{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44883/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44883","id":"gutenberg_44883","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44883","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Death","Love","Personality"],"text":"[Italics are marked with _underscores_.]\n\n\n\n\n  THE DRAMA\n  OF LOVE AND DEATH\n\n  _A Study_\n  _of Human Evolution and_\n  _Transfiguration_\n\n\n  By\n  Edward Carpenter\n\n\n  NEW YORK AND LONDON\n  MITCHELL KENNERLEY\n  1912\n\n\n\n\n  _Copyright 1912 by_\n  _Mitchell Kennerley_\n\n\n\n\n  Contents\n\n\n  CHAP.                                                     PAGE\n\n        _The Delphian Sibyl overlooking the Earth_           vii\n\n     I. Introduction                                           1\n\n    II. The Beginnings of Love                                 5\n\n   III. Love as an Art                                        24\n\n    IV. Its Ultimate Meanings                                 48\n\n     V. The Art of Dying                                      69\n\n    VI. The Passage of Death                                  87\n\n           Note on Consciousness in the Body                 107\n\n   VII. Is there an After-Death State?                       111\n\n  VIII. The Underlying Self                                  131\n\n            Note on Mediumistic Trance                       156\n\n    IX. Survival of the Self                                 162\n\n     X. The Inner or Spiritual Body                          176\n\n    XI. The Creation and Materialization of Forms            192\n\n   XII. Reincarnation                                        215\n\n  XIII. The Divine Soul                                      237\n\n   XIV. The Return Journey                                   248\n\n    XV. The Mystery of Personality                           262\n\n   XVI. Conclusion                                           284\n\n        Appendix                                             289\n\n\n\n\n                   _The Delphian Sibyl_\n\n      (_On her mountain-slope overlooking the Earth_)\n\n   _The coastline ranges far, the skies unfold;\n      The mountains rise in glory, stair on stair;\n    The darting Sun seeks Daphne as of old\n      In thickets dark where laurel blooms are fair.\n    The ancient sea, deep wrinkled, ever young,\n      With salt lip kisses still the silver strand;\n    In caverns dwell the Nymphs, their loves among,\n      And Titans still with strange fire shake the land._\n\n   _A thousand generations here have come,\n      And wandered o\u2019er these hills, and faced the light;\n    A thousand times slight man from mortal womb\n      Has leapt, and lapsed again into the night.\n    Here tribesmen dwelt, and fought, and curst their star,\n      And scoured both land and sea to sate their needs;\n    Prophetic eyes of youth gazed here afar,\n      With lips half open brooding on great deeds._\n\n   _Nor dreamed each little mortal of the Past,\n      Nor the deep sources of his life divined,\n    Watching his herds, or net in ocean cast,\n      Deaf to th\u2019 ancestral voices down the wind;\n    Nor guessed what strange sweet likenesses should rise,\n      Selves of himself, far in the future years,\n    With his own soul within their sunlit eyes,\n      And in their hearts his secret hopes and fears._\n\n   _Yet I\u2014I saw. Yea, from my lofty stand\n      I saw each life continuous extend\n    Beyond its mortal bound, and reach a hand\n      To others and to others without end.\n    I saw the generations like a river\n      Flow down from age to age, and all the vast\n    Complex of human passion float and quiver\u2014\n      A wondrous mirror where the Gods were glassed._\n\n   _And still through all these ages scarce a change\n      Has touched my mountain slopes or seaward curve,\n    And still the folk beneath the old laws range,\n      And from their ancient customs hardly swerve;\n    Still Love and Death, veiled figures, hand in hand,\n      Move o\u2019er men\u2019s heads, dread, irresistible,\n    To ope the portals of that other land\n      Where the great Voices sound and Visions dwell._\n\n\n\n\n  THE DRAMA OF LOVE\n  AND DEATH\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER I\n\n  INTRODUCTORY\n\n\nLove and Death move through this world of ours like things\napart\u2014underrunning it truly, and everywhere present, yet seeming to\nbelong to some other mode of existence. When Death comes, breaking into\nthe circle of our friends, words fail us, our mental machinery ceases to\noperate, all our little stores of wit and wisdom, our maxims, our\nmottoes, accumulated from daily experience, evaporate and are of no\navail. These things do not seem to touch or illuminate in any effective\nway the strange vast Presence whose wings darken the world for us. And\nwith Love, though in an opposite sense, it is the same. Words are of no\nuse, all our philosophy fails\u2014whether to account for the pain, or to\nfortify against the glamour, or to describe the glory of the experience.\n\nThese figures, Love and Death, move through the world, like closest\nfriends indeed, never far separate, and together dominating it in a kind\nof triumphant superiority; and yet like bitterest enemies, dogging each\nother\u2019s footsteps, undoing each other\u2019s work, fighting for the bodies\nand souls of mankind.\n\nIs it possible that at length and after ages we may attain to liberate\nourselves from their overlordship\u2014to dominate _them_ and make them our\nministers and attendants? Can we wrest them from their seeming tyranny\nover the human race, and from their hostility to each other? Can we\npersuade them to lay aside their disguise and appear to us for what they\nno doubt are\u2014even the angels and messengers of a new order of\nexistence?\n\nIt is a great and difficult enterprise. Yet it is one, I think, which we\nof this generation cannot avoid. We can no longer turn our faces away\nfrom Death, and make as if we did not perceive his presence or hear his\nchallenge. This age, which is learning to look the facts of Nature\nsteadily in the face, and see _through_ them, must also learn to face\nthis ultimate fact and look through it. And it will surely\u2014and perhaps\nonly\u2014be by allying ourselves to Love that we shall be able to do\nso\u2014that we shall succeed in our endeavor.\n\nFor after all it is not in the main on account of ourselves that we\ncherish a grudge against the \u2018common enemy\u2019 and dispute his authority,\nbut for the sake of those we love. For ourselves we may be indifferent\nor acquiescent; but somehow for those others, for those divine ones who\nhave taken our hearts into their keeping, we resent the idea that _they_\ncan perish. We refuse to entertain the thought. Love in some mysterious\nway forbids the fear of death. Whether it be Siegfried who tramples the\nflaming, circle underfoot, or the Prince of Heaven who breaks his way\nthrough the enchanted thicket, or Orpheus who reaches his Eurydice even\nin the jaws of hell, or Hercules who wrestles with the lord of the\nunderworld for Alcestis\u2014the ancient instinct of mankind has declared in\nno uncertain tone that in this last encounter Love must vanquish.\n\nIt is in the name, then, of one of these gods that we challenge the\nother. And yet not without gratitude to both. For it is Azrael\u2019s\ninvasion of our world, it is his challenge to _us_, that (perhaps more\nthan anything else) rivets our loyalty to each other. It is his frown\nthat wakes friendship in human souls and causes them to tighten the\nbonds of mutual devotion. In some strange way these two, though seeming\nenemies, play into each other\u2019s hands; each holds the secret of the\nother, and between them they conceal a kindred life and some common\nintimate relation. We feel this in our inmost intuitions; we perceive it\nin our daily survey of human affairs; and we find it illustrated (as I\nshall presently point out) in general biology and the life-histories of\nthe most primitive cells. The theme, in fact, of the interplay of Love\nand Death will run like a thread-motive through this book\u2014not without\nsome illumination, as I would hope, cast by each upon the other, and by\nboth upon our human destiny.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER II\n\n  THE BEGINNINGS OF LOVE\n\n\nAs I have just suggested, the great human problems of Love and Death are\nstrangely and remarkably illustrated in the most primitive forms of\nlife; and I shall consequently make no apology for detaining the reader\nfor a few moments over modern investigations into the subjects of\ncell-growth, reproduction and death. If this chapter is a little\ntechnical and complex in places, still it may be worth while delaying\nover it, and granting it some patient consideration, on account of the\ncurious light the study throws on the rest of the book and the general\nquestions therein discussed.\n\nLove seems to be primarily (and perhaps ultimately) an interchange of\nessences. The Protozoa\u2014those earliest cells, the progenitors of the\nwhole animal and vegetable kingdom\u2014grow by feeding on the minute\nparticles which they find in the fluid surrounding them. The growth\ncontinues, till ultimately, reaching the limit of convenient size, a\ncell divides into two or more portions; and so reproduces itself. The\ndescendant cells or portions so thrown off are simply continuations, by\ndivision, of the life of the original or parent cell\u2014so that it has not\nunfrequently been said that, in a sense, these Protozoa are immortal,\nsince their life continues indefinitely (with branching but without\nbreak) from generation to generation. This form of reproduction by\nsimple budding or division extends even up into the higher types of\nlife, where it is sometimes found side by side with the later sexual\nform of reproduction, as in the case of so-called _parthenogenesis_\namong insects. It is indeed a kind of virgin-birth; and is well\nillustrated in the vegetable world by the budding of bulbs, or by the\nfact that a twig torn from a shrub and placed in the ground will\ncommonly grow and continue the life of the parent plant; or in the lower\nstages of the animal world, where, among many of the worms, insects,\nsponges, &c., the life may similarly be continued by division, or by the\nextrusion of a bud or an egg, without any sex-contact or sex-action\nwhatever.\n\nThis seems in fact to be the original and primitive form of generation;\nand it obviously depends upon _growth_. Generation is the superfluity,\nthe \u1f55\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c2, of growth, and connects itself in the first instance with the\nsatisfaction of hunger. First hunger, then growth, then reproduction by\ndivision or budding. And this process may go on apparently for many\ngenerations without change\u2014in the case of certain Protozoa even to\nhundreds of generations. But a time comes when the growth-power and\nenergy decay, and the vitality diminishes[1]\u2014at any rate, as a rule.[2]\nBut then a variation occurs. Two cells unite, exchange fluids, and part\nagain. It is a new form of nourishment; it is the earliest form of Love.\nIt is a very intimate form of nourishment; for it appears that in\ngeneral the nuclei themselves of the two cells are shared and in part\nexchanged. And the vitality so obtained gives the cells a new lease of\nlife. They are in fact regenerated. And each partner grows again\nactively and reproduces itself by budding and division as before.\nSometimes the two uniting cells will remain conjoined; and the joint\ncell will then generate buds, or in some cases enlarge to bursting\npoint, and so, perishing itself, break up into a numerous progeny.[3]\n\nSo far there seems to be but little differentiation between Hunger and\nLove. Love is only a special hunger which leads cells to obtain\nnourishment from other cells of the same species; and generation or\nreproduction in these early stages, being an inevitable accompaniment of\ngrowth, follows on the satisfaction of love just as it follows on the\nsatisfaction of hunger. Rolph\u2019s words on the relation of these two\nimpulses (quoted by Geddes and Thompson) are very suggestive. He\nsays:\u2014\u201cConjugation occurs when nutrition is diminished.... It is a\nnecessity for satisfaction, a growing hunger, which drives the animal to\nengulf its neighbor, to \u2018isophagy.\u2019 The process of conjugation is only a\nspecial form of nutrition, which occurs on a reduction of the nutritive\nincome, or an increase of the nutritive needs.\u201d\n\nAnd so far there is no distinction of sex. It is true there may be sex\nin the sense of union or fusion between two individuals; but there is no\ndistinction of sex, in the sense of male and female. In the Protozoa\ngenerally there is simple union or conjugation between cells, which, as\nfar as can be observed, are quite similar to each other. It is a union\nbetween similars; and it leads to growth and reproduction. But both\nunion and reproduction at this early stage exist quite independently of\nany distinctive sex-action, or any differentiation of individuals into\nmale and female.\n\nAt a later period, however, Sex comes in. It is obvious that for growth\n(and reproduction) two things are necessary, which are in some degree\nantagonistic to each other\u2014on the one hand the pursuit and capture of\nfood, which means _activity_ and force, and on the other hand the\ndigestion and assimilation of the food, which means _quiescence_ and\npassivity. And it seems that at a certain stage\u2014in general, when\n\u201canimals\u201d have already been formed by the conjunction of many protozoic\ncells in co-operative colonies\u2014this differentiation sets in, and some\nindividuals specialize towards activity and the chase, while others (of\nthe same species) specialize towards repose and assimilation. The two\nsets of qualities are clearly only useful in combination with each\nother, and yet, as I have said, they are to some degree contrary to each\nother; and therefore it is quite natural that the two corresponding\ngroups of individuals should form two great branches in each race,\ndiverse yet united.\n\nThese two branches are the male and female\u2014the active, energy-spending,\nhungry, food-obtaining branch; and the sessile, non-active, assimilative\nand reproductive branch. And by the division of labor consequent on the\nformation of these two branches the whole race is benefited; but only of\ncourse on condition that the diverse elements are reunited from time to\ntime. It is in the fusion of these elements that the real quality and\ncharacter of the race is restored; and it is by their fusion that\ndevelopment and reproduction are secured.\n\nIn some of the Infusorians[4] there seems to be a beginning of\nsex-differentiation, and fusion takes place between two individuals\nslightly differing from each other; but as we have already seen, in\nmost of the Protozoa the union is a union of _similars_\u2014that is, as\nfar as can at present be observed, though of course there is a great\nprobability that here also there is generally _some_ difference which\nsupplies the attraction and the value of union.[5]\n\nIt is in the _Metazoa_ generally, and those forms of life which consist\nof co-operative _colonies_ of cells, that sex-differentiation into male\nand female begins to decisively assert itself. Here\u2014since it is\nobviously impossible for all the cells of one individual to fuse with\nall the cells of another\u2014certain special cells are set apart in each\norganism for the purpose of union or conjugation; and it seems quite\nnatural that in the course of time the differentiation spoken of above,\ninto male and female, should set in\u2014each individual tending to become\ndecisively either masculine or feminine\u2014both in the sex-cells or\nsex-apparatus, and (though in a less marked degree) in the general\n\u2018body\u2019 and structure.\n\nIn the lower forms of life, generally, as among the amphibia, fishes,\nmolluscs, &c., the male and female sex-cells\u2014the sperm and the germ\u2014do\nnot conjugate within either of the parent bodies, but are expelled from\neach, in order to meet and fuse in some surrounding medium, like water.\nThere the double cell, so formed, develops into the new individual. But\nin higher forms the meeting takes place, and the first stages of\ndevelopment ensue, _within_ one of the bodies. And, as one might expect,\nthis occurs within the body of the female. For the female, as we have\nsaid, represents quiescence, growth, assimilation. The germ or ovum is\nlarge compared with the spermatozoon; it is also sessile in habit. The\nspermatozoon, on the other hand, is exceedingly active. And so it seems\nnatural that the latter should seek out the germ within the body of the\nfemale. Just as, in general, the female animal remains impassive and\nquiescent, and is sought out by the male, so the female germ remains at\nhome within the female body, and receives its visitor or visitors there.\nAnd the whole apparatus of connection is symbolical of this relation.\nThe body of the female is the temple in which the sacred mystery of the\nunion or fusion of two individuals is completed, as a means to the birth\nor creation of a new individual.\n\nYet though the female is thus privileged to be the receptacle and\nsanctum of the life-giving power, it must not be thought that this\nargues superiority of the female, as such, over the male. The process of\nconjunction is sometimes spoken of as a fertilization merely, implying\nthe idea that the ovum or female element is the main thing, and that\n_this_ only requires a slight impulse or stimulus from the male side for\nits powers of development to be started and set in operation. But though\nit is true that the ovum can in many cases of the lower forms of life be\nstarted developing by the administration of a chemical solution or even\na mechanical needle-prick, this development does not seem to continue;\nand modern investigation shows that in normal fecundation an absolute\nequality reigns, as far as we can see, between the two contracting\nparties and their contributions to the new being that has to be formed.\n\nNothing is more astounding than the results of these investigations; and\nthey not only show us that the protozoic cells (and sex-cells), instead\nof being very simple in structure, are already extremely complex, and\nthat their changes in the act of fertilization or fusion are _strangely\nelaborate and systematic_; but they suggest that though to us these\ncells may represent the microscopic beginnings of life in its most\nprimitive stages, in reality they stand for the first visible results of\nlong antecedent operations, and indicate highly organized and, we may\nsay, intelligent forces at work within them.\n\nThe mere process by which a primitive cell divides and reproduces itself\nhas an air of demonic intelligence about it. Roughly, the process may be\ndescribed as follows. The nucleus appears to be the most important\nportion of a cell. Certainly it is so as regards the supply of\nhereditary and formative material\u2014the surrounding protoplasm fulfilling\nmore of a nutritive and protective function. Within and through the\nliquid of the nucleus there spreads an irregular network of a substance\nwhich is (for a purely accidental reason) called _chromatin_. As long as\nthe nucleus is at rest, this network is fairly evenly distributed\nthrough it; but the first oncoming of division is signalled by the\nbreak-up of the chromatin into a limited and definite number of short,\nthreadlike bodies\u2014to which the name _chromosomes_ has been given. These\n_chromosomes_, after some curious evolutions, finally arrange themselves\nin a line across the middle of the nucleus; and they are apparently\ngoverned in this operation, and the whole splitting of the cell is\ngoverned, by a minute, starlike and radiating centre (called\n_centrosome_), which first appearing outside the nucleus and in the\ngeneral protoplasm of the cell, seems to play a dominant part in the\nwhole process. This _centrosome_, when the time comes for the\ncell-division, itself divides in two, and the two starlike centres so\nformed (which are to become _centrosomes_ of the two new cells), slowly\nmove to opposite ends or poles of the original cell\u2014all the time, as\nthey do so, throwing out raylike threads or fibrils which connect them\nsomehow with the chromosomes and which seem to regulate the movements of\nthe latter, till, as described, the latter form themselves in a line\nacross the centre of the cell, transversely to the line joining the\npoles. At this stage, then, we have a tiny, starlike centrosome at each\nend of the cell, and a transverse line of chromosomes between. (Also,\nduring the process the wall or enclosing membrane of the nucleus has\ndisappeared and the general contents of cell and nucleus have become\nundivided.) It is at this moment that the real division begins. The\nchromosomes\u2014of which it is said that there are always a definite and\ninvariable number for every species of plant or animal,[6] and which are\nnow generally supposed to contain the hereditary elements or\ndeterminants of the future individual\u2014these chromosomes have already\narranged themselves longitudinally and end-on to each other across the\nmiddle of the cell. They now, apparently under the influence of the\nradiating points at each pole, split longitudinally (as one splits a log\nof wood)\u2014so that each chromosome, dividing throughout its length,\ncontributes one half of itself to one pole and one half to the other.\nThe halves so formed separate, and approach their respective poles; and\nat the same time the cell-wall constricting itself along the equatorial\nline, or line of separation, soon divides the original cell into two.\nMeanwhile the chromosomes in each new division group themselves (not\nround but) near their respective poles or centrosomes, and a new nucleus\nmembrane forming, encloses each group, so that finally we have two cells\nof exactly the same constitution as the original one, and with exactly\nthe same number and quality of chromosomes as the original.[7]\n\nThe whole process seems very strange and wonderful. No military\nevolutions and formations, no complex and mystic dance of initiates in a\ntemple, with advances and retreats, and combinations and separations,\nand exchanges of partners, could seem more fraught with intelligence.[8]\nYet this is what takes place among some of the very lowest forms of\nlife, on the division of a single cell into two. And it is exactly the\nsame, apparently, which takes place in the higher forms of life when the\nsingle cell which is the result of the fusion together of the sperm-cell\nand the germ-cell, divides and subdivides to form the \u2018body\u2019 of the\ncreature. As is well known, the joint cell divides first into two; then\neach of the cells so formed divides into two, making four in all; then\neach of these divides into two, making eight; then each into two again,\nmaking 16, 32, 64, and so on\u2014till they number the thousands, hundreds\nof thousands, millions, which in effect build up and constitute the\nbody. And at each division the process is carried out with this amazing\ncare and exactness of partition described\u2014so that every cell is verily\ncontinuous and of the same nature with the original cell, and contains\nthe same nuclear elements, derived half from the father and half from\nthe mother. Yet in the process a differentiation has set in, so that in\nthe end each cell becomes so far modified as to be adapted for its\nspecial position and function in the body\u2014for the skin, mucous\nmembrane, blood corpuscles, brain, muscular tissue, and so forth.[9] It\nis worth while looking carefully at the body of an animal, or one\u2019s own\nbody, in order to realize what this means\u2014to realize that the entire\ncreature, in all its form and feature, its coloring, marking, swiftness\nof limb, complexity of brain, and so on, has provably been exhaled from\na single cell, _is_ indeed that original cell with its latent powers and\nvirtue made manifest; and to remember that that original cell was itself\nthe fusion of two parent cells, the male and the female.\n\nA word, then, upon this matter of the fusion of the two parent cells in\none. Here, again, two very remarkable things appear. One refers to the\nequality of the sexes; the other refers to the onesidedness (or\ndeficiency or imperfection) which seems to be the characteristic _and_\nthe motive power of the phenomenon of sex.\n\nWith regard to the first point, we saw that among the Protozoa\nconjugation occurs for the most part between two individual cells which\nare alike in size and (to all appearance) alike in constitution; and\nthis conjugation leads to reproduction. But when among the higher forms\nsex begins to show, the conjugating cells\u2014sperm-cell and germ-cell\u2014are\ngenerally unlike in size, and often in the higher animals extremely\nunlike\u2014as in the human _spermatozoon_ and _ovum_, of which the latter\nis a thousand times the volume of the former;[10] and this has sometimes\nled, as remarked before, to an exaggerated view of the preponderant\nimportance of one sex. But the curious fact seems to be that when the\nspermatozoon of the human or higher animal penetrates the ovum, there is\na preliminary period before its nucleus actually combines with the\nnucleus of the ovum, during which the nucleus rapidly absorbs\nnourishment from the surrounding protoplasm, and _grows_\u2014grows till it\nbecomes of _exactly the same size_ as the nucleus of the ovum. The\nsituation then is that there are two nuclei of the same size and both\ncharged with chromatin of the same general character, in close\nproximity, and waiting to fuse with each other.\n\nThe product of that fusion is a new being; and as far as can at present\napparently be observed, the parts played by the two sexes in the process\nare quite equal. There may be _difference_ of function but there is no\ninequality. \u201cBoth male and female cells,\u201d says Professor Rolleston,[11]\n\u201cprepare themselves for conjugation long before it takes place, and\nneither of them can be said to be a more active agent in fertilization\nthan the other. Not \u2018fertilization\u2019 but \u2018fusion\u2019 is the keyword of the\nprocess. The mystical conception, as old as Plato, of the male and\nfemale as representing respectively the two halves of a complete being,\nturns out to be no poetic metaphor. As regards the essential features of\nreproduction, it is a literal fact.\u201d\n\nThe second remarkable point has to do with the onesidedness of sexual\nconjugation, and the complementary nature of the exchange involved. This\nis truly noteworthy and interesting. It is evident that if the\nsperm-cell and germ-cell simply coalesced, containing each the amount of\nchromatin characteristic of the species\u2014say sixteen chromosomes in the\ncase of the human being\u2014the result would be a cell with double the\nproper amount, _say thirty-two chromosomes_, i.e. _an amount belonging\nto another species_. \u201cWhat happens is that each of the reproductive\ncells, male and female, prepares itself for conjugation _by getting rid\nof half its_ chromosomes. Two divisions of the nucleus take place, _not_\nas in the ordinary fashion of cell-division, when the chromosomes split\nlongitudinally, but in such a way that, in each division, four of the\nsixteen chromosomes (making eight in all) are bodily expelled from the\nnucleus and from the cell, when they either perish, or, in some cases,\nappear to help in forming an envelope of nutritive matter round the\ngerm-cell. These divisions are called \u2018maturation divisions,\u2019 and until\nthey are accomplished fecundation is impossible.\u201d[12] Thus the two\nnuclei, having each their number of chromosomes reduced to half the\nnormal number (in this case to eight), are now ready to coalesce and so\nform a new cell with the proper number belonging to the species (_i.e._\nsixteen). This cell is the commencement of the new being, and, as\nalready described, it divides and re-divides, and the innumerable cells\nso formed differentiate themselves into different tissues, until the\nwhole animal is built up.\n\nSays Professor E. B. Wilson:\u2014\u201cThe one fact of maturation that stands\nout with perfect clearness and certainty amid all the controversies\nsurrounding it, is a reduction of the _number of chromosomes in the\nultimate germ [and sperm] cells_[13] to one half the number\ncharacteristic of the somatic cells. It is equally clear that this\nreduction is a preparation of the germ [and sperm] cells for their\nsubsequent union, and a means by which the number of chromosomes is held\nconstant in the species.\u201d[14]\n\nThis extrusion or expulsion by each of the conjugating cells of half its\nconstituent elements is certainly very strange.[15] And it seems\nstrangely deliberate.[16] Various theories have been formed on the\nsubject, but at present there is apparently no satisfactory conclusion\nas to what exactly takes place. Some think that in the one case certain\nmale elements are expelled, and in the other case certain female\nelements; and anyhow it seems probable that a complementary action sets\nin, by which each prepares itself to supply a different class of\nelements from the other, thus rendering the conjunction more effectual.\nPlato has been already quoted with regard to male and female being only\nthe two halves of a complete original being. He also says (in the speech\nof Socrates in the _Banquet_) that the mother of Love was Poverty, and\nthat Love \u201cpossesses thus far his mother\u2019s nature that he is ever the\ncompanion of Want.\u201d And it would appear that in the most primitive\ngrades of life the same is true, and that two cells combine or coalesce\nin order to mutually supply some want or deficiency.\n\nAnyhow, in the process just described two points stand out pretty clear:\nfirst, the exact quality of the number of chromosomes contributed by\nsperm-cell and germ-cell to the fertilized ovum\u2014which seems to indicate\nthat the descendant being has an equal heredity from each\nparent[17]\u2014though of course it does not follow that both heredities\nbecome equally prominent or manifest in the descendant body; and\nsecondly, that the same is true of all the cells in this new body\u2014that\nthey each contain the potentialities of the joint cell from which they\nsprang, and therefore the potentialities of both parents.\n\nThese amazing conclusions concerning the origins of life and\nreproduction\u2014here, of course, very briefly and imperfectly\npresented\u2014cannot but give us pause. Contemplating the evolutions and\naffinities of these infinitely numerous but infinitely small organisms\nwhich build up our visible selves, and the strange intelligence which\nseems to pervade their movements, the mind reels\u2014somewhat as it does in\ncontemplating the evolutions and affinities of the unimaginable\nstars.[18] We seem, certainly, to trace the same laws or operations in\nthese minutest regions as we trace in our own corporeal and mental\nrelations. Cells attract each other just as human beings do; and the\nattraction seems to depend, to a certain degree, on difference. The male\nspermatozoon seeks the female ovum, just as the male animal, as a rule,\nseeks and pursues the female. Primitive cells divide and redivide and\ndifferentiate themselves, building up the animal body, just in the same\nway as primitive thoughts and emotions divide and redivide and\ndifferentiate themselves, building up the human mind. But though we thus\nsee processes with which we are familiar repeated in infinitesimal\nminiature, we seem to be no nearer than before to any \u2018explanation\u2019 of\nthem, and we seem to see no promise of any explanation. We merely obtain\na larger perspective, and a suggestion that the universal order is of\nthe same character throughout\u2014with a suspicion perhaps that the\nexplanation of these processes does not lie in any concatenation of the\nthings themselves, but in some other plane of being of which these\nconcatenations are an allegory or symbolic expression. In portions of\nthe following chapters I shall trace more in detail the resemblance or\nparallelism between these processes among the Protozoa and some of our\nown experiences in the great matters of Life and Love and Death.[19]\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER III\n\n  LOVE AS AN ART\n\n\nThe astounding revelation of the first great love is a thing which the\nyouthful human being can hardly be prepared for, since indeed it cannot\nvery well be described in advance, or put into terms of reasonable and\nwell-conducted words. To feel\u2014for instance\u2014one\u2019s whole internal\neconomy in process of being melted out and removed to a distance, as it\nwere into the keeping of some one else, is in itself a strange\nphysiological or psychological experience\u2014and one difficult to record\nin properly scientific terms! To lose consciousness never for a moment\nof the painful void so created\u2014a void and a hunger which permeates all\nthe arteries and organs, and every cranny of the body and the mind, and\nwhich seems to rob the organism of its strength, sometimes even to\nthreaten it with ruin; to forego all interest in life, except in one\nthing\u2014and that thing a person; to be aware, on the other hand, with\nstrange elation and joy, that this new person or presence is infusing\nitself into one\u2019s most intimate being\u2014pervading all the channels, with\npromise (at least) of marriage and new life to every minutest cell, and\ncausing wonderful upheavals and transformations in tissue and fluids; to\nfind in the mind all objects of perception to be changed and different\nfrom what they were before; and to be dimly conscious that the reason\nwhy they are so is because the background and constitution of the\nperceiving mind is itself changed\u2014that, as it were, there is another\nperson beholding them as well as oneself\u2014all this defies description in\nwords, or any possibility of exact statement beforehand; and yet the\nactual fact when it arrives is overwhelming in solid force and reality.\nIf, besides, to the insurgence of these strange emotions we add\u2014in the\nearliest stages of love at least\u2014their bewildering fluctuation, from\nthe deeps of vain longing and desire to the confident and ecstatic\nheights of expectation or fulfilment\u2014the very joys of heaven and pangs\nof hell in swift and tantalizing alternation\u2014the whole new experience\nis so extraordinary, so unrelated to ordinary work-a-day life, that to\nrecite it is often only to raise a smile of dismissal of the subject\u2014as\nit were into the land of dreams.\n\nAnd yet, as we have indicated, the thing, whatever it is, is certainly\nby no means insubstantial and unreal. Nothing seems indeed more certain\nthan that in this strange revolution in the relations of two people to\neach other\u2014called \u201cfalling in love\u201d\u2014and behind all the illusions\nconnected with it, _something is happening_, something very real, very\nimportant. The falling-in-love may be reciprocal, or it may be onesided;\nit may be successful, or it may be unsuccessful; it may be only a\nsurface indication of other and very different events; but anyhow, deep\ndown in the sub-conscious world, _something_ is happening. It may be\nthat two unseen and only dimly suspected existences are becoming really\nand permanently united; it may be that for a certain period, or (what\nperhaps comes to the same thing) that to a certain _depth_, they are\ntransfusing and profoundly modifying each other; it may be that the\nmingling of elements and the transformation is taking place almost\nentirely in one person, and only to a slight degree or hardly at all in\nthe other; yet in all these cases\u2014beneath the illusions, the\nmisapprehensions, the mirage and the _maya_, the surface satisfactions\nand the internal disappointments\u2014something very real is happening, an\nimportant growth and evolution is taking place.\n\nTo understand this phenomenon in some slight degree, to have some\ninkling of the points of the compass by which to steer over this\nexceedingly troubled sea, is, one might say, indispensable for every\nyouthful human creature; but alas! the instruction is not provided\u2014for\nindeed, as things are to-day, the adult and the mature are themselves\nwithout knowledge, and their eyes without speculation on the subject.\nTreatises on the Art of Love truly exist\u2014and some (for the field they\ncover) very good ones, like the _Ars Amatoria_ of Ovid or the\n_Kama-sutra_ of Vatsayana; but they are concerned mainly or wholly with\nthe details and technicalities of the subject\u2014with the conduct of\nintrigues and amours, with times and seasons, positions and\npreparations, unguents and influences. It is like instructions given to\na boatman on the minuti\u00e6 of his craft\u2014how to contend with wind and\nwave, how to use sail and oar, to steer, to tack, to luff to a breaker,\nand so forth; all very good and necessary in their way, but who is there\nto point us our course over the great Ocean, and the stars by which to\ndirect it? The later works on this great subject\u2014though not despising\nthe more elementary aspects\u2014will no doubt have to proceed much farther,\ninto the deep realms of psychology, biological science, and ultimately\nof religion.[20]\n\nAs we have just said, Love is concerned with growth and evolution. It\nis\u2014though as yet hardly acknowledged in that connection\u2014a root-factor\nof ordinary human growth; for in so far as it is a hunger of the\nindividual, the satisfaction of that hunger is necessary for individual\ngrowth\u2014necessary (in its various forms) for physical, mental and\nspiritual nourishment, for health, mental energy, large affectional\ncapacity, and so forth. And it is\u2014though this too is not sufficiently\nacknowledged\u2014a root-factor of the Evolution process. For in so far as\nit represents and gives rise to the union of two beings in a new form,\nit plainly represents a step in Evolution, and plainly suggests that the\ndirection of that step will somehow depend upon the character and\nquality of the love concerned. Thus the importance, the necessity, of\nthe study of the art of love is forced on our attention. It has to be no\nlonger a subterranean, unrecognized, and even rather disreputable cult,\nbut an openly acknowledged and honorable department of human life,\nleading in its due time to broad and commonsense instructions and\ninitiations for the young.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nCasting a glance back at the love-affairs of the Protozoa, as briefly\ndescribed in the preceding chapter, there certainly seems to be a kind\nof naive charm about them. The simple and wholehearted way in which on\noccasions they fuse with one another, losing or merging completely their\nown separate individualities in the process; or again part from each\nother after having exchanged essences in a kind of affectionate\ncannibalism; the obvious and unconcealed relation between love and\nhunger; the first beginnings of generation; and the matter-of-fact\nmanner in which one person, when he finds it convenient, divides in half\nand becomes two persons, and after a time perhaps divides again and\nbecomes four persons, and again and again until he is many thousands or\nmillions\u2014and yet it is impossible to decide (and he himself probably is\nnot quite clear) as to whether he is still one person or different\npersons\u2014all this cannot fail to excite our admiration and respect, nor\nto give us, also, considerable food for thought.\n\nOne of the first things to strike us, and to suggest an application to\nhuman life, is the importance of Love, among these little creatures, for\nthe health of the individual. The authors of _The Evolution of Sex_ say\nin one passage (p. 178): \u201cWithout it [conjugation], the Protozoa, which\nsome have called \u2018immortal,\u2019 die a natural death. Conjugation is the\nnecessary condition of their eternal youth and immortality. Even at this\nlow level, only through the fire of love can the ph\u0153nix of the species\nrenew its youth.\u201d And again, in another passage (p. 277), referring to\nthe conclusions of Maupas: \u201cAlready we have noted this important result,\nthat conjugation is essential to the health of the species.\u201d Thus it\nappears that, in these primitive stages, fusion more or less complete,\nor interchange of essences, leads to Regeneration and renewal of\nvitality\u2014and this long before the distinct phenomena of sex appear. It\nleads to Regeneration first, and so collaterally, and at a later period,\nto Generation.\n\nSomehow\u2014though it is not quite clear how\u2014this view of the importance\nof love to personal health has been sadly obscured in later and\nChristian times. The dominant Christian attitude converted love, from\nbeing an expression and activity of the deepest human life and joy, into\nbeing simply a vulgar necessity for the propagation of the species. A\nviolent effort was made to wrench apart the spiritual and corporeal\naspects of it. The one aspect was belauded, the other condemned. The\nfirst was relegated to heaven, the second was given its _cong\u00e9_ to\nanother place. Corporeal intercourse and the propagation of the race\nwere vile necessities. True affection dwelt in the skies and disdained\nall earthly contacts. And yet all this was a vain effort to separate\nwhat could not be separated. It was like trying to take the pigments out\nof a picture; to call the picture \u201cgood,\u201d but the stuff it was painted\nwith \u201cbad.\u201d\n\nAnd so, owing to this denial, owing to this non-recognition of love (in\nall its aspects) as necessary to personal health, thousands and\nthousands of men and women through the centuries\u2014some \u201cfor the kingdom\nof heaven\u2019s sake,\u201d and some for the sake of the conventions of\nsociety\u2014have allowed their lives to be maimed and blighted, their\nhealth and personal well-being ruined. The deep well-spring and source\nof human activity and vitality has been desecrated and choked with\nrubbish. That some sort of purpose, in the evolution of humanity, may\nhave been fulfilled by this strange negation, it would be idle to deny;\nindeed some such purpose\u2014in view of the wide prevalence of the\nnegation, and its long continuance during the civilization period\u2014seems\nprobable. But this does not in any way controvert the fact that it has\nin its time caused a disastrous crippling of human health and vitality.\nHuman progress takes place, no doubt, in sections\u2014one foot forward at a\ntime, so to speak; but this does not mean that the other foot can be\npermanently left in the rear. On the contrary, it means its all the more\ndecided advance when its turn arrives.\n\nTo-day we seem at the outset of a new era, and preparing in some way for\nthe rehabilitation of the Pagan conception of the world. The negative\nChristian dispensation is rapidly approaching its close; the necessity\nof love in its various forms, as part and parcel of a healthy life, is\ncompelling our attention. No one is so poor a physiognomist as not to\nrecognize the health-giving effects of successful courtship\u2014the\nheightened color, the brilliant eye, the elastic step; the active brain,\nthe prompt reflexes, the glad outlook on the world. Indeed the effect\nupon all the tissues\u2014their nourishment, growth, improvement in tone,\nand so forth\u2014is extraordinary; and yet\u2014remembering what has been said\nabout Love and Hunger\u2014quite natural. For, after all, we have seen that\nevery cell in the body is a _replica_ of the original cell from which it\nsprang; and so the love which reaches one probably in some way reaches\nall. And there is probably not only union and exchange (in actual\nintercourse) between two special sex-cells; but there is also (_all\nthrough_ the period of being \u201cin love\u201d) an etheric union and exchange\ngoing on between the body-cells generally on each side; and a\nnourishment of each other by the interchange of finest and subtlest\nelements.\n\nThat this mutual exchange and nutrition may take place between the\ngeneral cells of two bodies is made all the more probable from the\nexperiments already alluded to with regard to chemical\nfertilization\u2014whereby it has been shown that some ova or egg-cells may\nbe started on a process of subdivision and growth by treatment with\ncertain chemicals, such as weak solutions of strychnine, or common salt,\napart from any fertilization by a spermatozoon.[21] Now since\u2014when the\nbody is once fairly formed\u2014its further growth and sustenance is\nmaintained by continued division and subdivision of the body-cells, this\nstimulus to growth may easily (we may suppose) be supplied by the subtle\nradiations and reactions from another body within whose sphere of\ninfluence it comes\u2014radiations and reactions sufficiently subtle to pass\nthrough the tissues to the various cells, and of course sufficiently\ncharacteristic and individual to be in some cases, as we have supposed,\nhighly vitalizing and stimulating\u2014though in other cases of course they\nmay be poisonous and harmful. Of course, also, it is only love that\nsupplies and is the vitalizing relation.\n\nSo intense, at times, is this vitalizing force, and so ardent the need\nof it, that the whole body leaps and throbs in pain. Plato, in his\npoetic way, explains the scorching sensation in all the skin and tissues\nby feigning that it is caused by the wing-feathers of the soul sprouting\neverywhere (_i.e._ according to our view, in every little cell).\nNevertheless, his words on the subject are singularly pregnant with\nmeaning. For he says (in the _Ph\u00e6drus_): \u201cWhenever indeed by gazing on\nthe beauty of the beloved object, and _receiving from that beauty\nparticles which fall and flow in upon it_ (and which are therefore\ncalled \u2018desire\u2019), the soul is watered and warmed, it is relieved from\nits pain, and is glad; but as soon as it is parted from its love, and\nfor lack of that moisture is parched, the mouths of the outlets by which\nthe feathers start become so closed up by drought, that they obstruct\nthe shooting germs; and the germs being thus confined underneath, in\ncompany of the desire which has been infused, leap like throbbing\narteries, and prick each at the outlet which is closed against it; so\nthat the soul, being stung all over, is frantic with pain.\u201d[22]\n\nThis fusion of complementaries, then, which is the characteristic of\nfertilization, takes place between the lovers\u2014not only in respect of\ntheir sex-cells, but probably also to a considerable degree in respect\nof their body-cells. And though with any mortal lovers the complementary\nnature of the fusion can hardly be so complete as to restore the full\nglory of the race-life, yet very near to that point it sometimes comes,\nfilling them with mad and immortal-seeming ecstasies, and excusing them\nindeed for seriously thinking that the wings of their souls have begun\nto grow! In lesser degree this complementary fusion and exchange is\ndoubtless the explanation (or one explanation) of that very noticeable\npoint\u2014the strange way in which lovers after some years come to resemble\neach other\u2014in form and feature, in facial expression, tone of voice,\ncarriage of body, handwriting, and all sorts of minute points.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nI suppose at this point it will be necessary to explain that the\nrecognition of love (in all its aspects) as a general condition of human\nhealth, does not mean a recommendation of wild indulgence in any and\nevery passion\u2014necessary, because in these cases it seems to be\ngenerally assumed that the proposer of a very simple thesis means a very\ngreat deal more than he says! It is here that the necessity of education\ncomes in; for hitherto public instruction and discussion in these\nmatters have been so defective that folk have been unable to talk about\nthem except in a hysterical way\u2014hysterical on the one side or the\nother. The _positive_ value of love, its positive cultivation as a\ngracious, superb, and necessary part of our lives has hardly (at least\nin the Anglo-Saxon world) entered into people\u2019s minds. To teach young\nthings to love, and how to love, to actually instruct and encourage them\nin the art, has seemed something wicked and unspeakable. Says Havelock\nEllis:[23] \u201cWhether or not Christianity is to be held responsible, it\ncannot be doubted that throughout Christendom there has been a\nlamentable failure to recognize the supreme importance, not only\nerotically but morally, of the art of love. Even in the great revival of\nsexual enlightenment now taking place around us there is rarely even the\nfaintest recognition that in sexual enlightenment the one thing\nessentially necessary is a knowledge of the art of love. For the most\npart sexual instruction, as at present understood, is purely negative, a\nmere string of thou-shalt-nots. If that failure were due to the\nconscious and deliberate recognition that while the art of love must be\nbased on physiological and psychological knowledge, it is far too subtle\ntoo complex, too personal, to be formulated in lectures and manuals, it\nwould be reasonable and sound. But it seems to rest entirely on\nignorance, indifference, or worse.