this is saying\na great deal. They made me hate God. Remember, I was a defenceless\nchild. I knew of no other God. I thought all decent people believed like\nthose about me. I was the only heretic--a rebel, an outlaw, an Ishmael.\nConceive, if you can, the agony of a sensitive child struggling with\nthat thought! Condemned to eternal torment, with those who, in Dante's\nterrible line, \"have no hope of death.\" (\"Inferno,\" iii, 46.)\n\nThen I fell in with O. W. Holmes's Autocrat and Professor, and found a\nfriendly hand in the darkness. It led me to Emerson and Carlyle; then\nI found Darwin, Spencer, and the rest of them. My loneliness was\nmitigated, but the seared place in my soul was not healed, and never\nwill be healed. I cannot read the Inferno and Purgatorio of Dante\nwithout horror, and thus the poetic beauty of those great cantos is\ndarkened for me. I cannot worship \"God,\" for \"God\" is the fiend whose\nimage was stamped into my mind in its most plastic, most defenceless\nperiod. Truly that early teaching has much to answer for. It has\npoisoned a great part of my life. I suppose if I could have \"accepted\"\nthat Being as my God, accepting also the sacrifice--the Blood--by which\nthat Being's anger was supposed to be assuaged--I suppose I should have\nbeen happy, feeling myself \"saved.\" (But I have lately been surprised to\nfind how ineffective this belief can be. An acquaintance of mine, an\northodox churchwoman who has no religious doubts, and who talks much of\nthe Bible, confesses to \"a fear of death which clouds even her brightest\nmoments\"--an ever-present, unconquerable dread.) However, I could not\naccept the dogma. Why, I don't know. Somehow my whole mind and heart\nrevolted against the entire plan of salvation. I never believed any of\nit. I felt it could not be true. And yet it tortured me. Illogical?\nYes: human beings are illogical. I am no exception. The Christian who\nbelieves he will go to heaven is equally illogical in his unwillingness\nto die.\n\nWhen or if we succeed in getting rid of hell, the spiritual fear of\ndeath becomes less torturing, remaining only as a vague dread, as in\nHamlet's soliloquy. Bacon says that we fear death as children fear to\ngo in the dark. In my own case, it is somewhat thus that the fear now\npresents itself. The old hell-fear, though not utterly obliterated, is\nbecoming less all-swallowing. This very desirable state of affairs\nis partly the result of the conclusions to which I have been led by\npsychical research. After many years of experiment and close study, I\ncan say that I know something about after-death conditions. Not that I\npretend to be able to coerce other people into a similar belief, even if\nI wanted to. Each must travel his own path. Moreover, psychical research\nbeing a science, its results are not more certain than those of other\nsciences. Alternative theories in explanation of any phenomenon are\nalways possible. There is no such thing as knock-down proof. But for my\npart I can say that I know--in the same way that I know the truth of\nMendeleef's law, or Avogadro's law, or Dalton's atomic theory--that\nhuman beings do not become extinct when they die, that they are often\nable to communicate with us after that event, and that they are not in\nany orthodox heaven or hell. My knowledge is based partly on a lengthy\nand carefully-conducted series of sittings which some intimate friends\nof mine have had with a medium known to me; partly on my own results\nover a period of several years of systematic investigation; and partly\non various curious experiences of psychic friends of mine who are in no\nsense professional mediums. (Details to some extent in my _New Evidences\nin Psychical Research_ (Rider, 1911) and _Psychical Investigations_\n(Cassell, 1917.) I now believe, with the Bishop of London, that a man\nis essentially the same five minutes after death as he was five minutes\nbefore. As the old woman says in _David Copperfield_, \"death doesn't\nchange us more than life\"--no, nor as much!\n\nThe upshot is, of course, that my spiritual fear of death has, I am\nthankful to say, almost vanished. The lurid future has taken on a milder\nradiance.\n\nIt is not that I want assuring of \"happiness\" in a future state as\ncompensation for misery in this. I should be quite contented if I could\nbe assured that death is annihilation. It would at least be a cessation\nof suffering; and that is much. I could agree with Keats:\n\n    \"Darkling I listen; and, for many a time\n    I have been half in love with easeful Death,\n    Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,\n    To take into the air my quiet breath.\n    Now more than ever seems it rich to die,\n    To cease upon the midnight with no pain\n    While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad\n            In such an ecstasy.\n    Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--\n    To thy high requiem become a sod!\"\n                                   --(_To the Nightingale_)\n\nEaseful death--it is a good word. Keats knew disease, and was content\nwith prospect of ease; though at the end there is a note of depression\nor despair at the thought of becoming a \"sod,\" deaf and blind to beauty.\n\nThis reminds us of the attitude of other poets towards the great\nproblem. Tennyson is mildly optimistic and placid; stretches, indeed,\nsomewhat lame hands of faith in his sorrowful moments when his friend\nhas died, but on the whole is healthily disposed; friendly to the most\ncheerful way of looking at it; inclined, with true British burliness, to\nmake the best of a bad job--a job which, after all, may not be so very\nbad when we come to closer quarters with it. Afar, death is the spectre\nfeared of man; seen nearer, he may metamorphose into a beautiful Iris,\nsent by heavenly mercy. And, afterwards, the new spiritual state will\nprobably be an improvement--Aeonian evolution through all the spheres.\nTherefore, away with all selfish mourning either about our own\nprospective fate or that of those who have left us. Let us hate the\nblack negation of the bier:\n\n    \"And wish the dead, as happier than ourselves\n    And higher, having climb'd one step beyond\n    Our village miseries, might be borne in white\n    To burial or to burning, hymned from hence\n    With songs in praise of death, and crowned with flowers.\"\n\nNo doubt Tennyson was to a very great extent able to stay himself on\nthe personal mystic experiences described in his poem _The Ancient\nSage_--experiences which gave him a subjective assurance that death was\n\"a ludicrous impossibility\". Browning, characteristically buoyant, was\nready to face death with a laugh; the fog in the throat will pass, the\nblack minute's at end, then thy breast. In _Prospice_ we feel the eager\nsureness with which he looked forward to rejoining her whose bodily\npresence had left him a few months before. But even Browning's cheery\nsalutation is outdone by Whitman. The American, though acquainted with\nsuffering as Browning was not, and though apparently without much belief\nor interest in personal survival, was almost uncannily friendly to his\nown taking off. And it was not because he suffered so greatly that\nhe hailed release. It was more the natural outcome of his joyous\ntemperament, subdued at the last to a kind of solemn exaltation. The\nfollowing stanzas were written with George Inness' picture _The Valley\nof the Shadow of Death_ in mind:\n\n    \"Nay, do not dream, designer dark,\n    Thou hast portray'd or hit thy theme entire;\n    I, hoverer of late by this dark valley, by its confines, having\n          glimpses of it,\n    Here enter lists with thee, claiming my right to make a symbol too.\n    For I have seen many wounded soldiers die,\n    After dread suffering--have seen their lives pass off with smiles,\n    And I have watch'd the death-hours of the old; and seen the\n          infant die;\n    The rich, with all his nurses and his doctors;\n    And then the poor, in meagreness and poverty;\n    And I myself for long, O Death, have breath'd my every breath\n    Amid the nearness and the silent thought of thee.\n\n                  \"And out of these and thee,\n    I make a scene, a song (not fear of thee,\n    Nor gloom's ravines, nor bleak, nor dark--for I do not fear thee,\n    Nor celebrate the struggle, or contortion, or hard-tied knot),\n    Of the broad blessed light, and perfect air, with meadows, rippling\n          tides, and trees and flowers and grass,\n    And the low hum of living breeze--and in the midst God's beautiful\n          eternal right hand,\n    Thee, holiest minister of Heaven--thee, envoy, usherer, guide\n          at last of all,\n    Rich, florid, loosener of the stricture-knot called life,\n                Sweet, peaceful, welcome Death.\"\n\nThis is indeed a change from the idea of Death as King of Terrors, as\n\"spectre feared of man\". (_In Memoriam_)\n\nThe Greek idea, at its best, seems to have been half-way between the\ntwo extremes. It regarded death with more or less equanimity, as being\ncertainly not the greatest evil--no king of terrors--but merely an\nemissary of greater Powers, to whose will we must bow, though with\ndignity:\n\n  \"He that is a man in good earnest must not be so mean as to whine\n  for life, and grasp intemperately at old age; let him leave this\n  point to Providence.\"--(Plato: _Gorgias_)\n\nSophocles has the same thought, with an added touch of Hamlet-like\nirritation about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune:\n\n    \"It is a shame to crave long life, when troubles\n    Allow a man no respite. What delight\n    Bring days, one with another, setting us\n    Forward or backward on our path to death?\n    I would not take the fellow at a gift\n    Who warms himself with unsubstantial hopes;\n    But bravely to live on, or bravely end,\n    Is due to gentle breeding. I have said.\"--(_Ajax_)\n\nCicero voices the same pagan feeling, in the contented language of a\nrather tired, wise old man:\n\n  \"I look forward to my dissolution as to a secure haven, where I\n  shall at length find a happy repose from the fatigues of a long\n  voyage.\"--(_De Senectute_)\n\nAnd was it not Cato--fine old Stoic--who, finding his natural force\nabating, and accepting the hint furnished by a stumble in the street,\nstooped and kissed the ground: \"Proserpine, I come!\" and went home,\nmaking a speedy end, unwilling to suffer the indignity of disease and\nthe shame of being served in weakness? Modern opinion wisely reprobates\nsuicide, but there is something noble in the Roman attitude, condemn it\nas we will. As a modern and almost comic example of a modern Stoic's\nattitude to this same question of death we may cite the famous lines of\nWalter Savage Landor:\n\n    \"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife,\n    Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art,\n    I warmed both hands before the fire of life,\n    It sinks, and I am ready to depart.\"\n\n\"Strove with none\", indeed! As a matter of fact, Landor strove with\neverybody. He was one of the most quarrelsome men that ever lived.\nThe only man who could tolerate him was Browning. But in his mellower\nmoments, at least, he was \"ready to depart\", quietly acquiescing in the\nscheme of things. To depart, note; not to be extinguished. And this view\nis, all things considered, the most sane and wholesome view of the great\nproblem of Death. We did not begin to live when we were born in this\npresent tenement of flesh; we shall not cease to live when we quit it.\n'Tis but a tent for a night, an interlude, a descent into matter, a\ntemporary incarnation for educative purposes, of the soul or a part of\nit, as it pursues its lone way towards the ineffable goal. This life is\nbut a sleep and a forgetting;\n\n    \"The soul that rises with us, our life's star,\n    Has had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar.\"\n\nDeath, then, is to be welcomed when it comes. We must not run to meet\nit, or run from it; but we should welcome it when God thinks fit to send\nit, His messenger. The beautiful eternal right hand beckons, and the\nsoul gladly arises and departs, to \"that imperial palace whence it\ncame\", or to fare forth on some \"adventure brave and new\".\n\n\n\n\nIF A MAN DIE, SHALL HE LIVE AGAIN?\n\n\nA friend of mine tells me that psychical articles are always\ninteresting, \"because so many people die and go somewhere\". Presumably,\nthose who remain here feel a natural curiosity as to where the departed\nhave gone, partly for the latter's sake, and partly because they\nthemselves would like to know, so that they will know what to expect\nwhen their own time comes.\n\nThe teaching of religion on this point is admittedly either rather\nvague, or, if definite--as with the Augustinian theology--no longer\ncredible. We have progressed in sensitiveness and humanity, and can no\nlonger believe that a good God will inflict everlasting torment in a\nlake which burneth with fire and brimstone, even on the most wicked of\nHis creatures. Still less can we believe in such punishment being\ninflicted for the \"sin of unbelief\", for we now know well enough that\n\"belief\", being the net outcome of our total experience and character,\nis not under the control of the will. Consequently, a God who punished\ncreatures for not believing, when He knew all the time that He had so\nconstructed most of them that they could not believe, would be either\nwicked or insane. This inability to believe \"to order\" is plainly\nperceived if we reflect on what our feelings would be if a Mohammedan\nimplored us to believe in Allah and in Allah's Prophet, as the only way\nof salvation. We should decline, saying perhaps that we knew better;\nbut the real reason of our disbelief would not lie in our knowledge but\nin our general makeup. We could not believe in Mohammedanism if we\ntried. We have grown up in a different climate, and have taken a\ndifferent form.\n\nBut, putting aside the vindictive hell-god of Augustine, Tertullian,\nCalvin, and the rest--for not even an earthly father would punish a\nchild for ever--and taking Christianity at its best, we do not find any\nvery specific eschatological teaching. And this very absence is a good\nfeature. If a man tries to be good merely in order to avoid hell and\ngain heaven--in other words, because it will pay--his goodness is not\nmuch of a credit to him. It is only selfishness of a far-sighted kind.\nReligion, on the other hand, when at its best, seeks to influence\ncharacter, not by threats and promises, but by encouraging moods and\nattitudes and habits of thought from which good actions will flow\nspontaneously, without any profit-and-loss calculations. Modern\nChristianity is therefore perhaps right in touching much more lightly\non the future state than was customary in earlier centuries.\n\nNevertheless, we cannot repress a little curiosity. People die and go\nsomewhere, as my friend says. Where do they go? Modern Religion having\navoided definite answer, we turn to Science. And Science, much as it\nwould surprise such fine old gladiators as Huxley and Tyndall to hear\nit--has an answer, and an affirmative one.\n\nPsychical research has, in my opinion, brought together a mass of\nevidence strong enough to justify the following conclusions. I do not\nsay they are \"proved.\" You cannot \"prove\" that the earth is round,\nunless your hearer will at least study the evidence. You cannot even\nprove to him that 2 plus 2 makes 4, if he refuses to add. Therefore I\ndo not say anything about proof. I say only that after many years of\ncareful study and investigation I am of opinion that the evidence\njustifies the conclusions.\n\n(1) Telepathy is a fact. A mind may become aware of something that is\npassing in another mind at a distance, by means other than the normal\nsensory channels. The \"how\" of the communication is entirely unknown.\nThe analogy of wireless telegraphy of course suggests itself, but is\nmisleading. The ether-waves employed in wireless telegraphy are physical\npulses which obey the law of inverse squares; telepathy shows no\nconformity with that law, and has not been shown to be an affair of\nphysical waves at all. I believe that it is not a physical process; that\nit occurs in the spiritual world, between mind and mind, not primarily\nbetween brain and brain. And, if so--if mind can communicate with mind\nindependently of brain--the theory of materialism at least is exploded.\nIf mind can act independently of brain, mind may go on existing after\nbrain dies.\n\n(2) Communications, purporting to emanate from departed spirits, are\nsometimes so strikingly evidential that it is scientifically justifiable\nto assume the agency of a discarnate mind. For example, in a case known\nto me, a \"spirit\" communicating through a non-professional medium--a\nlady of means and position--referred to a recipe for pomatum which\nthe communicator said she had written in her recipe book. No one knew\nanything about it; but, on hunting up the book, the deceased lady's\ndaughters found a recipe for Dr Somebody's pomade, which their mother\nhad evidently written shortly before her death. They confirmed that\n\"pomatum\" was the word which their mother used. The points to be noted\nare: That the medium was not a professional; that no one who knows her\nhas doubted her integrity; that she was not acquainted with either\nthe deceased lady or her daughters; that the knowledge shown was\nnot possessed by any living (incarnate) mind, and is therefore not\nexplainable by telepathy; and, finally, that the case was watched and\nreported on by one of our ablest investigators--a lecturer at Newnham\nCollege--who found no flaw in the evidence.[1] I repeat that I do not\nclaim this to be \"proof\". I give it merely as an illustration, and will\ngive a few more detailed cases in a later chapter. For the present I\nmust be content to say that the mass of evidence known to me justifies\nthe belief that minds survive what we call death.\n\n  [1] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. xvii,\n  pp. 181-3.\n\nThe question then arises: What is the nature of the after life? And here\nwe are faced with great difficulties. We can ask the returning spirits,\nbut we cannot verify their statements. If my uncle John Smith purports\nto communicate, I can test his identity by asking him to tell me\nintimate family details which I can verify by asking his widow, who\nstill lives; but I cannot thus check his statements about his spiritual\nsurroundings. Still, if he has proved his identity--particularly if\ntelepathy seems excluded--we may perhaps feel fairly safe in accepting\nhis other statements as true, or at least in admitting their possible\ntruth. And of course we can obtain the statements of many different\nspirits, and can compare them. This has been done. The result is a\nstriking amount of uniformity. The various spirits agree, on the main\npoints.\n\nFirst of all, they are surprisingly unorthodox! They tell of no heaven\nor hell of the traditional kind. There is no sudden ascent into\nunalloyed and eternal bliss for the good--who, as Jesus pointed out,\nare not wholly good--and no sudden plunge into eternal fires for the\nbad--who, similarly, are not unqualifiedly bad. There is much of bad in\nthe best of us, and much of good in the worst of us. Accordingly, the\nreleased soul finds itself not very different from what it was while in\nthe flesh. It has passed into a higher class of the universal\nschool--that is all. Tennyson has the idea exactly:\n\n    \"No sudden heaven, nor sudden hell, for man,\n    But through the Will of One who knows and rules--\n    And utter knowledge is but utter love--\n    Aeonian Evolution, swift or slow,\n    Thro' all the Spheres--an ever opening height,\n    An ever lessening earth.\"\n\nI have said that this view is unorthodox, and so it is, if compared with\nthe orthodoxy of Calvin or Edwards or Tertullian. But it is pleasant\nto find that orthodoxy to-day is a different thing, and that the\nTennysonian notion is backed up in high quarters. The Bishopric of\nLondon is the highest ecclesiastical office in England, after the\nArchbishoprics of Canterbury and York, and we find the present Bishop\nof London (Dr Winnington-Ingram) speaking as follows:\n\n\"Is there anything definite about death in the Bible? I believe there\nis. I think if you follow me, you will find there are six things\nrevealed to us about life after death. The first is that the man is the\nsame man. Instead of death being the end of him, he is exactly the same\nfive minutes after death as five minutes before death, except having\ngone through one more experience in life. In the second place the\ncharacter grows after death; there is progress. As it grows in life\nso it grows after death. A third thing is, we have memory. 'Son,\nremember', that is what was said to Dives in the other world. Memory for\nplaces and people. We shall remember everything after death. And with\nmemory there will be recognition; we shall know one another. Husband and\nwife, parents and children. Sixthly, we still take great interest in the\nworld we have left\".\n\nThe good Bishop gets all this out of the Bible, and quite rightly. We\nhope no heresy-hunter will accuse him of \"selecting\" his texts and\nignoring the hell-fire ones.\n\nSo far as earth-language can go, the foregoing represents the probable\ntruth regarding the after life. If we inquire for details, we shall\nget nothing very satisfactory. If we ask a spirit concerning what he\ndoes--how he occupies himself--he will either say he \"cannot explain so\nthat you will understand\" or will tell about living in houses, going\nto lectures, teaching children, and the like. All this is obviously\nsymbolical. Any communications that a discarnate entity can send must,\nto be intelligible to us, be in human earth-language; and this language\nis based on sense-experience. After death, experience is different, for\nwe no longer have the same bodily senses--eyes, ears, etc.: consequently\nno explanation of the nature of spiritual existence can be more than\napproximately true; yet such expressions as living in houses, going to\nlectures, and the like, may be as near the truth as earth-language can\nget. If a bird tried to describe air-life to a fish, the best it could\ndo would be to say it is something like water-life, but there is more\nlight, more ease of movement, more detail, more things of interest\nand beauty. Of the wonders of sound--skylark's song, human choruses,\ninstrumental symphonies--no idea could be conveyed to the fish. Probably\nour friends in the next stage of existence have, in addition to the\nexperiences which they can partly describe, other experiences of which\nthey can give us absolutely no idea. They have been promoted. Their\ninterests and activities have become wider, their joys greater. Yet they\nare the \"same\" souls, as the butterfly is the \"same\" as the chrysalis\nfrom which it has arisen. But to know exactly what it feels like to be a\nbutterfly, the caterpillar and chrysalis have to wait Nature's time. So\nmust we.\n\n\n\n\nPSYCHICAL RESEARCH: ITS METHOD, EVIDENCE, AND TENDENCY.\n\n\nSpiritualism and Psychical Research are to the fore just now, and there\nis much newspaper and vocal discussion, based for the most part on\nignorance, particularly as regards the violent attackers of these\nthings. It is desirable that exact knowledge of the subject should\nbecome more general, and in a recent volume I have tried to review the\nwhole subject impartially.[2]\n\n  [2] _Spiritualism: Its History, Phenomena, and Doctrine_ (Cassell &\n  Co., Ltd.).\n\nBut there are many who in these stressful days have no time for even\none volume on this kind of thing, and for them, or such of them as may\nread this, I have tried in the present article to give an idea of what\npsychical research is, on the spiritualistic side, omitting the medical\nside which concerns itself with suggestive therapeutics. The article was\nfirst written as a paper which was read before a society of clergy in\nBradford, whose request for it was a significant and pleasing indication\nthat ministers are aware of the importance of the subject. They are\nrealising that psychical research is a powerful support to religious\nfaith, and that its results provide comfort for the bereaved. We live in\na scientific age, and the sorrowing heart asks for more than a text and\nan assurance that it is God's will and all for the best; it asks whether\nit is a fact that the departed one still lives and knows and loves,\nwhether it is well with him, and whether there will be reunion \"over\nthere\". Psychical research enables us to answer these questions in\nthe affirmative. Science is now backing up religion, and is providing\nministers with by far the best weapon against materialism and so-called\nrationalism. It meets these negative 'isms on their own ground, and does\nnot need to take cover under intuition or personal religious experience,\nwhich are convincing only to the experient. I am not belittling these;\nI am only saying that the phenomenal evidence is more potent for the\nscientific type of mind, and that a knowledge of this evidence is useful\nto those who are defending religion.