\u201d\n\nIt is, I think, not unfair to suppose that it is this indifference or\nvulgar Philistinism which is largely responsible for the sordid\ncommercialism of the good people of the last century. Finding the lute\nand the lyre snatched from their hands they were fain to turn to a\ngreater activity with the muck-rake.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nLove is a complex of human relations\u2014physical, mental, emotional,\nspiritual, and so forth\u2014all more or less necessary. And though seldom\nrealized complete, it is felt, and feels itself, to be imperfect without\nsome representation of every side. To limit it to the expression of one\nparticular aspect would be totally inadequate, if not absurd and\nimpossible. A merely physical love, for instance, on the sexual plane,\nis an absurdity, a dead letter\u2014the enjoyment and fruition of the\nphysical depending so much on the _feeling_ expressed, that without the\nlatter there is next to no satisfaction. At best there is merely a\nnegative pleasure, a relief, arising from the solution of a previous\nstate of corporeal tension. And in such cases intercourse is easily\nfollowed by depression and disappointment. For if there is not enough of\nthe more subtle and durable elements in love, to remain after the\nphysical has been satisfied, and to hold the two parties close together,\nwhy, the last state may well be worse than the first!\n\nBut equally absurd is any attempt to limit, for instance, to the mental\nplane, and to make love a matter of affectionate letter-writing merely,\nor of concordant views on political economy; or again, to confine it to\nthe emotional plane, and the region of more or less sloppy sentiment; or\nto the spiritual, with a somewhat lofty contempt of the material\u2014in\nwhich case it tends, as hinted before, to become too like trying to\npaint a picture without the use of pigments. All the phases are\nnecessary, or at least desirable\u2014even if, as already said, a quite\ncomplete and all-round relation is seldom realized. The physical is\ndesirable, for many very obvious reasons\u2014including corporeal needs and\nhealth, and perhaps especially because it acts in the way of removal of\nbarriers, and _so opens the path_ to other intimacies. The mental is\ndesirable, to give form and outline to the relation; the emotional, to\nprovide the something to be expressed; and the spiritual to give\npermanence and absolute solidity to the whole structure.\n\nIt is probably on account of this complex nature that for any big and\npermanent relationship of this kind there has to be a rather slow and\ngradual culmination. All the various elements have to be hunted up and\nbrought into line. Like all great ideas love has its two sides\u2014its\ninstantaneous inner side, and its complex outer side of innumerable\ndetail. In _consciousness_ it tends to appear in a flash\u2014simple,\nunique, and unchangeable; but in _experience_ it has to be worked out\nwith much labor. _All the elements have to come into operation_, and to\ncontribute their respective quota to the total result. If we remember\nwhat happens when the spermatozoon and the ovum coalesce (see ch. ii. p.\n19)\u2014the extraordinary changes and disturbances which are induced in the\nchromatin elements of both nuclei, the fusion of the nuclei, and the\nultimate ranging of the chromosomes in a line (for the formation of the\nnew being) in such a way that every element is represented and\ncontributes its share to the process\u2014we cannot but be struck by the\nstrange similarity to our own inner experience: how love searches the\nheart, drags every element of the inner nature forward from its\nlurking-place, gives it definition and shape, and somehow insists on it\nbeing represented, and, so to speak, toeing the line. We shall return to\nthis point later. Here I only wish to insist on the complexity of the\nprocess, in order to show that for any big relationship plenty of time\nhas to be allowed. Whichever side of the nature\u2014mental, emotional,\nphysical, and so forth\u2014may have happened to take the lead, it must not\nand cannot monopolize the affair. It must drag the other sides in and\ngive them their place. And this means time, and temporary bewilderment\nand confusion. It is curious how \u2018falling in love\u2019 has this very\neffect\u2014how it paralyzes for a time\u2014inhibiting the mental part and even\nthe physical; how the smart talker becomes a dumb ass, and the man about\ntown a modest fool, and the person who always does the right thing seems\ncompelled to do everything wrong\u2014as if a confusion were being created\nin the mind, analogous to that which we have observed in the cells. When\nwe add to these considerations the extraordinary differences between\npersons, and between the proportions in which the elements of their\ncharacters are mixed, it is obvious how extremely complex the conditions\nof any one decent love-relation must be, and what tact and patience in\nthe handling it may require.\n\nThe ignorance, therefore, which causes a young man, husband or lover, to\nthink that the hurried completion of the sexual act is at once the\ninitiation and the fulfilment of love, is fatal enough. It marks more\noften the end than the beginning of the affair. For, contrariwise, time\nand plenty of time has to be given in order to allow the central\nradiation in each case to have its perfect work. Is it too fanciful to\nsuppose that the _centrosome_, which makes its appearance in the\nprotozo\u00f6n on its approach to conjunction, and which seems to rule the\nrearrangement of the chromatin elements within it, is the analogue of\nthe radiating force in human courtship which so strangely sifts out and\nremoulds the elements of the lover\u2019s personality? Does the magic of the\ncentrosome correspond in some sense to the glamour, so well known in\nhuman affairs? And do they both proceed from some deep-hidden,\nprofoundly important manifestation of the life, the energy, the divinity\nif you will, of the Race?\n\nHow strange is this matter of the glamour, and its decisiveness in\nawakening love by its presence, or leaving it cold by absence! Here is a\nstory of a woman who, dreadfully disfigured in countenance by an\naccident in the hunting-field, called her _fianc\u00e9_ to her, and nobly\noffered him his freedom; and he ... accepted it! Accepted it, because,\nquite really and truly, the destruction of her physical beauty had for\nhim shattered the Vision and the divinity. And here is another similar\nstory where, contrariwise, the man immediately confirmed his love and\ndevotion\u2014because for _him_ the glory around her was more illumined by\nher nobility of feeling than it could be darkened by her bodily defect.\n\nSuch glamour, working away in the hidden caverns of being, may at last,\nlike Bruno\u2019s \u201cfabro vulcano,\u201d weld two souls into one, and bring to\nlight a real, a profound, and perhaps eternal union. It is after all\nthat inner union which is the real thing; which gives all its joys to\nintercourse, and penetrating down into the world of sense, redeems that\nworld into a thing of glory and beauty. For the complete action of that\ncreative and organizing force plentiful time must be given; and the two\nlovers must possess their souls in patience till it has had its full and\nperfect work. Ovid in his _Ars Amatoria_ has many lines on this subject.\n\u201cLet the youth,\u201d he says, \u201cwith tardy passion burn, like a damp torch\u201d\n... _\u201cNon est Veneris properanda voluptas_\u201d ... _\u201cQuod datum ex facili\nlongum male nutrit amorem_\u201d (Love easily granted may not long endure),\nand so forth. And though these passages no doubt refer mainly to what\nmay be called the practical conduct of amours, yet they have also a very\npointed application to the more important aspects of the grand passion.\nA long foreground of approach, time and tact, diffusion of magnetism,\nmergence in one another, suffering, and even pain\u2014all these must be\nexpected and allowed for\u2014though the best after all, in this as in other\nthings, is often the unexpected and the unprepared.\n\nAnd if the man has to allow time for all the elements of his nature\nto come forward and take their part in the great mystery, all the\nmore is it true that he has to give the woman time for the fulfilling\nof _her_ part. For in general it may be said (though of course with\nexceptions) that love culminates more slowly in women than in men.\nMen concentrate obviously on the definite part they have to play; but\nin women love is more diffused and takes longer to reach the point\nwhere it becomes an inspired and creative frenzy of the whole being.\nCaresses, tendernesses, provocation, sacrifices, and a thousand\nindirect influences have to gradually conspire to the working out of\nthis result; and not infrequently the situation so arising demands\ngreat self-control on the part of the man. Yet these things are worth\nwhile. \u201cThe real marriage,\u201d says some one, \u201ctakes place when from their\nintense love there comes to birth another soul\u2014apart from each, and\ninvisible, yet joining them together, one hand ahold of each\u2014a radiant\nthing born of the sun and stars, which though tender and fragile at\nfirst, grows just like a bodily child, and leads them on, and dances\nwith them.\u201d\n\nThey are worth while, all these labors and troubles, and delays and\nsacrifices, if only out of them can be forged a fair and infrangible\nunion. As in all the arts, so in the greatest of the arts, no lasting\nresult can be attained, without such labor. Nor indeed without some\ndegree of pain and suffering. Young folk and inexperienced may think it\nis not so. They may think that by a lucky stroke and practically without\neffort a man may write a \u201cBlessed Damozel\u201d or carve in marble a \u201cGreek\nSlave\u201d; but all experience points differently, and shows that directly\nor indirectly to such works have gone infinite labor and patience. And\nso to the conceiving and shaping of a perfect alliance between a man and\na woman must always go much of suffering\u2014for it is by suffering that\nthe souls of human beings are brought into form and carved to fitness\nfor each other.\n\nIs it seriously\u2014when one comes to think of it\u2014possible to imagine love\nwithout pain? Figure to yourself, O man, a courtship absolutely\nundenied, from the first accepted, even encouraged, with complaisantly\nunresisting bride, smiling parents, fair-weather prospects, and cash\nunlimited! How awfully dull! Does not the stoutest heart quail at the\nsuggestion? Or if such a mating might be deemed pleasant as far as its\naccessories and conditions were concerned, could it yet be termed Love?\n\nFor Love, if worth anything, seems to _demand_ pain and strain in order\nto prove itself, and is not satisfied with an easy attainment. How\nindeed should one know the great heights except by the rocks and\nescarpments? And pain often in some strange way seems to be the measure\nof love\u2014the measure by which we are assured that love is true and real;\nand so (which is one of the mysteries) it becomes transformed into a\ngreat joy. Yes, if men could only understand, here is one of the most\nprecious of the mysteries, and the solving of a great riddle.\n\nBut that the course of true love does generally not run smooth is\nunderstood, more or less, by every one. And it is woman\u2019s strange and\nimperious instinct\u2014even though at considerable suffering to herself\u2014to\nsee that it _doesn\u2019t_ run smooth. Ellis practically bases[24] the whole\nof the evolution of modesty on this instinct\u2014reaching far down in the\nanimal kingdom\u2014by which the female constantly throws difficulties and\nobstacles in the way of courtship (by her coynesses, contrarieties,\nchangeable moods, and so forth); thus calling out in the male all his\ningenuity, his impetuosity, his energy, in overcoming them; rousing\ndormant elements of his nature; delaying consummation and giving time\nfor his character and all his qualities to concentrate; and indirectly\nhaving a like effect upon herself. So that ultimately by this method a\nmaximum of passion and agitation is produced, and in the case of the\nhuman being love penetrates to the very deeps and hidden caverns of the\nsoul. Such is the genesis of Modesty\u2014not by any means Nature\u2019s _denial_\nof love, but rather the crafty old dame\u2019s method of rendering love, by\ntemporary obstacles, all the more insurgent and irresistible\u2014her method\nof making it less superficial, of deepening the channels and rendering\nthem more profound.\n\nPractically, and as a matter of policy, a too easy consent to another\u2019s\nlove is a mistake. The barb only sticks when the bait is withdrawn.\nOvid, it will be remembered, advises that \u201cthe lover should be admitted\nby the _window_, even when the door is quite accessible, and really more\nconvenient\u201d;[25] and most girls (though they have not read Ovid) know\ninstinctively that this is the right policy! Nothing is so hateful to a\nreal lover as an easy, accommodating, altruistic affection\u2014thoroughly\nChristian in sentiment, and with no more shape of its own than a pillow!\nRomance flies at the mere mention of Christian altruism; and the essence\nof love is romance.\n\nHence not only technical obstacles, but essential differences are\nnecessary to the growth of the passion. Differences of age, differences\nof sex, differences of class, temperament, hereditary strain, learning,\naccomplishment, and so forth\u2014if not _too_ great\u2014are all necessary and\nvaluable. They all mean romance, and contribute to that exchange of\nessences which we saw was the primitive protozoic law. It is quite\nprobable that the abiding romance between the sexes\u2014so much greater as\na rule than that between two of like sex\u2014is due to the fact that the\nman and the woman never really understand each other; each to the other\nis a figure in cloudland, sometimes truly divine, sometimes alas! quite\nthe reverse; but never clear and obvious in outline, as a simple mortal\nmay be expected to be.\n\nBut to return to the subject of pain and suffering. There is something\nmore in their work than merely to reveal to the lover the extent or the\ndepth of his own love. They have something surely to do with the inner\nrealities of the affair, with the moulding or hammering or welding\nprocess whereby union is effected and, in some sense, a new being\ncreated. It seems as if when two naked souls approach, or come anywhere\nnear contact with each other, the one inevitably burns or scorches the\nother. The intense chemistry of the psychic elements produces something\nlike an actual flame. A fresh combination is entered into, profound\ntransformations are effected, strange forces liberated, and a new\npersonality perhaps created; and the accomplishment and evidence of the\nwhole process is by no means only joy, but agony also, even as\nchildbirth is.\n\nAll one can reasonably do is to endure. It is no good _making a fuss_.\nIn affairs of the heart what we call suffering corresponds to what we\ncall labor or effort in affairs of the body. When you put your shoulder\nto the cart-wheel you feel the pain and pressure of the effort, but that\nassures you that you are exercising a force, that something is being\ndone; so suffering of the heart assures you that something is being done\nin that other and less tangible world. To scold and scowl and blame your\nloved one is the stupidest thing you can do. And worse than stupid, it\nis useless. For it can only alienate. Probably that other one is\nsuffering as well as you\u2014possibly more than you, possibly a good deal\nless. What does it matter? The suffering is there and must be borne; the\nwork, whatever it is, is being done; the transformation is being\neffected. Do you want your beloved to suffer instead of you, or simply\nbecause you are suffering? Or is it Pity you desire rather than Love.\n\nOn the other hand, these things borne in silence have, I believe, an\nextraordinary effect. They pull people to you by quite invisible cords.\nAs I have said, the fact of heart-strain and tension shows that there is\na pressure or pull being exerted somewhere. Though the cord be\ninvisible, there is someone at the other end (though not perhaps quite\nthe one you supposed) who responds.\n\nWords anyhow, in matters of love, are rather foolish; they are worse\nthan foolish, they are useless; and again they are worse than useless,\nfor they are misleading. Love is an art. \u201cIt must be revealed by\n_acts_,\u201d says a Swiss writer, \u201cand not _betrayed_ by words.\u201d And\nHavelock Ellis, speaking further of the mistake of relying on\ndeclarations and asservations, says:[26] \u201cThis is scarcely realized by\nthose ill-advised lovers who consider that the first step in\ncourtship\u2014and perhaps even the whole of courtship\u2014is for a man to ask\na woman to be his wife. That is so far from being the case that it\nconstantly happens that the premature exhibition of so large a demand at\nonce and forever damns all the wooer\u2019s chances.\u201d And in another passage\nhe says:[27] \u201cLove\u2019s requests cannot be made in words, nor truthfully\nanswered in words: a fine divination is still needed as long as love\nlasts.\u201d\n\nLove is an art. As no mere talk can convey the meaning of a piece of\nmusic or a beautiful poem, so no verbal declaration can come anywhere\nnear expressing what the lover wants to say. And for one very good and\nsufficient reason (among others)\u2014namely, that he does not know himself!\nUnder these circumstances to say anything is almost certainly to say\nsomething misleading or false. And the decent lover knows this and holds\nhis tongue. To talk about your devotion is to kill it\u2014moreover, it is\nto render it banal and suspect in the eyes of your beloved.\n\nNevertheless though he cannot describe or explain what he wants to say,\nthe lover can _feel_ it\u2014is feeling it all the time; and this feeling,\nlike other feelings, he can express by indirections\u2014by symbols, by\nactions, by the alphabet of deed and gesture, and all the hieroglyphics\nof Life and Art. Like the animals and the angels and all the blessed\ncreatures who don\u2019t _talk_, he can communicate in the ancient, primeval,\nuniversal language of all creation, in the language which is itself\ncreation.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER IV\n\n  ITS ULTIMATE MEANINGS\n\n\n\u201cTo talk about your devotion is to kill it.\u201d Perhaps one ought even to\nsay that to talk at all is to kill it! One often thinks what divine and\nbeautiful creatures\u2014men and women\u2014there are all around, how loving and\nlovable, how gracious in their charm, how grand in their destiny!\u2014if\nindeed they could only be persuaded to remain within that magic circle\nof silence. And then alas! one of these divinities begins to talk\u2014and\nit is like the fair woman in the fable, out of whose mouth, whenever she\nopened it, there jumped a _mouse_! The shock is almost more than one can\nbear. Not that the shock proceeds from the ignorance displayed\u2014for the\nanimals and even the angels are deliciously ignorant\u2014but from the\nrevelations which speech unconsciously makes of certain states of the\nsoul\u2014from the strange _falsity_ which is too often heard in the words,\nand in the very tones of the voice.\n\nBut Love burns this falsity away. That is why love\u2014even rude and\nrampant and outrageous love\u2014does more for the moralizing of poor\nhumanity than a hundred thousand Sunday schools. It cleans the little\nhuman soul from the clustered lies in which it has nested itself\u2014from\nthe petty conceits and deceits and cowardices and covert meannesses\u2014and\nall the things that fly from the tip of the tongue directly the mouth\nopens. It burns and cleans them away, and leaves the lover\nspeechless\u2014but approximately honest!\n\nLove is an art, and the greatest of the Arts\u2014and the truth of it cannot\nbe said in words; that is, in any direct use of words. You may write a\nsonnet, of course, to your mistress\u2019s eyebrow; but that is work, that is\ndoing something; it is or is trying to be, a work of Art\u2014and anyhow\nyour mistress is not obliged to read it! Or you may take a more decisive\nline to express your feelings\u2014by slaying your rival, for instance, with\na sword. That is allowable. But to bore the lady with protestations, and\nto demand definite replies (that is, to tell lies yourself, and to\ncompel her to tell lies), is both foolish and wicked.\n\nThe expression of Love is a great art, and it needs man\u2019s highest\ningenuity and capacity to become skilled in it\u2014but in the public mind\nit is an art utterly neglected and despised, and it is only by a very\nfew (and those not always the most \u2018respectable\u2019) that it is really\ncultivated. It is a great art, for the same reason that the expression\nof Beauty is a great art\u2014for the reason that Love itself (like Beauty)\nbelongs to another plane of existence than the plane of ordinary life\nand speech.\n\nSpeech is man\u2019s great prerogative, which differentiates him from the\nother creatures, and of which he is, especially during the Civilization\nperiod, so proud. The animals do not use it, because they have not\narrived at the need of it; the angels do not use it, because they\nhave passed beyond the need. It belongs to the second stage of human\nconsciousness, that which is founded on self-consciousness\u2014on the\nrooted consciousness of the self as something solitary, apart from\nothers, even antagonistic to them, the centre (strange contradiction\nin terms!) even among millions of other centres, to which everything\nhas to be referred. The whole of ordinary speech proceeds, and has\nproceeded, from this kind of self-consciousness\u2014is generated from it,\ndescribes it, analyzes it, pictures it forth and expresses it\u2014and\nin the upshot is just as muddled and illusive and unsatisfactory\nas the thing it proceeds from. And _Love_, which is _not_ founded\non that kind of self-consciousness\u2014which is in fact the denial of\nself-centration\u2014has no use for it. Love can only say what it wants by\nthe language of life, action, song, sacrifice, ravishment, death, and\nthe great panorama of creation.\n\nSelf-consciousness is fatal to love. The self-conscious lover never\n\u2018arrives.\u2019 The woman looks at him\u2014and then she looks at something more\ninteresting. And so too the whole modern period of commercial\ncivilization and Christianity has been fatal to love; for both these\ngreat movements have concentrated the thoughts of men on their own\nindividual salvation\u2014Christianity on the salvation of their souls, and\ncommercialism on the salvation of their money-bags. They have bred the\nself-regarding consciousness in the highest degree; and so\u2014though they\nmay have had their uses and their parts to play in the history of\nmankind, they have been fatal to the communal spirit in society, and\nthey have been fatal to the glad expression of the soul in private life.\n\nSelf-consciousness is fatal to love, which is the true expression of the\nsoul. And it is curious how (for some occult reason) the whole treatment\nof the subject in our modern world drives it along this painful\nmirror-lined ravine\u2014how the child is brought up in ignorance and\ndarkness, amid averted faces and frowns, and always the thought of self\nand its own wickedness is thrust upon it, and never the good and the\nbeauty of the loved one; how the same attitude continues into years of\nmaturity; how somehow self-forgetting heroisms for the sake of love are\nmade difficult in modern life; how even the act of intercourse itself,\ninstead of taking place in the open air\u2014in touch with the great and\nabounding life of Nature\u2014is generally consummated in closed and stuffy\nrooms, the symbols of mental darkness and morbidity, and the\nbreeding-ground of the pettier elements of human nature.[28]\n\nWe have said that for any lasting alliance, or really big and\nsatisfactory love-affair, plenty of _time_ should be given. Perhaps\nit is a good rule (if any rule in such matters can be good) never to\nact until one is practically compelled by one\u2019s feelings to do so. At\nany rate, the opposite policy\u2014that of letting off steam, or giving\nexpression to one\u2019s sentiments, at the slightest pressure\u2014is an obvious\nmistake. It gives no chance for the depths to be stirred, or the big\nforces to come into play. Some degree, too, of self-repression and\nholding back on the part of the man gives time, as we have said, for\nthe woman\u2019s love-feelings to unfold and define themselves. But there\nis a limit here, and even sympathy and consideration are not always in\nplace with love. There is something bigger\u2014titanic, elemental\u2014which\nmust also have its way. And, after all, Force (if only appropriately\nused) is the greatest of compliments. I think every woman, in her heart\nof hearts, _wishes_ to be ravished; but naturally it must be by the\nright man. This is the compliment which is the most grateful of all to\nreceive, because it is most sincere; and this is the compliment which\nis the most difficult of all to pay\u2014because nothing but the finest\ninstinct can decide when it is appropriate; and if by chance it is\ninappropriate the cause is _ipso facto_ ruined.\n\nNature prizes strength and power; and so likewise does love, which moves\nin the heart of Nature and shares her secrets. To regard Love as a kind\nof refined and delicate altruism is, as we have already hinted,\ndrivelling nonsense. To the lover in general violence is more endurable\nthan indifference; and many lovers are of such temperament that blows\nand kicks (actual or metaphorical) stimulate and increase their ardor.\nEven Ovid\u2014who must have been something of a gay dog in his\nday\u2014says,\"_non nisi l\u00e6sus amo_.\u201d There is a feeling that at all costs\none must come to close quarters with the beloved\u2014if not in the mimic\nbattles of sex, then in quite serious and hostile encounters. To reach\nthe other one somehow, to leave one\u2019s mark, one\u2019s impress on the\nbeloved\u2014or _vice versa_ to _be_ reached and to _feel_ the impress\u2014is a\nnecessity. I sometimes think that this is the explanation of those\nstrange cases in which a man, mad with love, and unable to satisfy his\npassion, _kills_ the girl he loves. I don\u2019t think it is hypothetical\njealousy of a possible other lover. I think it is something much more\ndirect than that\u2014the blind urge to reach her very actual self, even if\nit be only with knife or bullet. I am sure that this is the explanation\nof those many cases of unhappily married folk who everlastingly nag at\neach other, and yet will not on any account part company. They cannot\nlove each other properly, and yet they cannot leave each other alone. A\nstrange madness urges them into continual contact and collision.\n\nBut yet possibly there is even something more in the whole thing, on and\nbeyond what is here indicated. In the extraordinary and often agonizing\nexperiences attending the matter of \u2018falling in love,\u2019 great changes, as\nwe have already suggested, are being wrought in the human being.\nAstounding inner convulsions and conversions take place\u2014rejections of\nold habits, adoptions of new ones. The presence of the beloved exercises\nthis magical selective and reconstructive influence\u2014and that\nindependently to a large degree of whether the relation is a happy and\n\u2018successful\u2019 one, or whether it is contrary and unsuccessful. The main\nthing is contact, and the coming of one person into touch with the\nother.\n\nWe have seen, in the case of the Protozoa, the amazing fact of the\n\u2018maturation-divisions\u2019 and the \u2018extrusion of polar bodies\u2019 as a\npreparation for conjugation\u2014how, when the two cells which are about to\nunite approach each other, changes take place already before they come\ninto contact, and half the chromatin elements from one cell are\nexpelled, and half the chromatin elements also from the other. What the\nexact nature of this division and extrusion may be is a thing not yet\nknown, but there seems every reason to believe that it is of such a\ncharacter as to leave the residual elements on both sides complementary\nto one another\u2014so that when united they shall restore the total\nattributes of the race-life, only perhaps in a new and unprecedented\ncombination. The Protozoa in fact \u2018prepare\u2019 themselves for conjugation\nand realization of the race-life, by casting out certain elements which\nwould interfere with this realization. And we may well ask ourselves\nwhether in the case of Man the convulsions and conversions of which we\nhave spoken have not the same purpose and result, or something much\nresembling it. Whatever really takes place in the unseen world in the\ncase of human Love, we cannot but be persuaded that it is something of\nvery far-reaching and long-lasting import; and to find that the process\nshould often involve great pain to the little mortals concerned seems\nreadily conceivable and by no means unnatural.\n\nThe complementary nature of love is a thing which has often been pointed\nout\u2014how the dark marries the fair, the tall the short, the active the\nlethargic, and so forth. Schopenhauer, in his _Welt als Wille und\nVorstellung_, has made a special study of this subject. Plato, Darwin,\nand others have alluded to it. It seems as if, in Love, the creature\u2014to\nuse Dante Rossetti\u2019s expression\u2014feels a \u201cpoignant thirst and exquisite\nhunger\u201d for that other one who will supply the elements wanting in\nhimself, who will restore the balance, and fill up the round of the race\nideal. And as every one of us is eccentric and out of balance and\nperfection on one side or another, so it almost seems as if for every\none there must be, on the other side, a complementary character to be\nfound\u2014who needs _something_ at any rate of what we can supply. And this\nconsideration may yield us the motto\u2014however painfully conscious we may\nbe of our own weaknesses and deficiencies and follies and vices and\ngeneral ungainliness\u2014the motto of \u201cNever despair!\u201d Innocent folk, whose\nstudies of this subject have been chiefly perhaps derived from penny\nnovelettes\u2014are sometimes inclined to think that love is a stereotyped\naffair occurring in a certain pattern and under certain conditions\nbetween the ages of 18 and 35; and that if you are not between these\nages and are not fortunate enough to have a good complexion and a nicely\nformed aquiline nose, you may as well abandon hope! They suppose that\nthere is a certain thing called a Man, and another certain thing called\na Woman, and that the combination of these two forms a third quite\nstereotyped thing called Marriage, _and there is an end of it_.\n\nBut by some kind of Providential arrangement it appears that the actual\nfacts are very different\u2014that there are really hundreds of thousands of\ndifferent kinds of men, and hundreds of thousands of different kinds of\nwomen, and consequently thousands of millions of different kinds of\nmarriage; that there are no limits of grace or comeliness, or of\ncharacter and accomplishment, or even of infirmity or age, within which\nlove is obliged to move; and that there is no defect, of body or mind,\nwhich is of necessity a bar\u2014which may not even (to some special other\nperson) become an object of attraction. Thus it is that the ugly and\ndeformed have no great difficulty in finding their mates\u2014as a visit to\nthe seaside on a bank-holiday speedily convinces us; a squint may be a\npositive attraction to some, as it is said to have been to the\nphilosopher Descartes, and marks of smallpox indispensable to\nothers;[29] while I have read of a case somewhere, where the man was\nimmediately stirred to romance by the sight of a wooden leg in a\nwoman![30]\n\nBut apart from these extreme instances which may be due to special\ncauses, the general principle of compensation through opposites is very\nobvious and marked. The fluffy and absurd little woman is selected by a\ntall and statuesque grenadier; the tall and statuesque lady is made love\nto by a man who has to stand on a chair to kiss her; the society elegant\ntakes to a snuffy and preposterous professor; the bookish scholar (as in\n_Jude the Obscure_) to a mere whore; the clever beauty (as in _L\u2019homme\nqui rit_) to a grinning clown; and of course the \u2018wicked\u2019 man is always\nsaved by the saintly woman. The masculine, virago-like woman, on the\nother hand, finds a man who positively _likes_ being beaten with a\nstick; and the miaowling, aimlessly amiable female gets a bully for a\nhusband (and one can only say, \u201cServe them both right\u201d)... Finally, the\nwell-formed aquiline nose insists on marrying a pug nose\u2014and this\napparently quite regardless of what the other bodily and mental parts\nmay be, or what they may want.\n\nEveryone knows cases of quite young men who only love women of really\nadvanced age, beyond the limit of childbirth; and these are curious\nbecause they seem to point to impelling forces in love beyond and\nindependent of generation and race-perpetuation, and therefore lying\noutside of the Schopenhauerian explanations. And similarly we all know\ncases of young girls who are deadly earnest in their affection for quite\nold men, men who might well be their fathers or grandfathers, but\nhardly, one would think, their husbands. In these cases it looks as if\nthe young thing needs and seeks a parent as well as a lover\u2014the two in\none, combined. And where such love is returned, it is returned in a kind\nof protective love, rather than an amative love\u2014or at any rate as a\nlove in which the protective and amative characters are closely united.\n\nSimilarly there are numbers of cases in which mature or quite grown men\nand women only love (passionately and devotedly) boys and girls of\nimmature age\u2014their love for them ceasing from its ardor and intensity\nwhen the objects of devotion reach the age, say, of twenty or\ntwenty-one. And in many of these cases the love is ardently returned.\nHere, again, it is evidently not a case of generation or\nrace-perpetuation, but simply of compensation\u2014the young thing requiring\nthe help and protection of the older, and the older requiring an outlet\nfor the protective instinct\u2014a case of exchange of essences and\nqualities which (if at all decently and sensibly managed) might well go\nto the building up of a full and well-rounded life on either side.\n\nIn all these cases (and the above are of course only samples out of\nthousands) we seem to see an effort of the race-life to restore its\ntotal quality\u2014to restore it through the operation of love\u2014either by\ncompleting and rounding out the life of the individuals concerned, or by\nuniting some of their characteristics in the progeny. I say \u2018seem to\nsee,\u2019 because we cannot well suppose that this gives a _complete_\naccount of the matter, or that it explains the whole meaning of Love;\nbut it at any rate suggests an important aspect of the question. The\nfull quality of the race-life is always building itself up and restoring\nitself in this manner. A process of Regeneration is always going on. And\nthis process, as suggested before, is more fundamental even than\nGeneration\u2014or it is a process of which Generation is only one\ndepartment.\n\nRegeneration is the key to the meaning of love\u2014to be in the first place\nborn again _in_ some one else or _through_ some one else; in the second\nplace only, to be born again through a child. As in the Protozoa, so\namong human beings, generation alone can hardly be looked upon as the\nprimary object of conjugation; for, among the latter, out of myriads of\nunions vast numbers are as a matter of fact infertile, and a\nconsiderable percentage (as indicated above) are quite _necessarily_\ninfertile, and yet these infertile unions are quite as close, and the\nlove concerned in them quite as intense and penetrating, as in the case\nof the fertile ones. \u201cIf a girl were free to choose according to her\ninclinations,\u201d says Florence Farr in an eloquent plea for the economic\nindependence of women,[31] \u201cthere is practically no doubt that she would\nchoose the right father for her child, however badly she might choose a\nlife-long companion for herself.\u201d In this passage the authoress seems to\nsuggest (perhaps following Schopenhauer) that the generation of a\nperfect child is the one main even though unconscious purpose of\nlove-union, and that the individual parent-lives may instinctively be\nsacrificed for this object. And there no doubt is so far truth in this,\nthat the tremendous forces of love often pay little respect to the world\nconveniences and compatibilities of the lovers themselves, and that\noften (as indeed also among the Protozoa) the parent\u2019s life is rudely\nand ruthlessly sacrificed for the birth of the next generation. Still,\neven so, I think the statement as put here is risky, both as a matter of\nfact and as a matter of theory. Would it not be more correct or less\nrisky to say: \u201cIf a girl were free to choose, she would choose the man\nwho most completely compensated and rounded out her own qualities,\nphysical and mental (and _so_ would be likely to get her a fine babe),\neven though he might not prove the best of companions?\u201d\n\nIt is curious, as we have suggested before, how married folk often\nquarrel to desperation on the surface, and yet seem to have a deep and\npermanent hold on each other\u2014returning together again even after\nseparation. It seems in these cases as if they mutually obtained a\nstimulus from each other, even by their strife, which they could not get\nelsewhere. _Ir\u00e6 amantium redintegratio amoris._ The idea, too, that the\ngreat and primal object of union is to be sought in _the next\ngeneration_ has something unsatisfactory about it. Why not in _this_\ngeneration? Why should the blessedness of mankind always be deferred to\nposterity? It is not merely, I take it, the _perpetuation_ of the race\nwhich is the purpose of love, but the perfection of the race, the\ncompleteness and adequacy of its self-expression, which love may make\npossible to-day just as well as to-morrow. Ellen Key, in that fine book,\n_Liebe und Ehe_,[32] expresses this well when she says: \u201cLove seeks\nunion, not only in connection with the creation of a new being, but also\nbecause two beings _through one another_ may become a new being, and a\ngreater than either could be of itself alone.\u201d\n\nThe complementary nature of sex-attraction was made much of by that\nyouthful genius Otto Weininger, who in his book, _Sex and\nCharacter_,[33] has a chapter on the laws of Sexual Attractions in\nwhich, in the true German manner, he not only gives an algebraic formula\nfor the different types of men and women, but a formula also for the\nforce of attraction between any two given individuals\u2014which latter of\ncourse becomes infinite when the two individuals are exactly\ncomplementary to each other! Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, in his very\ninteresting work, _Die Transvestiten_,[34] goes even more into detail\nthan does Weininger on the subject of the variations of human type in\nspecial regard to sex-characteristics. Sex-characteristics, he explains,\nmay be divided into four groups, of which two are physiological, namely\nthe primary characteristics (the sex organs and adjuncts) and the\nsecondary (the hair, the voice, the breasts, and so forth); and two are\npsychological or related (like love-sentiment, mental habit, dress, and\nso forth). Each of the four groups includes about four different\nelements; so that altogether he tabulates sixteen elements in the human\nbeing\u2014each of which may vary independently of the other fifteen, and\ntake on at least three possible forms, either distinctly masculine,\ndistinctly feminine, or intermediate. Calculating up the number of\ndifferent types which these variations would thus give rise to, he\narrives at the figure 43,046,721!\u2014which figure, I think we may say, we\nneed not analyze further, since it is certainly quite large enough for\nall practical purposes! And really though we may mock a little at these\nfanciful divisions and dissections of human nature, they do help us to\nrealize the enormous, the astounding number of varieties of which it is\nsusceptible. And if again we consider that among the supposed\nforty-three millions each variety would have its counter type or\ncomplementary individual, then we realize the enormous number of perfect\nunions which would be theoretically possible, and the enormous number of\ndistinct and different ways in which the race-life could thus find\nadequate and admirable expression for itself.\n\nHowever, we are here getting into a somewhat abstract region. To return\nto the practical, the complementary idea certainly seems to account for\nmuch of human union; for though there are but few cases in which the\nqualities of the uniting parties are really quite complementary to each\nother, yet it is obvious that each person tends to seek and admire\nattributes in the other which he himself possesses only in small degree.\nAt the same time, it must not be forgotten that _some_ common qualities\nand common ground are necessary as a basis for affection, and that\nsympathy and agreement in like interests and habits are at least as\npowerful a bond as admiration of opposites. It sometimes happens that\nthere are immense romances between people of quite different classes and\nhabits of life, or of quite different race and color; and they see, for\nthe moment, flaming ideals and wonder-worlds in each other. But unions\nin such cases are doubtful and dangerous, because so often the common\nground of sympathy and mutual understanding will be too limited; and\nhereditary instincts and influences, deep-lying and deep-working, will\ncall the wanderers away, even from the star which they seek to follow.\n\nSympathy with and understanding of the person one lives with must be\ncultivated to the last degree possible, because it is a condition of any\nreal and permanent alliance. And it may even go so far (and should go so\nfar) as a frank understanding and tolerance of such person\u2019s _other_\nloves. After all, it seldom happens, with any one who has more than one\nor two great interests in life, that he finds a mate who can sympathize\nwith or understand them all. In that case a certain portion of his\npersonality is left out in the cold, as it were; and if this is an\nimportant portion it seems perfectly natural for him to seek for a mate\nor a lover on that side too. Two such loves are often perfectly\ncompatible and reconcilable\u2014though naturally one will be the dominant\nlove, and the other subsidiary, and if such secondary loves are\ngood-humoredly tolerated and admitted, the effect will generally be to\nconfirm the first and original alliance all the more.\n\nAll this, however, does not mean that a man can well be \u2018in love\u2019 with\ntwo women, for instance, at the same time. To love is a very different\nthing from being \u2018in love\u2019; and the latter indicates a torrent-rush of\nfeeling which necessarily can only move towards one person at a time. (A\nstanding flood of water may embrace and surround several islands, but it\ncannot very well _flow_ in more than one direction at once.) But this\ntorrent-rush does not last forever, and in due time it subsides into the\nquiescent and lake-like stage\u2014unless indeed it runs itself out and\ndisappears altogether.\n\nAgainst this running out and disappearance it is part of the Art of Love\nto be able to guard. It has sometimes been argued that familiarity is of\nnecessity fatal; and that it is useless to contend against this sinister\ntendency implanted in the very nature of love itself. But this\ncontention contains only a very partial truth. It is true that in\nphysical love there is a certain physical polarity which, like electric\npolarity, tends to equate itself by contact. The exchange of\nessences\u2014which we saw as a chief phenomenon of conjugation, from the\nprotozoa upwards\u2014completes itself in any given case after a given time;\nand after that becomes comparatively quiescent. The same with the\nexchange of mental essences. Two people, after years, cease to exchange\ntheir views and opinions with the same vitality as at first; they lose\ntheir snap and crackle with regard to each other\u2014and naturally, because\nthey now know each other\u2019s minds perfectly, and have perhaps modified\nthem mutually to the point of likeness. But this only means, or should\nmean in a healthy case, that their interest in each other has passed\ninto another plane, that the _venue_ of Love has been removed to another\ncourt. If something has been lost in respect of the physical rush and\ntorrent, and something in respect of the mental breeze and sparkle,\ngreat things have been gained in the ever-widening assurance and\nconfidence of spiritual unity, and a kind of lake-like calm which indeed\nreflects the heavens. And under all, still in the depths, one may be\nconscious of a subtle flow and interchange, yet going on between the two\npersonalities and relating itself to some deep and unseen movements far\ndown in the heart of Nature.\n\nOf course for this continuance and permanence of love there must be a\ncertain amount of continence, not only physical, but on the emotional\nplane as well. Anything like nausea, created by excess on either of\nthese planes, has to be avoided. New subjects of interest, and points of\ncontact, must be sought; temporary absences rather encouraged than\ndeprecated; and lesser loves, as we have already hinted, not turned into\ngages of battle. Few things, in fact, endear one to a partner so much as\nthe sense that one can freely confide to him or her one\u2019s _affaires de\nc\u0153ur_; and when a man and wife have reached this point of confidence in\ntheir relation to each other, it may fairly then be said (however\nshocking this may sound to the orthodox) that their union is permanent\nand assured.\n\nNothing can, in the longer enduring values of love, well take the place\nof some such chivalrous mutual consideration which reaches the finest\nfibres of the heart, and offers a perfect freedom even there. Ellen\nKey\u2014to quote her _Ueber Liebe und Ehe_[35] again\u2014says, \u201cFidelity [in\nlove] can never be promised, but may be _won afresh_ every day;\u201d and she\ncontinues, \u201cIt is sad that this truth\u2014which was clear enough to the\nchivalrous sentiment of the old courts of Love\u2014must still to-day be\ninsisted on. One of the reasons, in fact, which these courts gave, why\nlove was not compatible with Marriage, was \u2018that the wife could never\nexpect from her husband the fine consideration that the Lover is bound\nto exhibit, because the latter only receives as a favor what the husband\ntakes as his right.\u2019\u201d To preserve love through years and years with this\nhalo of romance still about it, and this tenderness of devotion which\nmeans a daily renewed gift of freedom, is indeed a great Art. It is a\ngreat and difficult Art, but one which is assuredly \u201cworth while.\u201d\n\nThe passion altogether, and in all its aspects, is a wonderful thing;\nand perhaps, as remarked before, the less said about it, the better!\nWhen people\u2014I would say\u2014come (not without clatter) and offer you their\nhearts, do not pay _too_ much attention. What they offer may be genuine,\nor it may not\u2014they themselves probably do not know. Nor do _you_ also\nfall into a like mistake, offering something which you have not the\npower to give\u2014or to withhold. Silence and Time alone avail. These\nthings lie on the knees of the gods; which place\u2014though it may seem, as\nsomeone has said, \u2018rather cold and uncomfortable\u2019\u2014is perhaps the best\nplace for them.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER V\n\n  THE ART OF DYING\n\n\nWe have suggested in the last paper that some day possibly we may arrive\nat an intelligent handling of love and its problems, by which at length\nthe passion may cease to be the cause of endless shipwreck and despair\nto mortals, and become a favorable and friendly divinity obedient to our\nservice. Somewhat thus has been man\u2019s experience with all the great\npowers of Nature\u2014with fire and flood on the earth, with the winds and\nlightning of heaven. With intelligent treatment they have become his\nvery ready helpers and allies. And, as indicated in the outset of this\nbook, we may fairly expect the same conclusion with regard to the great\nnatural event and process termed Death. The time has come when we are\nreally called upon to face up to the fact of our decease from the\npresent conditions of life, physical and mental; when we are called upon\nto study and to understand this fact, and by understanding to become\nmasters of the change which it represents\u2014and able to convert it to our\ngreat use and advantage.\n\nHitherto\u2014as I shall have occasion presently to point out\u2014there has\nbeen singularly little study of this science, either from the clinical,\nthe physiological, or the psychological points of view; and the art of\ndying, for example (which is the subject of this chapter), seems to have\nbeen entirely neglected.