\n\n\nTELEPATHY\n\nIt is found by experiment that ideas can be communicated from mind to\nmind through channels other than the known sensory ones. Professor\nGilbert Murray of Oxford, probably the most famous Greek scholar in this\ncountry, recently carried out some interesting experiments of this kind\nin his own family. He would go into another room, leaving his wife and\ndaughter to decide on something which they would try to communicate to\nhim on his return. They chose the most absurd and unlikely things, but\nin a large number of cases Professor Murray, by making his mind as\npassive as possible and saying the first thing that came into his head,\nwas able to reproduce with startling accuracy the idea they had in mind.\nFor instance, they thought of Savonarola at Florence and the people\nburning their clothes and pictures and valuables. Says Professor Murray:\n\"I first felt 'This is Italy', then, 'this is not modern'; and then\nhesitated, when accidentally a small tarry bit of coal tumbled out of\nthe fire. I smelt oil or paint burning and so got the whole scene. It\nseems as though here some subconscious impression, struggling up towards\nconsciousness, caught hold of the burning coal as a means of getting\nthrough\".[3] On another occasion they thought of \"Grandfather at the\nHarrow and Winchester cricket match, dropping hot cigar-ash on Miss\nThompson's parasol.\" Professor Murray's guess, reported verbatim, was:\n\"Why, this is grandfather! He's at a cricket match--why it's absurd:\nhe seems to be dropping ashes on a lady's parasol.\" Another time they\nthought of a scene in a book of Strindberg's which Professor Murray had\nnot read: a poor, old, cross, disappointed schoolmaster eating crabs for\nlunch at a restaurant, and insisting on having female crabs. Professor\nMurray says: \"I got the atmosphere, the man, the lunch in the restaurant\non crabs, and thought I had finished, when my daughter asked: 'What kind\nof crabs?' I felt rather impatient and said: 'Oh, Lord, I don't know:\nfemale crabs.' That is, the response to the question came automatically,\nwith no preparation, while I thought I could not give it. I may add that\nI had never before heard of there being any inequality between the sexes\namong crabs, regarded as food.\"\n\n  [3] _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. 29,\n  p. 59. (For brevity's sake I shall hereinafter use the recognised\n  initials \"S.P.R.\" for the Society.)\n\nThis kind of evidence is not the best, because the thoughts of\nmembers of one family run more or less in similar grooves; though the\nexperimenters recognised this and chose unlikely things purposely. Other\ninvestigators have sometimes used cards, drawing one at random from a\nshuffled pack, looking at it, and the percipient then trying to say what\nit is. The chance of success is of course one in fifty-two, and the\namount of success which we might expect by chance in any series can\nbe mathematically determined. In one series of successful experiments\nconducted by Sir Oliver Lodge the odds against an explanation by chance\nalone were about ten millions to one. In ordinary matters this would be\nregarded as proof.\n\nOther experiments of the same general character have been carried out by\nSir William Barrett, Professor Sidgwick, and others, and details may be\nfound in the S.P.R. _Proceedings_. In most cases the idea comes into the\nmind as an impression, but if the percipient is a good visualiser it is\nsometimes seen almost externalised as a hallucination. This leads us to\nthe next step.\n\nIf it is possible to convey to another mind--sometimes so vividly that\nthe thing is almost seen as if out there in space--an image of scenes\nthought about, may it not be possible to convey an image of oneself?\nThis idea occurred to a gentleman referred to by Myers as Mr S. H. B.\nin his book _Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death_. Mr\nS. H. B., whom I know by correspondence and whose brother I have known\npersonally for many years, decided that he would try to make himself\nvisible to two young ladies whom he knew, and he concentrated his mind\non the effort just before going to bed. He willed to show himself in\ntheir room at one o'clock in the morning. The distance from his house to\ntheirs was three miles. Next time he saw them, a few days later, they\ntold him they had had a great fright: the elder sister had seen Mr B.'s\napparition, had screamed and awakened her little sister, who also saw\nhim. The time was one o'clock in the morning. They told him this before\nhe said anything about his experiment, and they had no reason to expect\nthat he would try anything of the kind. Both Mr B. and his brother\nare keen and successful business men; Mr S. H. B. is now retired, his\nbrother is still the head of a large firm. I mention this because some\ncritics seem to have a notion that psychical researchers are a crowd of\nlong-haired poets or semi-lunatic cranks.\n\n\nPHANTASMS OF THE DEAD\n\nNow if a living man can by force of will project a telepathic phantasm\nof himself, it is reasonable to suppose that a dead man can do the same,\nif the so-called dead man still exists; for telepathy does not seem to\nbe a physical process of ether-waves, does not conform to the law of\ninverse squares or propagate itself in all directions as physical forces\ndo. It seems to occur in the mental world, between mind and mind rather\nthan between brain and brain. Consequently, telepathy from the dead is\nlikely to be easier than from the living, for they over there are not\nclogged with the fleshly body. Certainly, however they may be explained,\nthere are many cases of the apparition of a deceased person. The\ndifficulty about accepting the evidentiality of some of them is that if\nthe percipient knew that the person appearing was dead, the apparition\nmay be merely a subjective hallucination. And even if the death was not\nknown, it might be surmised, and the apparition might be the result of\nexpectancy if the person appearing was known to be ill or in danger. But\nthere are some cases in which a certain amount of detail is conveyed,\nrendering a subjective explanation not very probable. For instance,\nCaptain Colt had a vision of his brother, in a kneeling position, with\na bullet wound in his right temple. He described the vision to several\npeople in the house before any news came, so the case does not rest on\nhis word alone. In due time information arrived that his brother had\nbeen killed. He had been shot through the right temple, had fallen among\na heap of others, and was found in a kneeling position. In his pocket\nwas a letter from Capt. Colt asking him, if anything happened to him,\nto make his presence known in the room in which as a matter of fact the\napparition was seen. The vision, it was found, occurred a few hours\nafter the death. Mr Myers gives full details in _Human Personality_.\nIn this case the bullet-wound and the kneeling position are points of\ncorrect detail which are hardly explicable on a subjective theory. The\nbest sceptical theory is that the incident was telepathic, the wounded\nbrother sending out his telepathic message after being shot. This is\npossible, but hardly probable; for death in the case of a bullet-wound\nthrough the temple must be almost instantaneous.\n\nSpontaneous cases of this kind and of this degree of evidentiality\nare rare, but there is a large mass of evidence of the same general\ncharacter. The S.P.R. once carried out an extensive inquiry, receiving\nanswers from 17,000 people, and tabulating the results in a volume of\nthe _Proceedings_. The final conclusion, expressed in weighed and\nguarded words, was that \"Between deaths and apparitions of the dying\nperson a connexion exists which is not due to chance alone\". This was\nsigned, among other members of the Committee, by Professor Sidgwick,\nwhom Professor James once called \"the most exasperatingly critical mind\nin England\". Some of the apparitions occur before the person's actual\ndeath, but usually in such cases he is already unconscious and the\nspirit practically free. As to those occurring after, the main\ndifficulty about admitting them as proof of survival is, as just said,\nthe possibility that although they may appear after the death of the\nperson, the telepathic impulse may have been sent out before, and may\nhave remained latent for some time in the mind of the percipient. This\nhas been carefully considered by investigators, and in many cases there\nare reasons for regarding it as an insufficient theory. On the whole,\nthe evidence tends more and more to suggest that in at least some\ninstances these happenings are due to the agency of a discarnate mind.\nThe proof is cumulative, and no single case can be crucial. There is\nno coerciveness about it, and each can invent his own hypothesis. But\nthose who have considered the subject most carefully have come to the\nprovisional conclusion that the agency of the so-called dead is in some\ncases a reasonable, and indeed the most reasonable, supposition. There\nare of course many narratives of this kind in the Bible,[4] the _Lives_\nof the Saints, and other literature, but these records, being of\npre-scientific date, and lacking the corroborative testimony which we\nnow require, are of a lower order of evidentiality. The new evidence,\nhowever, is throwing a backward light on many of these ancient stories,\nand making them credible once more. To me personally, the Bible is a\nmuch more living book than it used to be. I believe that many things in\nit which I used to regard as myths may have been facts.\n\n  [4] _E.g._, Moses and Elias on the Mount.\n\n\nNORMAL CLAIRVOYANCE\n\nThere are instances, then, of people occasionally having visions which\nseem to be in some way caused by departed persons. Sometimes the\npercipient has only one experience of the kind in his life; more often\nhe has several, for this seeing power is somehow temperamental--a sort\nof gift, like the alleged second sight of the Highlander. It was well\nknown to St Paul, as his reference to \"discerning of spirits\" shows\n(1 _Cor._, xii). With some people the experience is fairly common. And\nin a very few persons the gift is so strong that it is to some extent\nunder control. I say to some extent, and I wish to use words very\ncarefully and to have them understood very clearly at this point. I\nknow several people, who by putting themselves into a passive and\nreceptive condition, but without any trance state, can generally get\nevidential messages from somewhere; that is, messages embodying facts\nwhich the sensitive did not normally know. And some of this matter\nseems to be due to telepathy from the dead. But it cannot be done at\nwill. I believe that professional mediums who sit for all comers for a\nfee are often, and indeed generally, quite honest people, but that they\ncannot distinguish between their own imaginations and what really comes\nthrough. Professor Murray, when saying what came into his head, did not\nknow whether it was right or not; that is, he did not know, until he was\ntold, whether he had really got the thing telepathically or whether\nit was an idea thrown up by his own imagination. So with professional\nmediums. They give out the ideas that come to them, but as a rule they\ncannot distinguish; and, the power not being entirely under control,\nthere is often a large mixture of their own imagination.\n\nI have, however, the good fortune to be acquainted with a sensitive who\nhas the unusual power of being able to distinguish; and this is a great\nadvantage, rendering verbatim note-taking much easier, and eliminating\nany necessity for balancing hits against misses. If nothing comes, he\nsits silent or talks ordinarily. If he gets anything, it is practically\nalways correct. The amount of his success varies, and he will not sit\nfor people in general. I know many people who have asked him to visit\nthem, offering handsome payment, but he usually declines. He says he\ncannot do it to order, and would be upset if he failed and caused\ndisappointment. He comes to me, however, because I understand and\nalways tell him that he need not worry if he gets nothing. In fact the\nmeeting is regarded as a social call and not as a seance. We talk for\na while about ordinary things, and in half-an-hour or so, if the medium\ncan get his mind placid enough and is in good trim generally, he will\nbegin to see and describe spirits present, often getting their names\nand all sorts of details. These come for the most part in flashes, and\nI take down every word he says, in shorthand, without giving any help\nor indication as to whether he is right or wrong. Sometimes in a whole\nafternoon he will have only one or two of these gleams, and on one\noccasion he got nothing. With conditions at their best he will talk\nalmost continuously for an hour, the flashes following each other\nclosely; and sometimes a spirit will remain visible for several\nminutes, moving about the room. About a dozen of these interviews are\ndescribed in detail in my book _Psychical Investigations_, and other\ninvestigations of the same sensitive by two very able friends of mine\nin another town are described in _New Evidences in Psychical Research_.\n\nPerhaps one or two illustrative incidents may make things clearer.\n\nThe first time Wilkinson came to see me he said, in the middle of\nordinary talk, that he saw with me the form of a woman who looked about\nfifty-four, and whom he described, saying further that her name was\nMary. Taking up a piece of paper and a pencil, he wrote in an abstracted\nmanner the words \"Roundfield Place\". He looked at it, without reading\nit aloud, then said: \"That will be a house\", and proceeded to write\nsomething else. I got up to look, and found \"Roundfield Place. Yes\" (the\n\"Yes\" written in answer to his remark \"That will be a house\") and a\nsignature \"Mary\". Now it happens that my mother's name was Mary,\nthat the description applied to her, and that she died, in 1886, at\nRoundfield Place, not the house to which Wilkinson came, whither we\nremoved in 1897. Other similar things were said, about other deceased\nrelatives, all true.\n\nIn this kind of thing it is our duty to stick to known causes before\nadmitting unknown, and my first supposition was that Wilkinson had\nprimed himself with information. He could have ascertained most of the\nthings by local inquiry, though it would not be very easy, for my mother\nhad been dead twenty-two years, and only middle-aged or elderly people\nwould remember her. Further interviews with him, however, soon carried\nme beyond the fraud theory--for holding which I now apologise to him,\nfeeling considerably ashamed--for he gave me messages from many people\nwhose association with me I feel sure he did not know, and also some\nfamily matter of a very private kind, characteristic of the spirit who\npurported to be communicating, but known to only four living people. I\nthen fell back on telepathy, assuming that the medium was reading my\nmind. But, pursuing my investigations, I received information which I\ndid not know but which turned out true. For example, Wilkinson on one\noccasion described a Ruth and Jacob Robertshaw, giving details about\nthem and saying that Ruth had a very spiritual appearance, with a sort\nof radiance about her, indicating that she had been a very good woman,\nand giving other particulars. All this meant nothing to me, for the\nnames were unknown. But, as I had on some other occasions found that\nspirits were described who were relatives of my last visitor, I asked\nthe person who had last entered the room--except inhabitants of the\nhouse--whether she had known people of these names. It turned out that\nthey were connexions of hers with whom she had been in close touch\nduring life, and everything said by the medium was correct. Now in the\nfirst place this incident ruled out fraud, for Miss North's visit had\noccurred three days before, and Wilkinson would have had to have\ndetectives watching both doors of my house, from first thing in the\nmorning to the last thing at night, to find out who my last visitor\nhad been; or he would have had to be in league with a servant or a\nneighbour, and even thus could hardly have succeeded, for servants\nare sometimes out--moreover, similar things have happened during the\n_regime_ of different servants--and neighbours could not easily watch\nboth doors during dark winter evenings. Further, our neighbours are\nfriends of ours, non-spiritualists, and not acquainted with Wilkinson.\nAnd, after getting to know who my last visitor was, information about\nher deceased relatives would have had to be hunted up. I could give\nfurther reasons for believing that fraud was an untenable hypothesis,\nbut I must be brief. What, next, about telepathy? Well, I had no\nconscious knowledge of these people, so the medium could not have got\nhis information from my conscious mind. It is possible to assume that\nI knew it subliminally, and that the medium abstracted it from those\nhidden levels of my mind. This is a guess, but a legitimate guess. It\nis the guess that Miss Dougall (author of _Pro Christo et Ecclesia_)\nmakes in criticising this very incident in the book of essays called\n_Immortality_, by Canon Streeter and others. She suggests that on the\noccasion of Miss North's visit my mind had photographed the contents\nof hers, without my knowing it, and that the medium developed the\nphotograph and read off the required information. It may be so, but it\nseems to me far-fetched. Miss Dougall, I may add, is a member of the\nS.P.R., and her criticism is instructed criticism, worthy of careful\nattention. But I cannot accept her theory, which seems to me more\nwonderful and to require more credulity than the spirit theory. For it\nis to be observed that the assumed mind-reading is of a character quite\ndifferent from anything that has been experimentally established. In\ntelepathic experiments, like those of Professor Murray, some incarnate\nperson is _trying_ to communicate the thought. This is not the case in\nmy sittings with Wilkinson. I am not trying to communicate anything to\nhim; very much the contrary. And I do not find, after long and careful\nobservation, any parallelism between what he says and what I happen to\nbe thinking about. There is, in short, no evidence for the supposition\nthat my mind is read. The evidence points unmistakably to discarnate\nagency--telepathy _from the dead_.\n\n\nTRANCE\n\nThe sort of thing I have described is usually known as normal\nclairvoyance, because the sensitive is in a normal state, not in\ntrance. But there is a further stage, into which, indeed, Mr Wilkinson\nsometimes passes, in which there is a change of personality, and a\nspirit purports to speak or write with the medium's organs. There\nis nothing weird or uncanny in the procedure, nothing deathly or\ncoma-like; the medium usually sits up and even walks about, though\nsome trance mediums have to sit still and keep their eyes closed. I\nhave had visits from many trance mediums; and most of them have failed\nto get anything evidential--which at least suggests their honesty, for\nthey could easily have obtained _some_ information about my deceased\nrelatives. But the whole matter of trance control is a thorny problem.\nIndubitably, evidence of supernormal faculty is sometimes given in\nthis state, but we of the S.P.R. are divided as to what the control\nreally is. Some think it is a spirit, as claimed; others think it is\na secondary personality of the medium, as in the remarkable case\nof split personality described in Dr Morton Prince's book _The\nDissociation of a Personality_. Mrs Sidgwick, widow of the Professor\nand sister of Mr A. J. Balfour, has made a careful psychological study\nof the case of Mrs Piper, given in 657 pages of _Proceedings_, vol.\n28, and her conclusion is that though telepathy from the dead is\nprobably shown, and certainly some kind of supernormality, the\ncontrols themselves are dream-fragments of the medium's mind. I am not\nqualified to pronounce an opinion on Mrs Piper, not having met her;\nbut as to the trance mediums I have experimented with, I incline to\nagree with Mrs Sidgwick. I think it may be a dodge of the subliminal\nto get the over-anxious normal consciousness temporarily out of\nthe way. But this is a psychological detail, and a difficult one,\nrequiring much further study. From the psychical research point of\nview Mrs Piper's case may be studied in _Proceedings_, vols. 6, 8, 13,\n16, and a few of the later ones, or some idea of it can be got from\nSir Oliver Lodge's _Survival of Man_. All the investigators were\nconvinced of either telepathy or something more. Fraud was excluded by\nintroducing sitters anonymously, Dr Hodgson himself introducing over\n150 different people in this way, and taking careful notes. I have\nexperimented similarly with Wilkinson, introducing people from distant\nplaces such as Middlesex and Northumberland as well as from towns\nnearer home, either under false names or with no names at all, and\nbeing present myself to take notes. Friends of mine have done the same\nthing. We were unanimously sceptical to start with, probably more\nsceptical than most of those who will read this paper, for we\ndisbelieved in survival itself. We are now convinced that the fraud\ntheory is out of the question, that at the very least a complicated\ntheory of mind-reading--including the reading of the minds of distant\nand unknown persons--must be assumed if the theory of survival and\ncommunication is to be avoided.\n\nOf late years there has been a great development in automatic writing\namong quite non-professional mediums--private people who are members of\nthe S.P.R., as for instance the late Mrs Verrall, Classical Lecturer at\nNewnham--and some noteworthy evidence has been obtained. But it is too\ncomplex even to summarise here. It seems to be the work of Gurney,\nHodgson, Myers, and Sidgwick, on the other side, for different messages\nhave come through different sensitives, making sense when put together,\nand sense characteristic of these departed leaders. This had not been\nthought of, so far as we know, by any living person, and it seems to\neliminate telepathy from the living, for the messages are not understood\nuntil the bits are pieced together. The evidence fills several volumes\nof our _Proceedings_, and students should read them carefully.\n\nThere are many other kinds of mediumship or psychic faculty, and many\nvolumes are in existence on each phase; the library of the London\nSpiritualist Alliance contains about 3,000. I have read about 500 of\nthem, and would not recommend anyone else to do the same. There is a\ngreat deal of rubbish among them, though they are not all rubbish. The\nreading I recommend is the _Proceedings_ of the S.P.R., the writings of\nSir William Barrett, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr W. J. Crawford, and, above\nall, the great work of F. W. H. Myers, _Human Personality and Its\nSurvival of Bodily Death_, in the original two-volume edition. The\nabridged one-volume edition omits many of the illustrative cases. I do\nnot think that conviction is to be achieved by mere reading; books\nwould never have convinced me. But careful reading is perhaps\nsufficient to lead a fairly tolerant mind to realise that there is\nsomething here which must not be dismissed off-hand; something which is\nworthy of investigation. That is as much as we expect. Sir Oliver Lodge\noften says that we shall do well if we succeed, in this generation, in\nmodifying the psychological climate, creating an atmosphere more\nfavourable to unprejudiced examination of the facts. We have no desire\nfor revolutions; we want knowledge to grow slowly and surely. The\nS.P.R. has been in existence only thirty-seven years, and the\nsubject is in its scientific infancy. Take the beginnings of any one\nscience--say, Chemistry, dating it somewhat arbitrarily from Priestley\nor Dalton--and note what a little way discovery had gone in a like\nperiod. With increased numbers of workers the pace increases; but in\nevery science the progress at first must be slow. In psychical research\na good start has been made, and the investigators seem to be certainly\non the track of something, whether their inferences are right in\nevery detail or not. And every advance in science has extended our\nconceptions of this wonderful universe. The heavens declare the glory\nof God in a tremendously larger way than they did in the days of the\nold Ptolemaic astronomy, though man foolishly fought the Copernican\nidea because it seemed to lessen our dignity by making our earth a\nspeck on the scale of creation instead of the central body thereof. So\nwith all other phenomena, physical and psychical. We may be sure that\nall discovery will be real revelation. With this faith--a well-grounded\nfaith--we need not fear advance.\n\n\nRECENT CRITICISM\n\nI add a few words, rather against my inclination, about recent criticism\nof a kind which is hardly worthy that name. Two books, one by Dr Mercier\nand one by Mr Edward Clodd, have had a certain popularity, mainly\nbecause they attacked, with a certain smartness of phrase, the book of\na greater man. \"Raymond\" was being widely read and talked about, and\nits popularity secured some success for these hostile books. Curiously\nenough, even some of the clergy have quoted approvingly some of the\narguments of these rationalists, no doubt much to the glee of Mr Clodd\nin particular. Now I have said before that instructed criticism is\nalways welcome, for we may hope to learn something from it. But Dr\nMercier, on his own statement, came new to the subject at the age of\nsixty-four, read _Raymond_ and _The Survival of Man_, and immediately\nsat down to write a flippant book the publication of which we hope he\nnow regrets. Not only had he never investigated for himself, but he was\nalso ignorant of the work of the S.P.R.\n\nAs to Mr Clodd, his book is better-informed, though frequently unfair.\nFor instance, in his references to me he is very careful to avoid\nany consideration of the strong parts of my case. Like the famous\ntheological professor, he looks the difficulties boldly in the face--not\n_very_ boldly--and passes on, without speaking to them. He has obviously\nread fairly widely, but where he does criticise in detail, he always\nseizes on weak points and quietly ignores the strong ones. As to\npersonal investigation he is almost entirely without experience. He says\nhe attended a seance about fifty years ago, but has forgotten most of\nwhat happened! He says this, with a momentary lapse from his usual\ncleverness--for it gives away his case--in a letter to the April (1918)\n_International Psychic Gazette_. In other words, he poses as an\nauthority on a branch of science of which he has no first-hand\nknowledge. He criticises and dismisses airily the opinions and\ninvestigations of those who have worked at the subject for ten, twenty,\nthirty, or forty years; for it is over forty years since Sir William\nBarrett brought his experiments in telepathy before the British\nAssociation. Mr Clodd is a Rationalist, and knows without investigation\nthat these things cannot be. He is as _a prioristic_ as a medieval\nSchoolman, in spite of his scientific pose. And his prejudices\nunfortunately prevent him from seeking and studying the facts which\nmight lead him to other conclusions.\n\nI have not said anything about the S.P.R. itself, but may here add a\nfew remarks. Says its official leaflet: \"The aim of the Society is to\napproach these various problems without prejudice or prepossession of\nany kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry\nwhich has enabled Science to solve so many problems, once not less\nobscure nor less hotly debated.... Membership of the Society does not\nimply the acceptance of any particular explanation of the phenomena\ninvestigated, nor any belief as to the operation, in the physical world,\nof forces other than those recognised by Physical Science\". In other\nwords, the Society has no creed, except that the subject is worth\ninvestigating.\n\nThe Society has well over 1,000 members, and is growing steadily. It\nincludes many famous men in all walks of life, and indeed its membership\nlist has been said to contain more well-known names than any other\nscientific society except the Royal Society itself. Among the\nVice-presidents are the Right Honourables A. J. and G. W. Balfour, Sir\nWilliam Barrett, Sir Oliver Lodge, the late Bishop Boyd-Carpenter and\nthe late Sir William Crookes. The President for the current year is Lord\nRayleigh, probably the greatest mathematical physicist now living.[5]\nThe President of the Royal Society (Sir J. J. Thomson) is a member, also\nProfessor Henri Bergson of Paris, Dr L. P. Jacks (editor of _The Hibbert\nJournal_) and innumerable other scientists and scholars whose names are\nknown to everyone.\n\n  [5] Lord Rayleigh's lamented death has since occurred, July, 1919.\n\nFinally let me assure you that the S.P.R. is so conservative and\nsuspicious that admission is almost as difficult to obtain as membership\nof a high-class London club. It is extremely anxious to keep out cranks\nand emotional people of all sorts, and it requires any applicant to be\nvouched for as suitable by two existing members; and each application is\nseparately considered by the Council. The result is a level-headed lot\nof members, and the maintenance of a sane and scientific attitude and\nmanagement.\n\nFrom the philosophic side it is sometimes urged that we cannot reason\nfrom the phenomenal to the noumenal, from the world of appearance to the\nworld of reality; that consequently nothing happening in the material\nworld can prove the existence of a spiritual one. But this is easily\nanswered. We cheerfully agree, with Kant, that a spiritual world cannot\nbe proved coercively and in such knock-down fashion that belief cannot\nbe avoided. But it can be proved in the same way and to the same extent\nas many other things which we believe and find ourselves justified in\nbelieving. For instance, atoms and electrons and the Ether of Space are\nnot phenomenal; no one has ever seen or heard or felt or smelt them; but\nwe infer their real existence from the behaviour of the matter which\ndoes affect our senses. Again: we cannot _prove_ to ourselves that other\nhuman beings exist, or even that an external world exists; my experience\nmay be a huge subjective hallucination. If I were reading this paper I\nshould not be able to prove to myself that any other mind was present.\nLooking around, I should receive certain impressions--sensations of\nsight--and I should call certain aggregations of these the physical\nbodies of beings like myself. From the similarity of their structure and\nbehaviour to the structure and behaviour of my own body, I should infer\nthat they have got minds somehow associated with them, as my mind is\nassociated with my body. But you could not prove it to me. If you got\nangry with my obstinacy, and knocked me down, I should experience\npainful sensations, but the existence of a mind external to me--and an\nangry one--would still be a matter of inference only. But we find that\nthe inference is justified. We find that it \"works,\" and social life is\npossible. For the purposes, then, both of science and of ordinary life,\nwe do reason from phenomenon to noumenon, from appearance to reality,\nfrom attribute to substance; and our reasoning justifies itself.\nI affirm, therefore, that the kind of proof which we as psychical\nresearchers put forward for the existence of and communication from\ndiscarnate minds, is philosophically the same kind as the proof we have\nof the existence of incarnate minds. If a short and clear exposition of\nthe point is required, free from any psychical-research bias, I may\nrefer inquirers to the chapter on the Psychological Theory of an\nExternal World in J. S. Mill's _Examination of Sir William Hamilton's\nPhilosophy_. Our evidence may be insufficient to justify belief--in the\nopinion of many, it is--and I blame no one for disbelieving; but it is\nevidence. And if it sufficiently accumulates and improves in quality, it\nmay amount to a degree of proof at least comparable with that concerning\nelectrons, which are now accepted as real by all physicists.\n\nOne or two difficulties may here be briefly referred to:\n\n1. The appearance in Mrs Piper's script of such obvious dream-stuff\nas messages from Homer, Ulysses, and Telemachus! These are of course\nabsurdities, and no psychical researcher regards them as anything else.\nBut they are no more absurd than many of our own dreams, and we must\nremember that automatic writing comes from the dream-strata of the\nmedium's mind, these strata seeming to lie _between_ our normal\nconsciousness and the spiritual world. Consequently messages which\nreally seem to come from beyond: _i.e._, which are evidential--are often\nmixed with subliminal matter from the medium's mind. As a communicator\nonce said: \"The medium's dreams get in my way.\" All this has to be\nallowed for, but in good mediums there is not much of it. In my friend\nWilkinson's case there is none, for he can distinguish. In Mrs Piper's\ncase there is a little, but it does not invalidate the huge mass of real\nevidence that has come. And it at least testifies to her honesty, for no\nmedium would pretend to get messages from people whom everyone knows to\nbe mythical--messages which are indeed comic and therefore enable\nopponents to score points with the general public by obvious witticisms.\n\nHuxley is often referred to, as having wisely declined to investigate,\nknowing beforehand that it was all nonsense. Huxley was busy with his\nown work, and, believing _a priori_ that alleged psychical phenomena\nwere either fraud or self-delusion, naturally declined to give any time\nto them. We need not regret his decision, for he was doing work that was\nmore important than psychical investigation would have been, just then.\nBut he was wrong in his _a priori_ belief, or rather unbelief. He had\nnever seen any of these phenomena, but that did not prove that they did\nnot happen. A native of mid-Africa may never have seen snow, but that\ndoes not prove that no snow exists.\n\nAnd it happens that the Dialectical Society went on with its task,\nappointing committees which investigated without any paid medium. The\nmajority of the investigators were utterly sceptical at first; they were\npractically all convinced at the finish. I state this merely as a fact,\nnot as a specially important fact; for I find that beginners, when\nsuddenly faced with striking phenomena, are liable to go from the\nextreme of unbelief to an extreme of belief. When one's materialistic\nscheme is exploded, there seems no criterion left, and anything may\nhappen. It usually takes an investigator a year or two to adjust himself\nand to learn to follow the evidence and not overshoot it.\n\nSome people say: \"But if communication is possible, why cannot _I_\ncommunicate direct with my own departed loved ones?\" The question\nis seen on reflection, however, to be easily answered. In the first\nplace, we cannot communicate direct even with our friends in the next\ntown; we have to get the help of postmen or telegraph clerks and the\nlike. It is therefore not at all surprising that an intermediary is\nneeded when they are removed further from our conditions. Probably all\nof us have germs of psychic faculty--though I have not yet discovered\nany in myself--somewhat as we can all play or sing a little; but the\nPaderewskis and Carusos are few. Similarly with psychic faculty. Few\nhave enough of it to communicate for themselves. On the other hand, it\nis much commoner than Carusos are; but of course, when it occurs in a\nprivate person, that person does not advertise the fact. Outsiders would\neither scoff, or say \"lunacy\", or crowd round asking for \"sittings\",\nout of curiosity. Consequently only sympathetic intimates are told, or\npeople who, like myself, are known to be sympathetic investigators. Some\nof the most remarkable sensitives in England at the present day are of\nthis private kind--people of education and position--and they are not\neven spiritualists in the sense of belonging to the spiritualist sect.\nThey are of various religious persuasions, and belong mostly to rather\northodox bodies. There is nothing of the crank about them; they are not\nTheosophists or Christian Scientists or adherents of any other of\nwhat the sergeant called \"fancy religions.\" I may say that the most\nextraordinary experiences I have ever had have been with a psychic of\nthis kind. I have not alluded to these experiences in my paper, because\nthe matter is private. But I just mention these things because I find\nthat psychic faculties are more common than I once thought, and a\nsympathetic minister could probably hear of private cases if he let his\nsympathy and interest be known. But of course, if he is known to have\ncondemned the whole thing as Satanic--as Father Bernard Vaughan does--or\nas lunacy, people with psychic experiences will take very good care not\nto tell him about them.\n\nAs to details about the nature of the after-life, I have no dogmatic\nopinions to offer. Probably it is impossible for those over there to\ndescribe their experience adequately, in our earthly terms. Such\ninformation as we get must be largely symbolical, as when mediums\ndescribe a specially good deceased person as surrounded with radiance. I\nhave several times noticed that the relative \"brightness\" or \"radiance\"\nof a spirit, as described by the medium, has correctly indicated that\nspirit's character, though the medium had no normal knowledge whatever\nof either the person's character or even existence. But though our\ninformation must probably be mainly symbolical, I think we are justified\nin believing that we begin the next stage pretty nearly where we leave\noff here. There is no sudden jump to unalloyed bliss for even such good\npeople as you, no sudden plunge to everlasting woe even for sinners like\nme. This, I admit, is not in accordance with what I used to hear from\nthe pulpit twenty years ago. But it agrees with what I read now of the\nopinions of such men as the Bishop of London and Dr J. D. Jones; and\nother clerical writers, such as Canon Storr in his _Christianity and\nImmortality_ and Dr Paterson Smyth in his excellent _Gospel of the\nHereafter_ take the same view. Our modern moral sense refuses to believe\nthat a good God will sentence any creature to everlasting pain; and\nalthough it may be contended that man has free-will and is therefore\nthe arbiter of his own fate, it still remains that God gave him that\nfreedom, and therefore still bears the ultimate responsibility. To\nretain belief in a God who can be loved and worshipped, I at least must\ndisbelieve in everlasting pain for anyone.\n\nAnd, added to this moral revolt, there has come a war in which millions\nof young men have died before their natural time. These young fellows,\nwe feel, are at least in most cases neither good enough for heaven nor\nbad enough for hell. The sensible supposition seems to be--and it is\nborne out by psychical facts--that they have gone on to the next stage\nof life, which to most or all of them is an improvement; that they are\nbusy and happy there; that they are still more or less interested in and\ncognisant of our affairs; that they will come to meet their loved ones\nwhen _they_ cross over--of this I have had much evidence--and that they\nand humanity as a whole are travelling on an upward path toward some\ngoal at present inconceivable to our small and flesh-bound souls.\n\nSome people have objected that psychical research will substitute\nknowledge for faith. This is surely a curious objection, and few will\nadvance it. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof, and my\nbelief is that He wants us to learn all we can about His handiwork.\nNature is a book given to us by our Father, for our good; study of it is\na duty, neglect of it is unfilial and wrong. Psychical research studies\nits own particular facts in nature, and is thus trying to learn a little\nmore of God's mind. It is not we, but those who oppose us, who are\nirreligious.\n\nAnd as to this matter of faith; well, after we have learnt all we can,\nthere will still be plenty of scope left for the exercise of faith in\ngeneral, for our knowledge will always be surrounded by regions of the\nunknown. If anyone says that psychical research antagonises _Christian_\nfaith, I say most emphatically that on the contrary it _supports_ it.\nChristianity was based on a Fact: the Resurrection and Appearances of\nJesus. Psychical-research facts are rendering that event credible to\nmany who have disbelieved it. Myers says that in consequence of our\nevidence, everyone will believe, a century hence, in that Resurrection;\nwhereas, in default of our evidence, a century hence no one would have\nbelieved it. And to him, personally, psychical research brought back the\nChristian faith which he had lost.\n\nI hope that the facts and inferences which I have very sketchily put\nbefore you will have made it clear that there is some reality in the\nsubject-matter of our investigations, and that these latter powerfully\nsupport a religious view of the universe. I believe that we are\ngiving materialism its death-blow; hence the wild antagonism of such\nwell-meaning but belated writers as Mr Clodd. But we are not ourselves\nreligious teachers. That is your domain. You will use our work and its\nresults, as you use the work and results of other labourers in the\nscientific vineyard. And I think you will find ours specially helpful.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EVOLUTION OF A PSYCHICAL RESEARCHER\n\n\nProbably few of us keep a diary nowadays. I don't. But I somehow got\ninto the habit, soon after I became interested in psychical things, of\njotting down in a notebook the conclusions at which I had arrived--or\nthe almost complete puzzlement in which I found myself, as the case\nmight be. Glancing recently through these records of my pilgrimage, it\nseemed to me that a sketch of it might be of some interest or amusement\nto others.\n\nProfessor William James says in his _Talks to Teachers_ that it is\nvery difficult for most people to accept any new truth after the\nage of thirty; and that indeed old-fogeyism may be said to begin\nat twenty-five. It is perhaps therefore not surprising that, coming\nfresh to the subject at thirty-two--in 1905--I found the struggle to\npsychical truth a very long and arduous affair. Having been brought up\non the ministrations of a hell-fire-preaching Nonconformist pastor\nwhose theology made me into a very vigorous Huxleyan agnostic, I was\nbiased against anything that savoured of \"religion,\" and moreover\n\"spiritualism\" was unscientific and absurd. So I thought, in my\nignorance; for I knew nothing whatever of the evidence on which\nspiritualistic beliefs are based.\n\nHowever, I fortunately ran up against hard facts which soon cured me of\nnegative dogmatism. I became acquainted with a medium who satisfied me\nthat she could diagnose disease, or rather her medical \"control\" could,\nfrom a lock of the patient's hair; and this without any information\nwhatever being given. Also that the diagnosis often went beyond the\nknowledge of the sitter, thus excluding telepathy from anyone present or\nnear. But this did not prove that the control was a spirit, so I turned\nto other investigations.\n\nFirst, I set myself to \"read up\". I feel sure that this is the best\ncourse for beginners to adopt, after once achieving real open-mindedness.\nIt enables one to investigate with proper scientific care when\nopportunity arises, and with much better chance of securing good\nevidence. Without this preparation, an investigator has little idea how\nto handle that delicate machine called a medium, and indeed no amount of\nreading will entirely equip the experimenter, for there are many things\nwhich only experience can teach. Also, without this preparation, the\ninvestigator will be liable either to give things away by talking too\nmuch, or will create an atmosphere of suspicion and discomfort by being\ntoo secretive. It takes some practice to achieve an open and friendly\nmanner while never losing sight of the importance of imparting no\ninformation that would spoil possible evidence. This of course is\ndesirable from the medium's point of view as well as that of the sitter.\nIt is hard on a medium if, for example, a really supernormally-got name\ndoes not count because the sitter himself had let it slip.\n\nI think my reading began with _Light_ and some of Mr E. W. Wallis's\nbooks, but I soon found my way to the _Proceedings of the Society for\nPsychical Research_, and recognised that here was what I was seeking.\nI cannot sufficiently express my admiration, which is as great as ever,\nfor such masterly pieces of evidence as, for instance, Dr Hodgson's\naccount of sittings with Mrs Piper, in volume 13. If we were perfectly\nlogical beings, without prejudice, that account ought to convince\nanybody; certainly it ought to convince the reader of the operation of\n_something_ supernormal, and it ought to go a long way towards\nexcluding telepathic theories and rendering the spirit explanation the\nmost reasonable one. But we are not logical beings. We require to be\nbattered for a long time by fact after fact before we will admit a new\nconclusion. I remember saying, as indeed I noted down in the diary\nmentioned, that a few of these volumes, with Myers's _Human Personality_,\nleft me in the curious position of being able to say that, though I was\nnot convinced, I felt that logically I ought to be, for the evidence\nseemed irrefragable. Then I read Crookes' _Researches in the Phenomena\nof Spiritualism_, and my logical agreement was accentuated, for Sir\nWilliam Crookes was my scientific Pope, in consequence of my having\nworked from his chemical writings, and having an immense admiration\nfor his mind and method. But my actual inner conviction was not much\nchanged. Kant says somewhere that we may test the strength of our\nbeliefs by asking ourselves what we would bet on them. At this point I\nhad not got to the stage of being prepared to bet much on the truth of\nthe survival of human beings or the possibility of communicating with\nthem if they did survive. I thought the case was logically proved, but\nI didn't feel it in my bones, as the phrase goes. For this, personal\nexperience is necessary; at least it is for an old fogey of over\nthirty, with my particular build of mind.\n\nAnd I was fortunately able to get this experience. One of the two\nbest-known mediums in the North of England, Mr A. Wilkinson, happened\nto live only a few miles away, though he was and is generally away from\nhome, speaking for spiritualist societies from Aberdeen to Exeter,\nand being booked over a year ahead. However, I was able to get an\nintroduction to him through friends who also carried out investigations\nwith him (described in my _New Evidences in Psychical Research_), and\nsince then, with intermissions due mainly to ill-health, I have\nhad friendly sittings with him continuously. To him I owe my real\nconvictions, and for this I cannot adequately thank him. Without his\nkindness I could never have achieved certainty; for owing to a damaged\nheart I could not get about to interview mediums, and there was no other\nmedium within reasonable distance. Besides, Mr Wilkinson has stretched a\npoint in my case, for he does not give private sittings, preferring to\nconfine himself to platform work; and I suppose he makes an exception in\nmy case in view of my inability. I here once more thank him for all he\nhas done for me.