\n\nNo doubt it may be said that this is a difficult art\u2014difficult to\nstudy, and more difficult still to practise; yet, after all, that seems\nonly the more reason for approaching it. The art of _avoiding_ death\ncommands much attention, and there are hundreds and thousands of books\non that subject; yet since none can really avoid the experience and all\nmust sooner or later pass through it, it might be thought that the art\nof meeting one\u2019s end with discretion and presence of mind would at least\ncommand as much attention.\n\nThere ought, one would say\u2014and considering the continual presence of\nthis great ocean waiting to receive us\u2014to be lessons on the subject of\nits navigation free of charge, and available for all who wish, just as\nthere are lessons in swimming for sailors. And though it may be true\nthat since, as a rule, one cannot die more than once, it is difficult to\nobtain the needed practice, yet even so one may with perseverance get\nsome approach to doing so. There are a good many recorded cases of\npeople who have apparently died, and after an interval of a few minutes\nor a few hours have come to life again. I knew a married lady, some\nyears back, who after a long period of illness was given up by the\ndoctors, and gradually sank till to all appearances she passed away. The\nmedical man pronounced life to be extinct, and the relatives began to\nmake the usual arrangements for her funeral. However, being devoted to\nher children, and anxious to see them through a critical period, she had\nmade up her mind _not_ to die, and being a woman of strong will she\nclung to her resolution. Two or three hours elapsed, and then, to the\nsurprise and joy of her friends she returned from \u2018the other\nside\u2019\u2014after which she lived three or four years, sufficiently long to\ncarry out what was needed for her family. And though in this case she\nhad no very distinct experience to report of another state of existence,\nyet the fact of her \u2018will to live\u2019 having persevered through the sleep\nor apparent death of her body and upper mind, was sufficient to convince\nher of survival of some sort on a deeper plane, and to disarm all fear\nand hesitation when death finally came.\n\nProbably, on the ordinary mental plane, death very much resembles sleep,\nand its actual arrival is almost imperceptible; but, in the deeper\nregions of the mind, there are not unfrequently signs or suggestions of\na great awakening. An expression of ecstasy often overspreads the\nfeatures; sometimes there are sudden apparent recognitions of friends\nwho have already passed away;[36] in many cases there seems to be a\ngreat extension of memory and perception; and in not a few a distinct\nsensation of flying or moving upwards.[37] To these and other similar\nconsiderations I shall return later. At present I would prefer to keep\nto the more physical aspects of the question; but even so far, one\ncannot help feeling that\u2014whatever collateral drawbacks there may be in\ndeath\u2014in the way of painful illness, parting with friends, disturbance\nand abandonment of plans, and so forth\u2014the experience itself must be\nenormously interesting. Talk about starting on a journey; but what must\nthe longest sea-voyage be, compared with this one, with its wonderful\nvista, and visions, and voices calling? And again, since it is an\nexperience that all must go through, and that countless millons of our\nfellows _have_ gone through and are still continually going through, for\nthat very reason alone it has a fascination; and one feels that had one\nthe opportunity to avoid it one would hardly wish to do so.\n\nAs I have said, it is curious that there is next to no instruction or\nguidance commonly provided or accessible in this matter. I mean\nespecially on the physical side. What are our medical folk doing? There\nare lots of books on childbirth and the science of parturition, and the\nbest methods of making the transition easy; but when it comes to the end\nof life and the event corresponding and complementary to birth, there is\nlittle except silence and dismay.\n\nThe usual course of preparation for this most important event seems to\nbe (barring accidents) something as follows:\u2014a physically unhealthy and\nmorally stupid life, which inevitably leads to degenerative tendencies\nand ultimately to distinct disease; then one or two breakdowns, which\nlead to panic, and the summoning of doctors; then partial recovery,\nand a repetition _da capo_ of the whole series, without any of the\nleast improvement in the general style of life; then of course worse\nbreakdown and panic, leading at last to violent drugs, injections,\noperations, and so forth, in the hope of prolonging existence a few\nhours; and finally death arriving, not graciously, but in the sense of\na dismal defeat and rout to everybody concerned; and to the patient a\nhurried, confused and embittered end, robbed of all decency and dignity.\n\nNow this won\u2019t do! When one thinks of the deaths of animals\u2014so composed\non the whole\u2014the calm, the quietude, the dignity even, and the absence\nas a rule of very acute or obvious suffering; or when one thinks of the\nvery similar conditions of death among many savage peoples; one cannot\nbut ask, Why this difference? One cannot but say, It really _will not\ndo_ for us \u2018the heirs of all the ages\u2019 to go on behaving in this feeble\nand foolish way\u2014leading lives which utterly unfit us for the inevitable\nend of life, and stricken with most incompetent panic and dismay when\nthe very thing arrives which we have foreseen and which we have had such\nample time to prepare for.\n\nDeath\u2014from whatever point of view we look at it\u2014seems to be a break-up\nof the unity of the creature.[38] It is a dislocation and to some\ndegree a rending asunder. But such dislocation and break-up may be\nof a healthy and normal type, or it may be unhealthy and of the\nnature of disease. In the first case it may chiefly consist in the\ngetting rid or shedding off of an out-worn husk, which is simply left\nbehind\u2014much in the same way as the chrysalis sheath of a moth or\nother insect is left behind, or as the husks of a growing bud or bulb\nare peeled off. Many an old person seems to die in this way\u2014the body\nbeing the scene of little or no disturbance or conflict, but simply\nwithering up, while often at the same time the spiritual nature of\nthe man becomes strangely luminous and penetrating. Here there is a\ncertain dislocation, but no painful rending asunder. The centre of\nlife seems merely to retire to a more inward and subtle region, where\nit perchance nourishes an even brighter flame than before; and the\nouter body is peeled off as a sort of outworn shell. But in other\ncases death is undoubtedly very different. Instead of the one centre\nsimply withdrawing inward in the way indicated, while at the same\ntime preserving almost to the last a general unity of the creature,\nrebellious and insubordinate centres spring up and introduce serious\nconflict into the organism. These are of course diseases, or centres\nof disease\u2014either in the body, like tumors, alien growths, nests\nof microbes, and so forth; or in the mind, like violent passions,\ngreeds, anxieties, fears, rigid habits. And forming thus independent\ncentres they tear and rend the body and mind between them till at last\ndeath supervenes\u2014not at all on account of the voluntary withdrawal\nof the inner person to more ethereal regions, but simply through the\ndestruction of the organism in which that person functions.\n\nIt is evident (whatever view one may take of that inner person and its\nperduration into other regions of existence) that the former mode of\ndeath is the more normal, natural and desirable of the two, and the one\nwhich we should encourage and cultivate; and that the latter is likely\nto be painful, undignified, and even repulsive.\n\nFrom this point of view, to strengthen the organizing, regulating power\nof the body, as against local growths and insurgencies, seems (in\ngeneral terms) the best line to take\u2014the best way of prolonging life,\nand of rendering death fairly easy and negotiable. The outlying\ncentres\u2014as represented by the various organs and faculties, both of the\nbody and of the mind\u2014have to be kept during life in subordination to\nthe main centre, and as far as possible in decent harness and exercise,\nso as to become neither too slack on the one hand, nor too rowdy and\ninsolent on the other. In this way, when the vital forces decay, these\norgans and faculties remain still subservient to the central being, and\nbecoming comparatively quiescent make room for its further passage and\ndevelopment. There are, indeed, some cases of death, in which the whole\ninner spirit and consciousness of the man seems to pass on unchanged,\nwhile the rabble rout of the body simply falls away, or is left behind,\nlike a disused garment or husk as we have said.\n\nIt should, however, be noted that the strengthening of the organizing\nand regulating forces does not and must not mean the introduction of\nrigid and quasi-tyrannical habits (however \u2018good\u2019 such habits may be\nsupposed to be). The interior Person\u2014as we shall see later\u2014is far too\ngreat and free to be adequately represented by any such habits or\nregulations, even the \u2018best,\u2019 and they really belong to the lower mind\nor body. Their dominance leads to an ossifying or woodening and\nvaletudinarian tendency in the organism, which is as bad in its way as\nthe uncontrolled or inflammatory tendency.\n\nTo avoid these opposite pitfalls, and to live sanely and sensibly, in a\ncertain close touch with Nature and with the roots of human life, is no\ndoubt difficult, especially under the ordinary conditions of\ncivilization; yet it is surely well worth while\u2014both for the sake of\nlife itself and for the termination of it. And to keep a certain command\nof the situation during the mid-period of one\u2019s day is probably the best\nway toward commanding the situation at the end. But the ordinary medical\nmethods\u2014with their drugs, their stimulants, their sleeping-draughts,\ntheir operations, their injections of morphia, serums, and so forth, are\nsurely acting all the time in the opposite direction. Their tendency\nsurely is to confuse and weaken the central agency, while at the same\ntime they excite and sometimes madden the local centres\u2014till not\nunfrequently the patient dies, confused, unconscious, wrecked, and a\nmass of disorders and corruption. The launching of a ship on the great\nocean is a thing that is prepared for, even during all the period when\nthe vessel is being built and perfected. I am not a professional; but\nwill no one write a manual on the subject, even from the medical and\nphysiological point of view\u2014How to prepare for death.... How to go\nthrough this great change with some degree of satisfaction, command, and\nintelligence? Above all, may we have a truce to the so common and\nunworthy conspiracies between doctors, nurses, and relatives, by which\nfor the sake of keeping the patient a few hours (or at most a few days)\nlonger alive, the unfortunate one\u2014instead of being let alone and\nallowed to die peacefully as far as may be, and as indeed in nine cases\nout of ten he himself desires\u2014is on the contrary tormented (defenceless\nas he is) with operations, inoculations and medical insults of all kinds\nup to the very last? The thing has become a positive scandal; and though\nthe ignorant importunities of lay relatives may sometimes be deplorable,\nyet the prospect in one\u2019s last moments of falling into the hands of\nprofessionals is even worse, and adds a new terror to dissolution. It is\nat any rate a consolation to know that whatever pains and torments of\nillness may have preceded, they generally pass away before the end; and\nnotwithstanding such current expressions as \u2018death-agonies,\u2019 \u2018last\nstruggle,\u2019 and so forth, the hour of death itself is mercifully calm and\npeaceful. Walt Whitman, who, in his hospital labors in the American\nCivil War, must have been present at a vast number of deathbeds, has\nrecorded that in the great majority of cases the end comes quite simply,\nas an ordinary event of the day, \u201clike having your breakfast.\u201d \u201cDeath is\nno more painful than birth,\u201d says Dr. Edward Clark in his book on\n_Visions: a Study of False Sight_;[39] and most doctors will agree to\nthe general truth of this expression.\n\nThere is a certain sacredness in Death, which should surely be\nrespected. There is too, we may say, in most cases, a sure instinct\nwhich comes to the patient of what is impending and of what is needed;\nand every effort should be made to secure to the sufferer a quiet period\nduring which he may effect the passage, for himself, disturbed as little\nas possible by the grief of friends or the interferences of attendants.\n\n\n  II. PSYCHICAL\n\nWe may now discuss the subject in hand somewhat more from the psychical\nside. Not that in these matters the physical and the psychical can ever\nbe completely dissociated, but that having in the preceding section\nleaned more to the physical side it may be convenient now to lean rather\nto the psychical.\n\nAnd there is certainly an advantage here\u2014namely, that from this side we\nmay not unreasonably say that the art of dying _can_ be practised: it is\nreally possible to approach or even perhaps to pass through Death on the\nmental plane, by voluntary effort. Most people regard the loss of\nordinary consciousness (apart from sleep) with something like terror and\nhorror. The best way to dispel that fear is to walk through the gate\noneself every day\u2014to divest oneself of that consciousness, and,\nmentally speaking, to die from time to time. Then one may get accustomed\nto it.\n\nOf all the hard facts of Science: as that fire will burn, that water\nwill freeze, that the earth spins on its axis, and so forth, I know of\nnone more solid and fundamental than the fact that if you inhibit\nthought (and persevere) you come at length to a region of consciousness\nbelow or behind thought, and different from ordinary thought in its\nnature and character\u2014a consciousness of quasi-universal quality, and a\nrealization of an altogether vaster self than that to which we are\naccustomed. And since the ordinary consciousness, with which we are\nconcerned in ordinary life, is before all things founded on the little\nlocal self, and is in fact _self_-consciousness in the little local\nsense, it follows that to pass out of that is to die to the ordinary\nself and the ordinary world.\n\nIt is to die in the ordinary sense, but in another sense it is to wake\nup and find that the \u2018I,\u2019 one\u2019s real, most intimate self, pervades the\nuniverse and all other beings\u2014that the mountains and the sea and the\nstars are a part of one\u2019s body and that one\u2019s soul is in touch with the\nsouls of all creatures. Yes, far closer than before. It is to be assured\nof an indestructible immortal life and of a joy immense and\ninexpressible\u2014\u201cto drink of the deep well of rest and joy, and sit with\nall the Gods in Paradise.\u201d\n\nSo great, so splendid is this experience, that it may be said that all\nminor questions and doubts fall away in face of it; and certain it is\nthat in thousands and thousands of cases the fact of its having come\neven once to a man has completely revolutionized his subsequent life and\noutlook on the world.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nOf exactly how this inhibition of Thought may be practised, and of all\nits collateral results and implications it would be out of place to\nspeak now.[40] Sufficient at present to say that with the completion of\nthis inhibition, and the realization of the consequent change of\nconsciousness\u2014even if it be only for a time\u2014the ordinary mental self,\nwith all its worries, cares, limitations, imperfections, and so forth,\nfalls completely off, and lies (for the time) like a thing dead; while\nthe real man practically passes onward into another state of being.\n\nTo experience all this with any degree of fulness, is to know that you\nhave passed through Death; because whatever destruction physical death\nmay bring to your local senses and faculties, you know that it will not\naffect that deeper Self. I mean that having already become aware of your\nreal self as pervading the life of other creatures, and moving in other\nbodies than your so-called own, it clearly does not so very much matter\nwhether the one body remains or passes. It may make a difference\ncertainly, but not a fatal or insuperable difference. The vast ocean of\nthe consciousness into which you have been admitted will not be\nprofoundly affected, even by the abstraction of a pearl-shell from its\nshore.\n\nWe have spoken of the Protozoa more than once in these connections; and\nit has been said that the Protozoa have been considered immortal\nbecause, though they divide into separate cells or organisms, the life\nremains continuous; and because though some of the descendant cells may\ndie yet the life goes on\u2014so that even in the hundredth generation the\nself or ego of a particular cell may be identical with that of the first\nparent. And in the case we are considering we have something similar,\nfor when the common life of souls is once recognized and experienced, it\nis clear that nothing can destroy it. It simply passes from one form to\nanother. And we may perhaps say that as the Protozoa attain to a kind of\nimmortality _below_ death, or prior to its appearance in the world, so\nthe emancipated or freed soul attains to immortality above and beyond\ndeath\u2014passing _over_ death, in fact, as a mere detail in its career.\n\nI say, this heart and kernel of a great and immortal self, this\nconsciousness of a powerful and continuing life within, _is_\nthere\u2014however deeply it may be buried\u2014within each person; and its\ndiscovery is open to everyone who will truly and persistently seek for\nit. And I say that I regard the discovery of this experience\u2014with its\naccompanying sense of rest, content, expansion, power, joy, and even\nomniscience and immensity\u2014as the most fundamental and important fact\nhitherto of human knowledge and scientific inquiry, and one verified and\ncorroborated by thousands and even millions of human kind. Doubtless, as\nalready suggested, questions may arise and will arise as to the exact\nnature of this continuing life, its exact relation to the local personal\nconsciousness, as well as to what is called the sublimal self\u2014how far\ndefinite personality and memory go with it, and so forth. These\nquestions we may return to later. At present let us simply rest on the\nexperience itself.\n\nWhen Death is at hand, or its oncoming cannot long be delayed, there is\nstill _that_ to remember, to revert to, to cling to. And the more often\nwe have made the experience our very own, in life, the easier will it be\nto hold on to at the close. Whatever physical death may bring\u2014in the\nway of pain or distress or dislocation of faculty\u2014there still remains\nthat indefeasible fact, the certainty of the survival of the deepest,\nmost universal portion of our natures. In some cases this deepest\nconsciousness does itself remain so clear, so strong that\u2014even through\nall the obscurations of illness and bodily weakness\u2014death practically\nbrings no break; the body is shed off, more or less like a husk or\nchrysalis (with effort and struggle perhaps, but without anguish and\ndespair); and the human being passes on to realize under some other form\nthe divine life which he has already partially entered into. I think it\nevident that this is the state of affairs which we ought to put before\nourselves as the goal of our endeavor. It would seem the only condition\nwhich secures a sense of continuity in death, or which does not carry\nwith it some threat of failure or extinction. And it suggests to us that\nour persistent and unremitted effort during ordinary life should be to\nrealize and lay hold of this immortal Thing, to conquer and make our own\nthis very Heart of the universe. It suggests that every magnanimous\ndeed, every self-forgetting enthusiasm, every great and passionate love,\nevery determined effort to get down into the heart and truth of things\nand below the conventional crust, does really bring us nearer to that\nattainment, and hasten the day when mankind at large shall indeed\nfinally obtain the victory; and the passage into and through death shall\nappear natural and simple and clear of obstruction, and even in its due\ntime desirable.\n\nIt is clear, however, that in a great number of cases this deepest\nconsciousness, even if it has occasionally during life been reached by\nthe person concerned, has not been sufficiently firmly established to\nendure through times of sickness, bodily weakness, and mental decay;\nwhile again, perhaps in the vast majority of cases, the previous\nrealizations have been almost _nil_, or at most have been too few or too\nslight to count for much. What are we to say in such cases as these?\nEven if with the eye of faith or philosophy the bystander may seem to\nsee the immortal spark shining, what consolation or assistance is that\nto the sufferer himself, who does not perceive or feel it? What is\nlikely to be his experience of dissolution? and what may he fairly\nexpect or look to as any sort of solution of the obscure problem?\n\nTo get any kind of answer to these questions and any clear idea of what\nreally happens in the great majority of cases\u2014when the break-up which\nwe call dissolution arrives\u2014it will be necessary to analyze roughly the\nnature of Man. We shall then see what are the various elements of that\nnature, and what their probable destination, respectively. And for the\npurpose in hand I think we may divide the complete human being into four\nsections\u2014though remembering of course that the classification proposed,\nor any such classification, can only be very rough and\ntentative\u2014namely, into (1) the eternal and immortal Self, of which we\nhave already spoken; (2) the inner personal ego or human soul; (3) the\nouter personality or animal self; and (4) the actual body. Of these,\n(1), the eternal Self, is the germ or root of the whole human being; and\nI think we may even say that all the sections and elements of our human\nnature are really manifestations or outgrowths from this root (though of\ncourse in most cases unconscious of their real belonging or their real\nsource). Then (2), the inner personal self or human soul, includes the\nfiner and subtler elements of \u2018character\u2019\u2014which we know so well in our\nfriends, yet find so difficult to describe, but which are roughly\ndenoted by such words as affection, courage, wit, sympathy, love of\nbeauty, sense of equality, freedom, self-reliance, determination, and so\nforth; while (3), the outer personality or animal soul (not at all of\ncourse to be despised), is concerned with the more terrestrial desires\nand passions like pride, ambition, love of possession, jealousy, and\nespecially those that relate themselves directly to the body, _e.g._\ndesires of food, drink, sex, ease, sleep, and so forth; and finally,\n(4), the body, includes all the material organs and parts. Other and\nintermediate subdivisions may be and sometimes are made, but these four\nwill probably suffice for the present\u2014remembering, as already said,\nthat they have only a rough value: hard and fast lines and divisions in\nsuch matters being impossible, and the nature of man being really\ncontinuous and not built in sections; remembering, too, with regard to\nall four divisions, that the elements of them are not at all times\npresent in consciousness, but to a large degree remain conscious or\nhidden or subliminal.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER IV\n\n  THE PASSAGE OF DEATH\n\n\nAllowing, then, that our human nature may be roughly divided as above\ninto four main constituents, the destiny of two of these at death seems\npretty clear. It is clear that (1) the central self remains (whether\n\u201cwe\u201d know it or not) the same as it ever was, and ever will be, eternal,\nshining in glory and irradiating the world. It goes on, to be the\nbirth-source, may be, of numberless lives to come. On the other hand, it\nis equally clear that (4) the actual visible tangible body dies,\nperishes, and is broken up. Though it may return, in its elements and\nthrough what we call Nature, into the great birth-source, it ceases as\nan individual body to exist, and passes even before the eyes of\nonlookers into other forms. The fate of these two portions of the human\nentity can hardly be doubted\u2014of the innermost central portion,\ncontinuance, with but slow or secular change, if any; of the outermost\nmaterial shell, immediate decay and dissolution.\n\nWhat, then, may we suppose is the destiny of the other two portions, the\nhuman and the animal part? I think we may fairly suppose that they each\nshare to a considerable degree the destiny of that extreme to which they\nare closest related. The outer personality or animal life, (3), is most\nclosely related to the body. Its passions and desires (though in\nthemselves psychical and mental entities) look always to the body for\ntheir expression and satisfaction. It is difficult to suppose them\nfunctioning _without_ the body. We cannot, for instance, very well\nimagine the passion for drink without some kind of mouth or gullet\nthrough which to work (though of course it may carry on a sort of\ndream-activity by representing these channels to itself, or creating\nmental images of them). And similarly of the passion of personal vanity,\nor the passion of sex: they refer themselves always to the body, in some\ndegree or other.\n\nIt is clear then, I think, that when the body in death breaks up, these\npsychic elements which function through it and correspond to the various\nparts and organs\u2014these passions and desires, and with them the whole\nanimal being\u2014are to some extent involved in the ruin. They are (in most\ncases) smitten with dire suffering and confusion. A terrible misgiving\nand dismay assault them; and with the break-up and disruption of the\nbody they too experience the agonies of disruption, and foresee their\nown dissolution and death.[41]\n\nYet to conclude from this that these elements do absolutely perish,\nwould, I think, be a mistake. For these passional entities and this\nanimal soul, though they seek the body and manifest themselves\nthrough it, are not the same as the body. They have a creative power\nwithin them.[42] The drunkard, as suggested, deprived of his liquor,\nrepresents furiously to himself in imagination the act of drinking: he\ndreams a gullet a yard long and an endless swallow\u2014and in doing so he\nactually moulds and modifies his swallowing apparatus. The vain man and\nthe sexual similarly mould and modify their bodies; they contribute to\nthe building of the shapes which they use. And this sort of process\ngoing on through the ages has _created_ the forms of the animals and\nmankind, and their respective members and organs.[43] All these things\nare the expression and manifestation and output of the psychical\nentities and passions and qualities underlying\u2014which themselves are\nimplicit in the world-soul, which indeed have grown up and manifested\nthemselves out of the world-soul, and which still deeply though\nhiddenly root back into it.\n\nThe most reasonable and obvious answer, then, to the question, What\nbecomes of the animal life and its satellite passions when the body\ndies? seems to be that under normal conditions they die too\u2014in the\nsense that they cease to be manifest. They die, like the body, only with\nthis difference, that _being_ psychical\u2014_i.e._ having a consciousness\nand a self underlying, while the body dies back into earth and air, they\ndie back into the psychic roots from which they originally sprang\u2014that\nis, into that form of the Self or World-soul of which they are the\nmanifestation\u2014as, for instance, in the case of the animals, into the\nself or soul of the race; in the case of undeveloped man, partly into\nthe soul of the race and partly into the human soul which is affiliated\nto the soul of the race; and in the case of perfected man, entirely into\nthe human soul or inner personality which, having now found and\nestablished its union with the supreme and eternal Self, is no longer\ndependent on the soul of the race, but has entered into a divine and\nimmortal life of its own.\n\nThus in entirely normal cases, both of animals and man, we should\nconclude that the animal soul at the time of bodily death may return\nperfectly calmly and naturally into its own roots (as fern-fronds die\nback in winter), and the whole process may fulfil itself quite simply\nand graciously and with a minimum of suffering. But this can only be\nexpected to happen in instances where instinctively (as in healthy\nanimals and primitive men) or intentionally (as among a few of mankind)\nthe perfect unity, physical and mental, of the organism has been\npreserved. In such cases each desire and passion, standing in a close\nand direct relationship to the spirit or self of the whole organism, is\neasily and willingly indrawn again at the appointed time; and there is\nlittle or no struggle or agony. But in the great masses of\nmankind\u2014especially in the domains of civilization\u2014where this unity has\nbeen lost, it is easily seen that many of the passional elements, loosed\nfrom the true service of the informing spirit, carry on a mad and\nviolent career of their own; and to curb these or reduce them to orderly\nacquiescence and subordination is almost impossible. On the contrary,\nwith the general weakening of the total organism they often break out\ninto greater activity. The ruling passions, \u201cstrong in death,\u201d push\nthemselves to the fore and tyrannize over the failing or ageing man, and\nrender his actual dissolution stormy and painful; and not only so, but\nthey sometimes generate phantasmal embodiments of themselves which haunt\nthe dying man, or even become visible to outsiders.\n\nFrederick Myers, dealing with this subject,[44] invents the term\n_psychorrhagy_ for this tendency of portions of the _psyche_ under\ncertain conditions to break loose from the whole man; and thinks that\nthis process takes place not only at death, but that there are some folk\n_born_ with what he calls a _psychorrhagic diathesis_, who are\nconsequently peculiarly apt for throwing off phantasms of one kind or\nanother. He says:[45]\u2014\u201cThat which \u2018breaks loose\u2019 on my hypothesis is\nnot the whole principle of life in the organism; rather it is some\npsychical element probably of very varying character, and definable\nmainly by its power of producing a phantasm, perceptible by one or more\npersons, in some portion or other of space. I hold that this\nphantasmogenetic effect may be produced either on the mind, and\nconsequently on the brain of another person\u2014in which case he may\ndiscern the phantasm somewhere in his vicinity, according to his own\nmental habit or prepossession\u2014or else directly on a portion of space,\n\u2018out in the open,\u2019 in which case several persons may simultaneously\ndiscern the phantasm in that actual spot.\u201d\n\nMyers then proceeds to give a great number of very interesting and\nextremely well-attested cases of such phantasms, ranging from merely\nmomentary apparitions of persons during their life or at the hour of\ntheir death to the persistent haunting of houses over a long period. And\nI mention this in order to show that there is good authority now for\nbelieving it possible not only that phantasms may be generated by the\ndisintegration of the diseased or dying organism, which will haunt the\npatient himself; but that in cases the psychic elements generating these\nphantasms may be powerful enough to create a ghostly body which may\nendure, surviving the earth-body, and manifesting itself to outside\nobservers on occasions for a considerable time.[46]\n\nSo much for the fate of the outer personality or animal part. Now with\nregard to (2), the inner personality or human soul, we may ask, What\nbecomes of that? And the answer particularly interests us, because it is\nwith this section that we\u2014or at least the more thoughtful of mankind\ngenerally\u2014identify \u201courselves.\u201d It is probable that almost any reader\nof these pages would credit his \u201cI\u201d or \u201cself,\u201d not to the one universal\nBeing (to union with whom he may nevertheless distantly aspire), nor to\nthe group of terrestrial desires and interests which we have termed the\nanimal being, but rather to that constellation of nobler character which\nwe have called the human soul. This, he will say, is the self that truly\ninterests, that most deeply represents, me. Tell me, what becomes of\nthat?\n\nI think it is obvious that in the hour of death there are only two\ndirections in which that human soul can turn, in which \u201cwe\u201d can turn. We\ncan turn for help either outwards toward the region of the animal self,\nor inwards toward the central universal self. And I think it equally\nobvious that the latter direction can alone really supply our need. At\nfirst no doubt it may be natural to seek outwards; but now alas! in the\nhour of dissolution the man discovers that all that region of his\nnature, in which indeed he has often found comfort before, is becoming\ninvolved in the ruin above described. Large portions of his animal\nfaculties are already being torn away\u2014or are sinking into lethargy and\nsleep. His bodily organs are losing their vitality; some of them have\nalready become useless. His mental faculties\u2014especially the more\nconcrete and external faculties, like the memory of events and\nnames\u2014are becoming disintegrated. True, his general outlook may in\ncases seem to become wider and more serene as death approaches, and his\ninner character and personality to become more luminous and gracious;\nbut it is a perilous passage on which he is embarked and in general\nthreatening clouds gather round. The consciousness is painfully invaded\nby the lesser mentalities which surround it; the ruling passions\ndomineer; silly little habits and tricks, of mind and body, obsess the\nman; phantoms and delirium overpower, or seek to overpower, him; he is\nastonished and perturbed to find himself on the fringe of a world in\nwhich figures, half-strange, half-familiar, come and go, and force\nthemselves upon him with an odd persistence and a rather terrible kind\nof intelligence. It requires all his presence of mind to gather himself\ntogether, to hold his own, to suppress the rebel rout, and to find amid\nall the flux something indomitable and sure to which to cling.\n\nThere is clearly only one thing to cling to\u2014and this must be insisted\non\u2014only that one great redeeming universal Self of which we have\nspoken: only that superb omnipresent Life which we find in the very\ncentral depth of our souls. (And fortunate he who has already so far\ntaken refuge in this, that the wreck and ruin of the visible world and\nthe mortal onset of Death cannot dislodge him!) That alone is fixed and\nsure; and to that the personal man must turn.\n\nAnd I think we may say that it is not merely the personal soul\u2019s highest\nduty and best welfare to turn in this direction; but that in a sense and\nby the law of its nature it must do so. For even in those cases where\nthe man does not recognize this universal Being within, nor consciously\nbelieve in and hold on to the same, still is it not true that\nunconsciously he is very near and very closely related? For all the\ngreat qualities which we have already described as characterizing the\nmost intimate human soul, are they not just those which must relate it\nto the universal Self? I mean such things as Equality\u2014the sense of\ninner equality with all human and other creatures; Freedom\u2014the sense of\nfreedom from local and material bonds; Indifference\u2014indifference as to\nfate and destiny; Magnanimity; abounding Charity and Love; dignity;\ncourage; power\u2014all these things, are they not obviously the qualities\nwhich dawn upon the personal soul and color it when it is coming into\ntouch with the universal? Are they not the natural \u2018sign and symbol\u2019 of\nunion or partial union with that Self? And more: are there not other\nthings belonging more distinctly to the unconscious and subliminal\nregion (which we shall deal with presently)\u2014I mean such things as deep\nmemory, intuition, clairvoyance, telepathy, prophetic faculty, and so\nforth\u2014which point to the same conclusion?\n\nThe inner personal soul of man is surely already conjoined to the\nuniversal, and must cling to it by its very nature. And though the man\nmay not exactly be conscious of this union; though he may hardly really\nknow the depth of his own nature; though, notwithstanding his own\nsplendid qualities of character, some thin film may yet divide him from\nawareness of the all-redeeming Presence; yet none the less that Presence\nis there; and is the core and centre of his being.\n\nThat being granted, it seems clear that in the disintegration of death\nthe inner personality (whether consciously or unconsciously) will cling\nto the eternal self within it. And this seems to be the explanation of\nthe part played by Religion in the history of the world, and its close\nconnection with death. The different religions being lame attempts to\nrepresent under various guises this one root-fact of the central\nuniversal Life, men have at all times clung to the religious creeds and\nrituals and ceremonials as symbolizing in some rude way the redemption\nand fulfilment of their own most intimate natures\u2014and this whether\nconsciously understanding the interpretations, or whether (as most\noften) only doing so in an unconscious or quite subconscious way.\n\nHappy, I say, is the man who has so far consciously taken refuge and\nidentified himself with the great life that the onset of death fails to\ndisturb or dislodge him. For him a wonderful passage is\nprepared\u2014amazing indeed and bewildering, baffling at times and\nexhausting, yet by no means dismaying or terrifying. But for the\nordinary mortal who has not yet arrived at this\u2014for whom the Presence\n(beheld perhaps intermittently before) is now clouded and withdrawn from\nhis decisive reach\u2014for such a man it would seem best and most natural\nsimply to gather and compact himself together as firmly as possible, and\ndetaching his mind as well as he can from its earthly entanglements and\nhindrances, to launch forth boldly, and with such faith and confidence\nas he can muster, on his strange journey. There is a plant of the Syrian\ndeserts\u2014the Rose of Jericho\u2014about the size of our common daisy plant,\nand bearing a similar flower, which in dry seasons, when the earth about\nits roots is turned into mere sand, has the presence of mind to detach\nitself from its hold altogether and to roll itself into a mere\nball\u2014flower, root and all. It is then blown along the plains by the\nwind and travels away until it reaches some moist and sheltered spot,\nwhen it expands again, takes hold on the ground, uplifts its head, and\nmerrily blooms once more. Like the little Rose of Jericho, the human\nsoul has at times to draw in its roots (which we may compare to the\nanimal part) and separate them from their earthly entanglement; even the\nsun in heaven, which it knows distantly for the source of its life, may\nbe obscured; but compacting itself for the nonce into a sturdy ball, it\nstarts gaily on its far adventure.\n\nMay we presume at all to speculate on the soul\u2019s actual passage out of\nthis world and its experiences on the way? No doubt there are queer\nthings to be encountered! I think it is obvious that if the soul passes\nout of this terrestrial world of ours into another state of existence\n(definite, but quite imperceptible to our present senses) there must be\na borderland region in which phenomena occur of an intermediate\ncharacter\u2014faintly and fitfully perceptible by our present faculties,\nbut lacking in the solidity and regularity of our present world;\nborderland phenomena in two senses, as being due (_a_) partly to the\nbreak-up of our present senses and the present stage of existence, and\n(_b_) partly to the glimmering perception of forms and figures belonging\nto a farther stage.\n\nWith regard to (_a_), it is of course common for the mind to \u2018wander,\u2019\nand for all sorts of phantoms and hallucinations to obsess and cloud it\nin the last stages of illness; and these vagaries of the mind are no\ndoubt due to or connected with excess or deficiency of circulation in\nthe brain, and morbid physical conditions of one kind or another. But it\nis possible that a wider and more general view than that may be taken\nconcerning them. I have already referred the reader to the Note at the\nend of this chapter. All our desires and passions are psychical\nentities, having a life and consciousness of their own, though\naffiliated to the total soul within which they work. All our organs and\nfunctions are carried on by intelligences, similarly affiliated yet in\ndegree independent. Under normal conditions \u201cwe\u201d are unaware of these;\nentities and intelligences\u2014it is only when they rebel that they come\ndecisively to our notice. In disease, mental and physical, there is\nrebellion. We become painfully conscious of the independent and often\nundesired activity of our organs, and of our passions\u2014and so,\nunfortunately for them, do our friends! In morbid states of mind and\nbody certain functions, certain passions, take on an independent\nvitality to such a degree that at last they endue a kind of personality\nand give rise to strings of phantasms which we believe to be real. In\ndreams, though there is not exactly rebellion, the higher powers of the\nmental organism being at rest, the lesser functionaries similarly\ndisplay an extraordinary and impish activity and present us with amazing\nmasquerades of actual life.\n\nWhat then, we may ask, does probably happen in the moment of death, when\nthe organism has become wasted and enfeebled by disease, and when the\nnucleus of the man, the inner personality, has compacted itself together\ninto close compass in preparation for its long journey? What happens to\nall those marginal desires which have chiefly occupied themselves with\nthe affairs of the body or lower mind\u2014those innumerable little spirits\nand imps which (as we discover in dreams, or by closely watching our\nwaking thoughts) are continually planning and scheming their own little\nsuccesses and gratifications? What happens to the thousand and one\nintelligences which carry on the functions and processes of the\norganism? and whose labors, now that the bodily life is coming to an\nend, are no more needed? Is there not a danger\u2014or at least a\nlikelihood\u2014of this strange masquerade of dreamland, of these painful\nobsessions of disease, being repeated with ever-increased intensity?\nTrue, that if the organism has been kept so well in hand during life as\nto cause all outlying passions and desires to weaken and become\nquiescent simultaneously with the body\u2014or at least to go back quietly\ninto the kennels of a long sleep\u2014like a pack of hounds when the chase\nis over\u2014then these phantoms, these obsessions, may in that last hour be\nconspicuous by their absence. But since in the vast majority of cases\nthis is not, and cannot be so, it seems more probable that as a rule the\ndeparting soul will make its exit, not only through the perishing bodily\npart, but through a mass of debris, as it may be called, of the mind\n(chiefly though perhaps not entirely \u201cthe animal mind\u201d), through a cloud\nof tags and tatters of mentality, thrown off in the final crisis. It\nseems probable that just as the actual body, bereft at death of its one\npervading vitality, breaks out in a mass of corruption or minute\nmultitudinous life, so there is a _tendency_, at any rate, for the lower\nmind to break out into a strange ghostly rabble\u2014a cloud of phantasms,\nexhaled and projected from the dying person. Of these phantasms most, no\ndoubt, are only visible to the patient himself (though that does not\nrender them any more agreeable as visitors); others are discernible by\nclairvoyants present; while others again are distinctly seen even by\npersons at a distance in space or time\u2014as in the numerous and\nwell-authenticated instances of \u201cwraiths.\u201d The picture is not altogether\npleasant, but it has a certain general congruity with admitted facts,\nand with a fairly-accepted body of tradition and theory; and\nprovisionally I suppose we may accept it.\n\nIt seems likely, then, that the passage of the inner self, or human\nsoul, out of life and its delivery in another world, _the other side_ of\ndeath, may very closely correspond to Birth\u2014to the birth of a babe\nunder ordinary conditions _into_ this world. Just as the babe, when\nbeing born, passes through the lower passages of the body, so the human\nself at death is expelled inwardly through all the debris and litter of\nthe mind, into another less material and more subtle world than ours.\nAnd just as the pangs of childbirth are bad\u2014but they are so mainly\nbeforehand and in preparation, while the actual delivery is swift and a\nvast relief\u2014so, in cases, the pains and anguish in preparation for\ndeath may be great (the squealing of demons torn from their hold on the\nsoul, the cries of intelligences cut off from their co\u00f6perative life and\nsource of sustenance in the body, the fears and distress of the animal\nmind, the yellow fury of the passions, and the death-struggles of the\nvarious organs!) yet the final passage itself may be calm and gracious\nand friendly.\n\nAnyhow, as in other cases of human experience, it would be a mistake to\ndepict this one as by any means uniform in its character. On the\ncontrary, it is probably susceptible of great variety. The Head of a\nDepartment (if it becomes necessary for him to leave his post) may find,\nin one case, that he is turned out, so to speak, with kicks\u2014that he has\nto run the gauntlet of the execrations of his subordinates; or in\nanother case he may leave amid the expression of every good wish, and\nalong a path made pleasant and easy for him; or again he may go\n\u201ctrailing clouds of glory,\u201d and with a retinue of followers behind him,\nwho refuse to remain now that their leader is departing. Some such\ndifferences possibly, and we may say probably, present themselves in the\npassage of death. The experience of childbirth varies to an\nextraordinary degree. We hear of Indian tribeswomen who only go aside\nfor an hour while their people are on the march, and then rejoin them\nagain at the next halting-place. And who knows but what Death and the\npreparation for it might be as easy\u2014if only the doctors and the\nsky-pilots would hurry up and tell us something really useful, instead\nof spending their time in vivisecting the wretched animals, or in\nmumbling over ancient creeds?\n\nNow, with regard to the second kind of borderland phenomena, (_b_), the\nglimmering perception in death of forms and figures or conditions of\nbeing belonging to a farther stage of existence: I do not propose at\npresent to dwell upon this matter at any length. But with modern\npsychical research there has come a good deal of evidence to show that\non deathbeds it not at all unfrequently happens that distinct and ardent\nrecognition of departed friends takes place; and though, no doubt, it\nmay seem possible to explain these as cases in which the simple _memory_\nof a departed friend is very powerfully resuscitated, still this\nexplanation hardly covers a good many cases\u2014such as those for instance\nin which the dying person was unaware that the friend had died, and yet\napparently recognized him as a visitor from the beyond-world.[47] Also\nof course, modern research has brought forward some amount of testimony\nin favor of actual communications with the departed through the agency\nof entranced mediums; so that, though this whole matter is still _sub\njudice_, we may with fair reason suppose that both in trance-conditions\nand in the hour of death there are not merely apparitions and phenomena\ndue to disintegrations on _this_ side of the border, but also some kind\nof real communications and manifestations from the other side.