\n\nAt my first sitting with him he described and named my mother and other\nrelatives, whom he saw apparently with me. I had no reason to believe\nthat he had any normal knowledge of these people; certainly I had never\nmentioned them to him, and it was in the last degree unlikely that\nanyone else had. My mother had been dead twenty-two years, and was not\nat all a prominent person. Moreover, he got by automatic writing a\nsigned message from her, giving the name of the house in which we lived\nat the time of her death, but which we had left eleven years later. This\nseemed to be given by way of a test. At later sittings my father and\nother relatives manifested, with names and identifying detail, and\nthe proof began to be almost coercive. The evidence went beyond any\npossibility of the medium's normal knowledge, and was characteristic of\nthe different communicators in all sorts of subtle ways. Telepathy alone\nremained as a possible alternative to the spirit explanation. Then came\na peculiar phase, as if there were a definite plan on the part of some\nof my friends on the other side for the purpose of utterly convincing me\nby bringing evidence which could not possibly be accounted for by any\nsupposition of a reading of my own mind. A spirit friend of mine would\nturn up, bringing with him a spirit whom I had never heard of, and\nsaying that he was a friend of his; and on inquiry I would find that it\nwas so--and sometimes it needed a great deal of inquiry, which made it\nall the better evidence, for it showed how difficult it would have been\nfor the medium to obtain the information; though indeed at this stage\nthe evidence had forced me past crude suspicions of that sort. On other\noccasions unknown spirits would appear, and I would find that they\nbelonged to the last visitor I had had. Several incidents of this kind\nare described in my book _Psychical Investigations_. After some years\nof this kind of experience I became fully satisfied that the spirit\nexplanation was the only reasonable one. Some writers, like Miss Dougall\nin a recent volume of essays called _Immortality_, invent a complicated\nhypothesis according to which my mind photographs the mind of a visitor\nand the medium on his next visit develops and reads off the photograph;\nbut I confess that my credulity does not stand the strain put upon it by\nsuch a hypothesis. Besides, I have lately had--as if to get round even\nsuch tortured theories as this--evidence giving details which have not\nbeen known to any person I have ever met. I was told to write to a\ncertain friend of mine, father of the ostensible communicator. The facts\nwere unknown even to him, but he was able to verify them completely;\nand they were characteristic and evidential of the identity of the\nostensible communicator.\n\nIf all my results were of the kind I have had through Mr Wilkinson the\ncase would, for me, be so utterly and overwhelmingly proved that doubt\nwould be absurd. But this is too much to expect. I have had many\nother mediums here, with varying success, but nothing approaching Mr\nWilkinson's. In many cases it is fairly obvious that the medium's\nsubliminal--or the control's imagination--has been doing part of the\nbusiness, no doubt unknown to the medium's normal consciousness. But in\nno case have I had any indication of fraud. This seems sufficient answer\nto Mr Edward Clodd's credulous acceptance of the theory of a Blue-Book\nand inquiry system which enables mediums to post themselves up about\nlikely sitters. It would be the easiest thing in the world for an\nimitation medium to learn enough about me to give what would seem on the\nface of it a fairly \"good\" sitting. But this is never the case. Either\nthe medium fails or he is so successful that normal knowledge is ruled\nout. On Mr Clodd's theory, I ought to have neither of these extremes;\nI ought to have no failures, and no results going beyond what inquiry\ncould produce. But I need not labour this point, for Mr Clodd has\nrecently confessed his almost absurd innocence of any first-hand\nexperience. In a letter to the _International Psychic Gazette_ for\nApril, 1918, he said he had been to a sitting about fifty years ago, but\nhe does not remember much about what happened! Yet he sets up as an\nauthority on this branch of experimental science! It is like someone\nwriting on chemistry after being in a laboratory once, fifty years ago.\n\nSome of my most curious experiences, concerning which I have not yet\npublished anything in detail, have been in connexion with crystal\nvision. I happen to know a sensitive--not a professional medium or even\na spiritualist--who has physical-phenomena powers of very unusual and\nindeed probably unique type. Not only can she see in the crystal and\nget evidential messages by writing seen therein, but the writing or\npictures are visible to anyone present. I have seen them myself. As\nmany as six people at a time, myself among them, have seen the same\nthing, and not one of the six was of suggestible type or had had any\nhallucinations. All were middle-aged, except one young lieutenant, and\nwe were indeed a rather exceptionally un-neurotic and stodgy lot. But\nthough the things seem objective--I am going to try to photograph them,\nalso the sensitive, in the hope of confirming the Crewe phenomena--they\nare somehow more or less influenced by the sensitive's own mind,\nwithout her conscious knowledge; for, _e.g._, in one message,\npurporting to come from my father, I was addressed as Arthur, a name\nwhich would be natural to the medium who knows me mostly from printed\nmatter and a few letters, but which is entirely inappropriate in\nrelation to my father. Yet a good deal of evidence of identity has come\nthrough this sensitive, and this \"mixture\" does not invalidate the\ncase. Again, a queer feature of this sensitive's powers is that lost\nobjects are frequently found as a result of instructions given in the\ncrystal; and in many of these cases it seems certain that the position\nof the lost object could not have been known to any incarnate mind,\nor of course it would not have been left there. In one case it was a\nvaluable ruby; in several others it was Treasury notes. This sensitive\nalso is a medium for very good raps, which all present can hear quite\ndistinctly and which show intelligence, answering questions and so\nforth.\n\nI have therefore reached the conviction that human survival is a fact,\nthat the life over there is something like an improved version of\nthe present one, and--a comforting thought, supported by much of my\nevidence--that we are met at death by those who have gone before. Some\nof my more mystical friends, who have not needed such prolonged jolting\nto get them out of materialistic grooves, are rather bored with me for\ndwelling so much on the evidence and on the nature of the next state.\nThey call it \"merely astral\"; as for them, their minds soar in higher\nflights. One friend, a sort of radical High Churchman, said to me some\ntime ago that he was \"not interested in the intermediate state\". But\nI rather think that he will have to be. I may be wrong, but I suspect\nthat, whether they like it or not, these good people will have to go\nthrough the intermediate state before they get anywhere else. Good\nthough they are, I do not believe they are good enough for unalloyed\nbliss or union with the Godhead. Such sudden jumps do not happen.\nProgress is gradual. Indeed, I have noticed lately that my High\nChurchman friend has shown much more interest in these merely psychical\nthings. Perhaps he thinks he had better turn back and make sure of the\nnext state and its nature, perceiving that it is a necessary bridge or\n\"tarrying-place\" (which is the alternative reading for the \"mansions\"\nof our Father's house) on the way to the heaven which he quite rightly\naims at.\n\nAs to the future of psychical science and opinion, I feel sure that\ngreat things are now ahead. The war, with the terrible amount of\nmourning it entails, has quickened interest in the subject, and for\nmillions of people the question of survival and the next state has\nbecome an urgent and abiding one. Their interest, instead of being\nalmost wholly on this side, is very largely over there, whither their\nloved ones have gone. Similarly with the soldiers who have come safely\nthrough the war. All have lost friends, all have faced the possibility\nof sudden or slow and painful death. And probably all young people at\npresent, and most adults, have out-grown the crude beliefs of last\ncentury's orthodoxy with its everlasting hell, and are ready for a more\nrational system. This is being supplied, backed by scientific proof, by\npsychical research and scientific spiritualism. It seems likely that the\nreligion of the best minds for the next half-century or so, and perhaps\nonward, will be something like that which Myers came to hold in his\nlater years. It does not much matter whether the spiritualist sect\ngrows as an institution or not. Many people will accept its main belief\nwithout feeling it necessary to leave the communion to which they\nalready belong. It seems certain that the idea itself will be the ruling\nidea in many minds for a long time, and no doubt psychic faculty will\nbecome much more common, for thousands are now trying to develop it who\nnever cared to try before. Quite possibly the effort on both sides of\nthe veil, in consequence of so many premature deaths, may bring about\na closer communion between the two sides than has ever been known\nhitherto. A great lift-up of earthly thought would be the result, a\nperhaps final emergence from the chrysalis stage of materialism; and we\nshall then be near the time when, as the inspired Milton makes his\nRaphael say:\n\n    \"Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,\n    Improved by tract of time, and winged ascend\n    Ethereal, as we, or may, at choice,\n    Here or in heavenly Paradises dwell.\"\n\n\n\n\nDO MIRACLES HAPPEN?\n\n\nMr G. K. Chesterton, with true journalistic instinct, recently\nstimulated public interest in himself and other worthy things by\nengineering a discussion on \"Do Miracles Happen?\" The debate furnished\nan opportunity of harmlessly letting off steam, but apparently each\ndisputant \"was of his own opinion still\" at the finish; though some of\nthe newspapers thought that the affirmative was proved, not by argument,\nbut by the actual occurrence of a miracle at the meeting--for Mr Bernard\nShaw was present, but remained silent! Joking apart, however, these\ndiscussions are usually rendered nugatory by each debater attaching a\ndifferent meaning to the word. To one of them, a \"miracle\" involves the\naction of some non-human mind; to others it is only a \"wonderful\"\noccurrence, which is the strictly etymological meaning. It is only in\nthe latter sense that orthodox science has anything to say on the\nsubject.\n\nDavid Hume, in the most famous of his essays, says that a miracle is \"a\nviolation of the laws of nature\", which laws a \"firm and unalterable\nexperience has established\". A century later, Matthew Arnold disposed of\nthe question in an even shorter manner. \"Miracles do not happen\", said\nhe, in the preface to _Literature and Dogma_. Modern science has,\nspeaking generally, concurred.\n\nBut the two statements are not very satisfactory. It is true, no doubt,\nthat miracles did not enter into the experience of David Hume and\nMatthew Arnold; but this does not prove that they have never entered\ninto the experience of anybody else. If I must disbelieve all assertions\nconcerning phenomena which I have not personally observed, I must deny\nthat the sun can ever be north at mid-day, as indeed the Greeks did\n(according to Herodotus), when the circumnavigators of Africa came back\nwith their story. But if I do, I shall be wrong. (_Histories_, book IV,\n\"I for my part do not believe them\", says even this romantic historian.)\n\nIt is as unsafe to reject all human testimony to the marvellous as it\nis to accept it all without question. The modern mind has gone to the\nnegative extreme, as the medieval mind went to the other. Take for\ninstance the twenty-five thousand Lives of the Saints in the great\nBollandist collection. They are full of miracles, of most incredible\nkinds; yet in those days the accounts caused no astonishment. There was\nno organised knowledge of nature, outside the narrow orbit of daily\nlife--and how narrow that was, we with our facile means of communication\nand travel can hardly realise. Consequently there was little or no\nconception of law or orderliness in nature, and therefore no criterion\nby which to test stories of unusual occurrences. Anything might happen;\nthere was no apparent reason why it shouldn't. One saint having retired\ninto the desert to lead a life of mortification, the birds daily brought\nhim food sufficient for his wants; and when a brother joined him they\ndoubled the supply. When the saint died, two lions came and dug his\ngrave, uttered a howl of mourning over his body, and knelt to beg a\nblessing from the survivor. (Cf. the curious story of St Francis taming\n\"Brother Wolf\", of Gubbio, in chapter 21 of the _Fioretti_.) The\ninnumerable miracles in the _Little Flowers_ and _Life of St Francis_\nare repeated in countless other lives; saints are lifted across rivers\nby angels, they preach to the fishes, who swarm to the shore to listen,\nthey are visited by the Virgin, are lifted up in the air and suspended\nthere for twelve hours while in ecstasy they perceive the inner mystery\nof the Most Blessed Trinity. Almost every town in Europe could produce\nits relic which has produced its miraculous cures, or its image that had\nopened or shut its eyes, or bowed its head to a worshipper. The Virgin\nof the Pillar, at Saragossa, restored a worshipper's leg that had been\namputated. This is regarded by Spanish theologians as specially well\nattested. There is a picture of it in the Cathedral at Saragossa.\n(Lecky, _Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe_, vol. 1, page\n141.) The saints were seen fighting for the Christian army, when the\nlatter battled with the infidel. In medieval times this kind of thing\nwas accepted without question and without surprise.\n\nAbout the end of the twelfth century there came a change. The human mind\nbegan to awake from its long lethargy; began to writhe and struggle\nagainst the dead hand of authority which held it down. The Crusades, as\nGuizot shows, had much to do with the rise of the new spirit, by causing\neducative contact with a high Saracenic civilization. Men began to\nwonder and to think. Heresy inevitably appeared, and became rife. In\n1208 Innocent III established the Inquisition, but failed to strangle\nthe infant Hercules. In 1209 began the massacre of the Albigenses, which\ncontinued more or less for about fifty years, the deaths being at least\nscores of thousands; but the blood of the martyrs was the seed of\nfurther freedom and enlightenment. Nature began to be studied, in\nhowever rudimentary a way, by Roger Bacon and his brother alchemists.\nThe Reformation came, weakening ecclesiastical authority still further\nby dividing the dogmatic forces into two hostile camps, and thus giving\nscience its chance. Galileo appeared, and did his work, though with many\nwaverings, for Paul V and Urban VIII kept successively a heavy hand on\nhim; he was imprisoned at seventy, when in failing health, and, some\nthink, tortured--though this is uncertain, and his famous _e pur si\nmuove_ is probably mythical. More important still, Francis Bacon,\nteaching with enthusiasm the method of observation and experiment. The\nconception of law, of rationality and regularity in nature, emerged;\nKepler and Newton laid down the ground plan of the universe, evolving\nthe formulae which express the facts of molar motion. Uniformity in\ngeology was shown by Lyell, while Darwin and his followers carried\nlaw into biological evolution. Then man became swelled-headed; became\nintoxicated with his successes. It had already been so with Hume, and\nit became more so with his disciples. Man treated his own limited\nexperience as a criterion, and denied what was not represented by\nsomething similar therein. Especially was this the case when alleged\nfacts had any connection with religion. Religion had tried to\nexterminate science, and it was natural enough that, in revenge, science\nshould be hostile to anything associated with religion. Consequently,\nthe scientific man flatly denied miracles, not only such stories as the\nrib of Adam and the talking serpent (concerning which even a church\nfather like Origen had made merry in Gnostic days fifteen hundred years\nbefore), but also the healing miracles of Jesus, which to us are now\nbeginning to look possible enough.\n\nThis negative dogmatism is as regrettable as the positive variety. It\nis not scientific. Science stands for a method, not for a dogma. It\nobserves, experiments, and infers; but it makes no claim to the\npossession of absolute truth. A genuine science, confronted with\nallegations of unusual facts, neither believes nor disbelieves. It\ninvestigates. The solution of the problem is simply a question of\nevidence. Huxley in his little book _Hume_, and J. S. Mill in his\n_Essays on Religion_, made short work of the \"impossibility\" attitude.\nSays the former in _Science and Christian Tradition_, page 197:\n\n\"Strictly speaking, I am unaware of anything that has a right to the\ntitle of an impossibility, except a contradiction in terms. There are\nimpossibilities logical, but none natural. A 'round square', a 'present\npast', 'two parallel lines that intersect', are impossibilities, because\nthe ideas denoted by the predicates round, present, intersect, are\ncontradictory of the ideas denoted by the subjects square, past,\nparallel. But walking on water, or turning water into wine, are plainly\nnot impossibilities in this sense\".\n\nNo alleged occurrence can be ruled out as impossible, then, unless the\nstatement is self-contradictory. Difficulty of belief is no reason. It\nwas found difficult to believe in Antipodes; if there were people on\nthe under side of the earth, \"they would fall off\". But the advance of\nknowledge made it not only credible but quite comprehensible. People\nstick on, all over the earth, because the earth attracts them more\npowerfully than anything else does. Similarly with some miracles. They\nmay seem much more credible and comprehensible when we have learned\nmore. Indeed, the wonders of wireless telegraphy, radio-activity, and\naviation are intrinsically as miraculous as many of the stories in the\nworld's sacred writings.\n\nThis is not saying, however, that we are to believe the latter _en\nbloc_. They must be taken individually, and believed or disbelieved\naccording to the evidence and according to the antecedent probability or\nimprobability. The standing still of the sun (_Joshua_, x) does not seem\ncredible to the scientific mind which knows that the earth is spinning\nat the equator at the rate of one thousand miles an hour and that any\nsudden interference with that rotation would send it to smithereens,\nwith all the creatures on its surface. Of course, a Being who could stop\nits rotation could perhaps also prevent it from flying to smithereens;\nbut we have to extend the miracle in so many entirely hypothetical ways\nthat the whole thing becomes too dubious for acceptance. It is simpler\nto look on the story as a myth.\n\nBut such things as the clairvoyance of Samuel (I _Samuel_, x), and\neven the Woman of Endor story, are quite in line with what psychical\nresearch is now establishing. And the healing miracles of Jesus are\nparalleled, in kind if not in degree, by innumerable \"suggestive\ntherapeutic\" doctors. Shell-shock blindness and paralysis are cured at\nSeale Hayne Hospital and elsewhere in very \"miraculous\" fashion. And\nturning water into wine is not more wonderful than turning radium into\nhelium, and helium into lead, which nature is now doing before our\neyes. These things, therefore, have become credible, if the evidence\nis good enough. Whether evidence nineteen hundred years old can be\ngood enough to take as the basis of serious belief is another matter.\nScientific method insists on a high standard of evidence. We must be\nhonest with ourselves, and not believe unless the evidence satisfies our\nintellectual requirements. But the modern and wise tendency is to regard\nreligion as an attitude rather than as a belief or system of beliefs. It\ndoes not stand or fall with the miracle-stories.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRUTH ABOUT TELEPATHY\n\n\nThe amount of nonsense that is talked, and apparently widely believed,\nabout telepathy, is almost enough to make one wish that the phenomenon\nhad not been discovered, or the word invented. Without any adequate\nbasis of real knowledge, the \"man in the street\" seems to be accepting\nthe idea of thought-transference as an incontrovertible fact, like\nwireless telegraphy--which latter is responsible for a good deal of easy\ncredence accorded to the former, both seeming equally wonderful. But the\nanalogy is a false one. There is a great deal of difference between the\ntwo. In wireless telegraphy we understand the process: it is a shaking\nof the ether into pulses or waves, which act on the coherer in a\nperfectly definite way and are measurable. But in spite of much loose\ntalk about \"brain-waves\", the fact is that we know of no such thing.\nIndeed, there is reason to believe that telepathy, if it is a fact at\nall--and I believe it is--may turn out to be a process of a different\nkind, the nature of which is at present unknown. For one thing, it does\nnot seem to conform to physical laws. If it were an affair of ripples in\nthe ether--like wireless telegraphy--the strength of impact would vary\nin inverse ratio with the square of the distance. The influence would\nweaken at a known rate, as more and more distance intervened between\nsender and recipient. And this, in many cases at least, is not found to\nbe so, consequently Mr Gerald Balfour and other leading members of\nthe Society for Psychical Research incline to the opinion that the\ntransmission is not a physical process, but takes place in the spiritual\nworld.\n\nI have said that I believe in telepathy, yet I have deprecated too-ready\ncredence. What, then, are the facts?\n\nThe first attempt at serious investigation of alleged supernormal\nphenomena by an organised body of qualified observers was made by the\nLondon Society for Psychical Research, which was founded in 1882 by\nHenry Sidgwick (Professor of Moral Philosophy at Cambridge), F. W. H.\nMyers and Edmund Gurney (Fellows of Trinity), W. F. Barrett (Professor\nof Experimental Physics at Dublin, and now Sir William), and a few\nfriends. The membership grew, and the list now includes the most famous\nscientific names throughout the civilised world. In point of prestige,\nthe society is one of the strongest in existence.\n\nThe first important work undertaken was the collection of a large\nnumber of cases of apparition, etc., in which there seemed to be some\nsupernormal agency at work, conveying knowledge; as in the case of\nLord Brougham, who saw an apparition of his friend at the moment of\nthe latter's death. The results of this investigation were embodied in\nthe two stout volumes called _Phantasms of the Living_ (now out of\nprint, but an abridged one-volume edition has recently been edited by\nMrs Sidgwick (Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1919), and in\nVol. x. of the _Proceedings_ of the Society. As the outcome of this\narduous investigation, involving the collection and consideration\nof about 17,000 cases and extending over several years of time, the\ncommittee made the cautious but memorable statement that \"Between\ndeaths and apparitions of the dying person a connexion exists which is\nnot due to chance alone\". This guarded statement was carefully worded\nin order to avoid committing the society to any definite (_e.g._\nspiritualistic) interpretation. Some of the apparitions occurred\nwithin twelve hours before the death, some at the time of death, and\nsome a few hours afterwards. But these latter of course do not prove\n\"spirit-agency\"--though indeed sometimes they seem to render it\nprobable--for the telepathic impulse or thought may have been sent\nout by the dying person, remaining latent--so to speak--until the\npercipient happened to be in a sufficiently passive and receptive\nstate to \"take it in\".\n\nDefinite experimentation was also made, of various kinds, _e.g._, one\nperson would be shown a card or diagram, and another (blindfolded) would\nmaintain a passive mind, saying aloud what ideas \"came into his head\".\nSome of these experiments--which are still required and should be tried\nby those interested in the subject--indicated that the concentration of\nA's mind did indeed sometimes produce a reverberation in the mind of B.\nIn a series conducted by Sir Oliver Lodge, the odds against the\nsuccesses being due to chance can be mathematically shown to be ten\nmillions to one.\n\nFor this new fact or agency, Mr Myers invented the word \"telepathy\"\n(Greek _tele_, at a distance, and _pathein_, to feel), and defined it\nas \"communication of impressions of any kind from one mind to another,\nindependently of the recognised channels of sense\".\n\nBut I wish to say, and to emphasise the statement, that this\ntransmission, though regarded as highly probable by many acute minds,\ncannot yet be regarded as unquestionably proved, still less as occurring\nin a common or frequent way. We have all of us known somebody who\nclaimed to be able to make people turn round in church or in the street\nby \"willing\" them, but usually these claims cannot be substantiated.\nIt is difficult to eliminate chance coincidence. And the folks who lay\nclaim to these powers are usually of a mystery-loving, inaccurate build\nof mind, and therefore very unsafe guides. Moreover, how many times have\nthey \"willed\" without result?\n\nOne reason why I deprecate easy credence, leaning to the sceptical side\nthough believing that the thing sometimes happens, is, that there is\ndanger of a return to superstition, if belief outruns the evidence.\nIf the popular mind gets the notion that telepathy is more or less\na constant occurrence--that mind can influence mind whenever it\nlikes--there is a possibility of a return to the witchcraft belief which\nresulted in so many poor old women being burnt at the stake in the\nseventeenth century. I prefer excessive disbelief to excessive credulity\nin these things; it at least does not burn old women because they have a\nsquint and a black cat and a grievance against someone who happens to\nhave fallen ill. Unbalanced minds are very ready to believe that someone\nis influencing them. I have received quite a number of letters from\npeople (not spiritualists) who, knowing of my interest in these\nmatters, got it into their foolish heads that I was trying some sort of\ntelepathic black magic on them. I had not even been thinking about them.\nIt was entirely their own imagination. One of these people is now in an\nasylum. I think she would probably have become insane in any case--if\nnot on this, then on some other subject--but these incidents almost make\nme wish that we could confine the investigation and discussion of the\nsubject to our own circle or society until education has developed more\nbalanced judgment in the masses. But of course such a restriction is\nimpossible. The daily press and the sensational novelists have got hold\nof the idea. We must counteract the sensational exaggerations, which\nhave such a bad effect on unbalanced minds, by stating the bare, hard\nfacts. Here, as elsewhere, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It\nis the half-informed people who are endangered. The remedy is more\nknowledge. Let them learn that, though there is reason to believe that\nunder certain conditions telepathy is possible and real, there is\nnevertheless no scientific evidence for anything in the nature of\n\"bewitching\", or telepathy of maleficent kind. This cannot be too\nstrongly insisted on. Let us follow the facts with an open mind, but\nlet us be careful not to rush beyond them into superstition.\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRUTH ABOUT HYPNOTISM\n\n\nVarious popular novelists, such as George Du Maurier in _Trilby_, and\nE. F. Benson in _The Image in the Sand_, have taken advantage of the\npossibilities which hypnotic marvels offer to the sensational writer,\nand have put into circulation a variety of exaggerated ideas. This is\nregrettable. Of course the novelist can choose his subject, and can\ntreat it as he likes; it is the public's fault if it takes fiction for\nfact, or allows its notions of fact to be coloured or in any way\ninfluenced by what is avowedly no more than fiction.\n\nBut it is certain that it is thus influenced. It is therefore desirable\nthat the public should be told from time to time exactly what the\nscientific position is--what the conclusions are, of those who are\nstudying the subject in a proper scientific spirit, with no aim save the\nfinding of truth. This will at least enable the public to discriminate\nbetween fact and fiction, if it wants to.\n\nNo doubt the phenomena in question have been often discovered,\nforgotten, and rediscovered; but in modern times the movement dates from\nMesmer. Friedrich Anton Mesmer was born about 1733 or 1734. In 1766 he\ntook his doctor's degree at Vienna, but did not come into public notice\nuntil 1773. In that year he employed in the treatment of patients\ncertain magnetic plates, the invention of Father Hell, a Jesuit,\nprofessor of astronomy at Vienna.\n\nFurther experiments led him to believe that the human body is a kind of\nmagnet; and that its effluent forces could be employed, like those of\nthe metal plates, in the cure of disease. Between 1773 and 1778 he\ntravelled extensively in Europe, with a view to making his discoveries\nbetter known. Also he sent an account of his system to the principal\nlearned bodies of Europe, including the Royal Society of London, the\nAcademy of Sciences at Paris, and the Academy at Berlin.\n\nThe last alone deigned to reply; they told him his discovery was an\nillusion. Apparently they knew all about it, without investigating.\nThere is no dogmatism so unqualified, no certainty so cocksure, as that\nof complete ignorance.\n\nThe method at first was probably a system of magnetic passes or\nstrokings of the diseased part by the hand of the doctor. But, as the\npatients increased in number, a more wholesale method had to be devised.\nConsequently Mesmer invented the famous \"_baquet_\". This was a large\ntub, filled with bottles of water previously \"magnetised\" by Mesmer.\n\nThe bottles were arranged to radiate from the centre, some of them with\nnecks pointing away from it and some pointing towards it. They rested\non powdered glass and iron filings, and the tub itself was filled with\nwater. In short, it was a sort of glorified travesty of a galvanic\nbattery. From it, long iron rods, jointed and movable, protruded through\nholes in the lid. These the patients held, or applied to the region of\ntheir disease, as they sat in a circle round the _baquet_. Mesmer and\nhis assistants walked about, supplementing the treatment by pointing\nwith the fingers, or with iron rods, at the diseased parts.\n\nAll this may seem, at first sight, very absurd. But the fact remains\nthat Mesmer certainly wrought cures. And apparently he frequently\nsucceeded in curing or greatly alleviating, where other doctors had\ncompletely failed. It is no longer possible for any instructed person to\nregard Mesmer as a charlatan who knowingly deluded the public for his\nown profit. His theories may have been partly mistaken, but his\npractical results were indubitable.\n\nIt is also worth noting that he treated rich and poor alike, charging\nthe latter no fee. He was a man of great tenderness and kindness of\nheart, devoted to the cause of the sick and suffering; and the accounts\nof his patients show the unbounded gratitude which they felt towards\nhim, and the respect in which he was held.\n\nThe orthodox doctors, of course, felt otherwise. They were envious and\njealous of the foreign innovator and his success. And his fame was too\ngreat to allow of his being ignored. Consequently the Royal Society\nof Medicine (Paris) appointed a commission to inquire into the new\ntreatment. The finding, of course, was adverse. The investigators could\nnot deny the cures, but they fell back on the recuperative force of\nnature (_vis medicatrix naturae_) and denied that Mesmer's treatment\ncaused the cure.\n\nObviously, Mesmer, having treated his patients, could not prove that\nthey would not have recovered if he had _not_ treated them; so his\ncritics had a strong position. But, on the other hand, neither can an\northodox doctor prove that _his_ cures are due to _his_ treatment. If it\nis _vis medicatrix naturae_ in one case, it may be the same in the other.\n\nModern medicine is more and more coming to this conclusion--is\nabandoning drugging as it abandoned bleeding and cautery, and is leaving\nthe patient to nature. This is a significant fact.\n\nBut there is good reason to believe that Mesmer's treatment was a real\nfactor in his cures, for in many cases the patient had been treated by\northodox methods for years without effect. Perhaps, as the doctors said,\nit was \"only the recuperative force of Nature\", but if the doctors could\nnot set that force to work, and Mesmer somehow could, he is just as much\nentitled to the credit of the cure as if he had done it by bleeding or\ndrugging. However, by one sort of persecution or another, he was driven\nout of Paris, and more or less discredited. After a visit to England, he\nretired to Switzerland, where he lived in obscurity until his death in\n1815.\n\nThe method was kept alive by various disciples, such as the Marquis de\nPuysegur, Dupotet, Deleuze, and many more, but in an amateurish sort of\nway. The first-named found that in one of his patients he could induce\na trance state which showed peculiar features. In trance, the man knew\nall that he knew when awake, but when awake he knew nothing of what had\nhappened in trance. This second condition thus seemed to be equivalent\nto an enlargement of personality.\n\nBoth in England and France the medical side came to the front again,\nin the hands of Braid (a Manchester surgeon who first used the term\n\"hypnotism\", from Greek _hypnos_, sleep, and whose book _Neurypnology,\nor the Rationale of Nervous Sleep_ was published in 1843), Liebeault,\nBernheim, Elliotson, and Esdaile.\n\nElliotson and Esdaile still believed in a magnetic effluence, but the\nidea was given up by Braid and the \"Nancy school\" (the investigators\nwho followed the lines of Liebeault of Nancy), for it was found that\npatients could be hypnotised without passes or strokings or any\nmanipulation. Braid told his patients to gaze fixedly at a bright\nobject, _e.g._, his lancet. Liebeault produced sleep by talking\nsoothingly or commandingly filling the patient's mind with the idea\nof sleep. In some cases it was found that patients could hypnotise\nthemselves by an effort of will (this was confirmed more recently by Dr\nWingfield's experiments with athletic undergraduates at Cambridge), and\nthis disposed of the hitherto supposedly necessary \"magnetic effluence\"\nfrom the operator.\n\nThe most modern opinion is pretty much the same. Dr Tuckey, who learnt\nhis method from Liebeault himself, and who practised for twenty years in\nthe West End of London, is convinced that the whole thing is suggestion.\nSo is Dr Bramwell, who shares with Dr Tuckey the leading position among\nhypnotic practitioners in England. The latter, it may be remarked, was\nthe first qualified medical man to write an important book on the\nsubject in English, after Braid.\n\nThe tendency now is to give suggestions without attempting to induce\nactual trance. It is found with many patients that if they will make\ntheir minds passive and receptive, listening to the doctor's suggestions\nin an absent-minded sort of way, those suggestions--that the health\nshall improve and the specified symptoms disappear--are carried out. The\nexplanation of this is \"wrapped in mystery\". No one knows exactly how it\ncomes about. But it seems to be somewhat thus:\n\nThe complicated happenings within our bodies, such as the chemical\nphenomena known as digestion and the physical phenomena such as blood\ncirculation and contraction of involuntary muscles, seem to imply\nintelligence, though that intelligence is not part of the conscious\nmind, for we do not consciously direct the processes. They go on all\nthe same--for example--when we are asleep. Presumably, then, there is a\nmental Something in us, which never sleeps, and which runs the organic\nmachinery. If we could get at this Something, and give it instructions,\na part of the machinery which is working wrongly might get attended to\nand put right. Unfortunately, the ordinary consciousness is in the way.\nWe cannot get at the mechanic in the mill, because we have to go through\nthe office, and the managing director keeps us talking.\n\nWell, in hypnotic trance, or even in the preoccupied \"absent-minded\"\nstate, we get past the managing director--who is asleep or attending to\nsomething else--into the mill. We get at the man who really attends to\nthe machinery. We get past the normal consciousness, and can give our\norders to the \"subconscious\" or \"subliminal\"--which means \"below the\nthreshold\". In Myers' phrase, suggestion is a \"successful appeal to the\nsubliminal self\", but exactly how it comes about, and why the patient\nusually cannot do it for himself but has to have the suggestion\nadministered by a doctor, we do not know.\n\nOf course the word \"suggestion\" does not really explain anything. It\nis a word employed to cover our ignorance. Suggestive methods are as\nempirical as Mesmer's. In each case a successful appeal is made to the\nrecuperative forces of nature, _vis medicatrix naturae_; but exactly how\nor why suggestion does it, we know no more--or hardly any more--than we\nknow how and why Mesmer's _baquet_ did it. The fact remains, however,\nthat the thing is done. What we lack is only a satisfactory theory.\n\nAt one time it was thought that only functional disorders could be\nrelieved. But it is now recognised that the line between functional\nand organic is an arbitrary one. If we cannot find definite organic\nchange in tissue, we call the ailment functional; but nevertheless\nsome change there must be, though microscopic or unreachable.\nConsequently even functional disorders are at bottom organic; and,\nthough of course grave lesions produce the gravest disorders, there is\nno _a priori_ impossibility in a hypnotic cure of even the most radical\ntissue-degeneration.\n\nHowever, as a matter of practical fact, the \"mechanic\" has his\nlimitations, like the normal consciousness. He is not omnipotent.\nConsequently we cannot be sure of being able to stimulate him to the\nextent of a cure. It depends on his knowledge and power. But he can\nalways do something, if we can get at him. The chief difficulty is that\nin many people he is inaccessible.\n\nFor instance, I have many times submitted myself to the treatment of\nDr Tuckey and another medical friend, without effect. I have each time\ntried my best to help, making my mind as passive as I could; for I was\nsure that if a suggestible stage could be reached, some troublesome\nheart symptoms and insomnia could be alleviated. But I was never\nable to reach a state even approaching hypnosis. I suppose my normal\nconsciousness could not put itself sufficiently to sleep. Being\ninterested in the scientific aspect of the subject, my consciousness\nwatched the process and analysed its own sensations, instead of\n\"letting go\" and subsiding out of the way.\n\nAs to the proportion of susceptible persons, observers differ.\nWetterstrand and Vogt hold that all sane and healthy people are\nhypnotisable, and Dr Bramwell's results among strong farm labourers at\nGoole support that view. Patients with nervous ailments are difficult\nto hypnotise; out of one hundred such cases in his London practice, Dr\nBramwell only influenced eighty. This is the percentage of susceptibles\nfound by Drs Tuckey and Bernheim also.\n\nThe insane are usually unhypnotisable, probably because of their\ninability to concentrate their attention. Out of the 80 per cent. of\nsane susceptibles, only a small proportion go off into hypnotic sleep;\nten according to Tuckey, rather more according to the experience of\nBramwell, Forel, and Vogt. Most of the susceptible, however, though\nretaining consciousness, may be deprived of muscular control. For\nexample, if told that they cannot open their eyes, they find that\nit is so.\n\nThe various \"stages\" of hypnosis shade gradually into each other, and\nclassifications are not much good. Charcot's three stages of lethargy,\ncatalepsy, and somnambulism are now discredited as true stages. In good\nsubjects they are producible at will, and as observed at the Salpetriere\nthey were almost certainly due to training.\n\nI have no space for the quoting of detailed medical cases, but it is\ndesirable to emphasise the practical facts and to make the subject\nas concrete as possible to the reader, so I will quote just one, as\nillustration, from Dr Bramwell's contribution to _Proceedings of the\nSociety for Psychical Research_, vol. xiv, page 99.\n\n\"Neurasthenia; suicidal tendencies. Mr D----, aged 34, 1890; barrister.\nFormerly strong and athletic. Health began to fail in 1877, after\ntyphoid fever. Abandoned work in 1882, and for eight years was a chronic\ninvalid. Anaemic, dyspeptic, sleepless, depressed. Unable to walk a\nhundred yards without severe suffering. Constant medical treatment,\nincluding six months' rest in bed, without benefit. He was hypnotised\nfrom June 2 to September 20, 1890. By the end of July all morbid\nsymptoms disappeared, and he amused himself by working on a farm. He can\nnow walk forty miles a day without undue fatigue.\" Similar cases are\nnow being recorded in the military hospitals. Soldiers make excellent\n\"subjects\".\n\nIt has been much debated whether a hypnotised person could be made to\ncommit a crime. Probably not; it is difficult to be quite sure, but the\nevidence is on the negative side. True, a hypnotised subject will put\nsugar which he has been told is arsenic into his mother's tea, but his\ninner self probably knows well enough that it is only sugar. On the\nother hand, it is certain that a hypnotiser may obtain a remarkable\namount of control over specially sensitive subjects, particularly by\nrepeated hypnotisations.\n\nI have seen hypnotised subjects who seemed almost perfect automata,\nobeying orders as mechanically as if they had no will of their own left.\nCertainly no one, either man or woman, but particularly the latter,\nshould submit himself or herself to hypnotic treatment except by a\nqualified person in whom full trust can be reposed. And, even then, in\nthe case of a woman patient, it is well for a third person to be\npresent.\n\nBut the stories of the novelists, about subjugated wills, hypnotising\nfrom a distance, and all the rest of it, are quite without adequate\nfoundation in fact. There is very little evidence in support of hypnosis\nproduced at a distance, and in the one case where it did seem to occur\nthere had been repeated hypnotisations of the ordinary kind, by which a\nsort of telepathic rapport was perhaps established (Myers' _Human\nPersonality_, vol. i, page 524).\n\nHypnotism against the will is a myth; except perhaps in here and there a\nbackboneless person who could be influenced any way, without hypnosis or\nanything of the kind. The Chicago pamphleteer who wants to teach us how\nto get on in business by developing a \"hypnotic eye\" is merely after\ndollars. It is all bunkum.\n\nThere is a sense, however, in which hypnotic treatment can be a help in\neducation and in strengthening the character. Backward and lazy children\ncould probably be improved, and I know cases in which sleep-walking and\nother bad habits have been cured by suggestion. From this it is but a\nstep to dipsomania, which can often be cured. Dr Tuckey reports seventy\ncures out of two hundred cases.\n\nF. W. H. Myers, to whose genius doctors as well as psychologists owe\ntheir first scientific conceptions in this domain, was extremely\noptimistic here. He held that though we cannot expect to manufacture\nsaints, any more than we can manufacture geniuses, there is nevertheless\nenough evidence to show that great things could be done.\n\n\"If the subject is hypnotisable, and if hypnotic suggestion be applied\nwith sufficient persistency and skill, no depth of previous baseness\nand foulness need prevent the man or woman whom we charge with 'moral\ninsanity', or stamp as a 'criminal-born', from rising into a state where\nhe or she can work steadily and render services useful to the community\"\n(_Human Personality_, vol. i, page 199). Experiments on hypnotic lines\nought certainly to be carried out in our prisons and reformatories. As\nto the formerly alleged dangers of such experimentation--dangers of\nhysteria, etc., alleged by the Charcot school which is now seen to have\nbeen quite on a wrong tack--they do not exist, if the operator knows his\nbusiness.\n\nSays Professor Forel: \"Liebeault, Bernheim, Wetterstrand, Van Eeden,\nDe Jong, Moll, I myself, and the other followers of the Nancy school,\ndeclare categorically that, although we have seen many thousands of\nhypnotised persons, we have never observed a single case of mental or\nbodily harm caused by hypnosis, but, on the contrary, have seen many\ncases of illness relieved or cured by it\". Dr Bramwell fully endorses\nthis, saying emphatically that he has \"never seen an unpleasant symptom,\neven of the most trivial nature, follow the skilled induction of\nhypnosis\" (_Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol.\nxii, page 209).\n\nA proof that _intellectual_ powers outside the normal consciousness\nmay be tapped by appropriate methods is afforded by the remarkable\nexperiments of Dr Bramwell, on the appreciation of time by somnambules.\nHe ordered a hypnotised subject to carry out, after arousal, some\ntrivial action, such as making a cross on a piece of paper, at the end\nof a specified period of time, reckoning from the moment of waking.\nIn the waking state, the patient knew nothing of the order; but a\nsubliminal mental stratum knew, and watched the time, making the subject\ncarry out the order when it fell due.\n\nThe period varied from a few minutes to several months, and it was\nstated in various ways, _e.g._ on one occasion Dr Bramwell ordered the\naction to be carried out in \"24 hours and 2880 minutes\". The order was\ngiven at 3.45 P.M. on December 18, and it was carried out correctly at\n3.45 P.M. on December 21. In other experiments, the periods given were\n4,417, 8,650, 8,680, 8,700, 10,070, 11,470 minutes.\n\nAll were correctly timed by the subliminal stratum, the action being\npromptly carried out at the due moment. In the waking state the patient\nwas quite incapable--as most of us would be--of calculating mentally\nwhen the periods would elapse. But the hypnotic stratum could do it,\nand this shows that there are intellectual powers which lie outside\nthe field of the normal consciousness. The argument could be further\nsupported by the feats of \"calculating boys\", who can sometimes solve\nthe most complicated arithmetical problems, without knowing how they do\nit. They let the problem sink in, and the answer is shot up presently,\nlike the cooked pudding in the geyser.\n\nBut these things are still in their infancy. Psychology is working at\nthe subject, but we do not yet know enough to enable us to venture\nfar in the direction of practical application of hypnotic methods in\neducation. It seems likely, however, that further investigation will\nyield knowledge which may be of inestimable practical value in the\ntraining of minds, as well as in the curing of mental and bodily\ndisease.\n\n\n\n\nCHRISTIAN SCIENCE\n\n\nIt has been said, as a kind of jocular epigram, that the Holy Roman\nEmpire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire. With similar truth it\nmay be said that Christian Science is neither Christian nor science,\nin any ordinary sense of those words. Still, perhaps we ought to allow\nan inventor to christen his own creation, even if the name seems\ninappropriate or likely to cause misunderstanding; and, Mrs Eddy having\ninvented Christian Science as an organised religion--though, as we shall\nsee, borrowing its main features from an earlier prophet--we may admit\nher right to give a name to her astonishing production. In order that\nthe personal equation may be allowed for, the present writer begs to\naffirm that he writes as a sympathetic student though not an adherent.\n\nMary A. Morse Baker was born on July 16th, 1821, of pious parents, at\nBow, New Hampshire. Her father was almost illiterate, rather passionate,\na keen hand at a bargain, and a Puritan in religion. All the Bakers were\na trifle cranky and eccentric, but some of them possessed ability of\nsorts, though Mary's father made no great success in life. His daughter\nmade up for him afterwards.\n\nThe first fifteen years of Mary Baker's life were passed at the old\nfarm at Bow. The place was lonely, the manner of life primitive, and\neducation not a strong point in the community. Mrs Eddy afterwards\nclaimed to have studied in her girlhood days Hebrew, Greek, Latin,\nnatural philosophy, logic, and moral science! It was, however,\nmaintained by her contemporaries that she was backward and indolent, and\nthat \"Smith's _Grammar_, and as far as long division in arithmetic\",\nmight be taken as indicating the extent of her scholarship. There is\ncertainly some little discrepancy here, and perhaps Mrs Eddy's memory\nwas a trifle at fault. She made no claim to any acquaintance with this\nformidable array of subjects in the later part of her life, and it\nseems probable that her contemporaries were right. Her physical beauty,\ncoupled with delicate health, seem to have resulted in \"spoiling\", for\neven as a child she dominated her surroundings to a surprising extent.\n\nIn 1843 she married George Glover, who died in June, 1844, leaving her\npenniless. Her only child was born in the September following. After ten\nyears of widowhood she married Daniel Paterson, a travelling dentist.\nIn 1866 they separated, he making some provision for her. In 1873 she\nobtained a divorce on the ground of desertion. In 1877 she married Asa\nGilbert Eddy, who died in 1882.