\n\nAnyhow, it is clear that each person\u2019s experience of death is likely to\ndepend a good deal on the question as to where the centre of gravity of\nhis self-consciousness is placed; and that\u2014as a part of the Art of\ndying\u2014the object of our endeavor should be to throw (during life) the\nself-consciousness inward into that part of our being which is durable\nand immortal in its nature, into that part in which we are united, and\nfeel our union, with other creatures, into that portion where the word\nitself (self-consciousness) ceases to have a petty and sinister meaning\nand becomes transformed with a glorious signification. In that case it\nis indeed likely that the soul may be endowed beforehand with divine\nvision. It must be our object, by throwing our consciousness always that\nway, to strengthen the power of the inner soul over the outer\npersonality and all its functions, and at the same time to rivet more\nand more the hold of that inner soul on the One Self (the source of all\nvitality and centre of limitless power, if we only understand it so)\u2014so\nthat ultimately the outer and animal personality (though always\nbeautiful in its nature and not to be despised) ceases largely to have\nan independent and unco\u00f6rdinated vitality of its own, or to be the scene\nof uncontrolled activities and conflict, and becomes more the expression\nand instrument of the inner self: to such a degree indeed that at the\ndissolution of the body the animal soul, passing into slumber, easily\ndies down to its deep roots in the human soul, there of course to await\nits future reawakening, and thus leaving the latter liberated from\nearth-entanglement and free to start (like the Syrian rose) on its long\njourney.\n\nIn this freeing for the forward journey there must, one would think, be\na great sense of joy and satisfaction\u2014even as there must be in the\nfreeing of a May-fly from its water-bred pupa into the glory of air and\nsunshine. Just as it obviously is (notwithstanding some drawbacks) a joy\nto the Babe to enter upon its new life, so it may well be that to the\ndying person\u2014notwithstanding the perils of the change, the fears of the\nunknown, the parting with friends, the apparent rending of cherished\nties\u2014there is a strange joy in shelling off the old husks, and in\ngetting rid of the accumulations and dead rubbish of a lifetime. A\nthousand and one tiresome old infirmities and bonds of body and\nmind\u2014now for the first time realized in their true meaning\u2014slip off;\nand the ship of the soul, \u201cto port and hawser\u2019s tie no more returning,\u201d\ndeparts with a strange thrill and quiver upon its \u201cendless cruise.\u201d\n\nThe details of this launch and departure we cannot of course ordain. The\nmode of death is not always within our sphere to determine. Accident may\ndecide, or some hereditary weakness for which the individual can hardly\nbe held responsible. Some diseases are by their nature hard upon the\npatient; others are kindly in their course. In those that bring great\nweakness of body there is sometimes an easy passage\u2014the earthly and\ncorporeal part relaxing its hold, while the mind and character become\nheavenly-clear. In others of an inflammatory nature, or where there is\ngreat organic vitality, there may be severe and prolonged struggle.\nAnyhow, one can imagine the relief when the process is complete. It is\nnot uncommon to experience a strange expansion of the spirit on\noccasions when the body is seriously weakened by ordinary illness. What\nmust this expansion be when the body finally succumbs\u2014this sense of\nimmensely enlarged life, this impression of sailing forth toward a new\nand boundless ocean! How strange to stand a moment on the brink of\nterrestrial mortality, and to be conscious of\u2014to _see_, even with the\ninner visual power\u2014the shell one has left behind, with all its\ncommonplace and banal surroundings: concrete indeed and material enough,\nbut lying now outside oneself\u2014something almost foreign to one and\nindifferent, abandoned on the very margin and shore of real life; to\nstand for a moment; and then to turn and pass inward into that subtle\nand immense ethereal existence, now to be learnt and explored, which\nlies within and informs and transfuses all our solid world, and\nsurpasses all its boundaries!\n\n\n  NOTE TO CHAPTER VI\n\nIn order not to burden this already rather lengthy chapter with matter\nwhich may not be needed, I append here some general considerations for\nthose who have not given much attention to the subject of the various\ngrades of consciousness in the body\u2014considerations tending to show that\nthe various parts and passions of the body and mind have a life and\nintelligence of their own, and that the whole human organism is a\nhierarchy (not always perfectly harmonious) of psychic entities.\n\nWe generally allow of course that our central or dominant selves are\nalive and conscious (though no doubt we use those epithets with a rather\nsad vagueness). But having allowed that, the extraordinary phenomena of\nvariable and alternating personality compel us to admit that there may\nbe many such centres within one person, each of which though now buried\nmay in its turn become dominant and take conscious lead, and which must\ntherefore be credited with life and intelligence (even if an alien life\nand intelligence to \u201cour own\u201d). Even the most ordinary brain-centres are\nin the habit of carrying on whole departments of the bodily organization\nwith an independent intelligence of their own, and are sometimes liable\nunder the influence of some excitement (like drink, or religion, or some\nenthusiasm) to take possession of the whole man and transform him into\nanother creature\u2014exhibiting in doing so a strange degree of invasive\nvitality and alertness. It is quite certain that the myriad microscopic\ncells of the body are alive, each with its own little particular life;\nand the more one studies these cells the more difficult it is not to\ncredit them each, in their degree, with a particular consciousness or\nintelligence. And each body-organ again, composed of a congeries or\ncolony of body-cells, has a life of its own on and beyond that of its\ncomponent cells, and exhibits curious signs too of intelligence and\nemotion, which often (especially in sickness) affect the moods and\nthoughts of the entire man.\n\nThe whole of the subconscious world, in fact\u2014that world which only\noccasionally breaks through into the upper consciousness\u2014must be\nallowed to be alive, and in its various degrees methodical and\ncalculating. This is well seen in the phenomena of dreams and of\nhypnotism, in both of which the most acute and diabolical ingenuity is\noften shown\u2014as of weird imps working in dark chambers of the brain\nquite unbeknown to their supposed lord and master; or in the\nextraordinary phenomena of trance and \u201cautomatic\u201d speaking and writing;\nor in telepathy and clairvoyance; or again in the craftiness of utter\nlunatics; or in the strange evasions and mental dodgery which (as just\nhinted) are induced by diseases of certain organs; or in the phenomena\nof mental healing, where an appeal to the subconscious intelligence in\nany and every corner of the body is often followed by extraordinary\nresponse; or in the subtle instinctive knowledge and perception of\nbabes, and of animals, long before _self_-consciousness has developed;\nor again, in the sly cunning of ancient dotards; or in the complex\nbodily reflexes carried on perfectly unknown to ourselves during life;\nor in the continued functioning of some of the organs after death. In\nall these cases, and in scores of others not mentioned, it is clear that\nthe majority of the processes of the human system are carried on by\nminor intelligences. They are indeed carried on by _crowds_ of minor\nintelligences\u2014to which we accord the epithet \u201cautomatic,\u201d and which no\ndoubt we regard as mechanical, as long, that is, as they work smoothly\nand without friction and opposition. But when they do not do so, when\npain, disease and lunacy cut in\u2014when a violent burn sets the epithelial\ncells screaming, and the scream comes into our consciousness as the\nvibration of pain; when a diseased liver twists the events of life and\nthe faces of our friends into malignant shape and mien; when lust and\nhypochondria people the mind with phantoms; and drink makes all the\nfunctions mad\u2014then we say we are \u201cpossessed with devils,\u201d then we\nrecognize, if only on the dark side, the pervading intelligence or\nintelligences of the body.\n\nIt is like the Head of a Department, as I have said, whose subordinate\nofficials are working under him agreeably and harmoniously. As long as\nthat is the case, he may have in his mind a general outline of the\nworking of the Department. He probably is ignorant of most of the\ndetails; he certainly does not know personally many of his subordinates,\nbut he superintends the working of the whole. Presently, however, occurs\nsomething of a strike or _\u00e9meute_; whereupon he discovers that vast\nnumbers of his men are intelligently discussing questions or problems of\nwhose existence he was almost ignorant; personalities appear before him\nwhom, before, he knew at most only by name; and they argue their case\nwith an acumen and vitality which surprises him. For the first time, in\nthis revolt of his department, he comes to realize the amount of\nintelligent activity which is at work within it, beneath the surface. So\nit is with us in the case of disease. In health we have no trouble,\nunity prevails. As long as \u201cwe\u201d are on top, and the intelligences which\ncarry on the body are working on friendly terms with us, their minds do\nnot intrude into our realm, and we are practically unaware of them. But\nwhen through our mismanagement or other cause dissension breaks out,\nthen indeed we realize what kind of forces they are with which we have\nto deal, and of what a wonderful hierarchy of intelligences the body is\ncomposed.[48]\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER VII\n\n  IS THERE AN AFTER-DEATH STATE?\n\n\nIn the last chapter Death was compared to Birth, and it was said that\nprobably the passage of the human soul into another world, _on the other\nside of death_, exactly corresponded to Birth\u2014to the birth of a babe\ninto this world. And certainly, seeing these apparent movements _into_\nthe visible and _away_ from it again, it is very natural to assume that\nthere _is_ such another and hidden world, and to speculate upon its\nnature.\n\nBut it may fairly be asked, is there after all any reason for supposing\nthat there is a definite state of existence of any kind on that side? Is\nit not quite likely that there is only vacancy and nothingness, or at\nbest a mere formless pulp (of ether and electrons, or whatever it may\nbe) out of which souls are born and into which they return again at\ndeath? It is this question which I propose to discuss in the present\nchapter.\n\nHistorically speaking, we know of course that early and primitive folk,\nletting their imaginations loose, peopled that \u2018other side\u2019 and rather\npromiscuously, with all sorts of fairy beings and phantom processions.\nGiant grizzly bears, divine jackals, elves, dwarfs, satans, holy ghosts,\nlunar pitris, flaming sun-gods, and so forth, ruled and raged behind the\ncurtain\u2014in front of which the shivering mortal stood. But as time went\non, the growing exactitude of thought and science made it more and more\nimpossible to idly accept these imaginings; and it may be said that\nabout the middle of last century these cosmogonies\u2014for the more\nthoughtful among the populations of the Western world\u2014finally perished,\nand gave place for the most part to a simple negative attitude. It was\nallowed that intelligences and personalities (human and animal) moved on\n_this_ side of the veil, and were plainly distinguishable as operating\nin the actual world; but they, it was held, were more or less isolated\nand probably accidental products of a mechanical universe. That\nmechanical arrangement of atoms, and so forth, which we could now\nlargely map out and measure, and which doubtless in the future we should\nbe able completely to define\u2014that was the universe, and somehow or\nother included everything. One of its properties was that it would run\ndown like a clock, and would eventuate in time in a cold sun and a dead\nearth\u2014and there was an end of it! Any intelligent existence behind or\non the other side of this veil of mechanism was too problematical to be\nworth discussing; in all probability on that side was mere nothingness\nand vacancy.\n\nSuch, very roughly stated, was the attitude of the fairly intelligent\nand educated man about fifty years ago, but since that time the\noutgrowths of science and human inquiry have been so astounding as to\nleave that position far behind. The obvious signs of intelligence in the\nminutest cells, almost invisible to the naked eye, the very mysterious\narcana of growth in such cells (partly described in a former chapter),\nthe myriad action of similarly intelligent microbes, the strange\npsychology of plants, and the equally strange psychic sensitiveness\n(apparently) of _metals_, the sudden transformations and variations both\nof plants and animals, the existence of the X and N rays of light, and\nof countless other vibrations of which our ordinary senses render no\naccount, the phenomena of radium and radiant matter, the marvels of\nwireless telegraphy, the mysterious facts connected with hypnotism and\nthe subliminal consciousness, and the certainty now that telepathic\ncommunication can take place between human beings thousands of miles\napart\u2014all these things have convinced us that the subtlest forces and\nenergies, totally unmeasurable by our instruments, and saturated or at\nleast suffused with intelligence, are at work all around us. They have\nconvinced us that gloomy phrases about cold suns and dead earths are\nmere sentiment and nonsense. Cold worlds there may certainly be, but\nnothing is more certain than that worlds on worlds, and spheres on\nspheres, stretch behind and beyond the actually seen\u2014spheres so\nmicroscopic as to totally elude us, or so vast and cosmic as to elude,\nspheres of vibration which elude, spheres of other senses than ours,\nspheres aerial, ethereal, magnetic, mental, subliminal. The iris-veil of\nour ordinary existence may truly be rent, but the visible world, the\nworld we know, is no longer now a film on the surface of an empty\nbubble, but a curtain concealing a vast and teeming life, reaching down\nendless, in layer on layer, into the very heart of the universe. And\nwhereas, in the former time of which I have been speaking, we might have\nagreed that life could not well continue after the death of the body,\nto-day we should, as a first guess, be inclined to think that life is\n_more_ full and rich on the other side of death than on this side. \u201cI do\nnot doubt,\u201d says Whitman, \u201cthat from under the feet and beside the hands\nand face I am cognizant of, are now looking faces I am not cognizant of,\ncalm and actual faces\u2014I do not doubt interiors have their interiors,\nand exteriors have their exteriors, and that the eyesight has another\neyesight, and the hearing another hearing, and the voice another voice.\u201d\n\nWe come, then, to this problem of Death and Birth in a similarly\nmodified spirit, and with a predisposition to believe that they do\nreally indicate passages from one definite world or plane or region of\nexistence to another. And here is the place to point out, and to guard\nourselves against, a common error in the use of the word Death. Death is\nnot a _state_. There may be an after-death state; but death itself is\nthe _passage_ into that state, or\u2014better\u2014the passage out of the\npresent state. So Birth is not a state. There may be a pre-birth state;\nbut birth itself is the passage into the present state. Either we pass\nthrough death into another life and condition of being; or else we are\nextinguished. In the former case there is clearly no _state_ of death;\nand in the latter case there is no such state\u2014because there is no self\nto _be_ dead or to know itself dead. As Lucretius says,[49] endeavoring\nto disabuse man of the fear of the grave:\u2014\n\n   \u201cSo to be mortal fills his mind with dread,\n      Forgetting that in real death can be\n    No self, to mourn that other self as dead,\n      Or stand and weep at death\u2019s indignity.\u201d\n\nBirth and Death, then, we may look upon as two contrary movements, to\nsome degree complementary and balancing each other; and it is possible\nthat thus, from consideration of the one, we may be able to infer things\nabout the other. One such thing that we may be able to infer is that\nLove presides over, or is intimately associated with, both movements.\n\nThe connection of Love with Birth is of course obvious. In some profound\nyet hidden way, almost throughout creation, the birth or generation of\none creature is connected with the precedent love and sex-fusion of two\nothers. And the connection of Love with Death, though not so prominent,\ncan similarly almost everywhere be traced. The whole of poetry in\nliterature teems with this subject; and so does the poetry of Nature! If\nwe are to believe the Garden of Eden story, Love and Death came into the\nworld together; and it certainly is curious that in the age-long\nevolution of animal forms the same thing seems to have happened. The\nProtozoa at first, propagating by simple division, were endued with a\nkind of immortality. But then came a period when a pair found they could\nenter into a joint life of renewed fecundity by fusing with each other.\nThey literally died in each other, and rose again in a numerous progeny;\nso that love and death were simultaneous and synonymous. Sometimes\nparturition and death were simultaneous. The mother-cell perished in the\nvery act of giving birth to her brood. Then again came the aggregation\nof cells into living groups\u2014the formation of \u2018colonial\u2019 organisms; and\nit was then that distinctive sex-differentiation and sex-organs\nappeared, and with the capacity of sex also the capacity of death\nthrough the disruption of the colony. Everywhere love is associated with\ndeath. The expenditure of seed in the male animal is an incipient death;\nthe formation of the seed vessel, and the glory and color of the\nflowering plant, are already the signs of its decay. \u201cBoth Weismann and\nGoette,\u201d say Geddes and Thomson,[50] \u201cnote how many insects (locusts,\nbutterflies, ephemerids, and so forth) die a few hours after the\nproduction of ova. The exhaustion is fatal, and the males are also\ninvolved. In fact, as we should expect from the katabolic temperament,\nit is the males which are especially liable to exhaustion.... Every one\nis familiar with the close association of love and death in the common\nMay-flies. Emergence into winged liberty, the love-dance, and the\nprocess of fertilization, the deposition of eggs, and the death of both\nparents, are often the crowded events of a few hours. In higher animals,\nthe fatality of the reproductive sacrifice has been greatly lessened,\nyet death may tragically persist, even in human life, as the direct\nNemesis of love.\u201d\n\nGeorge Macdonald, in one of his books (_Phantastes_, vol. i. p. 191),\nfeigns a race of beings, for whom death is not so much the \u2018nemesis\u2019 of\nlove, as its natural and inevitable outcome. Seized by a great love, too\ngreat for mortal expression, \u201clooking _too_ deep into each other\u2019s\neyes,\u201d they (with great presence of mind, it must be said!) breathe\ntheir souls out in death, and so take their departure to another world.\nHeine touches the same note in his poem, the \u201cAsra\u201d:\u2014\n\n                \u201cIch bin aus Jemen,\n    Und mein stamm sind jene Asra,\n    Welche sterben wenn sie lieben.\u201d\n\nAnd scores of scarcely noticed paragraphs in our daily papers, brief\ntales of single or double suicide, present us with a dim outline of\nhow\u2014even in the mean conditions and surroundings of our modern\ndays\u2014every now and then there comes to one or other a longing, a\npassion, and a revelation of a desire so intense, that, breaking the\nbounds of a useless life, it demands swift utterance in death.\n\nSome deep and profound suggestion there is in all this\u2014some hint of a\nlife whose very form and nature is love, and which finds its deliverance\nand nativity only through the abandonment of the body\u2014even as our\nordinary life, conceived in love, finds its delivery into this world\nthrough what we call birth. At the very least it suggests that Death may\nhave a great deal more to do with Love, and may be more deeply allied to\nit than is generally supposed. And it may suggest that the two things,\nbeing in some sense the most important occupations of the human race,\nshould be frankly recognized as such, and should both be accordingly\nprepared for.\n\nAnother thing, about which we may be able to infer something from the\nanalogy between Birth and Death, is the fate of the soul at death. If we\ncan trace in any way the relation of the soul to the body at the time of\nthe first appearance of the latter, that may shed light on the relation\nwhich will hold at its disappearance. We cannot certainly define very\nstrictly what we mean by the word \u2018soul\u2019; but we are all very well aware\nthat associated with our bodies, and in some sense pervading them with\nits intelligence, is a conscious (as well as subconscious) being which\nwe call the self or soul; and we are all puzzled at times to understand\nwhat is the relation between this and the body. Now we have seen (ch.\nii.) the genesis of the body from a single fertilized cell or germ\nalmost microscopic in size, and its growth by continual and myriadfold\ndivision into, say, a human form; and we have seen that every cell in\nthe perfect and final form\u2014every cell, of eye, or liver, or of any part\nor organ\u2014is there by linear descent or division from that first cell,\nthough variously adapted and differentiated during the process. We are\ntherefore almost compelled to conclude that that intelligent self\n(conscious or subconscious) which we are so distinctly aware of as\nassociated with our mature bodies was there also, associated with the\nfirst germ.[51] It may not truly have been outwardly manifest or\nunfolded into evidence at that primitive stage. It could not well be.\nBut it was there, even in its totality, and unless it had been there, we\ncould not now be what we are. The conscious and subconscious self has\nbeen within us all along, unfolding and manifesting itself with the\nunfoldment and development of the body; and indeed to all appearances\nguiding that development. And more, we may fairly say\u2014having regard to\nthe mode of development of the tissue\u2014that it dwells even in its\nentirety within every normal and healthy cell of our present bodies, and\nis the formative essence thereof.\n\nLet me give an illustration. Sometimes in the morning you may see a bush\nglittering all over with dewdrops; every leaf has such a tiny jewel\nhanging from it. If now you look you will see in each dewdrop a\nminiature picture of the far landscape. Or, to take a closer\nillustration, some shrubs have, embedded in the very tissue of their\nleaves, tiny transparent and lens-like glands which yield to close\nscrutiny similar miniatures of the world beyond. Exactly, then, like\nthese plants, we may think of the whole human body as trembling in\nlight\u2014each cell containing (if we could but see it!) a luminous image\nof the presiding genius or self of the body.\n\nThe question is often asked: _Where_ is the self? does it reside in the\nhead, or in the heart, or perhaps in the liver? is it an aural halo\npervading and surrounding the body, or is it a single microscopic cell\nfar hidden in the interior, or is it an invisible atom? Here apparently\nis the answer. It animates _every_ cell. It pervades the whole body, and\nseeks expression in every part of it. Some cells, as we have said\nbefore, are differentiated so as to express especially _this_ faculty,\nothers to express especially _that_; but the human soul or self stands\nbehind them all. Look at a baby\u2019s face, and its growing sparkling\nexpression\u2014an individual being coming newly into the world, obviously\nseeking, feeling, tentatively finding its way forward\u2014every morning a\nthinnest veil falling from its features! Playing through the whole body,\nis an intelligence, seeking expression. Helen Keller, the girl both deaf\nand blind, describes most graphically her agonizing experiences at the\nage of six or seven, when her growing powers of body and mind demanded\nthe expression which her physical disabilities so cruelly denied. \u201cThe\ndesire to express myself grew,\u201d[52] she says; \u201cthe few signs I used\nbecame less and less adequate, and my failures to make myself understood\nwere invariably followed by outbursts of passion. I felt as if invisible\nhands were holding me, and I made frantic efforts to free myself.\u201d And\nthen most touching, the description of her relief, \u201cthe thrill of\nsurprise, the joy of discovery,\u201d when she at last, about the age of ten,\nwas able to utter her first intelligible words. In some degree like\nHelen Keller\u2019s is perhaps the experience of every babe that is born into\nthe world.\n\nIt seems to me, therefore, that each person is practically compelled to\nthink of his \u2018self\u2019 as moving behind or as associated with or animating\nevery cell in the healthy body; and as having been so associated with\nthe first germ of the same, even though that was a thing well-nigh\ninvisible to the naked eye. You were there, you are there now, at the\nroot of your bodily life. You may not, certainly, except at moments, be\ndistinctly conscious of this your complete relation to the body; but, as\nwe have already said, the term self must be held to include the large\nsubconscious tracts which occasionally flash up into consciousness, and\nwhich, when they do so flash, almost always confirm this relation; nor\nmust we lose from sight the still more deeply buried physiological or\nanimal soul, whose operations we seem to be able to trace from earliest\ndays, guiding all the complex of organic growth and development, and\napparently conscious in its own way with a very wonderful sort of\nintelligence.[53]\n\nAll this compels us, I think, not only to picture to ourselves the\nmental self or soul as associated with the body, and taking part in its\ndevelopment from the first inception of the latter; but also to picture\nthat self as in its entirety considerably _greater_ and more extensive\nthan the ordinary conscious self, and even as greater than any bodily\nexpression or manifestation which it succeeds in gaining. We are\ncompelled, I think, to regard the real self as at all times only\n_partially_ manifested.\n\nI think this latter point is obvious; for when, and at what period in\nlife, is manifestation complete? Certainly not in babyhood, when the\nfaculties are only unfolding; certainly not in old age, when they are\ndecaying and falling away. Is it, then, in maturity and middle life? But\nduring all that period the output of expression and character in a man\nis constantly changing; and which of all these changes of raiment is\ncompletely representative? Do we not rather feel that to express our\nreal selves _every_ phase from childhood through maturity even into\nextreme old age ought to be taken into account? Nay, more than that; for\nhave we not\u2014perhaps most of us\u2014a profound feeling and conviction that\nthere are elements deep down in our natures, which never have been\nexpressed, and never can or will be expressed in our present and actual\nlives? Do we not all feel that our best is only a fraction of what we\nwant to say? And what must we think of the strange facts of multiple\npersonality? Do they not suggest that our real self has facets so\nopposite, so divergent, that for a long time they may appear quite\ndisconnected with each other; until ultimately (as has happened in\nactual cases) they have been visibly reconciled and harmonized in a new\nand more perfect character?\n\nWith regard to this view that the real person is so much greater than\nhis visible manifestation, Frederick Myers and Oliver Lodge have used\nthe simile of a ship. And it is a fine one. A ship gliding through the\nsea has a manifestation of its own, a very partial one, in the\nwaterworld below\u2014a ponderous hull moving in the upper layers of that\nworld\u2014a form encrusted with barnacles and sea-weed. But what denizen of\nthe deep could have any inkling or idea of the real life of that ship in\nthe aerial plane\u2014the glory of sails and spars trimmed to the breeze and\nglancing in the sun, the blue arch of heaven flecked with clouds, the\nleaping waves and the boundless horizon around the ship as she speeds\nonward, the ingenious provision for her voyage, the compass, the\nhelmsman and the captain directing her course? Surely (except in moments\nof divination and inspiration) we have little idea of what we really\nare! But there _are_ such moments\u2014moments of profound grief, of\npassionate love, of great and splendid angers and enthusiasms which dart\nlight back into the farthest recesses of our natures and astonish us\nwith the vision they disclose. And (perhaps more often) there are\nmoments which disclose the wonder-self in others. If we do not recognize\n(which is naturally not easy!) our own divinity, it is certain that we\ncannot really _love_ without discovering a divine being in the loved\none\u2014a being remote, resplendent, inaccessible, who calls for and indeed\ndemands our devotion, but of whom the mortal form is most obviously a\nmere symbol and disguise. There are times when this strange illumination\nfalls on people at large, and we see them as gods walking: when we look\neven on the tired overworked mother in the slum, and her face is shining\nlike heaven; or on the ploughboy in the field with his team, and see the\nmould and the material of ancient heroes. Yet of what is really nearest\nto them all the time these folk say nothing, and we are astonished to\nfind them haggling over halfpence or seriously troubled about\nwire-worms. It is as if a play, or some kind of deliberate\nmystification, were being carried on\u2014with disguises a little too thin.\nWe see, as plain as day\u2014and nothing can contravene our conclusion\u2014that\nit is only a fraction of the real person that is concerned.\n\nYour self, then, I say\u2014covering by that word not only all that you and\nyour friends usually include in it, but probably a good deal\nmore\u2014existed, with all its potentialities and capacities even in\nassociation with the first primitive germ of your present body.[54] That\ngerm was microscopic in size, and its inner workings and transformations\nwere ultra-microscopic in character. We do not know whence they\noriginated; and whether we think of the soul which was associated with\nthem as ultra-microscopic in _its_ nature or as fourth-dimensional does\nnot much matter. We only perceive that it, the soul, must have been\nthere, in an unseen world of some kind, pushing forward toward its\nmanifestation in the visible.[55] I do not think we can well escape this\nconclusion.\n\nBut if we conclude that the soul existed before Birth, or, more\nproperly, at or before conception, in some such invisible world, then\nthat it should so exist after Death is equally possible, nay, probable.\nFor after conception, by continual multiplication and differentiation of\ncells, the soul framed for itself organs of expression and\nmanifestation, and thus gradually came into our world of sight and sense\nand ordinary intelligence; and so, by some reverse process, we may\nsuppose that in decay and death the soul gradually loses these organs\nand their co\u00f6rdination, and retires into the invisible. Whatever the\nnature of this invisible may be\u2014whether, as I say, a world of things\ntoo minute for human perception, or too vast for the same, or whether a\nworld which eludes us by the simple artifice of everywhere and in\neverything running parallel to the things of the world\u2014only in another\ndimension imperceptible to us\u2014in any case it seems reasonable to\nsuppose that the soul is still _there_, fulfilling its nature and its\ndestiny, of which its earth-life has only been one episode.[56]\n\nAnd if the apparent loss of consciousness (the loss of the ordinary\nconsciousness at any rate) which often takes place during the\ndeath-change, seems to point to extinction and not to continuance, I\nthink that that need not disturb us. For in sleep, in our nightly sleep,\nthe same suspension of the ordinary consciousness takes place, as we\nvery well know; yet all the time the subconsciousness is functioning\naway\u2014sorting out sounds, bidding us wake for some, allowing us to sleep\nthrough others, discriminating disturbances, carrying on the\nphysiologies of the body, posting sentinels in the reflexes\u2014and\nguarding us from harm\u2014till untired in the morning it knits together\nagain the ravelled thread of the ordinary consciousness and renews our\nwaking activities. And if this happens in our ordinary and nightly\nsleep, it seems at any rate possible that something similar may happen\nin death. Indeed there is much evidence to show that while at the hour\nof death the supraliminal consciousness often passes into a state of\nquiescence or abeyance, the subliminal, or at any rate some portion of\nthe subliminal, becomes unusually active. Audition grows strangely\nkeen\u2014so much so that it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the\nthings heard have been apprehended by extension of the ordinary faculty\nor whether by a species of clairaudience. Vision similarly passes into\nclairvoyance, the patient becomes extraordinarily sensitive to\ntelepathic influences, and knows what is going on at a distance;[57] and\nnot only so, but he radiates influences _to_ a distance. All the\nphenomena of wraiths and dying messages, now so well substantiated\u2014of\napparitions and impressions projected with force at the moment of death\ninto the minds of distant friends\u2014prove clearly the increased activity\nand vitality (one may say) of the subliminal self at that time; and this\npoints, as I say, not to extinction and disorganization, but perhaps to\nthe transfer of consciousness more decisively into hidden regions of our\nbeing. One hears sometimes of a dying person who, prevented from\ndeparture by the tears and entreaties of surrounding friends, cries out\n\u201cOh! _let_ me die!\u201d and one remembers the case, above mentioned, of the\napparently dead mother who, so to speak, called herself back to life by\nthe thought of her orphaned children. Such cases as these do not look\nlike loss of continuity; rather they look as if a keen intelligence were\nstill there, well aware of its earth-life, but drawn onward by an\ninevitable force, and passing into a new phase, of swifter subtler\nactivity in perhaps a more ethereal body.\n\nThat the human soul does pass through great transformations\u2014moultings\nand sloughings and metamorphoses\u2014and so forward from one stage to\nanother, we know from the facts of life. Physiologically the body takes\non a new phase at birth, and another at weaning and teething, and\nanother at puberty, and another in age at the \u2018change of life,\u2019 and so\non; and transformations of the soul or inner life (some of them very\nremarkable) are associated with these outer phases. The last great\nbodily change is obviously accompanied\u2014as we have just indicated\u2014by\nthe development or extension of hidden psychic powers. What exactly that\nfinal transformation may be, we can only at present speculate; but we\ncan see that, like the others, when it arrives it has already become\nvery necessary and inevitable. At every such former stage\u2014whether it be\nbirth, or teething, or puberty, or what not\u2014there has been constriction\nor strangulation. The growing inner life has found its conditions too\nlimited for it, and has burst forth into new form and utterance. In this\nfinal change the bodily conditions altogether seem to have grown too\nlimited. With an irresistible impulse and an agonizing joy of liberation\nthe soul sweeps out, or is fearfully swept, into its new sphere.\nSometimes doubtless the passage is one of pain and terror; far more\noften, and in the great majority of cases, it is peaceful and calm, with\na deep sense of relief; occasionally it is radiant with ecstasy, as if\nthe new life already cast its splendor in advance.[58]\n\nYes, we cannot withhold the belief that there is an after-death state\u2014a\nstate which in a sense is present with us, and has been present, all our\nlives; but which\u2014for reasons that at present we can only vaguely\napprehend\u2014has been folded from our consciousness.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER VIII\n\n  THE UNDERLYING SELF\n\n\nAllowing, then, the great probability of the existence of an after-death\nstate, and of a survival of some kind, the question further arises: Is\nthat survival in any sense personal or individual? or does it belong to\nsome, so to speak, formless region, either below or above personality?\nIt is conceivable of course that there may be survival of the outer and\nbeggarly elements of the mind, below personality; or it is conceivable\nthat the deepest and most central core of the man may survive, far\nbeyond and above personality; but in either case the _individual_\nexistence may not continue. The eternity of the All-soul or Self of the\nuniverse is, I take it, a basic fact; it is from a certain point of view\nobvious; we have already discussed it, and, as far as this book is\nconcerned, it is treated so much as an axiom that to argue further\nwithout it would be useless. That being granted, it follows that if the\nsoul of each human being roots down ultimately into that All-self, the\ncore of each soul _must_ partake of the eternal nature. But as far as it\ndoes so it _may_ be beyond all reach or remembrance or recognition of\npersonality.\n\nSuch a conclusion\u2014whatever force of conviction may accompany it\u2014is\ncertainly not altogether satisfactory. I remember that once\u2014in the\ncourse of conversation with a lady on this very subject\u2014she remarked\nthat though she thought there would be a future life she did not\nbelieve in the continuance of individuality. \u201cWhat do you believe in,\nthen?\u201d said I. \u201cOh,\u201d she replied, \u201cI think we shall be a sort of Happy\nMass!\u201d And I have always since remembered that expression.\n\nBut though the idea of a happy mass has its charms, it does not, as I\nsay, quite satisfy either our feelings or our intelligence. There is a\ndesire for something more, and there is a perception that\nDifferentiation and Individuation represent a great law\u2014a law so great\nas probably to extend even to the ultimate modes of Being. And though a\nvague generality of this kind cannot stand in the place of strict\nreasoning or observation, it may make us feel that personal survival is\nat any rate possible, and that a certain amount of speculation on the\nsubject is legitimate.\n\nAt the same time we have to bear in mind that the subject altogether is\na very complex one, and that we have to move only slowly, if we want to\nmove forward at all, and to avoid having to retrace our steps. We must\nnot too serenely assume, for instance, that we at all know what we are!\nWe have already (ch. v.) analyzed to some degree the constitution of the\nhuman being, and found it complicated enough in its successive planes of\ndevelopment. We have now to remember that\u2014at least on the two middle\nplanes, those of the human soul and the animal soul\u2014there is another\nsubdivision to be made, namely between that part which is conscious and\nthat which is only subconscious; so that further complications\ninevitably arise. We may not only have to consider, as in the chapter\nreferred to, which of these planes may possibly carry survival with it,\nbut again whether such survival may be in the conscious region, or only\nin the subliminal or subconscious. This chapter will be largely occupied\nwith a consideration of the subliminal or underlying portion of the\nself, and it will be seen that that is probably of immense extent and\nvariety of content compared with the surface or conscious portion; but\nit will also be seen that there is no strict line of demarcation between\nthe two, and that a continual interchange betwixt them is taking place,\nso that for the present at any rate it is safest to give the word \u2018self\u2019\nits widest scope and make it include both portions and every mental\nfaculty, rather than limit its application.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nIn attacking the subject, then, of the Survival of the Self, I suppose\nour first question ought to be: What is the test of survival, what do we\nmean by it? And to this, I imagine, the answer is, Continuity of\nConsciousness. This would seem to be the only satisfying definition.\nConsciousness is necessary in some form or other, as the base and\nevidence of our existence; and continuity in some degree is also\nnecessary, in order to link our experiences together, as it were into\none chain. Continuity, however, need not be absolute. The chain of\nconsciousness may apparently be broken by sleep, or it may be broken by\na dose of chloroform, or by a blow on the head; but it may be re-knit\nand resumed. It may pass from the supraliminal state to the subliminal,\nand again emerge on the surface. It may even be discontinuous; but as\nlong as Memory bridges the intervals we get the _sense_ of continuity of\nlife or personality.[59] Supposing a body of memories\u2014of life say in\nsome village of ancient Egypt\u2014suddenly opened up in one\u2019s mind, as\nvivid and consistent and enduring as one\u2019s ordinary memory of childhood\ndays, it would be natural to conclude that one really had pre-existed in\nthat village; it would be difficult not to make that inference. And\nsimilarly if at some future time, and in far other than our present\nsurroundings, the memory of this one\u2019s earth-life should emerge again,\nvivid and personal as now, the being thus having that memory would, we\nsuppose, conclude that he had once lived this life here on earth.\n\nThus Memory would be the arbiter of survival and of the continuity (on\nthe whole) of consciousness. Frederick Myers, indeed, goes so far as to\ndefine consciousness as that which is \u201cpotentially memorable\u201d[60]\u2014thus\nsuggesting that memory is a necessary accompaniment of any psychic state\nto which we can venture to give the name of consciousness.\n\nIt may indeed seem precarious to rest our test of survival on so\nnotoriously fallible, and even at times fallacious, a thing as Memory;\nbut one does not see that there is anything better, or that there is any\nalternative! The memory may not be continuously enduring and operative;\nbut if at any future time one should be persuaded of having survived\nfrom this present life, it must, one would say, be by memory in some\nform or other, _of_ this present life. And it must be remarked that\nthough memory is fitful and fallible, these epithets apply mainly to the\nsupraliminal memory, to that superficial memory which we make use of by\nconscious effort, and which often fails us in the moment of need. Deep\nbelow this we dimly perceive, and daily are becoming more persuaded of,\nthe existence of vast and permanent but latent stores, which from time\nto time emerge into manifestation; and more and more our psychologists\nare inclining to think that the supraliminal self gains its memories by\ntapping these stores, and that its lapses and oblivions are more due to\nfailure in the tapping process than to any failure of the memory stores\nthemselves. Indeed not a few psychologists are now asking whether it is\nnot likely that _every_ psychic experience carries memory with it, and\nso is preserved in the great storehouse.\n\nI have already, in the last chapter, spoken of the so-called subliminal\nself as, among other things, a wonderful storehouse of memory; and I\npropose now to occupy a few pages with the more detailed consideration\nof the nature of that self; because, as we are discussing the question\nof survival, our discussion, as I have just said, ought obviously to\ninclude the under as well as the upper strata of consciousness. We\ncannot very well confine our meaning and our inquiry to the little\nbrain-self only, and leave out of consideration the great self of the\nemotions and impulses\u2014of genius, love, enthusiasm, and so forth.[61]\nNo, we must include both\u2014the more intimate, though more hidden, self,\nas well as the self of the fa\u00e7ade and the front window.\n\nThis hidden self is indeed an astounding thing, whose extent and\ncomplexity grows upon us as investigation proceeds. For when the term\n\u2018subliminal\u2019 was first used it had apparently a fairly simple\nconnotation\u2014as of some _one_ obscure and unexplored chamber of the\nmind; but now instead of a single chamber it would seem rather some vast\nhouse or palace at whose door we stand, with many chambers and\ncorridors\u2014some dark and underground, some spacious and well lighted and\nfurnished, some lofty with extensive outlook and open to the sky; and\nthe modern psychologists are puzzling themselves to find suitable names\nfor all these new domains\u2014which indeed they cannot satisfactorily do,\nseeing they know so little of their geography!\n\nI can only attempt here\u2014very roughly I am afraid, and\nunsystematically\u2014to point out _some_ of the properties and qualities of\nthe underlying or hidden or subconscious self\u2014whichever term we may\nlike to use. In the first place, its memory appears to be little short\nof perfect, and at any rate to our ordinary intelligence and estimate,\nnothing short of marvellous. When a servant girl, who can neither read\nnor write, reproduces, in her wandering speech during a nervous fever,\nwhole sentences of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, which she could not\npossibly understand, and which had only fallen quite casually on her\nears years before from the lips of an old scholar (who used to recite\npassages to himself as he walked up and down a room adjoining the\nkitchen in which the girl at that time worked[62]); we perceive that the\nunder or latent memory _may_ catch and retain for a lengthy period, and\nwith strange accuracy, the most fleeting and apparently superficial\nimpressions. When Dr. Milne Bramwell instructs a hypnotized subject to\nmake a cross on a bit of paper exactly 20,180 minutes after the giving\nof the order; and the patient, having of course emerged from the\nhypnotic sleep, and gone about her daily work, and having no conscious\nremembrance of the command, does nevertheless at the expiration of the\nstated number of days and minutes take a piece of paper and make the\nsaid cross upon it,[63] we can only marvel both at the persistence and\naccuracy of memory which the subliminal being displays, and at the\nstrict command which this being may exercise in its silent way over the\nactions of the supraliminal self. When we are repeatedly told that in\nthe moment of drowning, people remember every action and event of their\npast life, though we may doubt the exact force of the word \u2018every,\u2019 we\ncannot but be convinced that an enormous and astounding resurgence of\nmemory does take place,[64] and we cannot but suspect that the\nmemorization is somehow on a different plane of consciousness from the\nusual one, being simultaneous and in mass instead of linear and\nsuccessive. Or when, again, a \u2018calculating boy\u2019 or prodigy of quite\ntender years on being asked to find the cube-root of 31,855,013\ninstantly says 317, or being given the number 17,861 immediately remarks\nthat it consists of the factors 337 \u00d7 53,[65] we are reduced to the\nalternative suppositions, either that the boy\u2019s subconscious self works\nout these sums with a perfectly amazing rapidity, or that it has access\nto stores of memory and knowledge quite beyond the experience of the\nlife-time concerned. In all these cases, and hundreds and thousands of\nothers which have been observed, the memory of the subliminal\nself\u2014whether manifested through hypnotism, or in sleep or dreams, or in\nother ways\u2014seems to exceed in range and richness, as well as in\nrapidity, the memory of the supraliminal self; and indeed Myers goes so\nfar as to say that the deeper down one penetrates below the\nsupraliminal, the more perfect is the remembrance: that, in cases where\none can reach various planes of memory in the same subject, \u201cit is the\nmemory furthest from waking life whose span is the widest, whose grasp\nof the organism\u2019s upstored impressions is the most profound.\u201d[66] This\nis, I think, a very important conclusion, and one to which we may recur\nlater.\n\nBut the hidden being within us does not show this extraordinary command\nof mental processes merely in technical matters. Its powers extend far\ndeeper, into such regions as those of Genius and Prophecy. The wonderful\nflashes of intuition, the complex combinations of ideas, which at times\nleap fully formed and with a kind of authority into the field of man\u2019s\nwaking consciousness, obviously proceed from a deep intelligence of some\nkind, lying below, and are the product of an immensely extended and\nrapid survey of things, brought to a sudden focus. They yield us the\nfinest flowers of Art; and some at any rate of the most remarkable\ninstances of Prediction. For though there may be\u2014and probably is\u2014a\npurely clairvoyant prophetic gift, freed as it were from the obscuration\nof Time, yet it cannot be doubted that much or most of prophecy is\nsimply very swift and conclusive inference derived from very extensive\nobservation.\n\nThese flashes and inspirations are clearly not the product of the\nconscious brain; they are felt by the latter to come from beyond it.\nThey are, in the language of Myers, \u201cuprushes from the subliminal self.