\n\nSo much for her matrimonial experiences, which may now be dismissed, as\nthey had no particular influence on her character and career. To prevent\nconfusion, we will call her throughout by the name which is most\nfamiliar to us and to the world.\n\nThe chief event of Mrs Eddy's remarkable life, the event which put her\non the road to fame and fortune, occurred in 1862. This was her meeting\nwith the famous \"healer\", Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. This latter was an\nunschooled but earnest and benevolent man, who had made experiments in\nmesmerism, etc., and who had found--or thought he had found--that people\ncould be cured of their ailments by \"faith\". He therefore began to\nwork out a system of \"mind-cure\", which he embodied in voluminous MSS.\nPatients came to him from far and near, and he treated all, whether they\ncould pay or not. Quimby was much above the level of the common quack,\nand his character commands our respect. He was a man of great natural\nintelligence, and was admirable in all his dealings with family,\nfriends, and patients.\n\nMrs Eddy visited him at Portland in 1862, her aim being treatment for\nher continued ill-health. She claims to have been cured--in three\nweeks--though it is clear from her later letters that the cure was not\ncomplete. Still, great improvement was apparently effected, for she had\nbeen almost bedridden, with some kind of spinal or hysterical complaint,\nfor eight years previously. But Quimby's effect on her was greater\nmentally even than physically. She became interested in his system,\nwatched his treatment of patients, borrowed his MSS., and mastered his\nteachings. In 1864 she visited him again, staying two or three months,\nand prosecuting her studies. She now seemed to have formed a definite\ndesire to assist in teaching his system. No doubt she dimly saw a\npossible career opening out in front of her; though we need not\nattribute her desire entirely to mere ambition or greed, for it is\nprobable that Quimby did a great amount of genuine good, and his pupil\nwould naturally imbibe some of his zeal for the relief of suffering\nhumanity.\n\nIn 1866 Quimby died, aged sixty-four. His pupil decided to put on the\nmantle of her teacher, but more as propagandist and religious prophet\nthan as healer. In this latter capacity perhaps her sex was against her.\n(Even now the average individual seems to have a sad lack of confidence\nin the \"lady doctor\"!) But she was poor, and prospects did not seem\npromising. For some time she drifted about among friends--chiefly\nspiritualists--preparing MSS. and teaching Quimbyism to anyone who would\nlisten. (She afterwards denied her indebtedness to Quimby, claiming\ndirect revelation. \"No human pen nor tongue taught me the science\ncontained in this book, _Science and Health_, and neither tongue nor\npen can overthrow it.\"--_Science and Health_, p. 110, 1907 edition.)\n\nThough unsuccessful as healer (in spite of her later claim to have\nhealed Whittier of \"incipient pulmonary consumption\" in one visit),\nshe certainly had the knack of teaching--had the power of inspiring\nenthusiasm and of inoculating others with her ideas. In 1870 she\nturned up at Lynn, Mass., with a pupil named Richard Kennedy, a lad of\ntwenty-one. Her aim being to found a religious organisation based on\npractical results (the prayer of faith shall heal the sick, etc.), it\nwas necessary to work with a pupil-practitioner. Accordingly she and\nKennedy took offices at Lynn, and \"Dr Kennedy\" appeared on a signboard\naffixed to a tree.\n\nImmediate success followed. Patients crowded the waiting-rooms. Kennedy\ndid the \"healing\" and Mrs Eddy organised classes, which were recruited\nfrom the ranks of patients and friends; fees, a hundred dollars for\ntwelve lessons, afterwards raised to three hundred dollars for seven\nlessons. Before long, however, she quarrelled with Kennedy, and in 1872\nthey separated, but not before she had reaped about six thousand dollars\nas her share of the harvest. It was her first taste of success, after\nweary years of toil and stress and hysteria and eccentricity. Naturally,\nlike Alexander, she sighed for further conquest. _L'appetit vient en\nmangeant._ And, though in her fiftieth year, she was now more energetic\nthan ever.\n\nHer next move was the purchase of a house at 8, Broad Street, Lynn,\nwhich became the first official headquarters of Christian Science. In\n1875 appeared her famous book, _Science and Health, With Key to the\nScriptures_, which was financed by two of its author's friends. The\nfirst edition was of a thousand copies. As it sold but slowly, she\npersuaded her chief practitioner, Daniel Spofford, to give up his\npractice and to devote himself to advertising the book and pushing its\nsale. Since then it has been revised many times, and the editions are\nlegion. Loyal disciples of the better-educated sort have assisted in its\nrewriting, and it is now a very presentable kind of affair as to its\nliterary form. Most, if not all, of the editions have been sold at a\nminimum of $3.18 per copy, with _editions de luxe_ at $5 or more, and\nthe author's other works are published at similarly high prices. All\nChristian Scientists were commanded to buy the works of the Reverend\nMother, and all successive editions of those works. It is not surprising\nthat Mrs Eddy should leave a fortune of a million and a half dollars. It\nmay be mentioned here that she moved from Lynn to Boston in 1882, thence\nto Concord (New Hampshire) in 1889, and finally to a large mansion in a\nBoston suburb which she bought for $100,000, spending a similar sum in\nremodelling and enlarging. The modern prophet does not dwell in the\nwilderness, subsisting on locusts and wild honey. He--or she--has moved\nwith the times, and has a proper respect for the almighty dollar and the\ncomforts of civilisation.\n\nIn 1881 was founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College. This\nimposingly-named institution never had any special buildings, and its\ninstructions were mostly given in Mrs Eddy's parlour, Mrs Eddy herself\nconstituting all the faculty. Four thousand students passed through\nthe \"College\" in seven years, at the end of which period it ceased to\nexist. The fees were usually $300 for seven lessons, as before. Few\ngold-mines pay as well as did the \"Metaphysical College\". The fact does\nnot at first sight increase our respect for the alleged cuteness of the\ninhabitants of the States. But, on further investigation, the murder is\nout. Most of these students probably earned back by \"healing\" much more\nthan they paid Mrs Eddy. Our respect for Uncle Sam's business shrewdness\nreturns in full force.\n\nThe experiment of conducting religious services had been made by Mrs\nEddy at Lynn in 1875, but the first Christian Science Church was not\nchartered until 1879. The Scientists met, however, in various public\nhalls of Boston, until 1894, when a church was built. This was soon\noutgrown, and 10,000 of the faithful pledged themselves to raise two\nmillion dollars for its enlargement. The new building was finished in\n1906. Its auditorium holds five thousand people. The walls are decorated\nwith texts signed \"Jesus, the Christ,\" and \"Mary Baker G. Eddy\"--these\nnames standing side by side.\n\nThe following examples, culled almost at random, will further show how\ngreat is her conviction that she has the Truth, how vigorously she bulls\nher own stocks (somehow, financial metaphors seem inevitable when\nwriting of Mrs Eddy):\n\n\"God has been graciously fitting me during many years for the reception\nof this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific\nmental healing\". (_Science and Health_, p. 107.)\n\n\"I won my way to absolute conclusion through divine revelation, reason\nand demonstration\". (_Ibid._, p. 109.)\n\n\"To those natural Christian Scientists, the ancient worthies, and to\nChrist Jesus, God certainly revealed the Spirit of Christian Science,\nif not the absolute letter\". (_Ibid._, p. 483.)\n\n\"The theology of Christian Science is truth; opposed to which is the\nerror of sickness, sin, and death, that truth destroys\". (_Miscellaneous\nWritings_, p. 62.)\n\n\"Christian Science is the unfolding of true Metaphysics, that is,\nof Mind, or God, and His attributes. Science rests on principle and\ndemonstration. The Principle of Christian Science is divine\". (_Ibid._,\np. 69.)\n\nThe following maybe quoted as an example of mixed good and evil, with a\ncertain flavour of unconscious humour:\n\n\"Hate no one; for hatred is a plague-spot that spreads its virus and\nkills at last. If indulged, it masters us; brings suffering to its\npossessor throughout time, and beyond the grave. If you have been badly\nwronged, forgive and forget: God will recompense this wrong, and punish,\nmore severely than you could, him who has striven to injure you\".\n(_Miscellaneous Writings_, p. 12.)\n\nThe advice is good, but it is not new. And Mrs Eddy seemed to experience\na special joy in the thought that by leaving our enemies alone they\nwill receive from God a more effective trouncing than we with our poor\nappliances could administer. The ideal Christian would not want his\nenemies handed over to the inquisitor--he would beg for them to be let\noff. \"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!\" That is\nthe Christian attitude. It is perhaps too high for ordinary mortals to\nattain to, but Mrs Eddy made such high claims that we are entitled to\njudge her by correspondingly high standards.\n\nThe form of service in the various Christian Science churches at first\nincluded a sermon. But Mrs Eddy soon saw that this might introduce\ndiscord: for the preachers might differ in their interpretations of\n_Science and Health_. And Mrs Eddy above all things aimed at unity in\norder to keep the control in her own hands. Therefore, in 1895, she\nforbade preaching altogether. The Bible and _Science and Health, With\nKey to the Scriptures_, were to be read from, but no explanatory\ncomments were to be made. The services comprise Sunday morning and\nevening readings from these two books, with music; the Wednesday evening\nexperience meeting; and the communion service, once or twice a year\nonly. There is no baptismal, marriage, or burial service, and weddings\nand funerals are never conducted in Christian Science churches.\n\nAs to church government, there was a nominal board of directors, but Mrs\nEddy had supreme power. She could appoint or dismiss at will. The Church\nwas hers, body and soul. Probably no other religious leader ever had\nsuch an unqualified sway. The Holy Father at Rome is a mere figurehead\nin comparison with the late Reverend Mother.\n\nIn June, 1907, there were in all 710 branch churches. Of these,\ntwenty-five were in Canada, fourteen in Britain, two in Ireland, four in\nAustralia, one in South Africa, eight in Mexico, two in Germany, one in\nHolland, one in France, and the remainder in the States. There were also\n295 societies not yet incorporated into churches. The total membership\nof the 710 churches was probably about 50,000. (In _Pulpit and Press_,\np. 82, Mrs Eddy puts the number at 100,000 to 200,000; and this was in\n1895. Some claim that the total number of adherents is as high as a\nmillion. But these are probably exaggerated estimates.) About one-tenth\nof these make their living by their faith. Here we come to the secret of\nChristian Science success.\n\nThere are about 400 authorised Christian Science \"healers\", and many\nwho practise without diploma but not without pay. These people treat\nsick folks, receiving fees. Their method is to assure the patient\nthat he is under a delusion in thinking himself ill, that matter\nis an illusion, that God is All, etc. It sounds very absurd. But the\ncurious thing is that many people have been cured by this treatment,\nand--naturally--these people become ardent Christian Scientists. It is\nby the practical application that Christian Science as a religion lives\nand thrives. As to the kind of diseases cured, the most extravagant\nclaims are made. In _Miscellaneous Writings_, p. 41, Mrs Eddy\ndefinitely states that \"all classes of disease\" can be healed by her\nmethod. After careful sifting of much evidence, however, Dr Myers and\nhis brother (F. W. H. Myers) found that no proof was forthcoming for\nthe cure of definite organic disease by Christian Science methods.\n(_Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. IX, p. 160;\nalso _Journal_, vol. VIII, p. 247.) Undoubtedly they have been, and are\ncontinually, efficient in relieving, and even curing, many functional\ndisorders which have resisted ordinary medical treatment--and it must\nbe remembered that many functional derangements are as serious,\nsubjectively, as grave organic disease--and consequently it is\nundeniable that Christian Science often does good. But it is probable\nthat the same amount of good, and perhaps more, could be done by the\nhypnotic or suggestive treatment of a qualified medical man, or perhaps\nby other forms of \"faith-healing\". The Christian Scientist is using\nsuggestion; but he couples it up with religion, and thus, perhaps--with\nsome people--succeeds in driving the suggestion home with greater\nforce. It is noteworthy that similar attempts are now being made in\nother directions--witness the Emmanuel movement in New York, the\nFaithists and various \"psycho-therapeutic\" societies in England, and\nthe tendency in some quarters (Bishop of London) to return to anointing\nand laying on of hands by clergymen.\n\nPsychologically, Mrs Eddy is at least classified, if not entirely\nexplained, by one word--monoideism. She was a person of one idea. These\npeople, for whom we usually have the simpler term of \"crank\", are common\nenough. I have no personal acquaintance with the circle-squaring and\nperpetual-motion cranks mentioned by De Morgan (_The Budget of\nParadoxes_), but I know a \"flat-earth\" crank, and am well acquainted\nwith a \"British-Israelite\" crank, who seems to derive unspeakable\njoy--tempered only by his failure to convert me--from the thought that\nwe Britishers are veritably the descendants of one or more of the Lost\nTribes. All these people are conscious of a mission. They have had a\nrevelation, and are anxious to impart it. Their efforts may not be due\nto the \"last infirmity of noble mind\", still less to a lower motive.\nThey may just be built that way. The majority of them, like my\nLost-Tribes friend, get no hearing because of the inflexible pragmatism\nof a stiffnecked and utilitarian generation. \"What difference does it\nmake whether we are the Tribes or not?\" asks the man in the street. And\nhe passes on with a shrug or a grin, according to temperament. This\nterrible pragmatic test makes short work of many amiable cranks. And it\nis just here that Christian Science scores its point; for it cures\nphysical disease, thereby becoming intensely practical. Health is the\nchief \"good\" of life. Anything that will restore it to an ailing body\ncommands immediate and universal respect. Christian Science therefore\nappeals, on its practical side, to the deepest thing in us--to the\nprimal instinct of self-preservation. Hence its success.\n\nIt is possible to blame Mrs Eddy unjustly for her love of power as such.\nShe was not unique in this respect. The difference is that Mrs Eddy\nsucceeded while the others have not, and are consequently not heard of.\nMy Lost-Tribes friend would be as autocratic as anybody if he had the\nchance; but his motive would not be greed of power, but rather the\novermastering desire to push his cause, to proselytise, to promulgate\nhis one idea, almost by force, if such a thing were possible. Most of\nus know a few fanatics of this kind. The objects of their devotion are\nvaried--one is mad north-north-west, another south-south-east--but\nall suffer from a lack of balance, a lack of proper distribution of\ninterest. Of course, we may cheerfully admit that we are all more or\nless specialists in our several departments, and that the line between\nsanity and insanity is rather arbitrary. We all seem more or less mad to\nthose who do not agree with us.\n\nThe good and true part of Christian Science is its demonstration of the\ninfluence of mind on body, and of the usefulness of inducing mental\nstates of an optimistic character. It may, of course, be said that we\nneed no Mrs Eddy to tell us this. True, we don't. The great seers and\npoets have always taught optimism, and the influence of mind on body was\nmedically recognised--more or less--long before even Quimby's time. But\nwe must remember that different minds need different treatment--need\ntheir nutriment and stimulant in different forms, to suit the various\nmental digestions and receptive powers. Consequently, though we may\nprefer Browning for optimism and the doctors for hypnotic therapeutics,\nwe need not complain if others prefer Mrs Eddy and her disciples.\nIf they get good from their way of putting things, and if that good\nmanifests itself in their character and life--in their total reaction on\nthe world--by all means let them continue to walk in their chosen way.\nIt would be wrong to try to turn them. The system \"works\"; therefore it\nis true for them. The tree is known by its fruits. And the fruits of\nChristian Science are undoubtedly often good. In this complex world\nnothing is unmixedly good, and harm is no doubt done occasionally. But,\non the whole, it seems probable that Mrs Eddy, with all her hysteria and\nmorbidities and rancours and queerness, has been a power for good in\nthe world. Her writings meet a want which some people feel, or, rather,\nprovide them with a useful impulse in the direction of physical and\nspiritual regeneration. If you can make a sick person stop brooding over\nhis ailments and worrying over things in general, you have achieved\nsomething which enormously increases his chance of recovery; and if you\ncan make him turn all his thoughts and energies in the direction of\nrecovery, and all his emotional powers in the direction of love and\ngoodwill to his fellow-men and towards God, there is no limit to the\npowers which may be put in operation. In spite of all our achievements\nin science--and they have been great--we are only, as Newton said,\npicking up pebbles on the sea-shore. Nature is boundless; we can fix no\nlimits to her powers. And we know so little, really, about disease, that\nI am not at all prepared to deny the Christian Science claims, even\nwith regard to organic disease. The distinction between organic and\nfunctional is in our own inabilities, not in the nature of the case;\nwe call a disease \"organic\" when we find definite tissue-change, and\n\"functional\" when we do not; but in the latter case there must be some\norganic basis, though too small perhaps to be discoverable--say a lesion\nin a tiny nerve. Consequently I regard the question of Christian Science\ncures as entirely one of evidence. I keep an open mind. If I come across\nenough evidence, I will believe that it can cure tuberculosis of the\nlungs and other diseases, as claimed, whether I can understand how it\ndoes it or not. At present, like Dr Myers, I am not convinced; but I\nhave seen enough of Christian Science results among my own friends to\nprevent me from denying anything. I merely suspend judgment. But I do\nbelieve that the power of the mind over the body is so great that almost\nanything is possible; and I think that the medical advance of the next\nhalf-century will be chiefly in this hitherto neglected direction.\nI happen to know that this, or something very near this, was the\nstrongly-held opinion of the late Professor William James of Harvard,\nwho, in addition to being the most brilliant psychologist of his\ngeneration, was also a qualified doctor of medicine.\n\n\n\n\nJOAN OF ARC\n\n\nGreat results often flow from small causes. Pascal said that if\nCleopatra's nose had been shorter the history of the world would have\nbeen different. Similarly it may be truly said that if a peasant girl of\nDomremy had not had hallucinations, France would now have been a British\nprovince. And it is curious to reflect that the Church which burnt her\nas a heretic and sorcerer has her, and her only, to thank for such\nhold as it still maintains on France, for the latter would have become\nProtestant if England had won. The Roman church now recognises this, and\nhas beatified the Maid. The next step will be her canonisation as a\nsaint. Thus does the whirligig of Time bring its revenges.\n\nJeanne d'Arc was born in the village of Domremy near Vaucouleurs, on the\nborder of Champagne and Lorraine, on January 6th, 1412. She was taught\nto spin and to sew, but not to read or write, these accomplishments\nbeing beyond what was necessary for people in her station of life. Her\nparents were devout, and she was brought up piously. Her nature was\ngentle, modest, and religious, but with no physical weakness or morbid\nabnormality--on the contrary, she was exceptionally strong, as her later\nhistory proves.\n\nAt or about the age of thirteen, Jeanne began to experience what\npsychology now calls \"auditory hallucinations\". That is, she heard\nvoices--usually accompanied by a bright light--when no visible person\nwas present. This, of course, is a common symptom of impending mental\ndisorder; but no insanity developed in Jeanne d'Arc. Startled she\nnaturally was at first, but continuation led to familiarity and trust.\nThe voices gave good counsel of a commonplace kind, as, for instance,\nthat she \"must be a good girl and go regularly to church.\" Soon,\nhowever, she began to have visions: saw St Michael, St Catherine, and St\nMargaret; was given instructions as to her mission; eventually made her\nway to the Dauphin; put herself at the head of 6,000 men, and advanced\nto the relief of Orleans, which was besieged by the conquering English.\nAfter a fortnight of hard fighting the siege was raised, and the enemy\ndriven off. The tide of war had turned, and in three months the Dauphin\nwas crowned King at Rheims, as Charles the Seventh.\n\nAt this point Jeanne felt that her mission was accomplished. But her\nwish to return to her family was over-ruled by king and archbishop, and\nshe took part in the further fighting against the allied English and\nBurgundian forces, showing great bravery and tactical skill. But in\nNovember, 1430, in a desperate sally from Compiegne--which was besieged\nby the Duke of Burgundy--she fell into the enemy's hands, was sold to\nthe English, and thrown into a dungeon at their headquarters in Rouen.\n\nAfter a year's imprisonment she was brought to trial--a mock trial\nbefore the Bishop of Beauvais, in an ecclesiastical court. Learned\ndoctors of the church did their best to entangle the simple girl in\ntheir dialectical toils; but she showed a remarkable power of keeping to\nher simple affirmations and of avoiding heretical statements. \"God has\nalways been my Lord in all that I have done\". But the trial was only\npretence, for her fate was already decided. She was burnt to death,\namid the jeers and execration of a rabble of brutal soldiery, in a Rouen\nmarket-place on May 30th, 1431.\n\nThe life of the Maid supplies a problem which orthodox science cannot\nsolve. She was a simple peasant girl, with no ambitions hankering after\na career. She rebelled pathetically against her mission. \"I had far\nrather rest and spin by my mother's side, for this is no work of my\nchoosing, but I must go and do it, for my Lord wills it.\" She cannot be\ndismissed on the \"simple idiot\" theory of Voltaire, for her genius in\nwar and her aptitude in repartee undoubtedly prove exceptional mental\npowers, unschooled though she was in what we call education. We cannot\ncall her a mere hysteric, for her health and strength were superb. A man\nof science once said to an Abbe: \"Come to the Salpetriere Hospital, and\nI will show you twenty Jeannes d'Arc.\" To which the Abbe responded: \"Has\none of them given us back Alsace and Lorraine?\"\n\nThere is the crux, as Andrew Lang quietly remarked.\n\nThe retort was certainly neat. Still, though the Salpetriere hysterics\nhave not won back Alsace and Lorraine, it is nevertheless true that a\ngreat movement may be started, or kept going when started, by fraud,\nhallucination, and credulity. The Mormons, for example, are a strong\nbody, but the origins of their faith will not bear much criticism. _The\nBook of Mormon_, handed down from heaven by an angel, is more than we\ncan swallow. No one saw its \"metal leaves\"--from which Joseph Smith\ntranslated--except Joseph himself. We have our own opinion about\nJoseph's truthfulness. Somewhat similarly with spiritualism. The great\nmovement is there, based partly on fact as I believe, but supported by\nsome fraud and much ignorance and credulity. May it not have been\nsomewhat thus with Jeanne? She delivered France, and her importance in\nhistory is great; but may not her mission and her doings have been the\noutcome of merely subjective hallucinations, induced by the brooding of\nher specially religious and patriotic mind on the woes of her country?