\u201d\nAnd even beyond them there are things which come from the same\nsource\u2014there are splendid enthusiasms, and overwhelming impulses of\nself-sacrifice, as well as mad and d\u00e6monic passions.\n\nYet again, it is not merely command of _mental_ processes that the\nsubconscious being displays, but of the bodily powers and processes too.\nIntelligent itself to the marvellous degrees already indicated, it is\nevident also that its intelligence penetrates and ordains the whole\nbody. Every one has heard of the _stigmata_ of the Crucifixion appearing\non the hands and feet of some religious devotee, as in the celebrated\ncase of Louise Lateau. Dr. Briggs of Lima once told a hypnotized patient\nthat \u201ca red cross would appear on her chest every Friday during a period\nof four months\u201d\u2014and obediently the mark appeared.[67] A whisper in such\ncases is often sufficient; and the latent power swiftly but effectually\nmodifies all the complex activities and functions of the organism to\nproduce the desired result. What an extraordinary combination of\nelaborate intelligence and detailed organizing power must here be at\nwork! And the same in the quite common yet very remarkable cases of\nmental healing, with which we are all now familiar!\n\nSometimes again\u2014quite apart from any oral suggestion or apparent\noutside influence\u2014we find the subjective being taking most decisive\ncommand of a person\u2019s faculties and actions. This happens, for instance,\nin somnambulism, when the sleepwalker perhaps passes along the narrow\nand perilous ridge of a roof or wall with perfect balance and sureness\nof foot\u2014adjusting a hundred muscles in the most delicate way, and yet\nwith total unconsciousness as far as the supraliminal self is concerned.\nOr it happens sometimes\u2014even more remarkably\u2014to people in full\npossession of their waking faculties, at some moment when extreme danger\nthreatens to overwhelm them. John Muir in his _The Mountains of\nCalifornia_,[68] describes how when scaling the very precipitous face of\na cliff he found himself completely baffled, at a great height from the\nground, and unable to proceed either up or down. He was seized with\npanic and a trembling in every limb, and was on the point of falling,\nwhen suddenly a perfect calm and assurance took possession of him, and\nsomehow\u2014he never quite knew how\u2014with an astonishing agility and\nsure-footedness he completed the ascent, and was saved. \u201cI seemed\nsuddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other Self\u2014bygone\nexperiences, Instinct or Guardian Angel, call it what you will\u2014came\nforward and assumed control. My trembling muscles became firm again,\nevery rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my\nlimbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to\nhave nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my\ndeliverance could not have been more complete.\u201d\n\nM\u00e6terlinck, in his chapter on \u201cThe Psychology of Accident\u201d (in _Life and\nFlowers_), describes how in the nerve-commotion of danger, Instinct, \u201ca\nrugged, brutal, naked, muscular figure,\u201d rushes to the rescue. \u201cWith a\nglance that is surer and swifter than the onrush of the peril, it takes\nin the situation, then and there unravels all its details, issues and\npossibilities, and in a trice affords a magnificent, an unforgettable\nspectacle of strength, courage, precision, and will, in which\nunconquered life flies at the throat of death.\u201d And similar\ninstances\u2014of instinctive presence of mind, and an almost miraculous\ndevelopment of faculty in extreme danger\u2014are within the knowledge of\nmost people. The subliminal being steps in quite decisively, and the\nordinary conscious mind _feels_ that another power is taking over the\nreins.\n\nBut there is another faculty of the subjacent self which must not be\npassed over, and which is very important\u2014I mean the image-forming\npower. This is one of the prime faculties of all intelligent beings,\nlying at the very root of creation; and it is a faculty possessed to an\nextreme and impressive degree by the self \u201cbehind the scenes.\u201d I have\ndiscussed this subject generally at some length in my book _The Art of\nCreation_, and need not repeat the matter here, except to allude to a\nfew points. The image-forming faculty is a natural attribute of the\nconscious mind, in all perhaps but the lowest grades of evolution; at\nany rate it is difficult to think of a mind at all like ours _without_\nthis faculty. This faculty is most active when the mind is withdrawn\ninto itself, in quietude. In his study or when burning the midnight oil\nthe writer\u2019s brain teems, or is supposed to teem, with images! But in\nsleep the image-forming activity is even greater. It then shows itself\nin the subconscious mind, in the world of dreams, whose bodiless\ncreations are more vivid and energetic than those of our waking hours,\nand have a strange sense of _reality_ about them. But again, in the\ndeeper sleep of trance still more vivid images are produced. A young\nstudent hypnotized imagines himself to be Napoleon, then to be\nGaribaldi, then to be an old woman of ninety, then to be a mere child.\nHe acts the parts of these characters, imitates their handwriting, their\nvoices, issues proclamations to his soldiers in the name of the first\ntwo, assumes the shaky penmanship of childhood and of old age; and all\nin the course of half-an-hour or so.[69] The images thus formed in the\ndeep trance of the young man are so vivid, so powerful, so dramatic,\nthat they take possession of the organism and compel it to become the\nmeans of their manifestation. In mediumistic trance the same thing\nhappens. There may be suggestion from outside, or there may not, but in\nthe depth of the medium\u2019s mind images are formed which speak and act\nthrough the entranced person, making use in doing so of the marvellous\nstores of memory and knowledge which the inner mind has at command, and\nsorely puzzling the spectators at times, as to whether the performance\nis merely histrionic or whether by chance it indicates a _bona fide_\ncommunication from the dead.[70]\n\nThis energetic dramatic quality of the image-forming faculty is\ntremendously important. It has not been enough insisted upon; and it has\nbeen greatly misunderstood and misrepresented. It is, as I say, a\nroot-property of creation. It is seen everywhere in the healthy activity\nof the human mind, in its delight in romance and imagination, in the\nplay of children, the stage, literature, art, scientific invention\u2014the\nsheer joy of creation, going on everywhere and always. Lay the conscious\nand controlling and selective power of the upper mind at rest, in the\ntrance-condition, and you have in the deeps of the subliminal self this\nprimal creative power exposed. Offer to it the lightest suggestion, and\nthere springs forth from that abyss a figure corresponding, or a dozen\nfigures, or a whole procession! The mere delight of creation calls them\nforth. Could anything be more wonderful? What a strange glimpse it gives\nus of the possibilities of Creation.\n\nSome people seem to be quite shocked at the idea that this subliminal\nmind, or whatever it is that possesses these marvellous powers, should\nact these parts, and lend itself to unsubstantial and quasi-fraudulent\nrepresentations. But why accuse of deception? It is a game\u2014the great\ngame we are all of us playing\u2014the whole Creation romancing away; with\nendless inexhaustible fertility throwing out images, ideas, new shapes\nand forms forever. Those forms which hold their own, which substantiate\nthemselves, which fill a place, fulfil a need\u2014they win their way into\nthe actual world and become the originals of the plants, the animals,\nhuman beings, works of art, and so forth, which we know. Those which\ncannot hold their own pass back again into the unseen. In the far depths\nof the entranced medium\u2019s mind we see this abysmal process going\non\u2014this fountain-like production of images taking place\u2014the very\nbeginnings of creation. It is the sheer joy of manifestation. As one\ngives a musician a mere hint or clue\u2014a theme of three or four\nnotes\u2014and immediately he improvises a spirited piece of music; so is it\nwith the hypnotized person or with the medium. One gives him a\nsuggestion and he immediately creates the figures according. And so it\nis for us, to direct this wonderful power, even in ourselves\u2014not to\ncall it fraudulent, but to make use of it for splendid ends.\n\nDoubtless it can be used for unworthy ends. It is easy to understand\nthat the mediumistic person, finding this wonderful dramatic and\ncreative faculty within himself or herself, is sometimes tempted to turn\nit to personal advantage; and succumbs to the temptation. The dramatic\nhabit catches hold of the waking self, and renders the person tricky and\nunreliable.[71] But below it all is creation, and the instinct of\ncreation\u2014the power that gives to airy nothing a local habitation, the\ngenius of the dramatist, of the artist, of the inventor, and the _very\nsource of the visible and tangible world_.\n\nFor from the Under-self\u2014as exposed in the state of trance, or in\nextreme languor and exhaustion of the body, or in the moment of death,\nor in dreams, or even in profound reverie\u2014proceed (strange as it may\nseem) Voices and Visions and Forms, things audible and visible and\ntangible, things anyhow which are competent to impress the senses of\nspectators so vividly as to be for the moment indistinguishable from the\nphenomena, audible, visible and tangible, of our actual world. Amazing\nas are the materializations connected with mediums\u2014the figures which\nappear, which speak, which touch and are touched, the faces, the\nsupernumerary feet and hands, the sounds, the lights, the movements of\nobjects\u2014all in some way connected with the medium\u2019s presence\u2014these\nphenomena are now far too well established and confirmed by careful and\nscientific observation to admit (in the mass) of any reasonable\ndoubt.[72] And similarly with the wraiths, or phantoms which are\nprojected from dying or lately dead persons, the evidence for them in\ngeneral is much too abundant and well attested to allow of\ndisbelief.[73] What an extraordinary story, for instance, is that given\nby Sir Oliver Lodge in his _Survival of Man_ (p. 101)\u2014of a workman who\nhaving drunk poison by mistake, appeared in the moment of death, with\nblue and blotched face to his employer, to whom he was greatly attached,\nand told him not to be deceived by the rumor that he (the workman) had\ncommitted suicide! Yet the story is fully and authoritatively given in\nthe _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_, vol. iii. p.\n97, and cannot well be set aside. But if such things happen in the hour\nof death, so do they also happen in the dream-state.[74] The dreamer has\na vivid dream of visiting a certain person, and is accordingly and at\nthat time, seen by that person. And in the state of reverie the same. It\nis at times sufficient to think profoundly of any one, or to let one\u2019s\ninner self go out toward that person in order to cause an image of\noneself to be seen by him.\n\nIt will of course be said, and often is said, that those phenomena are\nonly hallucinations, and have no objective existence. But the sufficient\nanswer to that is that the things also of our actual world are\nhallucinations in their degree, and certainly have no full objective\nexistence. The daffodil in my garden is an hallucination in that degree\nthat with the smallest transposition of my senses, its color, its scent,\nand even its form might be quite altered. What we call its objectivity\nrests on the permanence of its relations\u2014on its continued appearance in\none spot, its visibility to different people at one time, or to one\nperson at different times, and so forth. But if that is the definition\nof objectivity, it is obvious that the forms which have been seen over\nand over again, and under strict test-conditions, in connection with\ncertain mediums, have had in their degree an objective existence.\n\nIn America, in connection with Kate Fox (one of the earliest and most\nspontaneous and natural of modern mediums), a certain Mr. Livermore\u2014a\nthoroughly capable business man of New York\u2014came into communication as\nit seemed with his deceased wife. She appeared to him\u2014not in one house\nonly, but in several houses\u2014over and over again; sometimes only the\nhead, sometimes the whole figure; her appearance was accompanied by\ninexplicable sounds and lights; she communicated sometimes by raps,\nsometimes by visibly writing on blank cards brought for the purpose; and\nthese phenomena extended over a period of six years and 388 recorded\nsittings, and at many of the sittings were corroborated by independent\nwitnesses.[75] It is difficult to imagine hallucinations or deceit\nmaintained under such circumstances.\n\nIn England (in connection with the medium Florence Cook) the figure\n\u201cKatie King\u201d appeared to Sir William Crookes a great number of times\nduring three years (1881\u201384) and was studied by him and Mr. C. F.\nVarley, F.R.S., with the greatest scientific care. Her apparition often\nspoke to those present, was touched by, and touched them, wrote, or\nplayed with the children. It often came outside the cabinet, and three\ntimes was seen by those present simultaneously with, and by the side of,\nthe entranced medium. The figure was taller than the medium and\ndifferent in feature; Crookes observed its pulse and found it making 75\nbeats a minute to the medium\u2019s 90, and so forth.[76]\n\nProfessor Richet, the French scientist, examined with great care the\nphantasm \u201cBeni Boa,\u201d which appeared to him some twenty times in\nconnection with the Algerian medium Aisha; he obtained several\nphotographs of it, and observed its pulse, its respiration, and so\nforth.[77] Lombroso, the author of many scientific works, and a man who\nto begin with was a complete sceptic on these matters, assures us that\nat the sittings of Eusapia Paladino he saw his own mother (long dead) a\ngreat number of times, and that she repeatedly kissed him.[78] In\nconnection with Mme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance[79] the girlish figure of \u201cYolanda\u201d\nappeared and disappeared very frequently during a period of ten years,\nand was well known to frequenters of her circle; and in 1896 a committee\nformed by some twenty-five high officials and well-known persons in\nNorway publicly attested the repeated appearance at her seances of a\nvery beautiful female figure who glided among the sitters, grasped their\nhands, gave them messages, and so forth, and disappeared before their\neyes in a misty cloud.[80] Such evidence of the objectivity of seance\nfigures could be rather indefinitely multiplied. But the same may be\nsaid, though perhaps less conclusively, of various ghosts and other\nmanifestations, whose relations to certain persons or places or houses\nseem quite definite and well established\u2014and not unfrequently steadily\nrecurrent under the same conditions.[81]\n\nWithout going into the vexed question of whether these and the like\nmanifestations are merely products or inventions of the trance-mind of\nthe medium or other person concerned, or whether some at least of them\nare the work or evidence of separate \u2018spirits\u2019\u2014leaving that question\nopen for the present\u2014we may still say that all these things are actual\ncreations\u2014creations of the hidden self of Man in some form or other;\nnot so assured, certainly, and not so permanent as the well-known shapes\nof outer Nature; abortive creations, if you like, which come a little\nway forward into manifestation, and then retreat again; but still\ncreations in the same sense as those more established ones; and\nwonderfully revealing to us the secret of the generation and birth of\nall the visible world.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nThat we should have, all of us, this magic source somewhere buried\nwithin\u2014this Aladdin\u2019s lamp, this vase of the Djinns, this Pandora box\nof evil as well as of good, is indeed astounding; and must cause us,\nwhen we have once fully realized the fact, to envisage life quite\ndifferently from what we have ever done before. It must cause us to feel\nthat our very ordinary and daily self\u2014which we know so well (and which\nsometimes we even get a little tired of) is only a fraction, only a flag\nand a signal, of that great Presence which we really are, that great\nMass-man who lies unexplored behind the very visible and actual.\nDifficult or impossible as this being may be to define, enormously\ncomplex as it probably is, and far-reaching, and hard to gauge, yet we\nsee that it is _there_, undeniably there\u2014a being that apparently\nincludes far extremes of faculty and character, running parallel to the\nconscious self from low to high levels,[82] having in its range of\nmanifestation the most primitive desires and passions, and the highest\nfeats of intellect and enthusiasm; and while at times capable of\naccepting the most frivolous suggestions and of behaving in a humorous\nor merely capricious and irresponsible manner, at other times capable,\nas we have seen, of taking most serious command and control of the whole\nphysical organism, and as far as the spiritual organism is concerned, of\nrising to the greatest heights of prophecy and inspiration.[83]\n\nI say, then, that we must include in this problem of survival both the\nordinary upper and conscious self and the deep-lying subjective and\nsubconscious (or superconscious) being. Just as the organizing power of\nthe Body includes the Cerebro-spinal system of nerves on the one hand,\nand the Great-Sympathetic system on the other, so the organism of the\nsoul includes the supraliminal and subliminal portions. The two must be\ntaken together, and either alone could only represent a fraction of the\nreal person. The exact relation of these two selves to each other is a\nmatter which can only become clear with long time and study of this\ndifficult subject. It may be that the subliminal self is destined to\nbecome conscious in our ordinary sense of the word. It may be, on the\nother hand, that the conscious self is destined to rise into the much\nwider consciousness of the subjective being. There is a great deal to\nsuggest that the supraliminal self is only the front as it were of the\ngreat wave of life; and that the brain consciousness is only a very\nspecial instrument for dealing with the surroundings and conditions of\nour terrestrial existence\u2014an instrument which will surrender much of\nits value at death and on mergence with the larger and differently\nconstituted consciousness which underruns and sustains it. That the two\nselves are in constant communication with each other, and that they are\nboth intelligent in some sense, is obvious from the facts of\n_suggestion_, by which often the lightest whisper so to speak from the\nupper is understood and attended to by the under self; while, on the\nother hand, the under-self communicates with the upper, sometimes by\ninner Voices heard and Visions seen, sometimes by automatic actions, as\nin dream- or trance-writing, sometimes even by Sounds and Apparitions so\npowerful as to _appear_ at least external.\n\nSo we cannot but think that the question of survival may ultimately\nresolve itself very much into the question of the more complete and\neffectual understanding between these different portions of the self.\nWhen they come into clear relation with each other, when the unit-man\nand the Mass-man merge into a perfect understanding and harmony, when\nthey both become conscious of their affiliation to the great Self of the\nuniverse, then the problem will be solved\u2014or we may perhaps say, the\nproblem will cease to exist.\n\n\n  NOTE TO CHAPTER VIII\n\n  ON TRANCE-PHENOMENA\n\nIt may seem rash or unbalanced to dwell, in the preceding chapters, on\ntrance and mediumistic phenomena as much as I have done, considering\nthat they are in some sense abnormal\u2014that is, they are unusual, and\ncomparatively few people have an opportunity of verifying them; also\nthey may (it is said) be abnormal in the sense of being the products of\nconditions so special or even so morbid that conclusions drawn from them\ncan have no general importance or value.\n\nThere is a certain fashion in such matters, and with large sections of\nthe public and during a long period it has no doubt been the habit\nsimply to dismiss all consideration of this subject, as for one reason\nor another unadvisable. But now these phenomena in general (or enough of\nthem to constitute a solid body of observation) are so thoroughly\ncorroborated that it would be mere affectation to pass them by; and the\nbest science nowadays refuses to ignore exceptional happenings on\naccount of their exceptionality\u2014recognizing that these very happenings\noften afford the key to the explanation of more common events.\n\nThe phenomena connected with mediums and seances have been so amazing\nand unexpected that they have often produced a kind of fear and dismay.\nThe religious people have been terrified at the prospect of having to\nacknowledge miracles not connected with the Church; or of having to\nconfess to the resurrection of John Smith as well as of Jesus Christ.\nThe scientific folk (in many or most quarters) being always just on the\npoint of completing their pet scheme of the universe\u2014whatever it may\nhappen to be at the time\u2014have naturally been in no mood to admit new\nfacts which would totally disarrange their systems; and have, therefore,\nwith a few brilliant exceptions, consistently closed their eyes or\nlooked another way. And the general public, not without reason, has\nfeared to embark on a subject which might easily float it away from the\ndry land of practical life, into one knows not what sea of doubt or even\ndelusion.\n\nBut these difficulties attend at all times the introduction of a new\nsubject\u2014or at least of one which is new to the generation concerned;\nand can of course not be allowed to interfere with the candid and\nimpartial examination of the subject, or with the assimilation, as far\nas feasible, of its message. It should certainly, I think, be admitted\nthat there are dangers attending the new science\u2014or rather attending\nthe hasty and careless investigation of it\u2014just as there are attending\nany other science. There is no doubt that the phenomena connected with\nit are so astounding that they in some cases unhinge people\u2019s minds, or\nat least for the time upset them; and what we have already said once or\ntwice of the frequent bodily exhaustion of the Medium, not to mention\nthe occasional exhaustion of the sitters, must convince us that the\ngreatest care should be exercised in connection with trance-conditions,\nand that the whole subject should be studied with a view to discovering\nits proper and best handling. It is clear\u2014whatever view is taken of the\nprocess\u2014that a certain disintegration of the organism, and even of the\npersonality of the medium, is liable to occur, one portion of the\norganism acting in a manner and under influences foreign to another\nportion, and that such disintegration oft repeated or long continued may\nbe liable to produce a permanent degeneration of physique or even\npossibly demoralization of character. If there is a danger in this\ndirection\u2014and the extent of the danger should certainly be\ngauged\u2014equally certainly it ought to be minimized or averted by the\nproper conditions. On the other hand, while noting this danger, we\nshould not leave out of mind that some evidence points in the other\ndirection\u2014namely, to the favorable effects and influences of trance\nwhen rightly conducted.[84] We may also in this connection allude to the\nchanged attitude of the general mind to-day toward Hypnotism\u2014a subject\nallied to that which we are considering. Fifty years ago the word had a\nsinister sound, and hypnotism and mesmerism were thought to be\ninventions of the devil and agencies of all evil. To-day they are\nrecognized as a great power for good, and in at least two hospitals (in\nFrance) as the main instrument of healing. Naturally, when people are\nignorant of a subject, or only in the first stages of knowledge with\nregard to it, they mishandle and misunderstand it. It may well happen\ntherefore that with better understanding of mediumship and\ntrance-conditions, some of their drawbacks or less favorable aspects may\npass out of sight.\n\nMediums and trance-phenomena\u2014prophecy, second sight, speaking in\nstrange tongues, the appearance of flames and lights, and of figures\napparently from the dead\u2014are things that have been known all down\nhistory, and recognized almost as a matter of course, both among quite\nprimitive peoples like the Kaffirs, or the Aleuts or the Mongolians, or\namong the more cultured like the Greeks, the Romans, the Hindus,\nChinese, and so forth. The Bible teems with references to wizards and\n\u201cnecromancers\u201d (note the meaning of the word); and the story of the\nWitch of Endor gives us a penetrating glimpse into what was evidently a\ncommon practice of \u201cconsultation.\u201d These phenomena have never been so\ncommon as to break up and disorganize the routine of ordinary life, yet\nthey have always been there, and recognized, as on the fringe or\nborderland\u2014in somewhat the same way as the knowledge or recognition of\nDeath does not interfere with daily life or prevent us making\nengagements; though we know it _may_ do so at any time. And beyond any\ndirect uses that trance-communication and manifestations may have now,\nor may have had in the past (a matter on which no doubt there is a good\ndeal of difference of opinion), we may fairly suppose that as examples\nof real things and of a real world lying just outside the sphere of our\nordinary and actual experience they may be of immense value\u2014both as\ndelivering us from a cramped and petty belief that we have already\nfathomed the possibilities of the universe, and as giving us just a hint\nand a glimpse of directions in which we may fairly look for the future.\nThat we should for the present be limited for the most part to a\ndefinite sphere of activity, or to a definite region of creation, seems\nonly natural. \u201cOne world, please, at a time!\u201d said Thoreau when on his\ndeathbed he was plagued by some pious person about the future life; and\nif _we_ in our daily life were entangled in the manifestations of two\nvery different planes of existence it might be greatly baffling. At the\nsame time, the occasional hint or message from another plane may be of\nthe greatest help.\n\nCondensations and manifestations (as of beings from such other plane)\nmay be abnormal at present. They may be rare, they may occur under\nunexpected and even unhealthy conditions, they may cause dislocations of\nmind and of morals, they may be confused and confusing. All these things\nwe should indeed in some degree _expect_; and yet it may not follow that\nthese objections will continue. It is quite possible that in the future\nthey will disappear. As I have had occasion to say many times, every new\nmovement or manifestation of human activity, when unfamiliar to people\u2019s\nminds, is sure to be misrepresented and misunderstood. It appears in\nhumble guise, without backing or patronage, forcing its way to light in\nthe most unlikely places, \u201cto the Jews a stumbling-block, to the Greeks\nfoolishness,\u201d often distorted and out of shape owing to its very\nbirth-struggles, and for the very same reason diffident at first and\nuncertain of its own mission. Possibly a time is coming when Mediumship,\ninstead of being left over (as not unfrequently now) to quite ignorant\nand uncultured specimens of humanity, and being exercised in haphazard,\ncareless fashion, or for monetary gain, or personal vanity, will be\nlooked upon as a sacred and responsible office, worthy of and requiring\nconsiderable preparation and instruction, demanding the respect of the\npublic, yet thoroughly criticized, both in method and result, by\nintelligent examination and logic. Possibly a time is coming when\nmessages and manifestations from another plane than that of our daily\nlife will come to us under the most obviously healthy and sane\nconditions, and will be fully recognized as having value and even, in\ntheir way, authority.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nFor the present\u2014allowing (as I do) the absolute genuineness of a great\nbody of \u201cspiritualistic\u201d phenomena\u2014there still is (owing to various\ncauses already indicated) considerable doubt as to _who_ or _what_ the\nmanifesting beings or forces are. I suppose the main theories on the\nsubject may be gathered under the following heads: that the manifesting\npowers are (1) Images, more or less unconsciously projected from the\nMedium\u2019s own mind; or, in case of raps, and so forth, emissions of force\nfrom the medium\u2019s body; (2) that they are the same projected from the\nminds or bodies of other persons present; (3) that they are independent\nBeings, making _use_ of the medium\u2019s or other person\u2019s organism for the\npurpose of expression; or (4) that there is a blending of these actions.\n\nI think everyone who has studied the matter practically admits the first\nexplanation in some degree; most people perhaps allow the second and\nfourth; but a good many\u2014though not all\u2014exclude the third. With regard,\nhowever, to this last theory (that there really are occasional messages\nor manifestations from the dead\u2014or from \u201cthe other side\u201d) there\ncertainly seems to be a very considerable residuum of evidence which,\nthough not absolutely conclusive, is favorable to it; and there\ncertainly are a considerable number of eminent and responsible men\u2014like\nMyers, Lodge, Lombroso, and others\u2014who, though not dogmatic, profess\nthemselves inclined to accept the theory, on the evidence so far\navailable. For myself\u2014having so little personal and direct experience\nin this field\u2014I do not feel in a position to form a definite opinion,\nand am content to leave the evidence to accumulate.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER IX\n\n  SURVIVAL OF THE SELF\n\n\nIn the last chapter we pointed out that for any adequate understanding\nof the subject before us the self must be taken to include the more\nobscure and subconscious portion of the mind, as well as the specially\nconscious portion with which we are most familiar. There is a constant\ninteraction and flow taking place between the two parts, and to draw a\nstrict line dividing them would be impossible. Indeed it would rather\nappear that growth comes largely by their blending and throwing light on\neach other. We also brought forward some considerations to show the\nnature of the underlying or subconscious self\u2014its immense extent, the\nswiftness of its perceptions, and so forth. If then, to continue our\nargument, there should come a time (in death) when the outer and more\nobvious ego merges, or at least comes into closer relation, with the\nunder-self, it would seem likely that the surviving consciousness would\nbe greatly changed from its present form, and would take on something of\nthe instantaneous wide-reaching character of what has been called the\nCosmic Consciousness. And this is a conclusion much to be expected, and\nsurely also much to be desired. However one may envisage the matter, it\nhardly seems possible to imagine an after-death consciousness quite on\nthe same plane as our present consciousness. (This, too\u2014one may say in\npassing\u2014probably explains the difficulty we experience in holding\ndirect communication with the dead\u2014the same sort of difficulty, in\nfact, that the outer mind during life has in directly reaching the inner\nmind.) Myers[85] speaks of our supraliminal life as merely a special\nphase of our whole personality, and suggests that there are good reasons\nfor thinking that there is a relation\u2014\u201cobscure but\nindisputable\u2014between the subliminal and the surviving self.\u201d Under\nthese circumstances it would seem natural to inquire what definite\nreasons there may be for thinking that the subliminal self survives; and\nI shall occupy this chapter largely with that question.\n\n(1) In the first place, from the observed process of the generation and\ngrowth of the body from a microscopic origin, we have already argued\n(chapter vii.) the probability of the pre-existence in a sub-atomic or\nfourth-dimensional state of the being which is manifested in the body,\nand therefore the probability of the continuance of that being after the\ndissolution of the body. And this argument must include the Under-self,\nwhich is responsible for so much of the organization and growth and\nsustentation of the body, as well as the Upper; and may well lead us to\ninfer that both upper and under selves continue after death\u2014only\nconjoined in some way, and with some added experience gained during\nlife.\n\n(2) In the second place, we are struck by the fact that continuous\nMemory\u2014which we decided to be the very necessary condition of\nsurvival\u2014is just the thing which is so strong in the subjective being\nand so characteristic of it. The huge stores of memory\u2014and of quite\n_personal and individual_ memory\u2014which this being has at command, their\nlong dormancy and their extraordinary resurgence at times when\nconditions call them forth, are a marvel to the investigator, and make\nus feel that it is hardly probable that they are all swept away at\ndeath. Even if dormant _at_ the time of death, it seems not unlikely\nthat here again later conditions may awake them once more to life.\n\nBut (3), we have a great deal of evidence to show that, as a matter of\nfact, the underlying self is especially _active_ at the moment of death.\nThe whole phenomenon of \u2018wraiths\u2019\u2014now in the mass so amply\nproved[86]\u2014the projection of phantasms sometimes to an immense\ndistance,[87] by persons _in articulo mortis_\u2014goes to show its intense\nenergy and _vitality_ (if one may use the word) at that moment. And the\nvivid resurgences of memory at the same moment (or in any hour of\ndanger) point in the same direction. T. J. Hudson, and others, insist\nthat the subjective mind _never sleeps_\u2014that whatever drowsiness, or\nfaintness, or languor may overpower the upper or self-conscious mind,\nthe under mind is still acutely awake and operant, and if this is (as it\nappears) true with regard to sleep, it may well also be so even with\nregard to death.\n\nAgain (4), the Tel\u00e6sthetic faculty of the under-self (I mean during\nlife)\u2014its power of clairvoyantly perceiving things and events at a\ndistance, even in minutest details\u2014is a very wonderful fact\u2014a fact\nthat is amply established, and one that must give us pause. Here are\nvision and perception at work without eyes or ears, or any of the usual\nbodily end-organs[88]\u2014and acting in such a way as to suggest or\npractically to prove that the soul has other channels or instruments of\nperception than those connected with the well-known outer body. Every\none has heard of cases of this kind. They are common on the borderland\nof sleep, or in dreams, and\u2014what especially appeals to us here\u2014they\nare very common in the hour of death. If the soul (as is evidently the\ncase) can perceive without the intermediation of mortal eye or ear;\nthen\u2014though we may conclude that these special organs have been\nfashioned or developed for special terrene use\u2014we may also conclude\nthat, without them, it would still continue to exercise perception,\ndeveloping sight and hearing and other faculties along lines with which\nat present we are but slightly acquainted. These faculties spring\ninevitably deep down out of ourselves, and will recur again doubtless\nwherever we are.... \u201cWere your eyes destroyed, still the faculty of\nsight were not destroyed; out of the same roots again as before would\nanother optic apparatus spring.\u201d[89]\n\nAnd the same may be said, (5), about the telepathic faculty\u2014that is,\nthe power (not of perceiving, but) of _sending_ impressions or messages\nto a distance. This power which the under-self has of communicating with\nthe under-selves of other persons, and often at a great distance, is one\nof the best-established facts in the new psychology; and again, it is\nvery pregnant with inference. It shows us the soul acting vividly along\ncertain lines independent as far as we can see of the known body,\ncertainly along lines independent of the known organs of expression. It\ncompels us to conclude a possible and even probable activity quite apart\nfrom that body. With this telepathic power, or as an extension of it,\nmay be classed the image-projecting faculty, which we have already seen\nto be peculiarly active in death. And it may be appropriate here to\nnotice that in quite a number of the cases of wraiths or phantasms\nprojected (in forty cases out of three hundred and sixteen as given by\nEdmund Gurney in _Proceedings S.P.R._ vol. v. p. 408) the apparition was\nseen after the death had occurred\u2014though within twenty-four hours\nafter. This may directly indicate an after-death activity of the person\nwho projected the image, or it _may_ merely indicate a relay of the\ntelepathic impression on its way, or in the subconscious mind of the\nrecipient, previous to emerging in the latter\u2019s _conscious_ mind.[90]\n\nAll these things are strongly indicative. They do not give the\nimpression that at death the underlying self is in the act of perishing.\nOn the contrary, they point to its continuance, and if anything\n_increased_ activity; while at the same time the strongly _personal_\ncharacter of many of the phenomena referred to\u2014the wonderfully distinct\npersonal memories, the very personal images or phantasms projected, the\ntelepathic appeal to nearest and dearest friends\u2014all suggest that the\ncontinuing activity does not merely tail off into an abstract life-force\nor vague stream of tendency, but is of a distinctly personal or\nindividual character.\n\nThere is another consideration, (6), on which I may dwell for a moment\nhere. The passion of Love, whether considered in its physical or in its\npsychical and emotional aspects, is notably a matter of the subjective\nor subliminal life. The little self-conscious, logical, argumentative\npersonality is completely routed by this passion, which seems to spring\nfrom the great depths of being with Titanic force, full-armed in its own\nconvictions, and overturning all established orders and conventions. It\nsurely must give us a deep insight into the nature of that hidden self\nfrom which it springs. Yet nothing is more noticeable about the passion\nthan its recklessness of mortal life\u2014nothing more noticeable than its\nwillingness to sacrifice all worldly prospects and the body itself in\nthe pursuit of its ends. Even the most physical love, as we have said\nalready (chapter vi.), has a strange relation to Death, and often slays\nthe very object of its desire:\u2014\n\n   \u201cFor each man kills the thing he loves,\n    Though each man does not die.\u201d\n\nWhile the more emotional form of the passion almost rejoices in its\ncontempt of life and its willingness to face dangers and death for the\nsake of the beloved. It says as plain as words:\u2014\u201cI can fulfil myself\nand my purposes all right, even without this mortal part which you hold\nso dear\u201d; and unless we think that the hidden being who thus speaks is a\nperfect fool, we must conclude that it is _aware_ of a life surpassing\nthat of the body.\n\nSuch a continuing life we no doubt have evidence of, and indeed commonly\nadmit to exist, in the Race-life; and as a first approximation it seems\nnatural and obvious to interpret the underlying or subliminal self as\nbeing simply the Race-self. In the case of the lower and less developed\nforms of creation, perhaps this is the wisest thing to do. In default of\nmore detailed and perfect knowledge, we may easily assume that in a\nshoal of several million herrings or in a \u2018culture\u2019 of several billion\nmicrobes the underlying self of each particular herring or microbe is\npractically identical with the self of the race concerned. But in the\ncase of man and some of the higher animals it is not so easy to do this.\nWe find a strongly individual element in his subconscious mind, which\nmust also be accounted for. I have already alluded to the stores of\nindividual memory which this mind retains, thus differentiating it from\nothers; and I have alluded to the intensely individual phantasms which\nit projects. And now again we are brought face to face with the greatly\nindividual character of its love-passion. However much the love-passion\nmay be symbolical of the life of the race, and deeply implicated in the\nsame (and both of these it certainly is), still\u2014except in its lower\nforms\u2014there is nothing vague and general and undifferentiated about\nthat passion; on the contrary, it is most strongly personal and sharply\noutlined. Why is it that out of the hundred thousand people that a man\nmay meet only _one_ will arouse this tremendous response? Why is it that\nevery great love in its depth seems different from every other? Do not\nthese things suggest a profound difference of outline in the\nsubconscious beings themselves from whom these loves proceed? These\nbeings are manifestations and organic expressions of the Race\u2014yes. But\nthey are also deeply individual and different\u2014each one from the other.\n\nAnd here we seem to come upon the first emergence of the solution of the\nproblem before us. The self of which we are in search _has_\u2014especially\nthrough its subconscious part\u2014a vast continuing life, affiliated to the\nlife of the race and beyond that to the cosmic life of the All; but it\nalso has a strongly individual outline and character. Nursed in the womb\nof the Race during countless ages, like a babe within its mother,\npassing through numberless reincarnations in a kind of collective way,\nand in more or less unconsciousness of its supreme and separate destiny,\nit at last in Man attains to the clear sense of individuality, and\n(through much suffering) is set free to an independent existence; being\nfinally exhaled from earth-mortality into a cosmic life under other\nconditions of space and time than ours.\n\nDifficult as this conception of a continued individual existence may be\nto hold to in view of the terrible and external flux of general Nature,\nand difficult as it may be to understand in all detail; yet, as I say,\nit is Love which compels us to the insight of its truth. It is Love\nwhich has the clear conception of the uniqueness of the beloved, it is\nlove which positively refuses to believe in her (or his) annihilation,\nit is love alone which in the hour of loss can face the awful midnight\nsky, and dare to sing:\u2014\n\n    \u201cSleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace,\n      Sleep, holy Spirit, blessed soul!\n    _While the stars burn, the moons increase,_\n      _And the great ages onward roll._\u201d\n\nAnd it is in the meeting of lovers that the heavens open, allowing them\nto see\u2014if only for a moment\u2014the eternities to which they both belong.\n\nThere are no doubt other considerations\u2014I mean those connected with\nmediumistic and so-called spiritualistic phenomena\u2014which point toward\nthe conclusion of an individual survival of some kind after death; but\nalthough this kind of evidence is likely to prove in the end of immense\nvalue, it is possible that the time has not yet quite come when it can\nbe completely substantiated, tabulated, and effectively utilized; at any\nrate I do not feel myself in a position to so deal with it. It has also\nto be said that a great deal of this evidence (relating to actual\ncommunications from the dead) is necessarily of so very personal a\ncharacter that it can only appeal to the individual persons concerned,\nand however convincing it may be to them does naturally not carry the\nsame conviction to the world at large. I shall therefore for the present\npass these considerations by, and, on the strength of the arguments\nalready brought forward, assume the general truth of man\u2019s survival.\n\nThe course of the argument has been somewhat as follows. In the first\nplace, we have urged the enormous possibilities (disclosed by modern\ninvestigation) of other life than that which we know\u2014thus enlarging the\nbounds of the likely, and weakening the argument from improbability.\nIn the second place, we have pointed out that continuance of _memory_\nseems the best test of survival; that even in our law courts (as in\na Tichborne case) it is not so much the facts of feature and form as\nthe facts of memory which are relied on to prove identity. Thirdly, we\nhave argued that not only the supraliminal but also the subliminal self\nmust be considered in this matter, and that probably the surviving self\nwill arise from a harmony or conjunction between these two. Fourthly,\nwe have shown that in respect of memory and many other matters the\nsubliminal self shows a quite remarkable activity even in the hour of\nbodily death\u2014which does not certainly suggest its decease and cessation\nfrom existence. Fifthly, we have seen that all through life the soul\nhas faculties (of clairvoyance, transposition of senses, and so forth)\nwhich point to its independence of the material body. Sixthly, that\nthrough _love_ it reaches a deep conviction of its own duration beyond\nthe life of the body. And, seventhly, we have suggested that it is\nlargely through the supraliminal and self-conscious life that the\nsense of identity and individuality is educed and finally established.\n\nProceeding, then, further along these lines, the next and obvious\nquestion which arises is, In what sort of body is this continuing life\nmanifested? That it must be manifested in some sort of body is, I\nthink, clear. If we had only arrived at the conclusion that at death\nthe human being merged in the All-soul, or became an indistinguishable\nportion of the \u2018Happy Mass\u2019\u2014that his individual memory flowed out\ninto the great ocean of the world-memory and became lost in it, and\nthat his power of individual action or perception passed away in like\nmanner\u2014why then the question of a continuing body could not well arise,\nor at farthest stretch such body could only be thought of as something\nindistinguishable from the entire universe. But if there is any truth\nin the idea of an individual survival, then it seems clear that there\nmust be some kind of _form_, to mark the bounds of the individual, and\nto give outline to his relations to other individuals\u2014whether those\nrelations be active and invasive or passive and receptive; there must\nbe some surface of resistance and separation.\n\nWith this question I shall deal in the next chapter. Before, however,\ngoing into any definite theory of this \u2018soul-body,\u2019 it may be useful to\ndwell for a moment on general considerations. In the first place, it is\nclear that if the individual survives, he does not do so in any fixed\nand unchanging form. The form of the individual is not fixed in this\nearth-life; nor can we expect or wish it to be so in any other life. As\nlong as there is a continuous stream of experience and memory, going on\nfrom this life to another life, and from that perchance to others\u2014that\nis all we can expect to find. There may, indeed, be a fixed and\ntranscendent Individuality, an aspect of the Universal, at the root of\nall these experiences, but with that we are hardly concerned at this\nmoment\u2014only with the stream of personal manifestations which proceed\nfrom it\u2014everchanging yet linked together from hour to hour. In the\nsecond place, though we have dwelt upon and emphasized the idea of\nseparateness and differentiation, in the surviving self, in\ncontra-distinction to the idea of fusion in a formless aggregate, yet it\nis clear here too that the common life and bonds must hold individuals\ntogether, just as much as, if not more than, in the earth-life. The\nsalient facts of telepathy, sympathy, clairvoyance, and so forth\nconvince us that souls, freed to some extent from their grosser present\nenvelopes, will react upon each other in the future, or in that farther\nworld, more swiftly and more intimately than they do now. And as they\nprogress from stage to stage, developing individualities and differences\nalways on a grander and grander scale, so they will also develop through\nlove their organic union with each other. It seems possible, indeed,\nthat growth will largely take place _through_ love-fusion; till at\nlength, rising into the highest ranges of combined Individuality and\nUniversality, the transformed consciousness of each soul will take on\nits true quality\u2014\u201cthat of space itself\u2014which is at rest everywhere.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER X\n\n  THE INNER OR SPIRITUAL BODY\n\n\nIn order to form a conception of what kind of body the surviving Self\nmay have, it seems best for the moment to go back to the genesis of our\npresent body. We saw (chapter vii.) that we were compelled to suppose,\neven in the first germ of our actual body an intelligent form of some\nkind at work, which while gathering up and representing race-memories of\nthe past, presided over and directed their rehabilitation in the\npresent, thus building up the present body according to a certain\npattern\u2014(though subject of course to modification by outer difficulties\nand obstacles). From the very first, the exceeding complexity and\ndelicacy of the movements within the germ-cells, combined with the\ndecisiveness of their divisions and differentiations, and the perfection\nand adaptation of the bodily structures and organs ultimately produced,\nall point in the suggested direction.[91] At the same time, we were\ncompelled to conclude that this form, whose first manifestations in the\ntiny germ-cell evidently originate from quite ultra-microscopic\nmovements, was itself invisible, invisible through belonging either to\nan ultra-microscopic world, or to a world of a fourth-dimensional or\nother order of existence. I think, therefore, that for the present we\nmay accept that conclusion, and fairly suppose that some such invisible\nform underlies the genesis of each of our bodies.\n\nBut at the same time the conclusion of invisibility must not be supposed\nto carry with it the conclusion of immateriality. Quite the contrary. A\ncreature living in the two-dimensional world formed by the water-film on\nthe surface of a pond might have no conception of the water-world below\nor the air-world above\u2014both of which might be quite invisible to it;\nall the same a fish or a bird breaking through the surface would\ninstantly cause some very powerful and very material phenomena there!\nAnd again, though atoms and electrons individually may be quite\ninvisible, it is only a question of their number and the force of their\nelectric charges, as to how far they intrude upon what we call the\nmaterial world. Also, we must remember that invisibility or\nimperceptibility does not by any means imply non-occupation of space. On\nthe contrary again. For four-dimensional existence carries with it an\noccupation of space which is quite miraculous to us\u2014as, for instance,\nthe power of appearing in two places at the same time; while a number of\nultra-microscopic atoms, by their electrostatic attractions and\nrepulsions, may maintain definite relations of distance from each other,\nand may altogether constitute a cloud of considerable size and complex\norganization\u2014quite imperceptible as a rule, yet occupying a definite\narea and fully capable of affecting material things.\n\nIt may be a question, then, whether it is not some such invisible\ncloud\u2014perhaps of quite human size and measurement\u2014which at conception\nbegins to enter the fertilized germ-cell, stimulating it to division,\nand penetrating further and further into the newly-formed body-cells, as\nby thousands and millions they divide and multiply to form the growing\norganism. Whatever it is, it is something of infinitely subtle\norganization and constitution, representing the inmost vitality of the\nbody, and not that inmost vitality in a merely general sense, but the\nvitality of every portion and section of the body. It establishes itself\nwithin the gross body (or it builds that body round itself) and becomes\nthe organizer and provider of its life; maintains its form and structure\nduring life, fortifies it against change and disease, and wards off as\nlong as it can the arrival of death.\n\nWhat, then, of Death? Why, granted so much as we have supposed, it seems\neasy to suppose that at death this inner body passes away again. It just\nleaves the gross body behind and passes out of it. For a\nfourth-dimensional being this must be easy to do! But not to presume too\nmuch on other-dimensional conditions, if we only assume the inner body\nto be such a cloud of atoms or electrons as already mentioned, the\npassage of such atoms through the tissues of the gross body would be\nentirely in accordance with the well-known facts of _osmose_ and the\ndiffusion of liquids and gases, and would present no exceptional or\nimpossible problem. Through cell-walls and muscular and other tissues\nsuch atoms would pass, conceivably maintaining still their relative\n\u2018form\u2019 and organization with regard to each other, and forming a cloud\nsimilar to that which entered the germ and other cells at conception\n(though of course so far modified by the life-experience), and leaving\nnow the gross body devitalized, and doomed to slow corruption and to\nserve only as material for lower forms.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nOne would not, of course, venture on conjectures so speculative as the\nabove, if it were not that long tradition and history, and even modern\nexperience, so singularly confirm or favor their general truth. The\nconception of a cloud-like ghost\u2014sometimes visible, sometimes\ninvisible[92]\u2014leaving the body at death, roaming through the fields of\nHades or some hidden world, and from time to time revisiting the\nglimpses of the moon and the gaze of wondering mortals\u2014penetrates all\nliterature and tradition. Among all primitive peoples it seems to be\naccepted as a matter of course; it informs the legends and the drama and\nthe philosophies of the more cultivated; it claims detailed historical\ninstances and proofs[93] (as in the case of Field-marshal von Grumbkoff,\nto whom the wraith of King Frederick Augustus announced his own\ndeath\u2014which had just occurred; or in the case of the poet Petrarch, to\nwhom Bishop Colonna made a similar announcement); and in modern times it\nhas met with extraordinary and in many quarters quite unexpected\nconfirmation at the hands of scientific investigation.\n\nTo this evidence of general probability that at death a vital and subtle\nyet substantial inner body is withdrawn from every part and portion of\nthe gross body, we may add the evidence, such as it is, from actual\n_sensation_ and _experience_. In the hour of death and in allied\nphysical changes sensations are experienced corresponding to such a\nconclusion. Though necessarily there is little quite direct evidence,\nfor the actual moment of death, yet in the just preceding stage, of\nextreme weakness, the sensation of depletion in every part of the body,\nand of withdrawal, as of a hand being drawn out of a glove, is very\nnoticeable. (And it may be remarked that clairvoyants not unfrequently\nobserve, at death itself, a luminous cloud of the general outline and\nshape of the dying person being slowly distilled, head first, from his\nor her head.) Furthermore, in the state of _ecstasy_\u2014which is closely\nallied to death\u2014the same sensation of withdrawal is experienced. The\nperson seems to himself to stand outside and a little beyond his own\nbody\u2014and doubtless this experience is denoted in the very etymology of\nthe word. In trance the same: the medium experiences the extreme of\nexhaustion while some portion of her vital being is functioning (as it\nappears) outside. Under an\u00e6sthetics it is a common experience to dream\nthat one has left the body and is flying through space. (See _The Art of\nCreation_, p. 18.) And again, in the case of love\u2014whose close relation\nto death we have several times already noted\u2014whether it be in the\nstrain of emotional desire or the stress of the physical orgasm this\n\u2018hand from the glove\u2019 sensation is often most acute and seems to suggest\nthat every portion of the body is contributing its part to the process\nin hand; which indeed in this case of love may very fairly be supposed\nto consist in a transfer of the cloud-like organism (or a large part of\nit) to the other person concerned.\n\nThere are cases, too, where in a kind of dream-consciousness the\nsensation of the self passing out through walls and other obstacles is\nso powerful as to leave an impress on the mind ever after. Such is the\ncase already alluded to (chapter viii. p. 148, _supra_) from _Footfalls\non the Boundary of Another World_, where a lady half waking from sleep\n\u201cfelt herself carried to the wall of her room, with a feeling that it\nmust arrest her further progress. But no; she seemed to pass through it\ninto the open air. Outside the house was a tree; and this also she\nappeared to traverse as if it interposed no obstacle.\u201d She thus passed\nto the house of a lady friend, held a conversation with her, and in her\ndream returned. But afterward the friend reported that she had _seen_\nthe apparition that night and conversed with it. Similarly a young\nfriend of mine, dreaming one night that his mother (in the same house)\nwas ill, was intensely conscious of dashing\u2014not along corridors and\nthrough doorways but _through the partition walls of two rooms_\u2014into\nthe chamber where his mother slept, when finding her all right he\nreturned; and the experience was so vivid that it remained with him for\ndays afterward.\n\nTaking all these considerations together, we may say that there is a\nstrong general probability in favor of the proposition put forward. And\nit is interesting and important to find that at this juncture modern\nscience is coming out from her old haunts and beginning seriously to\ntackle a question which she has hitherto for the most part evaded or\nignored. The whole of the psychology and even physiology of Death have\n(as I have previously remarked) been sadly neglected; but now and of\nlate quite a number of books on this subject have been published,[94]\nand a good deal of scientific activity is moving in that direction.\n\nProfessor Fournier d\u2019Albe, in his book _New Light on Immortality_,[95]\nhas made some very interesting suggestions\u2014which though they may not as\nyet be accounted more than suggestions, seem to be in the right\ndirection, and certainly acquire some authority from his intimate\ncommand of the modern discoveries in Physics as well as in the field of\nPsychical Research. His view is that every one of the twenty-five\nthousand million million cells which constitute say the human body has\nprobably some \u2018centrosome\u2019 or other vital point within it, which is in\nfact the governing and organizing power of that cell. Such point or\ncollection of points, though \u2018material,\u2019 may likely weigh only a\nten-thousandth part of the cell-weight. Hence if this \u2018soul\u2019 was\nabstracted from each cell, the total weight of the twenty-five thousand\nbillion souls resulting would be only a ten-thousandth part of the body\nweight, or about a fifth of an ounce! But these soul-fragments or\n_psychomeres_ as he calls them, would together make up the total soul of\nthe man, and\u2014as already explained\u2014might not only by their negative and\npositive charges maintain certain spatial relations and organization\nwith regard to each other, but would, owing to their extreme minuteness,\neasily pass through the tissues and liberate themselves from the gross\nbody. Thus a human soul, weighing a fraction only of an ounce, but of\nlike shape and size to the human body, and of intense vitality and\nsubtlety, might disengage itself at death, to begin a fresh career and\nto enter into a new life\u2014leaving the existing body to fall to ruin and\ndecay. Further, Professor Fournier d\u2019Albe, greatly bold in speculation,\nsurmises that such a spiritual body, discharging the atmosphere from its\ninterior frame, might quite naturally rise in the air till it attained\nits position of equilibrium at a great height up\u2014say in a region 35\u201380\nmiles over the earth, which would thus become the (first) abode of the\ndeparted.\n\nWhatever may be said about the details of this theory, and whatever\ndifficulties they may present, the main outlines\u2014as I have already\nindicated\u2014seem quite feasible and probable, and in line with world-old\nbelief and tradition. And certain details (which we shall return to\nagain) are powerfully corroborated by modern observation.\n\nMeanwhile it is interesting to find, in corroboration of the general\ntheory, that some experiments lately carried out, in weighing the body\nbefore and after death, have apparently yielded the result of a decided\nloss of weight at or very shortly after, the moment of Death. Dr. Duncan\nM\u2018Dougall, experimenting with considerable care, found that one of his\npatients lost \u00be ounce precisely at death;[96] another lost \u00bd ounce, with\nan additional loss of 1 ounce during the next few minutes, after which\nno further loss took place; another yielded very nearly the same result;\nand so on. Thus we have the old Egyptian idea of the weighing of the\nsoul after death resuscitated in a very practical form in modern\ntimes\u2014only with the medical practitioner in the place of Thoth, the\ngreat assessor of the Underworld! And it would be satisfactory to know\nhow far modern observation of a normal soul weight corresponds with\nancient speculation in the matter. It is curious anyhow to find that\nFournier d\u2019Albe\u2019s estimates are so nearly corroborated by Dr. M\u2018Dougall;\nand we must await with interest further and perhaps more detailed\nobservations along the same line.\n\nAnother line along which something seems to have been done by hard and\nfast science to corroborate the general theory of the extrusion of a\ncloud-like spirit form from the body at death, is in the matter of\nphotography. Dr. Baraduc, in his book, _Mes Morts: leurs manifestations_\n(1908), gives an account of photographs which he took of his wife\u2019s body\nwithin an hour after death and of his son\u2019s body (in the coffin) nine\nhours after death. When developed the plates all showed cloud-like\nemanations hovering over the corpses, not certainly having definite\nhuman outline, but apparently shot through by lines and streaks of\nlight. And though here again the experiments are not conclusive, they so\nfar are corroborative, and may be taken to indicate a direction for\nfurther inquiry.\n\nThis last I think we are especially entitled to say, on account of what\nhas been already done in the way of photographing the cloud-figures\n(some of them very definite in outline) which are found to emanate on\noccasions from mediums in the state of trance. For notwithstanding the\ndoubt which has commonly been cast on all such photographs and\nnotwithstanding the very obvious ease with which cameras can be\nmanipulated and shadow-figures of some kind fraudulently produced, the\nevidence for the genuineness of some such \u2018spirit\u2019 photographs is\u2014to\nany one who really studies it\u2014beyond question. The celebrated \u201cKatie\nKing,\u201d who appeared at seances in connection with the medium Florence\nCook, and during a period of two years or more was seen by some hundreds\nof people\u2014and especially studied by Sir William Crookes\u2014was\nphotographed several times under test conditions.[97] Professor Charles\nRichet, who when he first heard of Crookes\u2019 conclusions was convulsed\nwith laughter over their supposed absurdity, afterward confessed his\nerror,[98] for time after time he not only saw a phantasm (\u201cBeni Boa\u201d)\nin connection with the Algerian medium Aisha, but obtained photographs\nof the same.[99] Dr. A. R. Wallace, in a long note, pp. 190, 191 of his\nbook, _Miracles and Modern Spiritualism_, gives a careful description of\nhis own experiments in this line. Several different figures were at\ndifferent times photographed in connection with Mme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance; and\nthe very detailed account, with illustrations, which she gives of these\nphenomena in ch. xxvii. of her book, _Shadowland_, must give the\nunbeliever pause. And so on.[100] The evidence is so abundant, and so on\nthe whole so well confirmed, that we are practically now compelled to\nadmit (and this is the point in hand) that cloud-like forms of human\noutline emanating from a medium\u2019s or other person\u2019s living body may at\ntimes be caught by the photographic plate. And this is important because\nit removes the phenomenon from the region of the fanciful or imaginative\nand gives it automatic and objective registration.\n\nThat these forms occurring and occasionally photographed in connection\nwith mediums are independent \u2018spirits\u2019 or souls is of course in no way\nassumed. They may be such, or (what seems more likely) they may be\nsimply extensions of the spiritual or inner body of the medium. The\npoint that interests us here is that their appearance in either case\npoints to the actual existence of such an inner body, capable of\nbecoming extruded from the gross body, and of becoming the seat and\nmanifestation of intelligence. Further than that we need not go at\npresent.\n\nBut it will be objected, if the inner or spiritual body is, as has just\nbeen supposed, of such a subtle and tenuous nature as to be in itself\nquite invisible, what connection can this have with phantoms that can be\nphotographed, or that can be seen, or that can be actually touched and\nhandled? This question\u2014the question as to how an excessively rare and\ntenuous and invisible being may gradually condense and materialize so as\nto come first within the region of photographic activity, and then\nwithin the region of normal visibility, and so on into audible and\ntangible and material existence and operation, I shall discuss more at\nlength in the next chapter. Suffice it here to point out that the\ngeneral consensus of thoughtful opinion on this subject at the present\ntime points to a probable condensation of some kind, and utilization of\nsuch suitable materials as may be to hand, by which the subtle inner\nbody gradually clothes itself in an outer and denser garment. Whether\nwith Fournier d\u2019Albe we suppose a soul-like core to every single cell,\nor whether we take a more diffused and general view, in any case we seem\ncompelled to believe that our actual bodies are carried on by organizing\npowers distributed in centres throughout the body.[101] If by any means\nthese vital centres were separated from the gross body, it would still\nseem natural for them to continue their organizing activity whenever\nthey were surrounded with suitable material. And if, as seems likely, in\nthe case of mediums and seances, a considerable quantity of loose\nfloating organic material is commonly evolved from the bodies of those\npresent, such effluences might be quickly caught up and condensed by any\nsuch vital centres present into more or less visible forms and figures.\n\nIf, by way of illustration, we were to suppose an army-corps to\nrepresent a gross body, then the officers, from corporals to general,\nwould represent the inner or organizing soul; and all these officers\ntogether, though really being a \u2018body,\u2019 would constitute a mass so small\nand so scattered compared with the mass-body of the army, that in\ncomparison they would be invisible, and might easily all pass out and\naway from the army without being observed. They might pass out and\nconceivably organize another army-corps elsewhere; but the result on\nthat left behind (of which they were really the soul) would soon be seen\nin its complete disintegration and collapse. Now suppose further that in\na neighboring nation, across the frontier, there was a great deal of\ndisaffection existing\u2014that large masses of the people there were out of\ntouch with their own Government (the case of a medium in trance), and\nwaiting for some one to come and organize them. Then it is easy to\nimagine the small group of officers aforesaid passing across the\nfrontier (quite unseen and unobserved) and immediately on doing so\nfinding ready to their hands a quantity of material just suitable for\ntheir activity. In a wonderfully short time the various officers would\nbegin to organize the various departments of a new army-corps; the\npeople would flock to their standard. Even in a day or two the faint\noutline of a new political form or movement would show itself; and in a\nweek this might become substantial enough to exhibit serious\nmanifestations of force!\n\nThe general application of this to the question in hand is obvious\nenough. But there is another point which it illustrates\u2014a point which\nwe have raised before. I am convinced that science will never yield any\nvery fruitful understanding of the world, until it recognizes that\n_life_ and _intelligence_ (of course in the broadest signification)\npervade all the phenomena of Nature. It is perfectly useless to try to\nexplain human development, human destiny, mental activity, the forces of\nnature, and so forth, in terms of dead matter. No explanation of such a\nkind could possibly be satisfying. And more and more it is becoming\nclear that even what we call the inorganic world is as subtle and swift\nin its responses as what we call the organic. Many difficulties must\ninevitably arise in any attempted solution of the problem before\nus\u2014that problem which is generally denoted by \u201cthe nature of the soul\nand its relation to the body\u201d; but we shall never arrive at any\nharmonious view of the whole question until we are persuaded, and\npractically assume, that life and intelligence in some degree are\ncharacteristic of all that we call \u2018matter\u2019 as well as of all we call\nmind, and pervade the whole structure of the universe. We shall then see\nthat the forces, for instance, which organize and direct the human body,\neven down to its minutest parts, are probably just as individual and\nintelligent in their action as those (to take the example just given)\nwhich organize and direct an army-corps.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XI\n\n  ON THE CREATION AND MATERIALIZATION OF FORMS\n\n\nI have suggested more than once, in preceding chapters of this book, and\nin _The Art of Creation_ and elsewhere, that in the ordinary evolution\nof thought, in dreams, in trance and in other psychic states, we are\nwitness of a process which is continually and eternally going on, by\nwhich the faintest invisible forms and outlines, the nearest\ncloud-currents of the inner soul, gradually condense themselves, pass\ninto visibility, tangibility, and so forth, and (if the process is\ncontinued) ultimately take their place among the substantial things of\nthe outer world.\n\nHitherto this thought has been applied in certain departments of\ninquiry, but I am of impression that its considerable and world-wide\nsignificance has been missed. Freud, in his _Traumdeutung_, insists that\nbehind the dream, and inspiring its action and symbolism there always\nlurks an emotion, a desire, a wish. And Havelock Ellis (though with due\ncaution) corroborates this. He speaks[102] of \u201cthe controlling power of\nemotion on dream-ideas,\u201d and says, \u201cthe fundamental source of our\ndream-life may be said to be emotion.\u201d That is, an emotion (from\nwhatever source) arises in the mind. Vague and cloudlike at first, it\npresently takes form, and (if in sleep) clothes itself with the imagery\nof a dream, which becomes at last vivid and dramatic and _real_, to a\ndegree which astounds us. But dream-life is only a paraphrase, so to\nspeak, of waking life\u2014a phase largely corresponding to the waking life\nof children[103] and animals; and in waking life the same thing happens.\nA wish or desire appears in the background of the mind; it moves forward\nand becomes a definite thought and a plan; then it moves forward again\nand becomes an action; the action creates a result; and the desire\nfinally establishes itself or its image in the actual world. These\nemotions and desires and the images which sprung from them have a\ncertain vitality and growth-power of their own. The figures in dreams\nmove of themselves and concatenate with each other of their own\naccord\u2014much as the figures do in a drama, as Coleridge long ago\nobserved\u2014and as the waking thoughts of all of us do, when we leave them\na little to themselves and to go with loose rein. More than that; in\nsome cases waking thoughts or passions become powerful enough to take\npossession of the whole man and embody themselves in his\ndeeds\u2014sometimes to heroic, sometimes to criminal ends. Or, taking\npossession of _portions_ of the man, they precipitate conflict within\nhim. The dramatic quality of dreams is evidently due to the different\nfigures or incidents of the dream being inspired by different qualities\nor experiences of the dreamer; and in the waking man the same process\nmay lead to tragic struggles and disintegrations of personality. In\nhysteric patients, where the central controlling power is weak, the very\nthought or fear of a disease may seize upon a certain centre in the body\nand stimulate there all the symptoms of that disease; or a mental image\nmay seize upon a certain portion of the brain, and break up the\npersonality with strange new manifestations.\n\nIn all these cases, and scores of others which we cannot consider now,\nthe same action is taking place\u2014by which invisible psychic and\nspiritual forces, for good or evil, are ever pressing forward into the\nmanifest, and condensing themselves into visible and even tangible\nforms, or taking possession of existing forms for the purpose of\nexpression and manifestation. And here we have (as I think will be seen\none day) the whole rationale of Creation\u2014we have the conception which\nbrings into line the phenomena of the visible and material world and\ntheir genesis, with the genesis of thoughts in our own minds, and\n_their_ passage into visibility and expression; we have the conception\nwhich unites the mental and material, and which makes the whole Creation\nluminous with meaning. Especially is this obvious to-day, when the\ntheory of electrons is introducing us to a world as far finer and\nsubtler than the atom, as the atom is finer and subtler than the\ntangible world of our experience; and is suggesting that these finest\nstates of matter are of the nature of electrical charges, which, again,\nare quite analogous to mental states.[104] Thus we have, almost forced\nupon us as the key to the creation of visible forms, the conception, of\na process of condensation by which the most subtle thought and emotion\ndoes in course of time (brief or lengthy) tend to manifest itself in\nmaterial shape, and may ultimately take on the most persistent and\nquasi-indestructible forms.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nReverting, then, to the subject of last chapter, we see that a\n\u2018spiritual\u2019 body\u2014that is, a material body of a texture so fine and so\nswiftly plastic as to be the analogue of thought\u2014is a conception quite\nin line with the conclusions of modern science; and that granted the\nexistence of such a thing, it is quite in line also to conclude that it\nwould tend toward condensation and manifestation in grosser and more\nvisible form. I gave in that chapter some general outline of how such\ncondensation might take place. I now propose to consider this process\nmore in detail, and to give some evidence as to its actually taking\nplace.\n\nThere is something perhaps a little comic about the idea of spirit\nphotography\u2014something which has thus helped to retard its acceptance.\nThe busy photographer with his camera is so banal, and sometimes so\nobnoxious, a figure, that to think of him photographing a ghost, or the\nspirit of a dead relation, verges on bathos or the burlesque.\nNevertheless, Nature does not attend to our canons in such matters, and\nin reality the thing is perfectly feasible and in order. It is well\nknown that the photographic plate is most sensitive to the violet end of\nthe spectrum\u2014that it is this end which has the actinic quality.\nMoreover, it is known that the actinic quality extends _beyond_ this\nend, and that there are ultra-violet rays which we cannot see, and which\nyet are photographically powerful. But the violet rays, as is also well\nknown, are those whose light-waves are smallest\u2014being only about half\nthe size of the red waves;[105] and the ultra-violet rays are still\nsmaller. Consequently, by means of the violet end of the spectrum,\ninformation can be got about small objects and infinitesimal details\nwhich would elude the more ordinary light. A particle, in fact, may be\nso small that it would reflect the violet waves, while it would be\nunable to reflect the red\u2014just as a boat floating on the water will\nreflect and turn back tiny ripples, while it will simply be tossed about\nby good-sized waves. Advantage has been taken of this in microscopy, and\nby ingenious arrangements photographs of objects under the microscope\ncan now be taken by ultra-violet light, so as to show the very minutest\ndetails.\n\nThe application of this to the question before us is clear. If there be\na spiritual body, composed of particles so infinitesimal as to be\u2014to\nbegin with\u2014far beyond the limits of visibility, yet gradually\ncondensing and accreting to themselves other and subsidiary particles,\nthere might come a time when such a cloud-form would approach the limit\nof visibility\u2014the molecules of which it was composed having grown so\nfar. It would be perfectly natural, then, for a body composed of such\nmolecules to come into the region of possible photography in the camera\nthrough the ultra-violet rays _before_ it came into the region of\nvisibility to the human eye by means of ordinary light. And thus the\nseeming paradox may be accounted for\u2014of the appearance of spirit-forms,\nor even thought-forms, on the photographic plate which are not yet\ndiscernible by the eye. At a later stage of materialization the form may\nof course yield an image both to the eye and to the camera.[106]\n\nAgain, in this connection, it is often urged against the reality of\nspirit-forms, ghosts, and so forth, that they cannot bear a strong\nlight; and this is held to dispose of all their claims for\nconsideration. But what has just been said shows that on the contrary\nsuch an effect is just what might be expected. The delicate growing\nstructure, whose particles were just large enough to reflect the smaller\nlight-waves, might easily be broken up and quite disintegrated by the\nlarger and more powerful weaves of a strong glare\u2014just as, in fact,\n_our_ forms, which can endure light, are broken up and disintegrated by\nthe still larger waves of intense _heat_. Katie King, who, as before\nmentioned, appeared so many times in connection with the medium Florence\nCook, was frequently seen to fade away if the light was too strong. \u201cAt\nthe earlier seances she could only come out of the cabinet for a few\nseconds at a time, once or twice during the seance; she had to go back\nquickly into the cabinet to gather fresh power from her medium, saying\nthat the strong and unaccustomed brilliancy of the light made her \u2018melt\nquite away.\u2019\u201d[107] And Nepenthes, that finely formed and beautiful\nfigure which appeared in connection with Mme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance, was more than\nonce seen, by a large company assembled, to walk by the side of the\nmedium up to the open French window at the end of the room and then to\ndisappear as she came into the full daylight.[108]\n\nPhotographs, it may be noticed, of forms appearing at seances, or in\nconnection with sitters, vary from mere cloudlike masses without or\nalmost without shape to very distinct human figures with much detail of\nfeature and dress,[109]\u2014the same figure being often recognized in\nvarious stages of clearness and definition. And this is interesting\nbecause it entirely corroborates the observations made in hundreds of\nseances, and in other cases, in which a form is first distinguished by\nthe eye as a faintly luminous cloud, and gradually grows in distinctness\nand definition till it becomes visible in all detail, and even tangible.\nMme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance, whose book, _Shadowland_, should be read on account of\nits intelligent handling and obvious sincerity, as well as on account of\nthe remarkable phenomena reported, describes (p. 151) the first occasion\non which a \u2018materialization\u2019 appeared to her:\u2014\u201cOne evening, for some\nreason or other, we were sitting without a lighted lamp. The daylight\nhad not faded when we commenced the sitting, but though it grew dark no\none suggested making a light. Happening to glance over to the part of\nthe room where the shadows were deepest it seemed to me that there was a\ncurious cloudy luminosity standing out distinct and clear from the\ndarkness. I watched it for a minute or two without saying anything,\nwondering where it came from and how it was caused. I thought it must be\na reflection from the street lamps outside, though I had never seen it\nlike that before. While I watched, the luminous cloud seemed to\nconcentrate itself, become substantial, and form itself into a figure of\na child, illuminated as it were by daylight that did not shine on it\nbut, somehow, from within it\u2014the darkness of the room seeming to act as\na background, throwing up by contrast every curve of the form and every\nfeature into strong relief.\u201d And in another passage she says:\u2014\u201cAs soon\nas I have entered the mediumistic cabinet my first impression is of\nbeing covered with spider webs. Then I feel that the air is filled with\nsubstance, and a kind of white and vaporous mass, quasi-luminous, like\nthe steam from a locomotive, is formed in front of the abdomen. After\nthis mass has been tossed and agitated in every way for some minutes,\nsometimes even for half-an-hour, it suddenly stops, and then out of it\nis born a living being close by me.\u201d[110]\n\nAnother figure\u2014that of Yolande (a young woman)\u2014is mentioned in the\nsame book (p. 254) as appearing again and again out of such a filmy\ncloudy patch on the floor. Similarly, Professor Richet noticed over and\nover again the outgrowth of a figure (Beni Boa) from a white cloud.\n\u201cNear the cabinet we could see, betwixt the curtain and the table, a\nwhitish globe forming, luminous, and rotating on the floor; from this\nglobe Beni Boa sprang.\u201d The figure would then walk round the room and\ndisappear again; but after a time the white cloud would again form and\nBeni Boa reappear. And Professor Lombroso, alluding to this,\nsays:[111]\u2014\u201cThis observation is of great importance, since it is not\npossible to attribute to fraud the formation of a luminous patch on the\nfloor which transforms itself into a living being.\u201d Further, Lombroso\nsays:\u2014\u201cFive photographs were obtained at these sittings by magnesium\nand chlorate of potash light, with a Kodak and with a Richard\nstereoscopic apparatus simultaneously, which fact excludes the\npossibility of photographic fraud; and all the plates were developed in\nAlgeria by an optician who was unaware of what had preceded. On the\nplates appeared a tall figure wrapped in a white mantle\u201d (and similar to\nthe figure which the seven sitters present at the seances had seen).\n\nI have alluded to this cloud-formation before as characteristic of an\nearly stage of the appearance of these figures, and as suggesting a\nprocess of condensation going on. Lombroso, from various considerations\nwhich he brings forward (p. 185),[112] seems convinced that the\nphenomena of these forms are largely connected with radio-activity. He\nsays:\u2014\u201cIt would seem that these bodies belong to that further state of\nmatter, the radiant state, which now at last has established a firm\nfooting in science\u2014and which thus offers the only hypothesis which can\nreconcile the ancient and universal belief in the persistence of some\nform of life after death with the postulates of science which maintain\nthat without organ there can be no function.\u201d This radio-active\ncondition of matter is of course that finest and most active state\nrepresented by the electrons\u2014in which each electron is excessively\nminute,[113] yet moves at enormous speed, and carries with it an\nelectric charge. It connects itself with condensation in this way, that\n\u201can electric charge assists vapor to condense,\u201d and \u201cwhere ions (_i.e._\npositively or negatively charged particles) are present in considerable\nnumbers a thick mist will form whenever the space is saturated with\nvapor.\u201d[114] And Fournier d\u2019Albe says:[115]\u2014\u201cIn the physical theory of\nionization and condensation we have become familiar with the fact that\nthe smallest charged particles are the most effective promoters of\ncondensation. In fact, it would suffice to extract a very small\nproportion of the innumerable electrons within the body to bring about a\nvigorous condensation in the moist air around it.\u201d\n\nThus it is quite probable that the cloud-formation, which in general\nprecedes the manifestation of distinct figures, is due to condensation,\nand in part at any rate to a condensation of water-vapor on the\naccreting particles of the spirit-body. And this is made the more\nprobable by the strong sensation of _cold_ which so frequently\naccompanies these appearances, and which is a common accompaniment of\ncondensation. Crookes, in his _Researches_, emphasizes this in\nconnection with almost all the phenomena, and says[116] they \u201care\ngenerally preceded by a peculiar cold air, sometimes amounting to a\ndecided wind. I have had sheets of paper blown about by it, and a\nthermometer lowered several degrees. On some occasions ... the cold has\nbeen so intense that I could only compare it to that felt when the hand\nhas been within a few inches of frozen mercury.\u201d Some such sensation\nseems to be quite a common experience, and the authoress of\n_Shadowland_, speaking of her earlier sittings (p. 228), says:\u2014\u201cIt was\nnot long before the same strange disturbances in the air began as on the\nprevious occasion. I felt my hair blown and lifted by currents of air,\nand cool breezes played about my face and hands.\u201d\n\nThus (with the corroborating evidence of Crookes\u2019 thermometer) we may\nsuppose that, after all, the cold airs and shivering sensations which\nseem so often to accompany apparitions may not be merely subjective to\nthe observer, but may be real phenomena due to physical condensations\ntaking place in his immediate proximity. Moreover, it has to be noted\nthat the condensations may not be merely of water-vapor, but of other\nsubstances as well, namely (according to an opinion now gaining ground),\nof fine matter or effluences provided by the bodies of the sitters\npresent (or some of them) as well as by the body of the medium. The\npassage last quoted from _Shadowland_ continues: \u201cthen began a strange\nsensation, which I had sometimes felt at seances. Frequently I have\nheard it described by others as of cobwebs being passed over the face,\nbut to me, who watched it curiously, it seemed that I could feel fine\nthreads being drawn out of the pores of my skin.\u201d And in another\npassage[117] the same writer describes the cloud which precedes a\nmaterialization as \u201ca slightly luminous haze\u201d which often appears \u201cabout\nthe head, shoulders, elbows and sometimes the knees and feet (of the\nmedium). Frequently it gathers slowly at the fingers, increasing in\ndensity till it resembles a slight transparent film of slightly luminous\ncotton wool.\u201d Further, she explains that it goes on condensing till it\nbecomes cobwebby and perceptible to touch. The evidence generally seems\nto show that these clouds are of the nature of effluences from the\nmedium or other person present; and the above quotation affords\ncorroboration of that view and makes easily intelligible the great\nexhaustion from which mediums often suffer on these occasions. It\nsuggests also that the condensation is by no means of water-vapor only,\nbut of other substances drawn from the interior vitality of the persons\nconcerned, and necessary for the building up of the apparitional form.\n\nIt is difficult in the case, for instance, of \u201cKatie King,\u201d who, as\nalready said, appeared hundreds of times during two or three years, or\nof Estella Martha, who appeared to her husband during five years and in\n380 or more seances in connection with the medium Kate Fox,[118] not to\nbelieve that such figures are (as we should say) _really_ the\nindividuals they profess to be, and not mere thought-forms or images\nprojected from the medium\u2019s under-mind. But whichever view we take, it\nis obvious that they are centres in some degree, of intelligent force or\nvitality, centres which, though in their essence rare and tenuous as\nthought or feeling, succeed in clothing themselves with a certain grade\nof corporeality by the use of the materials at hand, and in so coming\ninto visible manifestation. And this general view is confirmed by the\nfact, so often observed, that when the same figure appears repeatedly,\nit does, as time goes on, acquire skill and adroitness in carrying out\nthe process of condensation or whatever it is, which is concerned, and\nconsequently comes into manifestation and activity more quickly and\ndecisively. Also, it may be noted, and has often been observed (as in\nthe case of the said Estella Martha and many others), that by practice\nthe figure attains the power of enduring strong light\u2014that is, its\nstate of condensation reaches a point of solidity almost comparable with\nthat of _our_ tissues, which are not as a rule disintegrated by light.\n\nThe radio-activity of the \u2018inner being\u2019 also helps to explain the\nextraordinary manifestations of sheer physical force in these\nconnections. Some of these manifestations have been so astonishing, that\nthe fact alone has caused them to be disbelieved; but though, of course,\nfraud has played a part in such phenomena, and has to be guarded\nagainst, it is now quite evident that in a multitude of cases fraud does\nnot enter at all.\n\nEusapia Paladino, for instance\u2014though capable of little\nfraudulences\u2014was obviously the seat of extraordinary powers not to be\nexplained by these. Mr. Carrington, who made a special study of this\nmedium, and who (as I have said before) has also made a special study of\nfraudulent methods in so-called spiritualism, vouches most strongly for\nthe great exhibitions of inexplicable _force_ in her\nvicinity\u2014especially perhaps in the way of _levitations_. He\nsays:\u2014\u201cEvery one who has studied Eusapia\u2019s phenomena knows that\npractically every seance (for some reason) commences with\ntable-levitations\u2014this, whether they are wanted or not! It seems the\nnecessary programme, and it is almost invariably carried out. Seeing\nthem time after time, one can obtain a very fair idea of their nature\nand reality. And I may say that I now consider levitations as well\nestablished as any other physical facts. They are not open to the\nobjection to which most psychical phenomena are subjected\u2014that they\ncannot be repeated or induced and studied experimentally, as one would\nstudy other physical facts\u2014for they can be induced and studied in just\nthis laboratory manner. I have probably seen several hundreds of these\nlevitations now, under every conceivable condition and in _excellent\nlight_, and I consider them so far established that, as Count Solovovo\nsaid, \u201cthe burden of proof is now on the man who asserts that they are\n_not_ real, not upon the man who asserts that they _are_.\u201d These are\npretty strong words, and by a very responsible observer! And then Mr.\nCarrington proceeds with a detailed account of these and other physical\nphenomena.[119]\n\nSome years ago, the reports and accounts of such phenomena were\ngenerally at once dismissed as absurd and incredible; but by a\nremarkable coincidence the last few years have seen the wonderful\ndevelopment of the science of radio-activity\u2014dating from the\nepoch-making experiments of Crookes, in 1879 and earlier. These\nexperiments, curiously enough, were worked out during much of the same\nperiod as Crookes\u2019 researches into spiritualistic phenomena, and have\nled to the shedding of much light upon the latter. For the new science\ndeveloped from them, and already more or less popularized,[120] compels\nus to suppose that the most enormous forces lurk all around, within the\nvery structure of the atom itself\u2014which of course is totally invisible\nto our eyes. The new facts observed, with regard to radium and other\nsuch substances, seem to compel the supposition that each atom is\ncomposed of an immense number (say 100,000) of highly charged electrical\nparticles moving each with huge velocity\u2014a velocity at any rate\ncomparable to that of light. The dissociation of such atoms and the\nliberation of their constituent particles develops a fabulous energy.\nWhen it is calculated that one gramme or fifteen grains of matter (say\nthe weight of thirty postage stamps) moving with the speed of light,\nwould have energy enough to lift the British Navy to the top of Ben\nNevis (Crookes); or that one milligramme (say the sixty-sixth part of a\ngrain of wheat) at the same speed would represent the energy of fifteen\nmillion foot-tons (Lodge); or when, according to J. J. Thomson, the\ncombined speed and mass of the electrons within such a milligramme of\nmatter would total up to the work represented by a hundred million\nkilogram-metres;[121] then we can at any rate see\u2014whatever small\nvariations there may be in the estimates\u2014how immense are the\npotentialities of the tiniest points of matter; how each minutest atom\ncomprehends, as Shelley says, \u201ca world of loves and hatreds\u201d (_i.e._\npositive and negative electric charges); we realize that no\nmanifestations of unexpected power are _per se_ incredible; and we are\nindeed rather inclined to wonder how it is that these great inter-atomic\nenergies do not more often force themselves on our attention!\n\nIt is evident that any such condition of being as we have supposed in\nthe case of the \u2018inner\u2019 or \u2018spiritual\u2019 body, might afford means for the\nliberation\u2014even from a single atom\u2014of forces amply sufficient for the\nmost \u2018miraculous\u2019 phenomena; and we are led to wonder and to ask whether\nit may not be the case that, after all, our gross bodies are really a\nhindrance rather than a help\u2014whether it may not be true that the powers\nwe could exert _without_ them and independently of muscles and sinews\nand hands and feet would be far greater than those we actually do exert\nby means of these organs and appendages; whether, in fact, our gross\nbodies do not exercise a _limiting_ effect, confining our activities to\ncertain very clearly specified directions, and within certain very\ndefinite bounds? At any rate, this point of view is worth considering.\n\nCertainly the well-established facts of telepathy, and the equally\nwell-established facts of the projection of phantoms from persons dying,\nor passing through great danger, to friends even at a great distance,\nseem to show that the inner self of one person can send out rays or in\nsome way impress itself on the inner self of another far-off\nperson;[122] and this, under the theory of electrons moving at\nprodigious speed, seems not impossible. For though there is a difficulty\nin supposing ordinary physical vibrations or radiations to reach\neffectively from one person to another (say a thousand miles away) on\naccount of the law of space itself, which makes such radiations diminish\nin intensity as the square of the distance increases, yet in the case of\nelectrical radiations it seems possible to suppose two people related to\neach other as positive and negative poles\u2014in which case the radiations\nof electric charges would pass along lines connecting the two, and with\ncomparatively little loss of intensity. Our present rather crude and\nlumbering bodies probably impede these subtle exertions of force; and\nthe fact (already noted once or twice) of the greater activity of people\nin the telepathic or phantasmogenetic directions, when they are\nthemselves outwardly in a dying or exhausted condition, seems to point\nto a considerable liberation of these powers after death.\n\nOn the other hand, the well-established facts of perceptivity at a great\ndistance, or without the mediation of the gross body and the usual\nend-organs, point in the same direction. Considerable investigations\nhave been made in this subject; and not only is the evidence for\noccasional clairvoyance at a distance well established, but there are\ncurious cases in which the faculty of sight or of hearing seems to be\ntransferred from its natural organ to some other part of the body, as of\nseeing with the knee, or the stomach, or the finger-tips. Myers gives\nconsiderable attention to this subject, and thinks that Professor\nFontan\u2019s experiments[123] \u201ccannot lightly be set aside\u201d; while Lombroso\nquotes an hysterical patient of his own, a girl of fourteen, who lost\nthe sight of her eyes, but was able to read perfectly with the lobe of\nher left ear! Later on, in the same patient, the sense of smell\nconcentrated itself in the heel of her foot! Mrs. Piper, as is well\nknown, commonly raises her _hand_ for the sitter to speak into, as if it\nwere her ear. And in cases of somnambulism the sleepwalker will\nsometimes move securely through difficult or dangerous places with eyes\nabsolutely closed. All these things seem to point to an aboriginal power\nof perception independent of the end-organs. It is obvious that if in\nthe course of evolution our present faculties of sight, hearing, and so\nforth have been developed from the diffused sensitivity of an am\u0153ba or\nsome such creature, then those faculties must have existed, in their\nundifferentiated state, in the am\u0153ba; or, to put the matter another way,\nthe faculty of sight clearly does not reside in the cornea of the eye,\nor in the crystalline lens, or even in the retina itself; which are\nmerely an apparatus evolved for dealing with the details of the matter.