\nThe army, being ignorant and superstitious, would readily believe in the\nsupernatural character of her mission, and great energy and valour would\nfollow as a matter of course--for a man fights well when he believes\nthat Providence is on his side.\n\nThat is the usual kind of theory in explanation of the facts. But it is\nnot fully satisfactory. How came it--one may ask--that this untutored\npeasant girl could persuade not only the rude soldiery, but also the\nDauphin and the court, of her Divine appointment? How came she to be\ngiven the command of an army? Surely a post of such responsibility and\npower would not be given to a peasant girl of eighteen, on the mere\nstrength of her own claim to inspiration. It seems, at least, very\nimprobable.\n\nNow it seems (though the materialistic school of historians conveniently\nignore or belittle it) that there is strong evidence in support of the\nidea that Jeanne gave the Dauphin some proof of the possession of\nsupernormal faculties. In fact, the evidence is so strong that Mr Lang\ncalled it \"unimpeachable\"--and Mr Lang did not usually err on the side\nof credulity in these matters. Among other curious things, Jeanne seems\nto have repeated to Charles the words of a prayer which he had made\nmentally, and she also made some kind of clairvoyant discovery of a\nsword hidden behind the altar of Fierbois church. Schiller's magnificent\ndramatic poem \"_Die Jungfrau von Orleans_,\" though unhistorical in some\ndetails, is substantially accurate on these points concerning\nclairvoyance and mind-reading.\n\nAs to the voices and visions, a Protestant will have a certain prejudice\nwith regard to the St Michael, St Catherine, and St Margaret stories,\nthough he may very possibly be wrong in his disbelief. But, waiving\nthat, it may be true that some genuine inspiration was truly given to\nthe Maid from the deeper strata of her own soul, and that these\nmonitions externalised themselves in the forms in which her thought\nhabitually ran. If she had been a Greek of two thousand years earlier,\nher visions would probably have taken the form of Apollo and Pallas\nAthene; yet they might equally well have contained truth and good\ncounsel, as did the utterances of the Oracles.\n\nAnd, speaking of the Greeks, we may remember that the wisest of that\nrace had similar experiences. Socrates--the pre-eminent type of sanity\nand mental burliness--was counselled by his \"daimon\"; by a warning Voice\nwhich, truly, did not give positive advice like Jeanne's, but which\nintervened to stop him when about to make some wrong decision. Again--to\njump suddenly down to modern times--Charles Dickens says in his letters\nthat the characters of his novels took on a kind of independent\nexistence, and that Mrs Gamp, his greatest creation, spoke to him\n(generally in church) as with an actual voice. In fact, all cases of\ncreative genius, whether in literature, art, or invention, are examples\nof an uprush from unknown mental depths: the process is not the same as\nthe intellectual process of reasoning. In these cases, as for instance\nwith Socrates, Jeanne d'Arc, Dickens, the deeper strata of the mind\nmay be supposed to send up thoughts so vigorously that they become\nexternalised as hallucinations; not necessarily morbid or injurious,\nthough of course many hallucinations are undoubtedly both. The\ninspiration rises from below the conscious threshold. It is as if\n\"given\"; and the normal conscious mind looks on in passive astonishment.\n_Alles ist als wie geschenkt_, says Goethe--and he knew, if anybody did.\nA similar thing happens, on a more ordinary plane, when a problem that\nhas baffled the working mind is solved in sleep. In short, the normal\nconsciousness is not all there is of us; there are levels and powers\nbelow the threshold. And it seems likely that the new psychology is on\nthe track of a better explanation of Socrates and Jeanne d'Arc, as well\nas of the nature of genius in general, than has yet been excogitated by\nthe philosophers. Certainly these things supply interesting material for\nstudy, and many curious discoveries are now being made in this field of\nresearch.\n\n\n\n\nIS THE EARTH ALIVE?\n\n\nSome of the ancients thought the earth was an animal. It has its hard\nand soft parts, its bone and flesh--rock and soil--as the Norse\ncosmology pictured it; also its blood, of seas, rivers, and the like.\nTo a coast-dwelling people, the rhythmic inflow and outflow of the\ntides would suggest a huge slow blood-pulsation, or a breathing. And\nheat increases with depth, in mine or cave; fire spouts from Etna and\nVesuvius; evidently the earth is hotter inside than at the surface, as\nanimals are hotter inside than on their skins. Some such animal-notion\nwas held by Plato, and by some of the later Stoics; though it does not\nseem to have been worked out in detail. And the Greek, Indian, or\nEgyptian theology which made the earth a goddess and the bride of\nHeaven or the sun, is still more indefinite, or is crudely\nanthropomorphic and primitive.\n\nModern approximations have been chiefly in poetry, and are pan-psychic\nrather than animistic; as in Pope's _Essay on Man_:\n\n    All are but parts of one stupendous whole,\n    Whose body Nature is, and God the soul,\n\nand in Wordsworth's _Tintern Abbey_ where the presence which disturbs\nhim with the joy of elevated thoughts is felt to be the Spirit which has\nits dwelling in the light of setting suns and the round ocean and the\nliving air:\n\n    A motion and a spirit that impels\n    All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n    And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still\n    A lover of the meadows and the woods,\n    And mountains; and all that we behold\n    From this green earth; of all the mighty world\n    Of eye, and ear.\n\nEmerson expresses the same thought in _Pan_ and in much of his\nprose--_Nature_, _The Over Soul_, _Self-Reliance_. William James, in\nearly days before his pluralistic development, thought that an _anima\nmundi_ thinking in all of us was a more likely hypothesis than that of\n\"a lot of individual souls\"; and Leibnitz, among other metaphysical\ngreat ones, Spinozistically speaks of \"un seul esprit qui est universel\net qui anime tout l'univers\". Finally, to quote a modern of the moderns,\nwe find Mr H. G. Wells finely saying that \"between you and me as we set\nour minds together, and between us and the rest of mankind, there is\n_something_, something real, something that rises through us and is\nneither you nor me, that comprehends us, that is thinking here and using\nme and you to play against each other in that thinking just as my finger\nand thumb play against each other as I hold this pen with which I\nwrite\". (_First and Last Things_, p. 67.)\n\nBut these various poets and thinkers, while suggesting a soul-side\nof the material universe, have not ventured to attribute spirits to\nspecific lumps of matter such as the planets. Science has banished those\ncelestial genii. Kepler and Newton substituted for them the \"bald and\nbarren doctrine of gravitation\", to the disgust of the theologically\northodox. It is possible, however, that science did not banish these\nplanetary spirits, but only prevented us from seeing them, by turning\nour eyes in another direction, towards the laws according to which the\nmaterial universe works; as if we should become so absorbed in the\nchemistry and physics of blood oxidation, digestion, cerebral change,\nand the like, as to forget that the human body has a consciousness\nassociated with it. It may be that we are too materialistic in our\nastronomy. Perhaps Lorenzo was right, even about the music of the\nspheres; and that our deafness, not their silence, is the reason why\nwe do not hear it.\n\nThe nineteenth century produced a thinker who revived the animistic\nidea in an improved form. He elaborated it into a system of philosophy,\nwelding into it the discoveries of science, and leaving room for any\nfurther advance in that direction. At the same time he showed that his\nsystem was essentially religious, and indeed quite consistent with\nChristianity in its best interpretations. But his writings fell almost\ndead from the press, for he was before his time. The scientific men were\nmaterialists, and sneered at a system which recognised a spiritual\nworld; while the orthodox Christians were scared by its evolutionary\nmethod and its acceptance of Darwinism when the latter arrived--for the\nphilosophy preceded it--and also by the novelty of some of its ideas.\n\nGustav Theodor Fechner was born on April 19, 1801, at Gross-Saerchen in\nwhat is now Silesia, then under the Elector of Saxony. He studied at\nLeipzig, and was appointed professor of Physics at the University there,\nin 1834. He conducted several scientific journals, wrote text-books,\ntranslated Biot's _Physics_ (4 vols.) Thenard's _Chemistry_ (6 vols.)\nand a work on cerebral pathology; also edited an eight-volume\n_Encyclopaedia_ of which he wrote about a third himself, lectured, and\nmade researches in electro-magnetism which injured his eyesight. His\nchief scientific work, _Elements of Psycho-Physics_, was published in\n1859, additions being made in 1877 and 1882. \"Fechner's Law\", the\nfundamental law of psychophysics (that sensation varies in the ratio\nof the logarithm of impression) is now an internationally current term.\nMen like Paulsen and Wundt do not hesitate to call Fechner master. His\nchief philosophical work is _Zend-Avesta_ (3 vols.) published in 1851,\nand rearranged and condensed in _Die Tagesansicht gegenueber der\nNachtansicht_ (1879); but he published also many subsidiary volumes.\nOnly one of his works has appeared in English--the small volume on\n_Life After Death_--and even this had to be brought out by an American\npublisher! Yet Fechner is, as Professor William James said, \"a\nphilosopher in the great sense ... little known as yet to English\nreaders, but destined, I am persuaded, to wield more and more influence\nas time goes on\". (_A Pluralistic Universe_, pp. 135, 149.) The prophecy\nis already beginning to come true.\n\nFechner always begins with the known and indisputable, arguing thence\nto the unknown. His method is thus analogical and scientific. It is the\nonly method that a scientific generation will tolerate. Its results may\nbe disputed, but so can the results of science. Even mathematics gives\nus no certainties, for something must always be taken for granted. In\nphilosophising by analogy, we do at least keep in close touch with\nexperience; we do not evaporate the world into an \"unearthly ballet of\nbloodless categories\". And if the analogies point mostly one way, with\nonly weak ones pointing the other, the result may be at least acceptable\nas a working hypothesis, even if not \"demonstrable\".\n\nMan is a living, thinking, feeling being. He is on the surface of a\nnearly spherical body, which he calls the earth, out of which his\nmaterial part has arisen. The elements of his body are the same as\nthose in the earth. His carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen are the\ncarbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen of the coal measures, soils,\natmosphere, oceans, of the earth. The calcium carbonate of his bones is\nthe calcium carbonate of her rocks as seen in cliffs at Flamborough and\nDover. He is bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh. Sometimes he calls\nher Mother Earth, and involuntarily speaks the truth in jest. In Siberia\nthe Tartar word for the earth is \"Mamma\"--a curious fact. Indeed, the\nbond between the earth and her children is much closer than in the case\nof a human mother and her child; for we remain, all our lives, actually\n_part_ of the planet's mass. If our bodies were suddenly annihilated,\nthe earth's gravitative attraction would be altered, and the whole solar\nsystem would have to readjust itself to the slight diminution. We belong\nto the earth. We are a film of cells on her skin. In Piccadilly and the\nBowery (and Throgmorton and Wall Streets?) we are--alas!--an eczematous\npatch.\n\nBut here it may be objected that man is more than a mere body. Quite\ntrue. Man has experiences of an order different from the material one.\nYou cannot express joy and sorrow by chemical equations or number\nof foot-pounds. Even if there is a material equivalent or necessary\nconcomitant, of electrical or chemical change in cerebral tissue or\nwhat not, the fact of the non-material experience remains a reality. To\nindicate this side of human life, we call it the spiritual side. We say\nthat man is matter and spirit, body and soul. This is quite justifiable\nand right, whether we can define the terms or not. Definition means\nexplaining a word by means of others that are better known. And as we\ncannot get any closer to reality than our own experience, which _is_\nreality to us, and as the two words conveniently classify two great\ndepartments of experience, we justifiably say that we are soul and\nbody. Very well; the body, then, when we die, returns to the earth, from\nwhich indeed it has not been severed, except as being a point at which a\nspecial kind of activity was manifested. What then of the soul? Shall it\nnot return to the earth-soul, as the body returns to the earth-body?\n\nMan has arisen out of the earth. And can the dead give birth to the\nliving? Such an idea is self-contradictory. If the Earth has produced\nus, it cannot be really a mere dead lump, as nineteenth-century\nmaterialistic science regarded it. It must be alive. The fifteen hundred\nmillions or so of human beings who live on its surface like microscopic\ninsects on the body of an elephant, or like epidermis-cells on our\nown bodies, constitute in their total weight and size only an almost\ninfinitesimal proportion of the earth's mass. The earth is 8,000 miles\nin diameter; if human beings were so numerous that they could only stand\nup, wedged together all over its surface, tropics and poles, land and\nwater--the latter covers seven-tenths of it--they would only be like a\nskin 1/200,000th part of an inch thick, on a globe a yard in diameter.\nThe total mass of all the living creatures on the earth's surface,\nincluding all animals and all vegetation, is almost inconceivably small,\nas compared with the mass of the earth. Is it not a trifle ludicrous to\nfind some of these little creatures looking down so condescendingly on\nthe remainder of the planet? Emerson was among the few who have seen the\njoke, for in _Hamatreya_ he satirises those who boast of possessing\npieces of the earth:\n\n    Where are these men? Asleep beneath their grounds:\n    And strangers, fond as they, their furrows plough.\n    Earth laughs in flowers, to see her boastful boys\n    Earth-proud, proud of the earth which is not theirs;\n    Who steer the plough, but cannot steer their feet\n    Clear of the grave.\n\nAnd the earth sings:\n\n    They called me theirs,\n    Who so controlled me;\n    Yet every one\n    Wished to stay, and is gone,\n    How am I theirs,\n    If they cannot hold me,\n    But I hold them?\n\nA very natural objection to the idea of the earth being full of life\nand mind--as my body is full of my life and my mind--is that the\ninorganic part of the planet presents no evidence of such. It does\nnot act as if it were alive and conscious. But this begs the whole\nquestion. If you decide beforehand that all evidence for the existence\nof mind must be the sort of phenomena exhibited by the things we call\nliving, the business is settled, and it is clear that the inorganic\nkingdom is without consciousness. There is then no sign of mind\nanywhere except in that infinitesimally thin and indeed discontinuous\nskin which is made up of living individuals on the earth's surface. But\nis it not somewhat presumptuous to dogmatise thus? Why should mind\nalways manifest itself in the same way? Non-living matter does not show\nvital activities, but it does show other activities, quite systematic\nand non-chaotic and comprehensible ones. How could \"dead\" matter have\nany activity at all? Even Haeckel postulates a sort of mind in the\natom, and we have heard of \"mind-stuff\" before, from an equally\ndetermined materialist. Indeed, how can we rationalise the behaviour\nof phosphorus in oxygen but by saying that the two elements like each\nother so well that they rush to combine whenever possible? If carbon\nhas great \"affinity,\" showing a tendency to combine with many atoms of\nother elements in various complicated ways--at least as regards its\nfavourite types--it is reasonable to regard it as a much-loving\nelement--the polygamous Solomon of the elements. If fluorine will\nhave nothing to do with other substances--except under protest, when\npersuaded by Miss Hydrogen, whose gaiety and levity sometimes overcome\nits sulkiness, bringing it also into the society of calcium and one or\ntwo other metals--we must say that fluorine is unsociable, morbidly\nself-centred, or perhaps mystically disposed, like Thoreau, happy by\nhis pond, alone. Chemical affinity is the loves of the elements.\n\nRising to the next grade of complexity above atoms, we find that\nmolecular movements, visible in the apparently representative Brownian\nmovements of particles, recall the fidget of a bunch of midges,\nand thereby suggest a sort of life. They disobey the second law of\nthermodynamics, rising in a lighter liquid, as midges rise in the\ntenuous air. Of course no one can deny that in the things we call living\nthere are phenomena not seen elsewhere, and some of these are quite\nprobably not understandable at all, in terms of measurement or imagery,\nas we can understand the Brownian movements by irregular bombardment of\nmolecules. We cannot understand the relation between a supposed\nbrain-change and the corresponding mental fact. The two orders of\nbeing seem disjunctive. Perhaps these things are too close to us to be\nunderstood; perhaps we cannot understand life and consciousness because\nwe are ourselves alive and conscious--as we cannot lift ourselves by\npulling at our boot tops, and cannot see our own faces because the eyes\nthat see are _in_ the face that is to be seen. Still the distinction\nbetween life at its lowest and non-life at its highest (crystals?) is\nso small that we may yet effect a smooth transition--may somehow see a\ncontinuity which now eludes us. And it seems likely that this will be\neffected by an extension of the mind-idea down into the inorganic,\nrather than by any explanation of life by physical and chemical\nconcepts.\n\nAgain, on the larger scale, may not cohesion, as well as chemical\naffinity, be a sort of affection; in this case a kind of wide social\nfriendship--the \"adhesive love\" of Whitman, which is to supersede\n\"amative love\"--as against the fierce and narrow loves of the elements?\nA. C. Benson in _Joyous Gard_ (p. 128) quotes a geologist who says:\n\n  It is not by any means certain that stones do not have a certain\n  obscure life of their own; I have sometimes thought that their\n  marvellous cohesion may be a sign of life, and that if life were\n  withdrawn, a mountain might in a moment become a heap of sliding\n  sand.\n\nYes, and even in sand-grains there is cohesion of particles, and in\nthe smallest particles huge numbers of molecules, and again--still\nsmaller--atoms and electrons. Something elusive yet tremendously potent\nis still there, in the sand. It would be rash to call it dead and\nmindless. There seems more sense in admitting that there is something\nakin to what we know as life and mind in ourselves, permeating the\nmaterial universe.\n\nAnd if--to come back to our own planet--if the earth is a living\norganism, there will naturally be distribution of function, as there\nis in our own bodies. It would be absurd for the eye to deny life and\nperception to ear or skin just because their mode of activity is\ndifferent. It is wiser to concede life and mind where-ever there is\naction. In the present state of affairs, not only do we get into\ndifficulties by our rash assumption that there is no mind without\nprotoplasm (_ohne Phosphor kein Gedanke_, as the old materialist too\nboldly said), but we find it impossible to draw the line between living\nand non-living. Drops of oil exhibit amoeboid movements, and at the\nlower end of life the slime-mass becomes so undifferentiated as to be\nvery much in a borderland between the two states. Probably non-living\nsubstances gradate into living ones by imperceptible _differentiae_, as\nman would be found to gradate back into an anthropoid ape or something\nof the kind if we could see all the stages. Nature does not make jumps.\nWhere she seems to do so, it is only because we cannot see how she\ngets from one place to another distant one. But when we scrutinise the\ninterspace, we see that there is a path. Nature does not jump. She\nglides.\n\nIt is on this line of thought that the disagreement between the schools\nrepresented by Sir Edward Schaefer and Dr Hans Driesch respectively\nmay, perhaps, be happily resolved. No doubt each may have to make\nconcessions. The mechanist must not claim that mind is _only_ an affair\nof nitrogenous colloids, for this would be a large assumption built on\na very small foundation; no biologist, however much he knows about\nnitrogenous colloids, can in any conceivable sense explain his joy in a\nsunset or a symphony by reference to those substances. Physical causes\nhave physical effects; to say that they cause anything non-physical\n(_i.e._ mental) is really talking nonsense. And, on the other hand,\nthe vitalist must not deny consciousness to non-protoplasmic Nature.\nNegations are dangerous. It is extremely risky to say that a Matterhorn\nhas less spiritual significance--in itself and for the whole, and not\nonly for us--than a cretin who wanders useless and unbeautiful about its\nlower slopes. The activities of the two are different, that is all we\nare justified in saying. True, the Matterhorn's are more calculable and\npredictable, but that does not prove unconsciousness. Human action also\nis predictable to some extent. And the more wise and unified a man\nis--the nearer he approximates to ideal perfection--the more accurately\nwe can predict his response to a given stimulus. We might almost argue,\non these lines, that inorganic matter has a certain superiority; for\nit is not capricious. It knows what it wants to do, and does it; or at\nleast--if this is going too far--it does things, and does them _as if_\nit knew very well what it wanted to do. To the same conditions and\nstimuli it always responds in the same way, like reflex action in living\nbeings, and like association in ordinary consciousness. Water always\nboils punctually at 100 deg.C., and freezes at 0 deg.C., if the pressure\nis 760mm. of mercury. \"Canal\" always makes me think of Panama and\nMars--though to other people it might suggest Suez, their different\nexperience having given them other association-couplings. But any one\nknowing me well, or knowing any one well, could say almost certainly\nwhat associations \"canal\" would have--what thought it will evoke. And\nthe same thing is true, to a less extent, of our actions. If a man hits\nJack Johnson, the latter will probably hit back. Still more certain is\nit that no one will hit him unless drunk or insane or in some sort of\nvery exceptional circumstances. If, on the other hand, somebody hits me,\nthe outcome is less certain. It will depend to a greater extent on the\nresult of reflection and judgment--perhaps partly on my estimate of the\nother fellow's weight, age, training and science! Yet anyone knowing\nme well, and perceiving the main conditions, could predict with fair\napproach to accuracy what I should do. Yet I am undoubtedly a conscious\nbeing. Some actions of conscious beings, then, are predictable, if we\nknow the conditions. Indeed, in the mass, human action is calculable\nwith precision--witness the various kinds of insurance. Why then\ndeny consciousness to the Matterhorn, because _all_ its actions are\ncalculable and predictable? The difference is one of degree, not kind.