\nThe retina catches the light-disturbance, and the optic nerve conveys it\nto the brain, and the brain-cells are agitated by it; but where does\n_sight_ come in? At some point, doubtless, the agitations of the\nbrain-cells or of their internal molecules are _seen_ and interpreted;\nbut the being that sees and interprets them may (we had almost said\n_must_) be capable of directly seeing and interpreting similar\nagitations in the outer world\u2014that is, it may or must by its nature be\ncapable of seeing the events of the outer world without the mediation of\nthe end-organs or the brain. Frederick Myers, dealing with this subject,\nsays:\u2014\u201cI start from the thesis that the perceptive power within us\nprecedes and is independent of the specialized sense-organs, which it\nhas developed for earthly use. \u2018It is the mind that sees and the mind\nthat hears, the other things are blind and deaf.\u2019\u201d[124] He thinks that\nin the development or unfolding of life on our planet \u201ccertain\nsensibilities got themselves defined and stereotyped upon the organism\nby the evolution of end-organs. Others failed to get thus externalized;\nbut may, for aught we know, persist nevertheless in the central\norgans.\u201d[125] It is evident\u2014however we may explain the matter\u2014that\nactivities and sensibilities do persist and manifest themselves in the\nhuman organism quite independent of the ordinary and stereotyped\nend-organs, and this fact must go far to persuade us, not only that\nthere is an inner, a more subtle, and a more durable body than that\nwhich we usually recognize, but that in some respects this latter body\nis a limitation and a hindrance to the activity of the former, and to\nthe swiftness and range of the perceptions of the soul.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nWhat, then, it will naturally be asked, is the object or purpose or use\nof our incarnation in this grosser body?\u2014why, if there is such an\nethereal or spiritual frame within, should it thus tend to accrete\ndenser particles upon itself and ultimately to clothe itself in a\nvesture of so opaque and material a nature? It would be rash to attempt\nto answer so profound a question offhand\u2014off one\u2019s own bat as it were;\nand still more rash perhaps to accept any of the ready-made answers\nwhich are offered in such profusion, and in so many different jargons\nand lingos, by the sects and schools, from the Gnostics and Theosophists\nto the most philistine of the chapels and churches. Yet if one may\nventure a suggestion, it would seem rather likely that the object and\npurpose and use of this process by which the soul is entangled in\nmatter, and its operation and perception so strangely hampered and\nlimited, is\u2014limitation; that _limitation_ itself and even _hindrance_\nare part and parcel of the great scheme of the soul\u2019s deliverance. But\nthe further consideration of this I will defer to a later chapter.[126]\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XII\n\n  REINCARNATION\n\n\nThere is a good deal of talk indulged in, on the subject of\nReincarnation\u2014talk of a rather cheap character. One does not quite see\nwhat is the use of saying that the _ego_ will be reincarnated again some\nday, unless one has some sort of idea what one means by the _ego_, and\nunless one has some understanding of the sense in which the word\n\u201creincarnation\u201d is used. If it is meant that your local and external\nself, approximately as you and your friends know it to-day\u2014including\ndress, facial outline, professional skill, accomplishments, habits of\nmind and body, interests and enthusiasms\u2014is going to repeat itself\nagain in five or five hundred years, or has already appeared in this\nform in the past; one can only say \u201cimpossible!\u201d and \u201cI trust not!\u201d For\nall these things depend on date, locality, heredity, surrounding\ninstitutions, social habits, current morality, and so forth,\nwhich\u2014though they have certainly played their part in the spirit\u2019s\ngrowth\u2014must infallibly be different at any other period (short of the\nwhole universe repeating itself). And anyhow to have them repeated again\n_da capo_ at some future time would be terribly dull. But if you say \u201cOf\ncourse I don\u2019t mean anything so silly as _that_,\u201d it becomes incumbent\non you to say what you do mean.\n\nSupposing, for instance, you had been planked down a baby in the Arabian\ndesert, and grown up to maturity or middle age there, instead of where\nyou are, would any of your present-day friends recognize you? Where\nwould be your charming piano-playing, your excellent cricket, your\nrather sloppy water-color painting, your up-to-dateness in the\ntheatrical world? Where your morality (with three wives of course) or\nyour religion (something about \u201cChristian dogs\u201d), or where your British\n_sang froid_ and impeccability? And if it is obvious that in such a case\nas this you would, owing to the changed conditions, be changed out of\nall recognition, much more\u2014one might say\u2014would this be the case if you\nhad been born five hundred years ago, or were to be born again five\nhundred years hence. Your whole outlook on life, and its whole impress\non you, would be different.\n\nOf course I am not meaning, by these remarks, to say that reincarnation\nis in itself impossible or absurd; that would be prejudging the\nquestion. All I mean at present is that if we are going to study this\nsubject, or theorize upon it, it is really necessary to define in some\ndegree the terms which we use. I do not say that you, the reader, might\nnot be reincarnated, but I think it is clear that if you were, we should\nhave a good deal of trouble in following and finding you! It is clear\nthat the _you_, so reappearing, would not be your well-known local and\nexternal self, but some deep nucleus, difficult perhaps for your best\nfriend to recognize, and possibly even unknown or unrecognized by\nyourself at present. And similarly of some friend that you love for a\nthousand little tricks and ways. We all have such friends, and at times\ncherish a sentimental romance of their being restored to us in some\nfuture \u00e6on habited in their old guise and with their well-worn frocks\nand coats. But surely it is no good playing at hide-and-seek like that.\nThe common difficulties about the conventional heaven\u2014the difficulty\nabout meeting your old friend who used to be so good at after-dinner\nstories, about meeting him with a harp in his hand and sitting on a damp\ncloud\u2014is no whit the less a difficulty whatever future world may be the\n_rendezvous_. He would be changed (externally) and we should be changed,\nand it might well happen that if we did seem to recall any former\nintimacy we should both feel like strangers, and be as shy and tentative\nin our approaches to each other as school-children.\n\nWhat do we mean by the letter \u201cI\u201d? and what do we mean by the word\nReincarnation? These two questions wait for a reply.\n\nThe first is a terribly difficult question. It lies (though neglected by\nthe philosophers themselves) at the root of all philosophy. Perhaps\nreally all life and experience are nothing but an immense search for the\nanswer. What do we mean by the Ego? It is a sort of fundamental\nquestion, which it might be supposed would precede all other questions,\nbut which as a matter of fact seems to be postponed to all others, and\nis the last to be solved. All we can at the outset be sure of in the way\nof answer is the enormous extent and depth of the being we are setting\nout to define. We sometimes think of the _ego_ as a mere point of\nconsciousness, or we think of the ordinary self of daily life as a\nfragile and ephemeral entity bounded by a few bodily tissues and a few\nmental views and habits. But even the slight discussion of the subject\nin former chapters of this book (chapters vi., vii., and so forth) has\nrevealed to us the vast underlying stores and faculties which must be\nincluded\u2014the wonderful powers of memory, the subtle capacities of\nperception at a distance, or without the usual organs of sight and\nhearing, the power of creating images out of the depths of one\u2019s mind,\nand of impressing them telepathically upon others, the faculty of\nclairvoyance in past and future time, and so forth. The more we try to\nfathom this ego, with which we supposed ourselves so familiar, the more\nwe are amazed at its labyrinthine profundity, and the more we are\nastonished to think that we should ever have ventured to limit it to\nsuch a petty formula and conventional symbol as we commonly do\u2014not only\nin our judgment of friends, but even in our estimate of ourselves.\n\nReincarnation, as we have already said, can hardly be the reappearance,\nin a new life on earth (or even in some other sphere), of the very local\nand superficial traits which we know so well in ourselves and our\nfriends\u2014which are mainly a response to local and superficial\nconditions, and which mainly constitute what we call our personalities.\nIf reincarnation does occur, it must obviously consist in the\nreappearance or remanifestation of some such very interior self as we\nhave just spoken of\u2014some deep individuality (as opposed to\npersonality), some divine \u00e6onian soul, some offshoot perhaps of an\nage-long enduring Race-soul, or World-self\u2014and in that sort of sense\nonly shall I use the word in future.\n\nIn that sense the idea is feasible and illuminative. It explains the\nobvious limitations and localism of our personalities, as being more or\nless passing and temporary embodiments of our true selves; and it\nrepresents the latter as immense storehouses of experience from all\nmanner of places and times, and similarly as centres of world-activity\noperating in different fields of time and space. At the same time, it\npresents various difficulties. For one thing, it poses the difficulty\nthat for each of us this vast interior being is, as a rule, so deeply\nburied that both oneself and one\u2019s friends are only faintly\nconscious\u2014if at all\u2014of its true outline. And if one does not recognize\nthis being, of what use is it to us? It is true that we sometimes meet\npeople who at first sight give us a strong impression of far-back\nintimacy; but this is only a vague impression and hardly sufficient to\nafford proof of pre-existence. The only way of meeting this difficulty\nseems to be to suppose, as residing in this inner being or true self,\nanother order of consciousness, faint intimations of which we even now\nhave, and by which, as it grows and develops, we may some day clearly\nrecognize our true selves and true nature.\n\nAnother difficulty is that (as already said) for any satisfactory sense\nof survival continuity of memory is needed; and we should have to\nsuppose that the memory of each earth-life was continued into and stored\nup in this deeper soul or \u00e6onian self. Memory would not normally pass\nfrom one embodiment or incarnation to another, but each stream would\nflow into the central self and there be stored. And I think we may admit\nthat this is by no means impossible. Indeed there are not a few facts\n(some already mentioned) with regard to the recovery of memory which\nmake the mater probable. Though any given earth-life in a given form\ncould not be repeated, the _memory_ of such an earth-life, fresh and\nclear, may survive for an indefinite time in the crystal mirror of the\ndeeper consciousness.[127] And it is perhaps allowable to suppose that\nin this way, and with the lifting of the opaque veil of our present\nconsciousness, we may some day come clearly into the presence of friends\nwe have lost.\n\nHere again, however, one has to be on one\u2019s guard. The mere fact of\nremembering (or thinking one remembers), in this our terrestrial life\nand with our terrestrial consciousness, some detail or other of a\nprevious terrestrial life proves little\u2014for, for aught we know, quite\napart from our psychic selves, a streak of memory of more physical\norigin from some ancestor may have come down even several generations,\nand may be surviving in one\u2019s brain.[128] Indeed it is extremely\nprobable that all organic matter carries memory with it, and not\nunlikely that inorganic matter does so too. If you thought, for\ninstance, that you remembered seeing Charles the First beheaded\u2014if you\nhad a rather distinct picture in your mind of the scene at Whitehall,\nwhich you afterwards found by investigation to be corroborated in its\ndetails, you might at first jump to the conclusion that you had really\nlived at that time, and witnessed the scene. But after all it might\nmerely be that an ancestor of yours had been there, and that the vividly\nimpressed picture had somehow persevered in some subterranean channel of\nmemory and emerged again in your mind. Even then you might contend that,\nsince it was _your_ memory, _you_ must have been there\u2014or at any rate\nsome fraction of yourself in the ancestor, which now has become\nincorporated in your personality. There are a good many stories of this\nkind going about, which point to the possibility of the transmission of\nshreds of remembrance through hereditary channels, and suggest the idea\nof an active Race-memory, or Earth-memory, in itself continuous\u2014a\nstorehouse of experiences, but fed continually by the individuals of the\nrace, and coruscating forth again in other individuals.[129] Indeed one\ncan hardly withhold belief in the existence of such a larger life, or\nidentity, \u2018reincarnated\u2019 if one likes to use the expression, in\nthousands or millions of individuals; but to be satisfactorily assured\nof the reincarnation of one distinct and individual person is another\nthing, and would almost demand that there should be forthcoming not only\nshreds and streaks of remembrance, but a pretty continuous and\nconsistent memory of a whole former life.\n\nThus the whole question which we are discussing is baffled and rendered\nthe more complex by the doubt as to what is meant by the word \u201cI.\u201d It is\nclear, from what we have already said, that one person may use it to\nindicate (1) the quite local and superficial self; while another may\nhave in mind (2) a much profounder being (the underlying self) whose\ndepths and qualities we have by no means fathomed; while others, again,\nmay be thinking (3) of the self of the Race or the Earth, or (4) the\nAll-self of the universe.\n\nI present these questions and doubts, not\u2014as I have said\u2014for the\npurpose of discrediting the possibility of Reincarnation, but by way of\nshowing how complex and difficult the problem is, and how much _some_\nexact thought and definition is needed in dealing with it. At the same\ntime, in pleading for exact thought I would also urge that in avoiding\nthe whirlpools of sentimentalism we should be careful not to fall upon\nthe rocks of a dry and barren formalism. Systems of hard and fast\ndoctrines on these subjects\u2014even though issued with all the authority\nof ancient tradition, and enunciated in a long-dead jargon\u2014are the most\nunfruitful and uninspiring of things. They seem to contain no germ of\nvitality and are liable to paralyze the mind that feeds upon them.\nBesides the drawback\u2014as I have pointed out before\u2014that all such\nsystems are inevitably false. Nature does not, in any department, work\nupon a cut-and-dried system; and while at the outset of an investigation\nwe often seem to discern something of that kind, further study\ninvariably discloses an astounding variety of order and method. It may\nbe well therefore to be prepared to find a general principle of\nReincarnation in operation in the world, but worked out, in actual fact,\nin a great variety of ways.\n\nCertainly there comes into our minds, at a certain grade of their\ndevelopment, a deep persuasion of the truth, in _some_ sense, of\nreincarnation\u2014that \u201cthe Soul that rises with us, our life\u2019s Star,\nhath had elsewhere its setting.\u201d It blossoms, this persuasion, in a\ncurious way, in the very depths of the mind; and in moments of inner\nillumination, or deep feeling, is discerned in a way that seems to\nleave no room for doubt. At the same time, it not only has this\nintuitive sanction, but it commends itself also to the intellect,\nbecause at a certain stage we perceive very clearly both how vast is\nthe whole curve of progress which the soul has to cover from its first\nbirth to its final liberation, and how tiny is the arc represented by\na single lifetime\u2014the two thoughts almost compelling us to believe\nin a succession of lives as the only explanation or solution. We are\ncompelled towards a practical belief in Reincarnation, and yet (as\nabove) we have to confess that our conception of what it really is,\nor what we mean by it, is only vague. This, however, is no more than\nwhat happens in a hundred other cases. The young bird starts building\na nest for the first time, driven by some strange instinct to do so,\nand yet it can only have a very dim notion of the meaning and uses\nthe nest will subserve when finished. And _we_ found our lives on\ndeep intuitions\u2014of social solidarity, of personal responsibility, of\nfree will, and so forth\u2014and yet it is only later and by degrees that\nwe learn what these things actually mean.\n\nReferring, then, to the four alternative forms of the self given two\nor three pages back, and taking the last first, we may say definitely,\nI think, that as far as the self of each one of us is identified (4)\nwith the All-self of the universe, its reincarnation is assured.\nIts reincarnation indeed is perpetual, inexhaustible, multitudinous\nbeyond words, filling all space and time. Though the consciousness\nof this self is deeply buried, yet it is there, in each one of us.\nOccasionally\u2014if even only for a moment\u2014it rises to the surface,\nbringing a sense of splendor and of joy indescribable\u2014the absolute\nfreedom and password of all creation, the recognition of oneself\neverywhere and in all forms. But this phase of the self\u2014I need hardly\nsay\u2014is for the most part hidden; and more common is it perhaps for the\nRace-self (3) to rise into our consciousness with more or less distinct\nassurance that we live again and are re-embodied in other members of\nthe race to which we belong. The common life of the race carries us\naway and overmasters us with a strange sense of identity and community\nof being. Heroisms and devotions\u2014as of men dying for their country,\nor bees for their hive\u2014spring from this; and superb intoxications of\njoy. The whole of the life of primitive races and tribes, and the life\nof the animals and insects, illustrates it\u2014in warfares, migrations,\ncrusades, frantic enthusiasms, mad festivals\u2014the genius of the race\nrushing on from point to point, inspiring its children, incarnating\nitself without end in successive individuals.\n\nIt is not so uncommon, I say, for us to be able to identify ourselves\nwith this great Race-self, and to feel its thrill and pulse within\nour veins. And it might well be thought that, with these two forms of\nreincarnation (3) and (4) and the immense joy they bring, we should\nbe content: even as all the tribes of the animals and the angels are\ncontent.\n\nBut it seems that man\u2014when the civilization-period sets in, and after\nthat\u2014is not content. The little individual soul, now first coming to\nthe consciousness of its own separateness, sets up a claim for an\nimmortality and a reincarnation of its very own\u2014apart from the\nRace-self, apart even from the Divine self. It demands that its _ego_\nshould continue indefinitely into the farthest fields of Time\u2014a\nseparate entity, perpetually re-embodied. Can such a claim\u2014in the light\nof what has been said above\u2014be possibly conceded?\n\nCertainly not. We have seen the absurdity of supposing that the local\nand superficial self (1) can ever recur again or be re-embodied in that\nform, except as a mere matter of memory (or possibly of a repetition of\nthe whole universal order). And as to the underlying self (2), whatever\nexactly it may be, there are a thousand reasons for seeing that _as a\nwholly separate entity_ the same must be true of that. I may refer the\nreader to _The Art of Creation_, the whole argument of which is to show\nthat even the mere attempt to _think_ of itself as a separate entity\ninvolves the human soul in hopeless confusion and disintegration; and I\nmay remind the reader that we know nothing in the whole universe which\nis thus separate and apart, and that the conception, whether from a\nphysical point of view or a psychological point of view, is impossible\nto maintain. That being so, there remains only to consider the\npossibility of the underlying self or individual soul being\nre-embodied\u2014not as an absolutely separate entity, but as affiliated to\nsome greater Life which shall afford the basis of successive\nincarnations. The problem is narrowed down, practically to the question\nwhether the individual may not obtain some kind of individual\nreincarnation through the Race-self, or possibly through the All-self of\nthe universe.\n\nAnd here I will state what I personally think and believe about this\nproblem, leaving the reasons for the present to commend themselves. I\nthink that in the early stages\u2014in animal and primitive human life\u2014the\nRace-self is paramount; that each individual self proceeds from it, in\nmuch the same way as a bud proceeds from the stem of a growing plant, or\neven as a single cell forms part of the tissue of the stem; and is\nabsorbed into it again at death. There are no individual and\ndeath-surviving souls produced, apart from the Race-soul. In the great\nrace or family of bunny-rabbits, for instance\u2014though there are\ncertainly individual differences of character\u2014just as there are\ndifferentiations of tissue-cells in the stem of a plant\u2014it is difficult\nto believe that there are individual and immortal souls. Each little\nself springs from the race, and is an embodiment of it, representing in\nvarious degree its characteristics; and at death\u2014in some way which we\ndo not yet quite understand[130]\u2014returns thither, yielding its\nexperiences to the stores of the race-experience. The same is probably\ntrue of the great mass of the higher animals, even up to the primitive\nand earliest Man. The Race-self in all these cases moves onward,\nupgathering the experiences of the individuals, wise with their united\nknowledge, and rich with their countless memories. And these tracts\nagain, of experience, knowledge and memory, largely in a vague and\ngeneralized form, but sometimes in sharp, individualized and detailed\nform, are transmitted from the Race-self to its later individuals and\noffshots. Thus a kind of broken reincarnation occurs, by which streaks\nof memory and habit pass down time from one individual to another, and\nby which perhaps\u2014in us later races\u2014the persistent \u2018intimations of\nimmortality\u2019 and persuasions of having lived before are accounted for.\n\nI think that this process, of mixed and broken reincarnation, may go on\nfor countless generations\u2014the animal or animal-human souls so\ndifferentiated from the race-soul returning continually to the latter at\ndeath. But that a period may come when the Race-self (illustrated by the\ngrowing plant-stem) may exhibit distinct _buds_\u2014the embryos, as it\nwere, of independent souls\u2014which will not return and be lost again in\nthe race-soul, but will persevere for a long period and continually\nattain to more differentiation and internal coherence and sense of\nidentity. In such cases any reincarnations that occur connected with\nthese buds\u2014though mingled with the race-life\u2014will become much less\nbroken than before, and more distinctly individual; till at last a phase\nis reached when such a soul-bud, almost detached from the race-life, may\nbe reincarnated (or let us say \u2018re-embodied\u2019) as a separate entity, with\na kind of immortality of its own.\n\nIt must be at this stage that the characteristic human soul of the\nCivilization-period is evolved\u2014which coheres quite firmly round itself,\nwhich protests and revolts against death, which even largely throws off\nits allegiance to the race-soul, and to the laws and solidarities of the\nrace-life, and which has an enormous and overweening sense of identity\nand self-importance, claiming for itself, as I have just said, a kind of\nseparate persistence. Here ensues, as may be imagined, a terrible period\nof confusion and trouble\u2014the whole period of competitive civilization.\nThe splendid claim of identity and immortality is made; but for the time\nbeing it is spoiled by what we call \u2018selfishness,\u2019 the mirror is cracked\nthrough ignorance. The Soul has disowned her allegiance to mere instinct\nand the race-self, and has yet not found a firm footing beyond\u2014is only\nfloundering in the bogs of self-consciousness and anxiety. What kind of\nRe-embodiment may belong to this period we shall best perhaps see when\nwe have considered the further course of the argument.\n\nFor at last the process of transition completes itself. The human soul\ntossed about beyond endurance at length discovers within itself a divine\nNucleus\u2014a nucleus of growth and life and refuge and security, apart\nfrom its own fragility, quite apart from the race-life, independent of\nall the latter\u2019s laws and conventions and sanctions and traditions,\nindependent of caste or color, of world-period or locality; and from\nthat moment it (the soul) rests; it ceases (like the little rose of\nJericho) from its desert wanderings; it radiates itself and begins to\ngrow from a new centre; it is born again; it becomes the beginning of\nwhat may be called a Divine Soul. The man becomes conscious of an\nethereal body forming within, unassailable or at least undestroyable by\nDeath; and it is probable that, during this period, the subtle organism\nwhich we have already termed the Inner or Spiritual Body (ch. x.) _is_\nactually forming and defining and, so to speak, consolidating itself.\nThe subtle body of a more perfect being is forming\u2014a body which can\npass unharmed through walls, fire, water, which can navigate the air and\nthe planetary spaces, and which is built on the basis of the ether,\nitself the all-pervading life-substance of creation. A divine soul is\ncoming to expression, an _ego_ indeed, marvellously different and\ndistinct from all other _egos_, and ever more majestic and unique\ngrowing; but rooted deep in the universal self, and ever from that root\nexpanding and sharing the life of that self and of all its children.\n\nWith the formation of this divine soul, re-embodiment in its complete\nand adequate sense commences. The spiritual or subtle body formed within\nthe gross body retains its characteristics after the death of the latter\n(many of which characteristics no doubt hardly gained expression in the\none life just ended)\u2014and passes on to other spheres, there to assume\nmore or less definitely material bodies according to the sphere and the\nconditions in which it may need to move. It may seek re-embodiment on\nearth through ordinary heredity and childbirth\u2014in which case presumably\nit enters into the growing germ, and moulds the development of the\nlatter to an adequate, if not to a quite perfect and unsullied,\nexpression of itself. If the reincarnation is to be into ordinary human\nand terrestrial life, this is probably the only available method. And it\nwould seem that some advanced and well-nigh perfect souls do adopt this\nmethod, appearing as infants with a kind of divinity about them, and a\ngerminal purity so great as to seem to proceed from an \u2018immaculate\nconception.\u2019\n\nBut to most, in this stage, the toil and tedium of passing through\nembryonic life and physical birth and infancy may well appear\nintolerable; and since by now they have developed the subtle or\nspiritual body and the powers belonging to it, this ordeal is no longer\nnecessary. The subtle body can\u2014as we have gathered from former\nchapters\u2014by a process of condensation clothe itself in a visible or\neven tangible vesture,[131] and may function, at any rate for a time, in\nsuch outer or apparitional form without going through all the\n_abracadabra_ of birth. If on the earth, such functioning can only be\nvery temporary, owing to the difficulty here of the conditions, and of\nthe supply of the necessary condensation-material; but in other and less\nponderous spheres the difficulty is probably much less, and the\nformation of suitable bodies comparatively easy. Anyhow, it will be seen\nthat reincarnation of this second kind is unitary and single in\ncharacter instead of being divided or fragmentary; it is unalloyed\ninstead of being broken and mixed;[132] and a vision rises before us, in\nconnection with it, of ever-growing forms and more perfect\nlife-embodiments carrying out, one after another in long succession, the\nevolution and expression of each divine soul or separate ray of\nuniversal being.\n\nThus in answer to query two, on an early page of this chapter, we may\nsay that there are two kinds of reincarnation proper\u2014quite different\nfrom each other:\u2014(1) That of the race-self in which the individual\nmembers of the race share only in a streaky fashion, each going back at\ndeath into the race-soul, and emptying its memories and experiences into\nthat soul for general sporadic inheritance, but not for transmission in\nmass to any one later individual; and (2) that of the individual who has\nfound his divine soul and evolved his inner body to a point where it\ncannot be broken up again; and who is thus reincarnated or re-embodied\ncomplete through successive materializations or condensations, in other\nspheres and without again undergoing the ordinary race-birth and death.\n\nBut though these two represent the normal forms of reincarnation, a\nthird kind should be added which represents the transition from one to\nthe other, and which is important for us because it mainly covers the\nperiod in which we now are\u2014the great period of civilization. We saw how\nthe soul of the animal is so close to the race-self, and so little\ndifferentiated from it, that it probably returns quite easily into the\nrace-self at death; and this is likely to be the same with very early or\nprimitive man. But when the distinctly human soul begins to form and to\nshape itself, it does not so easily forget its individuality and\nobliterate itself in that from which it sprang. And so we have the\ntentative, half-formed human soul, by no means well assured of itself,\nor certain of its own powers, and by no means perfect or contented, but\nmuch persuaded of its own importance and anxiously seeking reincarnation\nas a separate entity\u2014and seeking this by the only means available to\nit, _i.e._ through heredity and birth as a member of the race.\n\nIt is a painful situation and experience. The soul, as human and not\nanimal soul, is longing to separate itself from the race, to mark its\ndistinction and independence\u2014yet it has not, so far, found the divine\nnucleus which alone can give it real independence; and it can only gain\nexpression and manifestation through the race-self and the ordinary\nparaphernalia of birth and death. It has learned no other way. Moreover,\nit is not yet completely differentiated from the race-self. It thus\narrives at what can only be a very mingled and broken expression. Some\nfather-stream and some mother-stream uniting, as it were, in the\npsychological neighborhood of this half-formed soul give it the desired\nopportunity; and blending itself with them it comes down into the\nworld\u2014a being of triple nature, embryonic and incompletely formed in\nitself, and utilizing as best it can the diverse elements of its\nmaternal and paternal sources. Its career, consequently, and its life on\nearth are marked by a continual inner struggle and conflict\u2014both\nphysiological and psychological (due to the effort of the soul to bend\nthe race-life and the elements of corporeal heredity to its own uses),\nand in strange contrast both with the hardihood and calm insouciance of\nthe animals, in whom the race-life is untampered, and with the\ntransparent health and serenity of those other beings in whom the divine\nsoul has finally established its sovereignty.\n\nSuch, briefly described, are I believe the outlines of the reincarnation\nstory. To put it in a few words, the whole process by which the\nrace-self evolves and finally gives birth to myriads of free,\nindependent and deathless individuals curiously resembles and may well\nbe illustrated by a certain biological phenomenon common both in the\nvegetable and the animal worlds. Some growing stem or portion of tissue,\nperhaps of a plant, perhaps of a sponge or higher organism, is at first\nof a simple homogeneous character, fairly uniform and undifferentiated:\nbut after a time it exhibits knobs and inequalities, which presently\ndefine themselves in a sort of _botryoidal_ or clustered bud-like growth\n(as, for instance, in the spadix of an arum or the ovary of a mammal);\nfinally these knobs or buds become entirely distinct and fully formed,\nand are thrown off \u2018free,\u2019 as seeds (in the case of plants and animals),\nor gemmules (in the case of sponges), or spores (in ferns and mosses),\nor as fresh and complete individuals in many aquatic creatures\u2014in any\ncase to enter on the beginnings of a free and independent life of their\nown. This kind of process, anyhow, is found in every department of\nbiology, and it may well be that it extends upward even into the highest\ndomains. The growing stem\u2014proliferating cells without number, which are\nborn and die in a kind of even uniformity within the limits of the\nstem\u2014corresponds to the race-self in its early stages; the formation of\nknobs and buds in various degrees of clustered development corresponds\nto the partial growth of human souls out of the race-soul; and the\nliberation of the buds and germs corresponds to the liberation of the\nhuman souls into the freedom of a universal life.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XIII\n\n  THE DIVINE SOUL\n\n\nThe liberation of buds and germs, as in the biological processes alluded\nto in the last chapter, is in general connected with sex, and brought\nabout by its operation. And, similarly, I think we may say that the\nliberation of human souls and their disengagement from the race-matrix\nis brought about by love. I have already pointed out (ch. ix.) the\nintensely personal and individualizing character of human love. If one\ncan imagine a love-relation going on between two members of a race\u2014two\nportions, as it were, of the race-soul\u2014at present only slightly\nindividualized, one can see how the attraction to each other, the\ndrawing away from their surroundings, the excitement, the agitation, all\ntend to further their growth as individuals\u2014to give them form, apart\nfrom the matrix in which they are embedded, and definition and\ncharacter. Of course all experience does this, but most of all and most\ndeeply does love. It breeds souls out of the Race-self, and finally\nbrings them away to an independent life. \u201cIt is for this that the body\nexercises its tremendous attraction\u2014that mortal love torments and tears\nasunder the successive generations of mankind\u2014That underneath and after\nall the true men and women may appear, by long experience emancipated.\u201d\n\nAs said in an early chapter, in love, though we do not know exactly what\nis happening, we are persuaded that something very profound and\nfar-reaching is working itself out. And one such thing, I am sure, is\nthe liberation of the soul of the lover\u2014and, in less degree, the soul\nof the loved one. The tremendous experiences and convulsions, the\nprofound stirrings, and the wrenchings from old ties and associations,\ndo at last not only build the soul up into a distinct individuality, but\nthey dig it up from its roots in the race and plant it out in the great\nEden garden of emancipated humanity\u2014the beginning of a new career.[133]\n\nAnother thing that I think is happening is that when love is strongly\nreciprocated the elements (as we have seen several times already),\nwhether physical or psychical, pass over from one to the other and are\ninterchanged\u2014regenerating and immensely enlarging the life and capacity\nof each individual. This happens, I believe, in all grades of the\nuniversal life, from the Protozoa upwards. Two individuals drawn\ntogether interchange some elements of their being, and grow thereby into\na larger and grander life; or may even in cases fuse completely into one\nindividual person. As Swedenborg says somewhere:\u2014\u201cThose who are truly\nmarried on earth are in heaven one Angel.\u201d\n\nThirdly, I think that the reciprocated love of two sometimes creates a\n_new soul_. We are familiar with the idea that the love (sexual) of two\nbodies commonly creates a new body; and there is an age-long tradition\nthat the same is true in the world of souls. There is in that world\nalso, not only regeneration but generation. \u201cLove is the desire of\ngeneration in the beautiful, both _with relation to the soul and the\nbody_,\u201d says Plato;[134] and Ellen Key, in a passage already quoted\nabove (ch. iv., p. 61), says that \u201ctwo beings _through_ one another may\nbecome a new being, and a greater than either could be of itself alone.\u201d\nBy love a new soul is sometimes generated which takes possession of both\npersons, and which suggests\u2014as in the Swedenborg phrase above\u2014that in\nsome other sphere they really become one. And by love, we may also\nthink, between man and wife, a new soul or soul-bud is sometimes\ncreated, which may descend into and vivify the physical germ of their\nfuture child.\n\nTo consider this last point a moment. The connection between heredity\nand the individual self is very mysterious. We acknowledge our descent,\nand what we owe, both mentally and bodily, to our parentage; but we are\nfain to think of our _ego_ as something apart, something not to be\nconfused with parents, and by no means merely derivative from them.\nSometimes indeed there is great harmony between this _ego_ and the\nparental inheritance, sometimes much the reverse; sometimes the line\nbetween the two is doubtful and uncertain. What is the explanation of\nall this? and what are the true facts of the relationship?\n\nDoes it not seem likely that, in the intense organic excitement which\nattends sexual union, this excitement\u2014especially if strong love be also\npresent\u2014reaches right down into the soul-depths of each person,\nstirring these also, and the race oversoul at that point, most\nprofoundly? So that, at the same moment that the germ of a bodily child\nis being fertilized, there is formed in the race-soul a soul-bud\ncorresponding, which consequently descends into the physical germ and\nbecomes its organizing life\u2014the soul-bud thus being related to the\nsouls of the parents, somewhat as the physical germ is related to their\nbodies? It springs, in fact, from a related portion of the\nrace-oversoul.\n\nOr again, does it not seem likely that in some cases, instead of a quite\nnew bud being formed, the profound stirring of the race-life in that\nvicinity causes some older and more developed soul-bud\u2014which has\nperhaps already had some earth-experiences\u2014to wake into activity and\ntake possession of the germ? In the first case mentioned the child born\nwill be singularly like the parents, and in nature harmonious with them,\nwith very little extraneous in its character, and with the fair prospect\nbefore it of a smooth and even career. But in this latter case, though\nthe child will be harmonious with the parents it will have great depths\nbeside, of authentic character of its own which will show out as time\ngoes on.\n\nAnd again, if deep love be absent, and consequently there is no special\nbirth or awakening of souls in that region where they should be related\nto the body which is being born\u2014what is likely to happen? Is it not\nlikely that some other soul-bud, or soul which chance or other\nindication of destiny may bring that way, may enter in and possess the\ndeveloping organism? And is it not likely, then, that strife and\nconflict and doubt may also enter in, causing a character of mixed\nelements, possibly leading to heroic developments, but also probably to\na broken or tragic life-story?\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nAs in the earliest and most primitive developments of life, so in the\nlatest and most exalted, the soul is born through love, and through love\nit grows and expands. It may indeed be asked whether any other way is\npossible. Oppositions and conflicts may give form to the growing thing,\nand help to carve its outlines; but this gives it expansion. Every\nprofound attachment necessarily modifies and enlarges the man. It pulls\nhim out of his little orbit into a wider path\u2014even if for the moment\nwith some amount of eccentricity. Something is incorporated in his life\nwhich was not part of it before\u2014something possibly which he did not\nbefore appreciate or understand. What we now are\u2014whether mentally or\nphysically\u2014is an epitome of multitudinous loves in the past. The very\ncell-alliances which constitute our bodies are the records of endless\nheart-yearnings and romances (dating from far-back ages, and even now\nenduring) among a tiny people to us well-nigh invisible. And we may ask\nourselves whether in the regions above and beyond our present life there\nmay not be soul-alliances and even soul-fusions, by which we humans in\nour turn build up the very life of the gods? Plato in his _Symposium_,\nspeaking of the strange desire of lovers for each other, makes\nAristophanes say:[135]\u2014\u201cBut the soul of each manifestly thirsts for,\nfrom the other, something which there are no words to describe, and\ndivines that which it seeks, and traces obscurely the footsteps of its\nobscure desire. If Vulcan should say to persons thus affected, \u2018My good\npeople, what is it that you want with one another?\u2019 And if, while they\nwere hesitating what to answer, he should proceed to ask\u2014\u2018Do you not\ndesire the closest union and singleness to exist between you, so that\nyou may never be divided night or day? If so, I will melt you together,\nand make you grow into one, so that both in life and death ye may be\nundivided. Consider, is this what you desire? Will it content you if you\nbecome that which I propose?\u2019\u2014We all know that no one would refuse such\nan offer, but would at once feel that this was what he had ever sought;\nand intimately to mix and melt and to be melted together with his\nbeloved, so that one should be made out of two.\u201d And we may\nthink\u2014though this strange and intimate longing is never fulfilled, as\nwe know, in the actual earth-life\u2014that it still may possibly be an\nindication (as happens in other cases) of something which really is\nworking itself out in the unseen world.\n\nIt was suggested, in the end of chapter xi. above, that limitation and\nhindrance are a part of the cosmic scheme of the creation of souls, and\nthat there is a purpose in these things in regard to this mortal life.\nIt was also suggested that the profound soul-stuff of which we are made\nis capable of infinitely swifter and more extended perceptions than\nthose of which we are usually aware; and that there is a good deal of\nevidence to show that perceptive powers of this kind\u2014quite independent\nof the usual end-organs of sight, hearing, taste, and so forth, still\nlinger buried deep down within us. The question then naturally arises,\nIf this limitation of faculty really exists as a fundamental fact of our\nmortal life, what purpose does it subserve?\u2014And the answer to this is,\nI think, very clear.\n\nIt subserves the evolution of Self-consciousness and of the sense of\nIdentity. It is obvious that diffused faculties and perceptions, however\nswift and powerful, could never have brought these gifts with them. It\nwas only by pinning sensitiveness down to a point in space and time, by\nmeans of a body, and _limiting_ its perceptions by means of bodily\nend-organs, that these new values could be added to creation\u2014the local\nself and the sense of Identity. All the variety of human and animal\nnature, all the endless differences of points of view, all diversity and\ncharm of form and character and temperament must be credited to this\nprinciple; and whatever vagaries and delusions the consequent growth of\nself-consciousness and selfness may have caused, it is incontestable\nthat through the development of Identity mankind and all creation must\nultimately rise to a height of glory and splendor otherwise\nunimaginable.\n\nAnd not only limitation but also hindrance. These things give an\nintensity and passion to life, and a power and decisiveness to\nindividuality, the absence of which would indeed be sad. As a\nwater-conduit by limiting the spread of the stream and confining it in a\nclose channel gives it velocity and force to drive the mill, so\nlimitation and hindrance in human life give the individualized energy\nfrom which, for good or evil, all our world-activities spring. As the\nLord says in Goethe\u2019s Prologue to _Faust_:\u2014\n\n   \u201cOf all the spirits of denial\n    The mischief-maker I most tolerate,\n    For man\u2019s activity doth all too soon unravel;\n    Of slumber he seems never satiate;\n    Therefore I gladly hand him to a mate\n    Who\u2019ll plague and prick, and play in fact the Devil.\u201d\n\nOver a long period in this cosmic process this action, we may think,\ngoes on. The vast and pervasive soul-stuff of the universe, in its\nhidden way omniscient and omnipresent, suffers an obscuration and a\nlimitation, and is condensed into a bodily prison in a point of space\nand time; but with a consequent explosive energy incalculable. The\nDevil\u2014_diabolos_ the slanderer and the sunderer, the principle of\ndivision\u2014reigns. To him, the \u2018milk and water\u2019 heaven of universal but\nvague benevolence is detestable. He builds up the actual, fascinating,\ntragic, indispensable world that we know. Selfishness and ignorance, the\ntwo great Powers of discord and separation, are his ministers; the earth\nis his theatre of convulsive hatreds and soul-racking passion; and our\nmortal life, instead of being the fair channel of cosmic activities,\nbecomes a \u201cstricture knot,\u201d as Whitman calls it, and a symbol of\ndisease.\n\nBut this diabolonian process is only one segment of the whole. After the\nlong descent and condensation and imprisonment of the spirit in its most\nlimited and inert and self-regarding forms, after its saturation in\nmatter, and its banishment in the world of death and suffering, the\nrising curve of liberation sets in, and the long process of its return.\nIt is through love mainly, as we have seen, that this second process\nworks itself out. From point to point through unison with others, by\nabsorbing something from their experience, by sharing a wider life, the\nspirit\u2019s manifestation grows. By this the great tree of organic life\nspreads upon the earth; by this each race-stem multiplies its tissues\nand expands; by this the buds of human souls are formed; and by this the\nsouls themselves are freed to independent life, and ultimately to circle\nagain \u201cdancing and sporting\u201d as Plutarch says, \u201clike joyous satellites\nround about their sun in heaven.\u201d There is continual Transformation; but\nthere is also continuity from end to end. For every being there is\ncontinuance, but continuance only by change. Each soul is a gradual\nrising to consciousness of the All-soul; a gradual liberation and\nself-discovery of the divine germ within it. First the race-soul rising\ntoward this consciousness, and then the individual souls thrown off,\nrising each independently toward the same. It is when the latter are\nmoving over from their (instinctive and so to speak organic) community\nwith the race-soul to a distinct and separate knowledge of and\nallegiance to the divine germ now declaring within themselves, that all\nthis period of confusion and dismay, naturally enough, occurs\u2014this that\nwe have called the period of Civilization and the Fall of man\u2014the\nperiod in which indeed we are now so fatefully involved. But it is in\nthis period too that \u2018divine souls\u2019 are formed, and their feet first set\nupon the path of splendor.\n\nLove indicates immortality. No sooner does the human being perceive\nthis divine nucleus within himself than he knows his eternal destiny.\nPlunged in matter and the gross body he has learned the lesson of\nidentity and separateness. All that the devil can teach him he has\nfaithfully absorbed. Now he has to expand that identity, for ever\nunique, into ever vaster spheres of activity\u2014to become finally a\ncomplete and finished aspect of the One.