\nAnd indeed _are_ all its actions predictable? The fact is, they are only\nhypothetically so. We say that they would be if we knew enough. But we\nmight say the same of the actions of a man. The truth is, that if we say\nit of either we are arguing dangerously, from our ignorance and not from\nour knowledge. It is indeed as risky to say that we could predict the\nMatterhorn's actions _in toto_, as to say that we cannot predict the\nman's; for we are continually finding that matter does things which we\ndid not formerly suspect--_e.g._ radio-activity. Clearly, we cannot\npredict all the activities of the Matterhorn: many may depend on\nundiscovered properties. So it seems that even if some human actions,\nsuch as Newton's discovery of the law of gravitation and Milton's\n_Paradise Lost_ and Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy and Raphael's Sistine\nMadonna, are strictly unpredictable, it still does not sufficiently\ndifferentiate us from the Matterhorn, which on its part also has its\nunpredictabilities.\n\nAs to what parts of matter have separate spirits--where the\nSnowdon-spirit ends and the Moel Siabod spirit begins, and so on--we\nneed not trouble much about that. This individualising of parts is\na reasonable supposition, but it is not necessary to press it. Mr\nMaurice Hewlett has seen the _genius loci_ of a sunny woodland\nlandscape translated into human idiom as an opulent Titianesque\nbeauty (_Lore of Proserpine_), and Manfred sees or feels a spirit of\nthe Alps; but these are details. The only thing that matters is the\nensoulment of the earth as a whole. No doubt its spirit-part is\ndivided up somehow, correspondent to its material conformation, as\nour spirits are divided from each other. The division, however, is\nnot a hermetic sealing off. The universe is continuous. Indeed its\nparts are inter-penetrative, for every particle influences every\nother particle--and a thing cannot act where it is not. Similarly,\nhuman beings are found to have modes of communication other than\nthose hitherto recognised by orthodox science, and are somehow able\nto influence others without regard to distance. We seem to be\nconnected with each other in the unseen, subliminal, spiritual\nregion. Our separateness is illusory. So with individualisations of\nearth-features. They have individual aspects, both on the physical\nand spiritual side; but they are part of the one earth and its one\nspirit, as we ourselves are. And that earth-spirit is part of\nthe universe-spirit or God, as the human spirit is part of the\nearth-spirit.\n\nIt is perhaps difficult, at first, to think of the earth as having a\nlife and consciousness of its own, for we are located at little points,\nand do not see it whole, nor do we see from the inside. We are like an\neye which looks at the body of which it forms a part, and finds it\ndifficult to believe in auditory, tactile, olfactory experience; more\ndifficult still to conceive of pure thought, emotion, will. If the earth\nseems a dead lump, however, think of the human brain. It is a mere lump\nof whitish filaments, _seen from outside_. But its inner experience is\nthe rich and infinitely detailed life of a human being. So also may the\ninner experience of the earth be incomparably richer than its outer\nappearance indicates to our external senses. Objectively, our brains are\npart of the earth: subjectively, _we see in ourselves a part of what the\nearth sees in itself_.\n\nIn thinking of the earth as an organised being, we must guard against\nthe error of the ancients who called it an animal. It is not an animal.\nIt is a Being of a higher character than any animal, for it includes\nall animals and all human beings, comprising in its spirit all their\nspiritual activities, and having its own activities as well. We are to\nit, as our blood-corpuscles are to us; and to think of the earth-spirit\nas being like our spirits would be equivalent to a blood-corpuscle\nthinking of its containing body as another corpuscle, only bigger.\nWhereas the truth is that a man has feelings and cognitions and\npurposes, and performs acts, which the corpuscles cannot in the least\ncomprehend. (Somewhat similarly, a drop cannot have waves, or a small\ncelestial body an atmosphere; the lower cannot have what the higher has,\nnor can it understand it.) The corpuscle may know or believe that its\nconscience or intuition is a sort of leakage down to it, of the mind or\nwill of its greater self (the voice of its God), and that in so far as\nit does its duty according to its lights it is assisting the purposes\nof that higher Being of which it forms a part; and this faith is its\nhighest wisdom. So with us. Human duty, done sincerely according to our\nlights, is furthering the purposes of the higher Being in whom we live\nand move. This faith is our highest wisdom concerning our relation to\nthe earth-spirit. We see, then, that there is a good deal of sense in\nfaith and intuition. They are rationally justified. By them we are dimly\nin touch with the over-soul on our inner side: not _really_ dimly, for\nthe connection is close and real, but dimly to our normal consciousness.\nThe connection _via_ intellect is an external, round-about affair,\nnecessary and useful, but different. We need to cultivate both. This is\nthe essence of the philosophy of Bergson. There is more than one way of\nreceiving truth. Science is apt to overlook the intuitional way.\n\nOn this conscience-side or moral aspect, the Fechnerian idea is\nparticularly fruitful and illuminating. The analogy of our own mind is\nonce more the key--the mirror wherewith to view the greater landscape,\nthe village wherefrom to draw inferences about nations. In childhood,\nthe world is, as James said, a big, blooming, buzzing confusion:\nsensations pour in quite unconnected; the baby sees the moon, and\nstretches out an arm to grab it, thus learning that it is not grabable.\nIt is only gradually that the child learns to associate sounds with\nsights; to know what sounds indicate its mother's presence or proximity,\nand what sounds its father's. Gradually, individual experiences get\nlinked up and harmonised. Then other disjointednesses arise. Foolish\nimpulses war against better judgment and parents' advice, and the\nyouth's mind is \"torn\", as we say, very aptly describing the feeling.\nGrowing older and wiser, his mind becomes more unified and consequently\nmore calm. His powers are marshalled and directed consciously at a\ngoal or goals. Wayward impulses are reined in. We feel that poise and\nstrength and wisdom are attained: never perfectly and ideally, but at\nleast to a considerable degree, as compared with the earlier state.\n\nSo with the earth-spirit. Being far greater than the human\nsubsidiary spirits, it is longer in coming to maturity. Its elements\nare still largely at loggerheads with each other. The nations war\nagainst each other, and universal peace seems a long time in coming.\nBut steadily, steadily works the earth-spirit, and the nations almost\nunconsciously--like somnambulists--carry out its will. They are working,\nconsciously or unconsciously, towards universal at-one-ment. A League of\nNations has arisen, and the Federation of the World is in sight. Union\nis the political watch-word. Labour is combining throughout the world.\nEast is learning from West, and West from East. China sends her\nstudents to Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Harvard, and welcomes Western\nmethods. India repays our civilising with the poems of Tagore. In trade,\nthousands of small businesses are unified in a few great combines,\npreparing for some sort of Socialism. Finance spreads its world-wide\nnetwork. Science is becoming international. The frontiers are melting;\ncoalescence, unity, harmony are being achieved. The earth-spirit is\nreconciling its warring elements. When it succeeds in the complete\nreconciliation; when the era of universal peace and brotherhood shall\ndawn; when it reaches its huge equivalent of the ripe, calm, contented\nwisdom of human age--ah, then will come a state of things which we can\nbut dimly prefigure. But it will come. The age of gold is in the future,\nnot the past. It is our duty and our privilege to hasten the coming of\nthis millennium. And even this is not the end. We cannot conceive the\nthings that shall be. Eye hath not seen, or ear heard. Enough for us to\nknow the tendency, and to trust ourselves to it, actively co-operating.\n\n    Before beginning, and without an end,\n    As space eternal, and as surety sure,\n    Is fixed a Power divine which moves to good,\n    Only its laws endure.\n\n    This is its touch upon the blossomed rose,\n    The fashion of its hand shaped lotus-leaves;\n    In dark soil and the silence of the seeds\n    The robe of Spring it weaves.\n\n    It maketh and unmaketh, mending all;\n    What it hath wrought is better than had been;\n    Slow grows the splendid pattern that it plans,\n    Its wistful hands between.\n\n    This is its work upon the things ye see:\n    The unseen things are more; men's hearts and minds,\n    The thoughts of peoples and their ways and wills,\n    Those, too, the great Law binds.\n                          --Sir Edwin Arnold, _Light of Asia_.\n\nIs it asked: \"Who is the Law-giver, and to what end is the Law?\" The\nquestion is foolish. Parts cannot know wholes, and the whole does not\nwant parts to be anything but what they obviously are. Each fits into\nits place, and can do useful work there. Let it keep to tasks \"of a size\nwith its capacity\"--as a Kempis says--and leave the rest. \"What doth the\nLord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk\nhumbly with thy God?\"\n\n\n\n\nRELIGIOUS BELIEF AFTER THE WAR\n\n\nThere is naturally and rightly a great deal of anxiety in the minds of\nmost thoughtful people as to the state of religion after the war. The\nold order seems to have come down in chaos about our ears, and we are\nwondering what shape the new building will take. Even our clergy, or\nsome of them, are honestly confessing that beliefs can never be just\nthe same again; to name only two things, they feel that the literal\nacceptance of the non-resistance doctrine is no longer unqualifiedly\npossible, as many were formerly inclined to maintain; for the aggression\nof Germany has made clear the necessity of resisting evil; second,\nthat the old Protestant doctrine of immediate heaven or hell cannot\nsatisfactorily be applied to many of the millions of young fellows\nwho have gone over; some idea of more gradual progress through an\nintermediate state seems more reasonable. But will this be sufficient?\nShall we jog on again, after this world-shaking cataclysm, with\nsuch a very microscopical trimming--such an almost imperceptible\nsail-reefing--as this? Will not rather the whole theological scheme have\nto be remodelled? Can nations which have suffered as the belligerents\nhave suffered--even those at home, still more the brave lads who have\ngone through experiences such as they never dreamed of in their worst\nnightmares--can these people, even if they wish, accept the old scheme,\nor anything like it?\n\nI am not going to try to answer such a large question directly.\nMr Wells has attempted something of the sort in his book, _God the\nInvisible King_, and he prophesies a religious revolution. It may come\nas he thinks, but it is perhaps more probable that, in spite of the\nmost earth-shaking events, a certain continuity of thought will be\nmaintained. New religions are not manufactured complete while you wait,\nlike Pallas emerging full-armed from the head of Zeus; or, if they are,\nby such brilliant Olympians as Mr Wells, they do not get themselves\naccepted. But there probably will be enough of a change to be called a\nvery considerable thought-revolution, even allowing for some inevitable\ncontinuity; and inasmuch as each expression of opinion counts as a datum\nand as a directive agency, I venture to make my prophecy. And I avoid\nthe negative side, also any argument as to whether or why this or that\nparticular doctrine will become obsolete; I think it better to let\nobsolescent beliefs drop quietly into their limbo, and to concern\nourselves with the living ones that will replace them.\n\nFirst and most important, the idea of God. We have heard, over and over\nagain, the pathetic cry: \"Why does God permit such things? Surely He\nmust be either not All-good or not Almighty?\" And one hears of men, even\namong the clergy, whose minds have been clouded by this difficulty.\nMr Wells solves the problem in the fashion of J. S. Mill and the late\nWilliam James, by postulating a finite god, a good being who is doing\nhis best but who is struggling with a refractory material. To many\npeople this seems a helpful notion, for it saves God's goodness and\ngives a pleasurable sense of being co-workers with Him in His effort to\nimprove things. But to many of us it is unsatisfactory. Indeed, if one\ncould say such a thing of the author of _Bealby_ and of the most genial\nof modern philosophers, we might say that the finite-god idea seems\nimpossible to anyone with a sense of humour. Is it not really rather\nridiculous of us to decide so solemnly that God is no doubt a good\nfellow but that He is having a tough time of it in fighting Satan, and\nthat there does not seem to be any certainty of His winning? Perhaps\nthe idea appeals to adventurous spirits like Wells and James because it\nhas an air of being a sporting event, and promises excitement; but, I\nrepeat, is it not a rather ridiculous proposition for us small creatures\nto make? \"Finite\" and \"Infinite\" are words; I am not sure that they have\nany very clear meaning. As to \"infinite\" in particular, the idea is only\na negative one; we think of something finite, and then say \"it is not\nthat\". But even of \"finite\", can we say that it has any useful clear\nmeaning? The pen with which I write this may be said to be finite, for\nI can give its dimensions, and in many ways can define the limits of\nits powers. But inasmuch as every particle in it attracts every other\nparticle of matter in the universe, the little pen's finiteness or\ninfinity depends on whether the universe itself is finite or infinite;\nand that is a bigger question than our small wits can settle. And if it\nis so with a pen, will it not be more so with greater things?\n\nWe measure things against the foot-rule of our own selves. We can\nimagine something much greater than those selves, both physical and\nspiritual. But when it comes to conceiving the whole physical universe\nof which we form an insignificant part, I do not feel that we can know\nwhether it is finite or not. It is too big for our foot-rule. Even when\ndealing with the distances of the stars, we realise that the billions of\nmiles which we can talk about so glibly do not convey much to our minds.\nWe can think of a distance of a few miles fairly clearly, recalling how\nlong it takes us to walk so far; but greater distances soon become mere\nfigures, not representing anything that we can picture. And when we\nreach the conception of the whole physical universe, we get quite out of\nour depth. We do not know whether it is finite or infinite; we know only\nthat it is inconceivably greater than we are.\n\nSo with the spirit which energises through it. Beginning with what we\nknow best, we find ourselves acquainted with a world of mental phenomena\nbound together in and by what we call our self. Whatever we think of\nHume's argument that a mass of experiences do not involve a soul that\nhas them, it is reasonable and useful to have a name for the active\nthing which perceives and thinks and acts and feels, whether we call it\nsoul or spirit or mind or self or _x_. It is something which maintains\na sort of identity, in spite of growth and change; and it is marked off\nfrom other selves. John Smith has John Smith's experiences, not William\nJones's. This individual spirit energises through each of our bodies. Of\nour own spirit we have a very close knowledge, of other spirits we have\na rather more remote knowledge from inference; we infer their states of\nmind from the states of body which we observe, or from the material\neffects which they cause in speaking or writing. Passing from the\ninferred human spirits (inferred because certain lumps of matter act in\na way similar to that of the lumps which we call our own bodies), we\ncome to other and larger and very different pieces of matter such as\nplanets. It may seem at the first glance an absurd idea, but I for one\ncannot think of matter as dead, or of a whole planet without any soul\nexcept what is in the human bodies which make up an infinitesimal\nportion of its mass. It seems to me that there must be some sort of\nmind energising through the planet-mass as my own mind energises\nthrough my body-mass. And, carrying the idea further, we arrive at a\nconception of the whole universe as ensouled by a Being who in the\nmaterial immanent manifestation is the Logos of the Christian doctrine,\nbut who also transcends the material part as indeed the Christian\ndoctrine teaches. This spirit, transcending the physical universe as\nwell as energising through it, is greater in comparison with our spirits\nthan the physical universe is in comparison with our bodies. Therefore,\nonce more, and to a greater degree, we are out of our depth. To throw\nwords like finite and infinite at such a Being is to make ourselves\nridiculous. It is like a microbe sticking its own adjective-labels--if\nit has any--on a man, whom the microbe's vocabulary as a matter of fact\nwill not apply to. God is too great for our measure. He is high as\nheaven; what canst thou do? deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know? The\nmeasure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea--yea,\nthan the whole universe itself.\n\nThis conclusion of Zophar the Naamathite, acquiesced in by Job at the\nend of the argument, seems to some minds an evaporation of God into an\nAbsolute without any human attributes. We feel the necessity or at least\nthe desirability of regarding Him as good, loving, etc., and we shrink\nfrom any de-personalisation. But there is a way out of the difficulty.\nGod is incomprehensible, as the Creed says; parts cannot comprehend\nwholes. But there is something deep in us, call it what you will, which\ntells us that our ideals of Good, Truth, and Beauty are divine; are God\nin so far as we are able to cognise Him. Good, true, beautiful actions\nand thoughts are God manifested through our personal limitations; they\nare rainbow colours broken out of the pure white light of God. We do\nright to worship them. They are the highest we can comprehend, though we\nmay reach lame hands of faith to the apprehension of the Unconditioned.\nBut this is a very great mystery, revealed only to the mystic. And it is\na dangerous path, for by reaching \"beyond good and evil\" we lose touch\nwith humanity and with the virtues we can exercise, risking the insanity\nto which Nietzsche so logically succumbed. We may dimly apprehend the\nIncomprehensible, but we must live and work among comprehensibilities.\nThat is what we are here for. God is conceived by us--and rightly so\nconceived--as Good, Truth, Beauty, though we can see that as He really\nis He must transcend them. Mr Wells's distinction between the Finite God\nand the Veiled Being is not an ultimate. The two are one, seen as two\nbecause of our limitations. They are the rainbow and its source. The sun\ncannot be looked upon directly, but only when dimmed or reflected.\n\nThen as to immortality. The deaths of so many of our best, and the\nsorrow thus brought into almost every home, force this question into\nprominence. If blank pessimism is to be avoided, many people feel that\nthey must have some assurance of the continued existence of those who\nhave made the supreme sacrifice--a sacrifice at the call of duty,\ngreater probably than any sacrifice ever made by us of the older\ngeneration who have lived in the smooth times of peace. We feel that if\nthese magnificent young lives have come to nought, have been _wasted_,\nthere is no rational religious belief possible to us. Accordingly we\ninquire about immortality. And, curiously enough, Science, which in the\nlast generation tended to deny or discredit individual survival of\nbodily death, now gives a quite opposite verdict. Psychical research\nbrings forward scientific evidence for that welcome belief. It seems\ntoo good to be true; but it is true. Public opinion has not yet fully\naccepted it--nor is it well that opinion should change too rapidly--for\nit was well drenched in materialism during the heyday of physical\nscience and its astonishing applications in the latter part of\nthe nineteenth century, but the leaders of thought in almost all\nbranches--scientific, legal, literary, and what not--are now admitting\nthat the evidence is at least surprising, and those who have studied it\nmost are one by one announcing that it is convincing. There are many\nquestions yet to solve, such as the nature and occupations of the future\nlife, concerning which there are different views, and the problems may\nturn out to be insoluble; but the main problem seems on the way to\nbe settled. The survival of human personality is a fact. And the\nindications, so far as we have got, suggest that the next stage is a\nlife of opportunity, work, progress, even more than the present one.\nThere is much to be thankful for in even this only incipient revelation.\nIt is salvation great and joyous, to those reared amid unacceptable\ntheories of a blank materialism or the much more dreadful hell-doctrines\nof the theologians.\n\nThe religion of the coming time, then, seems likely to be mainly based\non these two articles, belief in God in the way indicated, and belief in\nsurvival and progress on the other side. Both beliefs are empirical, and\nare thus in harmony with the temper of our time. They begin with the\nthings which are most real to us, first the fact of conscious experience,\nthen the external world, and reason upward therefrom, instead of\nbeginning with metaphysical entities and attributes, and reasoning\ndown--and failing to establish contact with the material world. Religious\nexperience there still may be, and this may give rise to quite new and\nunexpected forms of belief or worship; but on the whole the tendency of\nthought for the last three hundred years has been increasingly empirical,\nand the success of the method is likely to ensure its continuance. It may\nbe true that the ideal world is the more real--probably it is--that out\nof thought's interior sphere these phenomenal wonders of the world rose\nto upper air, as Emerson says; but for us in the present circumstances\nthe way back to universe-spiritualisation is _via_ experience (and\nmainly sense-presentations) carefully observed and studied. If these\nscientific methods, which are open to everybody, can lead to belief\nin God and a spiritual world to which we pass at death, it seems\nunnecessary to return to the bad old days when sporadic experiences of\nthis or that ecstatic, or logic-chopping by this or that theologian,\nled to beliefs and cults of widely differing character according to the\nidiosyncracy of the writer. A method which is open to all and the rules\nof which are agreed on will be likely to yield something like unanimity.\nThe churches may yet form one fold, if they will; in which, with\nvariations to satisfy different aesthetic or symbolistic needs, all souls\nmay find the answer to their queries, healing for their sorrow, and\nscope for their reverence and love; in a word, salvation.\n\n\nPRINTED BY THE ANCHOR PRESS LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX, ENGLAND.\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber's Notes\n\n\n  Punctuation has been corrected without note.\n\n  The following printer's errors have been corrected, on page\n  1   \"neaking\" changed to \"sneaking\" (tinged with a sneaking sympathy\n      for its hero)\n  49  \"odject\" changed to \"object\" (that the position of the lost\n      object could)\n  66  \"comandingly\" changed to \"commandingly\" (soothingly or\n      commandingly filling the patient's mind)\n  81  \"handing\" changed to \"handed\" (would not want his enemies handed\n      over to)\n  90  \"a\" added (brutal soldiery, in a Rouen market-place)\n  90  \"Salpetriere\" changed to \"Salpetriere\" (Come to the Salpetriere\n      Hospital, and I will show you)\n  97  \"gegenbueer\" changed to \"gegenueber\" (Die Tagesansicht gegenueber\n      der Nachtansicht)\n  98  \"cerebal\" changed to \"cerebral\" (chemical change in cerebral\n      tissue or what not)\n  100 \"discontinous\" changed to \"discontinuous\" (thin and indeed\n      discontinuous skin which).\n\n  Otherwise oddities and inconsistencies of the original text have been\n  preserved, including the spelling of foreign names.\n\n  The first name of Mesmer was Franz, not Friedrich.\n\n  On page 37 a paragraph starts with point 1. There is no point 2.\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"Psychical Miscellanea: Being Papers on Psychical Research, Telepathy, Hypnotism, Christian Science, etc.","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":34267}