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XIV\n\n  THE RETURN JOURNEY\n\n\nWe have seen that there is some reason for believing that,\nsimultaneously with the birth or coming to consciousness of what we have\ncalled the divine soul, there occurs within us the formation of a\n\u2018spiritual\u2019 or very subtly material body. This body, if only composed of\natoms, may easily be so fine and subtle as to pass practically unchanged\nthrough ordinary gross matter\u2014the walls, for instance, and other\nobstacles that surround us. (At this moment there is an astronomical\ntheory current that the stellar universe consists of two vast\nstar-systems which are passing in nearly opposite directions right\n_through each other_.) If composed of electrons its subtlety and\npervasive powers must be much greater. Moreover, its fineness and\nsubtlety would make it difficult of destruction. The ordinary agents of\ndeath\u2014physical violence, water, fire, and so forth\u2014would, as already\npointed out, hardly reach it; and it is easy to suppose that it might\ncontinue onwards and perdure in stability and activity for thousands of\nyears. Even the Atom of matter, which is now regarded as a complex\nsystem of electrons, is supposed to have an immensely extended\nlifetime\u2014nearly two thousand years in the case of Radium, and much\nlonger in the case of all other substances; and if two thousand years or\nthereabouts is the minimum lifetime of an atom, it is not difficult to\nsuppose that the lifetime of a subtle body composed as above described\nmay be equally or much more extended.\n\nDuring its lifetime, the radio-active atom, slowly disintegrating, pours\nout a prodigious amount of energy; and in the process apparently is\ntransformed and takes on other characters and qualities. Radium for\ninstance, or rather some products of its disintegration, are thought to\ntake on the characters of Helium and of Lead. And similarly we have\nevery reason to believe that the subtle body of Man is continually\npouring out energy on all sides, radiating like a sun\u2014pouring out\nmental states, sensible forms, influences of all kinds, even images of\nitself, and so continually entering into a wider life and touch with\nothers, and undergoing a slow transformation of its outer form. At the\nsame time\u2014and leading to the same results\u2014it is continually storing up\nin its recesses impressions and memories for the seed of future\nexpression and development.\n\nIt may be imagined that the gross terrestrial body\u2014though splendidly\nnecessary for the localizing of the Self, and the establishment of the\nsense of identity, and for the electric accumulation of stores of\nemotion and passion, and so forth\u2014acts on the whole in such a way as to\ngreatly hamper and limit the activities of the inner body; and we can\nimagine that (as at death and under other special conditions) the\nliberation from the gross body is naturally accompanied by an enormous\nextension of faculty. The soul in its new and subtler form passes out\ninto an immensely wider sphere of action and perception\u2014so much so,\nindeed, as to make direct converse between the two worlds (the new world\nit is in, and the old one it has left) difficult to establish and very\ndifficult permanently to maintain. The author of _Interwoven_ says (p.\n221) that the first body and the second body differ greatly in their\nchemical particles, \u201cand so the same degree of sight and hearing is not\npossible.... _We_ have just as much trouble to see the outsides of\nthings as mortals have to see the insides.\u201d\n\nNor can we place a necessary limit to the birth of finer bodies. There\nmay be a succession of such things. The electron brings us very near to\na _mental_ state; for whereas an Atom\u2014conceived as similar to the speck\nof dust which one can roll between one\u2019s fingers, only much more\nminute\u2014seems to have no relation to mentality, a tiny electric charge,\ncapable of conveying a _shock_, comes very close! And at that stage the\ntruth becomes apparent that the inner intelligent being in all things is\nthe core, and the body is only the surface of contact\u2014the surface, in\nfact, along which one intelligence administers shocks to another! With\nliberation from the gross body that surface may grow enormously\nextended, and it may become possible to _touch_ or _see_, or to render\noneself visible or tangible, to others far beyond all ordinary\npossibilities of contact or perception.\n\nThe succession of finer bodies may exist in any gradation, from what we\ncall gross matter to the subtlest ether of emotion. At any rate we can\nsee that at every stage there will be a finer body which is _more_ of\nthe nature of thought, and an outer and coarser which is less so. As the\ngifted author of _The Science of Peace_, Bhagavan Das, says:\u2014\u201cAt each\nstage the Jiva-core (_i.e._ the core of the living individual) consists\nof matter of the inner plane, while its outer up\u00e2dhi (or sheath)\nconsists of matter of the outer plane; and when a person says, I think,\nI act, it means that the matter of the inner core, which is the I, for\nthe time being, is actually, positively, modified by, or is itself\nmodifying in a certain manner, the outer real world.\u201d The inner film of\nmatter (or mind), as he says, \u201cis posing and masquerading, for the time\nbeing, as the truly immaterial self.\u201d\n\nThis central Self we can never _wholly_ reach, but the movement of each\ndivine soul is toward it; and the assurance and salvation of each soul\nis in the growing sense of union with it. The personal self can only\n\u2018survive\u2019 by ever fading and changing toward the universal. Our inner\nidentity is fixed, but our outward identity we can only preserve by, as\nit were, forever losing it.\n\nAfter life\u2019s fitful fever\u2014after the insurgence and resurgence of\npassions; after the heart-breaking struggles which are forced upon\nsome for the sake of a mere material footing upon the earth; after the\ndeadly sufferings which others must undergo in order to gain scantiest\nallowance and expression of their inner and spiritual selves; after the\nmortal conflict and irreconcilableness of material and mental needs;\nthe battles with opponents, the betrayal of friends, the fading and\nsouring of pleasures, and the dissipation of ideals\u2014the consent of\nmankind goes to affirm and confirm the conclusion that sleep is well,\nsleep is desirable. As after a hard day\u2019s labor, when the sinews are\ntorn and the mind is racked, Nature\u2019s soft nurse commends a period of\nrest and healing\u2014so it would seem fitting that a similar period should\nfollow, for the human soul, on the toil and the dislocation of life.\n\nIt seems indeed probable\u2014and a long tradition confirms the idea\u2014that\nthe human soul at death does at first pass, with its cloud-vesture of\nmemories and qualities, into some intermediate region, _astral_ rather\nthan _celestial_ (if we may use words which we do not understand), some\nPurgatory or Hades, rather than Paradise or Olympus; and for a long\nperiod does remain there quiescent, surveying its past, recovering from\nthe shocks and outrages of mortal experience, knitting up and smoothing\nout the broken and tangled threads, trying hard to understand the\npattern. It seems probable that there is a long period of such digestion\nand reconcilement and slow brooding over the new life which has to be\nformed. Indeed when one comes to think of it, it seems difficult\u2014if\nthere is to be continuance at all\u2014to imagine anything else. When one\nthinks of the strange contradictions of our mortal life, the hopelessly\nantagonistic elements, the warring of passions, the shattering of\nideals, the stupor of monotony: the soul like a bird shut in a cage, or\nwith bright wings draggled in the mire; the horrible sense of sin which\ntorments some people, the mad impulses which tyrannize over others; the\nalternations of one\u2019s own personality on different days, or at different\ndepths and planes of consciousness; the supraliminal and the subliminal;\nthe smug Upper-self with its petty satisfactions and its precise and\nprecious logic, and the great Under-self now rising (in the hour of\ndeath) like some vast shadowy figure or genius, out of the abyss of\nbeing\u2014when one thinks of all this one feels that if there is to be any\nsanity or sequence in the conclusion, it must mean a long period of\nbrooding and reconciliation, and of readjustment, and even of sleep.\n\nAt first it may well be a troubled period, of nightmare-like confusion;\nbut at last there must come a time when harmony is restored. The past\nlifetime is spread out like a map before one\u2014all its events fall into\ntheir places, composed and clear. The genius, rising from the depths,\nthrows a strange light upon them. \u201cThis was necessary. That could not\nhave been otherwise. And that again which seemed so fatal, do you not\nnow see its profound meaning?\u201d The soul surveying gradually redeems the\npast. It comes to understand. _Tout comprendre, c\u2019est tout pardonner._\nIt beholds, far down, the little fugitive among the shadows, pursued by\nthe hideous and imbecile mask\u2014the sense of Sin\u2014and, recognizing a\nfleeting embodiment of itself, it smiles: for that mask has been seen\nthrough and is useless any longer. It beholds another\u2014or is it the\nsame?\u2014pursued by the Terror of Death; and again it smiles: for _that_\nshadow\u2014like the vast moonshadow in a total eclipse of the sun, which\nseemed so solid and all-devouring, has swept by; it has been passed\nthrough, and it was only a shadow.\n\nAnd it may well be also that this whole process of reconciliation and\nadjustment and the building up of diverse elements into one harmonious\nbeing may occupy more than one such interval between two lifetimes; it\nmay require several periods of incubation, so to speak. Looking at the\nmatter from the physical side, and seeing how the inner and subtle body\nhas probably to be formed during all this time\u2014as in a chrysalis\u2014and\ndifferentiated into an independent life, it seems likely that several\nintervals of outer rest and inner growth may be needed, and a series of\nsuccessive moultings! But in the end, when the string of earth-lives is\nfinished, and the reconciliation is complete, then the essential, the\ndivine, self has become manifest, and is ready for a whole new world, a\nnew order of experience, even to the farthest confines of the universe.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nI have suggested in a former chapter that Memory\u2014that very wonderful\nfaculty\u2014is probably our best test of Identity, our best test of\nSurvival. If we apply this canon to the evolution of the independent\nsoul out of the race-life, it may help us. When an animal dies, the\ngroup of memories, which is its life\u2019s-experience, probably passes back\nand is transmitted in a more or less diffused way into the general\nrace-life or soul.[136] In the case of some higher animals it is\npossible that the memory-group thus returning may cohere for a time or\nto a certain degree, and not be immediately diffused. In the case of the\nhigher types of _Man_ it is probable that such group may cohere for a\nlong time and rather persistently; and though embedded in the general\nrace-life and memory, and much mingled with and modified by these, it\nmay still form to some degree an independent centre of intelligence and\norganization (something like a nerve-plexus in the brain or body). It\nwill form, in fact, what I have already called a soul-bud or budding\nsoul, and will be capable of that mixed or partial reincarnation of\nwhich I have spoken\u2014in which some truly individual streaks of memory\nwill be mixed with general memories of race-life.\n\nBut after each successive reincarnation the group of memories\nreturning\u2014and allying themselves to the former groups\u2014will necessarily\ngive more and more definition to such budding soul, till at last the\ntime will come when its individuality will be complete; its severance\nfrom the race-life will follow as a matter of course; and it will float\nout into the sea of the all-pervading and divine consciousness.\n\nDuring this budding period of the human soul, which generally speaking\nmay be said to coincide with the civilization-period of human history,\nthe memory of each earth-life will go back into the race-soul there to\nswell the nucleus of the individual soul which is being brought to\nbirth; but it will not generally revive into _evidence_ in the next\nearth-life, for, being so deeply buried within, it will be too much\noverlaid by external layers and happenings to come distinctly into\nconsciousness. It is not probably till the completion of the whole\nseries of its earth-lives that the soul will resume all these memories\nand come into its complete heritage. Then, at some deep stage or state\nall its incarnations (clarified and comprehended) will become manifest\nto it\u2014a glorious kingdom beyond the imagination of man at present to\nconceive. All its various lives it may live over again; but with as much\ndifference in its understanding of their meaning as there is between an\naccomplished player\u2019s rendering of a piece of music, and a child\u2019s first\nstumbling performance of the same.\n\nIt will perceive that, in a sense, it has _pre-existed_ from eternity.\nFor though certainly there was a time when it first sprang as a bud from\nthe Race, and entered into a gradually evolving and self-defining series\nof personal lives, yet that first bud was itself but a particular\nlimitation and condensation of the Race-self; and _that_ again, far back\nand beyond, a limitation through many intermediate stages of the\nAll-self. It (the human-divine soul) will perceive that it pre-existed\nfrom eternity as the All-self; that it suffered in its time the\nnecessary obscurations and limitations; that it abdicated the high\nprerogative of universal consciousness; and that it was born again as a\ntiny Cinderella-spark; destined to rise through all the circles of\npersonal and individual life, and the enacting of the great drama of\nLove and Death\u2014the great cycle of Evolution and Transfiguration\u2014once\nmore to the eternal Throne.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nThe glory of that Heaven where the All-self dwells radiant as the Sun,\nand each lesser or partial soul knows itself as a ray conveying the\nwhole light, but in a direction of its own\u2014we need not dwell on or\nattempt to portray. As the emancipated soul, just described, may include\nthe personalities of many earth-lives and bodies, so there may\nbe\u2014probably are\u2014larger inclusive selves, special gods, having troops\nof souls united to them in the bonds of love and devotion. Telepathic\nradiations, travelling as it were on lines of light, and with the\nvelocity and directness of light, bring each unit into possible touch\nwith every other, and over an enormous field. As the modern theory of\nelectricity supposes that every electric charge, however small, or\nassociated with the smallest atom, is connected by lines of force with\nsome other and complementary charge _somewhere_\u2014even perhaps at a\npractically infinite distance\u2014negative with positive, and positive with\nnegative; so the idea is suggested that in the free world of the spirit\nevery need felt by one atom of personality anywhere is felt also and\nanswered to by some complementary impulse and personality _somewhere_.\nIn the bringing together of these needs and affections, in the recovery\nand the building up and the presentation in sensible form of all the\nworlds of memory, slumber infinite possibilities, and the outlines of\nendless situations and developments. The individual is clearly not lost\nin any \u2018Happy Mass\u2019; but may contribute to the formation of such a thing\nin the sense that he comes into such wide and extended touch with others\nas to have a practically unlimited range of experience, memory,\nknowledge, creative power, and so forth, to draw on.\n\nNor is there any call to think of a _bodiless_ heaven or bodiless state\nof being in any plane of existence. The body in any stage or state is, I\nrepeat, a surface of contact. Wherever one intelligent being comes into\ntouch with another\u2014whether actively, by impressing itself on the other,\nor passively by being impressed\u2014there immediately arises a body. There\narises the sense of matter, which is in fact the _impression_ made by\none being upon another. The external senses, of sight, hearing and the\nrest, are modifications or limitations of more extended inner faculties,\nof vision, audition, and so forth. The actual world of Nature which we\nknow, in the bodies of the woods and streams, and of animals and men, is\nbuilt up out of the material of our senses; out of the kind of\nimpressionability of which our senses are susceptible; but if these\nmaterials, of our sight and hearing and touch and taste, were altered\nbut slightly in their range, the whole world would be different. They\nwould create for us another world. And so, if these present end-organs\nof sense were destroyed, the soul, furnished with the inner faculties\ncorresponding, would create another world of sense and of Nature, which\nwould become the medium of expression and communication on that new\nplane, and the material of its bodily manifestation there. At present,\nowing to entanglement in the grosser senses, life is certainly in the\nmain a matter of food and drink, of sex, of money-making, and the\nexercise of rather rude recreations and arts. With a finer range of\nsense, there would still remain the roots and realities of these things;\nthe need of sustenance would still survive in the finer body, and the\nneed of interchange and the indrawing of vitality; the hunger of union\nand of intercourse would remain\u2014to be expressed in some shape or other;\nthe delight in music and in beauty of form would be no less, though\nsounds and colors might be different from those we know; and all the\nfaculties that we have\u2014and others too that are now only embryonic with\nus\u2014would demand their exercise and expression. Out of such demands and\nneeds would arise a corresponding world.\n\nI have suggested above (ch. xi.) how, deep in the subliminal self, there\nlies a marvellous faculty of producing visible and audible\nphenomena\u2014Visions and Voices and Forms. Out of the depths of being\nthese can be evoked, and bodied forth into the actual world.[137] In\nother words, each such Self, in its moods of power, can call forth its\nown thoughts and mental images with such force as to impress them\nirresistibly on others within its range\u2014with such force, in fact, as to\ngive them a material vesture and location. What we have said of the\nvastness and range of the human Under-self, of its swift interrelation\nwith others, of the immensity of its memory extending far back into the\ndeeps of time, must convince us that its powers of creation must be\ncorrespondingly wonderful. The phenomena exhibited by entranced mediums,\nand by hypnotized subjects, are only a sample of these powers; but they\nhint dimly to us that when we understand ourselves, and what we are, and\nwhen we understand others, and what they are, Time and Space and\nEstrangement will no longer avail against us; they will no longer hinder\nus from recognition of each other, nor hold us back from the spheres to\nwhich we truly belong, and the fulfilment of our real needs and desires.\n\nMan is the Magician who whether in dreams or in trance or in actual life\ncan, if he wills it, raise up and give reality to the forms of his\ndesire and his love. It is not necessary for us feverishly to pursue our\nloved ones through all the fading and dissolving outlines of their\nfuture or their past embodiments. They are ours already, in the deepest\nsense\u2014and one day we shall wake up to know we can call them at any\nmoment to our side; we shall wake up to know that they are ever present\nand able to manifest themselves to us out of the unseen.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XV\n\n  THE MYSTERY OF PERSONALITY\n\n\nIt will have been noticed that throughout this book there has been a\ntendency to return again and again to the question of what we mean by\nthe Self. As I have said before (see ch. xii., _supra_), one might very\nnaturally suppose that as the _ego_ underruns all experience, and we\ncannot make any observation of the world at all except through its\nactivity, the general problem of the nature of the ego would be the\nfirst to be attacked, and the very first to be solved; whereas,\ncuriously enough, it seems to be the last! Only towards the conclusion\nof philosophical speculation does the importance of this problem force\nitself on men\u2019s minds. Nevertheless, I think we may say that in the\ndepartment of philosophy it is the great main problem which lies before\nthis age for solution; and that one of the greatest services a man can\ndo is\u2014by psychologic study and manifold experience, by poetical\nexpression, especially in lyrical form, and by philosophic thought and\ninvestigation\u2014to make clear to himself and the world what he means by\nthe letter \u2018I,\u2019 what he means by his \u2018self.\u2019\n\nTo the unthinking person nothing seems simpler, more obvious, than his\nown existence\u2014and hardly needing definition. Yet the least thought\nshows how complex and elusive this \u2018self\u2019 is. It is one of those cases\nwith which the world teems\u2014a juggle of the open daylight\u2014in which an\nobject _appears_ so perfectly simple, frank, innocent, and without\nconcealment, and yet is really profoundly complex, deliberate, and\nunfathomable.\n\nThe most elementary considerations easily illustrate what I mean.[138]\nWhen we speak of the ego, do we mean the self of to-day, or of\nyesterday, or of some years back\u2014or possibly some years in the future\nwhen we shall have found the expression now unhappily denied us? Do we\nmean the self of boyhood, or even of babyhood? or do we mean that of\nmaturity, or of old age? Do we mean the self indicated by the mind\nalone, or by the spirit, apart from the body? or do we mean that\nindicated specially by the body, or even (as some folk seem to consider)\nby the _clothes_? It would be very puzzling to be asked to place one\u2019s\nfinger, so to speak, on any one of these manifestations as really and\ncompletely representative. Rather perhaps we should be inclined, if\npressed, to say that our real self was something underrunning _all_\nthese forms\u2014that it required all the expressions, from infancy, through\nmaturity, even to old age, and all the apparatus of body and mind, in\norder to convey its meaning; and that to pin it down to any particular\nmoment of time, or to any particular phase of the material or spiritual,\nwould be to do it a great injustice.\n\nIf so, we seem at once compelled to think of the Self as something\ngreatly larger than any ordinary form of it that we know, as something\nperhaps on a different plane of being\u2014underrunning, and therefore in a\nsense beyond, Time; and similarly underrunning, and therefore in a sense\nbeyond, both body and mind. And this all the more, because, as I have\nsaid on an earlier page, we all feel that at best much of our real\nselves remains in life-long defect of expression; and that there are\ngreat deeps of the Under-self (as in chapter viii.) which, though\norganically related to our ordinary consciousness, are still for the\nmost part hidden and unexplored. All, in fact, points to the existence\nwithin us of a very profound self, which so far we may justifiably\nconclude to be much greater than any one known manifestation of it;\nwhich requires for its expression the forms of a lifetime; and still\nstretches on and beyond; which perhaps belongs to another sphere of\nbeing\u2014as the ship in the air and the sunlight belongs to another sphere\nthan the hull buried deep in the water.\n\nBut we may go further in our exploration of the \u201cabysmal deeps.\u201d We have\nonce or twice in the foregoing chapters alluded to the possibility of\nthe self dividing into two personalities, or even more. We have\nsupposed, for instance, that at death the psychic organism may possibly\nsplit up\u2014some more terrestrial portion remaining operant and active on\nthe earth-plane, and some other portion removing to a subtler and more\nethereal region. Are we\u2014we may ask\u2014and those others who propound the\nsame ideas talking nonsense in doing so? Is it anyhow possible for a\nself to be active in two bodies or in two places at the same time? It\nmay indeed seem impossible and absurd\u2014until we envisage the actual\nfacts; but when we do so, when we study the facts of the alternation of\npersonalities, so much in evidence at the present time, when we find\nthat two or more personalities, or coherent bodies of consciousness, may\nnot only succeed each other in one human organism, but may\n_simultaneously_ be active in the same,[139] when we find that there is\nsuch a thing as \u2018bilocation,\u2019 and that the apparition of a person may\ncome and deliver a message while the original person is far away and\notherwise engaged, when we notice carefully our own internal psychology\nand find that we not unfrequently \u201ctalk to ourselves\u201d and in other ways\nbehave as two persons in one body\u2014we see that the absurdity or\nunlikelihood of the suggestion may not by any means be so great as\nsupposed, and that we may after all be forced to largely remodel our\nconception of what Personality is.[140]\n\nThat one Personality should divide into two or more may seem to be\nforeign to our habitual views; yet we must remember that worms,\nannelids, and molluscs of various kinds commonly so divide; and\nthough it is puzzling to think what becomes of the \u2018I\u2019 or \u2018self\u2019 of\na sea-anemone when the latter is cut in twain and each part goes its\nway as a new creature, we must not therefore refuse to envisage the\nfact and the problem thus flowing from it. As to the Protozoa, which\ncertainly exhibit signs of considerable intelligence, _fission_ of one\ncell into two or more is one of the most normal and frequent events of\ntheir lives. The same, of course, is true of the elementary cells of\nthe human body; the fission even of whole organs of the body is not\nuncommon, though more pathological in character; and the fission of the\npersonality, as just mentioned, is quite frequent; and in some cases\u2014as\nin the well-known case of Sally Beauchamp\u2014very striking, on account\nof the furious apparent opposition developed between one portion and\nanother.[141]\n\nThe conception therefore of Personality must, it would seem, include the\nthought of possible bilocation\u2014that is, of possible manifestation in\ntwo places at the same time; and it must not refuse the thought of\ninclusion\u2014_i.e._ of one personality being possibly included within\nanother\u2014as of living and intelligent cells within the body.[142]\nFurthermore, we must not only allow _division_ of self as one of the\nattributes of personality, but also, apparently, _fusion_ with other\nselves. This may seem far-fetched and unreasonable at first, but on\nconsideration we cannot but see that in one degree or another it is\nquite in the order of Nature. The Protozoa, of course, quite frequently\ncombine with each other, and so make a new start in life; in the higher\norganisms the sperm-cell and germ-cell fuse completely for the\nconception of the offspring, and the organisms themselves fuse partially\nand interchange elements during the process of conjunction; and in the\npsychology of love among human beings we notice a similar fusion, and\nsometimes also almost a confusion, of personalities.\n\nThe little self-conscious mind (of the civilized man) no doubt protests\nagainst all this. It desires to think of itself as a separate and\ndefinite entity, distinct from (and perhaps superior to) all others; and\nit finds any theories of possible fission or fusion of personalities\nquite baffling and impracticable. Yet in the light of the All-self\u2014the\nkey-thought of this book\u2014the whole thing is obvious, and there is\nreally no difficulty, except perhaps in the linking up (through memory)\nof the continuity of each lesser self.\n\nWhat we said in the last chapter, namely that \u201cthe personal\nself-consciousness can only survive by ever fading and changing toward\nthe universal,\u201d must be borne in mind. Continual _expansion_ is a normal\ncondition of consciousness. Time is an integral element of it.[143]\nConsciousness must continually grow. Through memory it preserves the\npast, through the present it adds to its stores. The author of _The\nScience of Peace_ illustrates the subject (p. 303) by asking us to\nconsider the spheres of consciousness of various officials in a country\nwhose departments more or less overlap each other: \u201cThere are\nadministrative officers in charge of each department, whose\nconsciousness may be said to include the consciousness of their\nsubordinates in that department, to exclude those of their compeers, and\nto be in turn included in those of their superiors. The more complicated\nthe machinery of the government, the better the illustration will be of\ninclusions and exclusions and partial or complete coincidences, and\noverlappings and communions of consciousness. At last we come to the\nhead of the government, whose consciousness may be said to include the\nconsciousnesses, whose knowledge and power include the knowledges and\npowers of all the public servants in the land, and whose consciousness\nis so expanded as to enable him to be in touch with them all and feel\nand act through them all constantly. An officer promoted through the\ngrades of such an administration would clearly pass through expansions\nof consciousness.... Such expansion of consciousness, then, is not in\nits nature more mysterious and recondite than any other item in the\nworld-process, but a thing of daily and hourly occurrence. In terms of\nmetaphysic it is the coming of an individual Self into relation with a\nlarger and larger not-self.\u201d\n\nIn the light of the All-self, I say, the difficulties disappear. It is\nthe question of Memory (explicit or implicit) which seems to decide the\nlimits of personalities and their survival. The One Self is experiencing\nin all forms, but the stores of experience and memory are kept separate.\nHere is a man who has a Town house and a Country house and an Italian\nvilla. When he changes his abode from one to the other he becomes to a\ngreat extent a different person. His surroundings and associations, his\npursuits and occupations, his dress and habits, his language may be, are\nchanged. It may even happen that each of his three lives goes on growing\nand expanding after its own pattern, and becoming more and more\ndifferent from the two others; and yet the ultimate person behind them\nall remains the same. Is it not possible that the lives of us human\nbeings may go on expanding and growing each according to its own law,\nand yet the ultimate individual or Being behind them all may remain the\nsame?\n\nIf a worm be supposed to have memory (and worms no doubt have memory in\nsome degree), then it might well be supposed that, if divided in two,\neach of the parts would inherit the said memory complete. But from that\nmoment the experiences of the two portions, moving in different\ndirections, would bifurcate, and the future stores of memory would be\ndifferent. Thus we should have a bifurcation of the stream of memory,\nand a bifurcation of personality\u2014until ultimately, as time went on, and\nthe common memory faded into the background, the two new personalities\nwould begin to feel themselves almost quite separate. Is not this again\nsomething like what may have happened to ourselves from Creation\u2019s\nbirth? The stream of life has bifurcated and bifurcated till we have\nlost our common memory and have become convinced of the absolute\nseparation of our personalities one from the other.\n\nOn the other hand, the conjunction and fusion of two streams of memory\nin one is as probable and intelligible as the bifurcation of one into\ntwo. Two protozoa fuse; but the race-self in one is the same as in the\nother, and in reality the process is only a fusion of organic memories\nand experiences. A man who had been in the habit of changing every year\nfrom his Town to his Country house might some day find it convenient to\ncombine his establishments in one suburban residence. Certainly if he\nhad so far forgot _himself_ that in changing houses he had always\n_quite_ changed his memories, then it would seem impossible to him to\ncombine the two lives in one. Otherwise there would be no difficulty in\nthe process. The stores of one establishment, with their associations\nand memories would after a time (and not without some\nmaturation-divisions and extrusions!) be got into relation with the\nstores of the other establishment; and the two bodies of memory and\nassociation would settle down together.\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nAll this seems to suggest to us that our conception of personality must\nbe considerably altered from its ordinary form, and rendered more\nfluent, in order to tally with the real facts. There is no such thing as\na fixed and limited personality, of definite content and character,\nwhich we can credit to our account, or to the account of our friends.\nAll is in flux and change, the consciousness ever enlarging, the _ego_\nwhich is at the root of that consciousness ever growing in the knowledge\nof itself as a vital portion of the All-self. That last alone is fixed;\nthat alone as the \u2018universal witness\u2019 is permanent. But the streams of\nmemory and experience, by which from all sides that central fact and\nconsciousness is reached, are infinite in number and variety. It is in\nthe continuity of a stream of memory that what we call personality must\nbe supposed to consist; and when this continuity covers not only a\nsingle life, but extends from life to life, then we must find a new name\nfor the persistent being and call him not a personality, but, if we\nwill, an _individuality_. Such individualities must exist by millions\nand billions; they must be as numerous as all the possible lines of\nexperience (and these are quasi-infinite in number) by which the soul\nmay grow from its birth in the simplest speck of matter to its\nrealization of divine and universal life. The author (Bhagavan Das) of\n_The Science of Peace_ illustrates this infinitude of individualities,\nand how they are all contained in the All-self, and each in a sense as\nan aspect of the One, by the simile of a museum or gallery. \u201cIf a\nspectator,\u201d he says (p. 289), \u201cwondered unrestingly through the halls of\na vast museum or great art gallery, at the dead of night, with a single\nsmall lamp in one hand, each of the natural objects, the pictured\nscenes, the statues, the portraits, would be illumined by that lamp in\nsuccession for a single moment, while all the rest were in darkness, and\nafter that single moment would fall into darkness again. Let there now\nbe not one but countless such spectators, as many in endless numbers as\nthe objects of sight within the place, each spectator wandering in and\nout incessantly through the great crowd of all the others, each lamp\nbringing momentarily into light one object, and for only that spectator\nwho holds that lamp.\u201d Then he goes on to say that each line or\nsuccession of experiences might represent an individuality; each\nindividuality in the end would reach the totality of experience, but in\na different order and in a different manner from any other; and all the\nindividualities would all the time\u2014though changing themselves\u2014remain\nwithin the unchanging intelligence of the absolute, and would only be\nexploring that intelligence each in a different order. \u201cFor,\u201d he again\nsays (p. 317), \u201can individuality can no otherwise be described,\ndiscriminated and fixed, than by enumerating the experiences of that\nindividual, by narrating its biography.\u201d\n\nWe may also illustrate the matter by the conception of a Tree. A single\nleaf at the end of a twig may seem to have a little separate self of its\nown; but it is very ephemeral. It perishes with the season and another\nleaf takes its place. There is a deeper self, in the twig, which\nendures, and from which new leaves spring. And again the twig springs\nfrom a small spray, which is the source of other twigs and leaves.\nShould the leaf desire to trace its complete and total self it would\nhave to follow its life-line through the twig and the spray, to the\nbranch, and so right down to the central trunk. It could not stop at any\nhalfway point, and say, This is my final self. But on its way to the\ntrunk, at different points, it would find that its sap or life was\nflowing into other twigs and leaves, as well as the twig and leaf first\nmentioned. It would come into relation, so to speak, with other bodies\nbeside the first. If we were to call the first leaf and twig a\npersonality we should have to call some deeper self involving many twigs\nand leaves an Individuality, and so on to the All-self of the tree. The\nself of every leaf would approach the main trunk along a different line,\nand through various ranges of individuality; but all would ultimately\nparticipate in one whole.\n\nI think some such view is clearly the most satisfactory way of looking\nat the matter. We are all essentially one; our differentiation from\neach other does not consist in differences in the central ego, but in\nthe different lines of experience and memory. We can none of us boast,\nat any point, of a rounded, definite and stationary self, apart from\nall others; but we are all approaching the universal from different\nsides. Yet, also, it is perfectly true that consciousness is born in us\nfirst _through_ our very limitations. Through the very obstacles that\nsurround us, and through the things that seem to divide us from others,\nfirst simple consciousness and then self-consciousness are born. Then\ncomes a time when the limitations and the barriers become intolerable.\nThe soul that at first gloried in them comes to find the burden of\nself-consciousness too great. Why should it be forever John Smith? As\nMrs. Stetson says:\u2014\n\n   \u201cWhat an exceeding rest \u2019twill be\n    When I can leave off being Me!...\n    Done with the varying distress\n    Of retroactive consciousness!...\n    Why should I long to have John Smith\n    Eternally to struggle with?\u201d\n\nWhen the consciousness arises of this fact, that we need not be tied to\nJohn Smith forever\u2014that our real self is far vaster, and essentially\none with others, then in each of us the Divine Soul is born; a vista of\nglory and splendor opens in front, and on all sides the barriers fall to\nthe ground. On the way to this supreme conclusion the stream of memories\nwhich one calls oneself may of course take on form after form; it may\nbifurcate, or it may fuse with other streams. That does not very much\nmatter. The real identity, once established, can hardly be lost. For\nevery leaf there is a channel of sap which connects it with the main\ntrunk. Personality is real, but it yields itself up in the greater\nIndividual of which it is the expression; and the individual or divine\nsoul is real\u2014enduring perhaps many thousands of years\u2014but it yields\nitself up ultimately in the All. Finally, in that union, Memory itself,\nin its mortal form, ceases, for it is swallowed up in actual\nrealization, in the power of actual presence in all space and time. The\ndivine soul which has thus completed its union needs memory no more. It\nis there wherever it desires to be. As the author of _Siderische Geburt_\n(Berlin, 1910) says, \u201cWe mortals are separated from the divine\nall-embracing universal Vision; and Memory is only a first glimmering\nreawakening\u2014a beginning of renewed seraphic life and a coming into\nrelation with all that lies beyond the little world-corner of our\npresence.\u201d[144]\n\n                 *        *        *        *        *\n\nAt first sight, and to one who does not yet realize the inner unity of\nbeing, these views on the nature of Personality and Individuality may\nappear strange and even painful. For such a person the thought of the\ndissociation of his \u2018self,\u2019 of its separation into two or more\nparts\u2014either in life or in death\u2014and the divergence of the two parts\nfrom each other, must be grotesque and terrible, and verging even\ntowards madness. And so also must be the thought of the possible\ndissociation of the personalities of his friends. And yet it may be\nnecessary for us at length and by degrees to understand and assimilate\nsuch a view. Certain it is that, as we come to understand it, we shall\nsee that any dissociation that may occur can only be of the superficial\nelements\u2014something of the nature of a divergence of the chains of\nmemory; and that dissociation of the real and intimate self is a thing\nquite impossible. We shall see that by degrees the self may learn to\ndeal with such dissociations, and to express itself in various guises,\nand in more than one personality at a time. If, for instance, there does\noccur at death a certain break-up of the psychic organism\u2014if the animal\nsoul, and the human soul, and the divine soul do to a certain extent\npart from each other and go along different ways, we may see that it is\nquite possible that the personal stream of memory may correspondingly\nbranch in different directions. One portion of the consciousness, having\nalways been animal and terrestrial in character, may identify itself\nmainly with the animal vitality of the residue and its corresponding\nmemories\u2014and may persevere for some time as a wandering passional\ncentre, liable to attach itself to the organisms of living folk, or to\nfigure as a \u2018ghost\u2019 of very limited activities and occupied with eternal\nrepetitions of the same action; another portion, more distinctly human,\nmay linger in some intermediate state, partly in touch with the\nearth-life and the souls of mortal friends, yet partly drawn onward into\nwider spheres; and may function on for a long time in a kind of\ndreamland\u2014creating perhaps the objects of its own consumption till it\nwearies of them, or building up imaginative worlds of occupations and\nactivities similar to our own, as in \u201cthe happy hunting grounds\u201d of\nIndians, or the worlds described from time to time by mediumistic\n\u2018controls.\u2019 And again a third portion may pass into that far wider and\ngrander state of being which we have described\u2014that of the \u2018divine\u2019\nsoul which recognizes its equality and unity with all others, and its\nfreedom of the whole universe. In all these cases the main stream of\nmemory, branching, must pour itself into the section of life which\nfollows, and render the latter quite continuous with the former\u2014though\nnaturally with some differences, both in the memories transmitted, and\nin the degrees of community, in each case.\n\nWe may apply these considerations to the question of the messages and\napparitions from the unseen world which have been alluded to in former\nchapters. How far or in what special way these communications really\nrepresent the active and continuing consciousness of our departed\nfriends is a question which is generally admitted to be most doubtful\nand difficult. And its difficulty is not lessened, I think, by our\nconclusions (so far) on the nature of Personality. If the stream of a\nman\u2019s earth-life memory may diverge at death into two or more streams,\nthen it must remain difficult for us to say whether the communication\nwhich is coming to us proceeds from a mere overflow of that stream,\nwhich has eddied itself, so to speak, into the brain of the medium; or\nfrom some \u2018astral\u2019 shell of the departed one, which has already begun\ndecaying and dissipating, in our atmosphere; or again from the true soul\nof the man which is pushing forward into the world beyond. Probably we\ndo not yet know enough about the matter to form decisive judgments. In\neither case the memory exhibited may be surprisingly perfect. And it\nseems to me that in most cases nothing but personal evidence and\npersonal detail, even down to the minutest points, can decide\u2014and even\nthen not in such a way as to decide for others. And perhaps it is best\nand most natural so. In our world of ordinary life it is so. If an\napparent stranger turns up from the other side of the earth and claims a\nfar-back acquaintance; if another makes the same claim over the\ntelephone; if a known friend behaves strangely, and we are in doubt\nwhether to attribute his conduct to _bona fides_ or to incipient\nmadness; in these and a thousand other cases, personal relationship and\npersonal understanding (though by no means unerring) count for more than\nall science and legal proof. And perhaps this is the healthiest way to\ntake the subject: not to be over-curious or speculative or sentimental,\nbut where solid help and a permanent and useful relationship seems to be\ngained, there to accept the communications as so far commending and\njustifying themselves.\n\nIf, as I have just said, there is something a little disquieting and\neven terrible in the thought that our personality may thus be subject to\nrupture or dissociation into two or more portions, that matter after all\ndepends upon how we look upon it\u2014whether from below, as it were, or\nfrom above. There is nothing particularly terrible in the thought that\nour bodily organs and parts\u2014our \u201cLittle Marys,\u201d and so forth\u2014may have\n(probably do have) very distinct personalities of their own. We look\ndown upon them, so to speak, and include them. And we shall one day no\ndoubt, and in the realization of our greater selves, have the splendid\nexperience of including two (or more) bodies\u2014of having them at our\nservice, and available for command and expression. Even now we are\nsometimes conscious of having one envelope of a more ethereal and\nintense nature, swift and far-reaching both in movement and perception\nin the innermost regions, and another more local body, in touch with\nterrestrial life. And there would be nothing surprising or dreadful in\nfinding, after death, that an ethereal and a terrestrial body were both\nstill at our command\u2014though both perhaps more developed and more\ndifferentiated from each other than at present;\u2014or even that we might\nbe capable of inhabiting several such bodies.\n\nIt is of course puzzling, under our ordinary conceptions of Space and\nTime, to imagine how it could be possible to deal with several bodies at\nthe same time; but in reality it is no more puzzling than the problem\nwhich we habitually solve every day and every hour of our lives. How do\nwe, for instance, deal with and dispose the activities of our hands and\nour feet and our eyes and our brain, with simultaneous care, say, in\nwalking through the streets? We inhabit these separate organs, these\ndistinct personalities, simultaneously, and ordain their movements and\ngather in their perceptions by the act of _attention_. Attention in the\nworld of the spirit corresponds to _extension_ in the physical world.\nWhatever your spirit attends to, that some physical radiation from\nyourself extends to. And similarly if you had bodies in different worlds\nand regions, by the simple act of attention your spirit would reach\nthem. Nevertheless\u2014to return to the one body and the various organs,\nlike hands and feet and eyes, which we seem to have under control\u2014it is\nclear that our minds could not possibly overlook all the details of\ntheir management, unless there were some general ordaining spirit in the\nbody which was in close touch and sympathy, and ready to act with and\naid us; and similarly it is clear that we could not ordain and organize\nany movement of a secondary body at a distance\u2014even though \u2018belonging\u2019\nto us\u2014unless there were a spirit, in that body and the intervening\nspaces, in touch and sympathy with ours. It is the knowledge that there\nis such a community of life, such an abounding Self, which gives the\n\u2018divine\u2019 soul its great joy and its great power\u2014\u201cfor whatever he\ndesires, that he obtains from the Self.\u201d He who knows has indeed the\nfreedom of the universe, and of all its powers\u2014who knows that the\nSpirit of the whole _is_ his own.\n\nIt is natural therefore to suppose that that portion of the\nconsciousness which has circled and centred very definitely and\nconclusively round the All-self\u2014or such aspect of the same as specially\nbelongs to it; or (what perhaps comes to the same thing) has circled\nvery definitely round the divine soul of a loved one; will pass through\ndeath easily and without much loss of continuity. It will with its\nattendant memories pass easily and continuously into the inmost sphere;\nor (to put the matter in another way) _remaining_ in that sphere it will\nsimply become aware that a mass of husks have been shed off, which\nclouded it. It will become aware of the glorious state of being to which\nit has always implicitly belonged, and of its connection with not one\nonly but many bodies.\n\nIt may be\u2014and I think one almost feels that it must be\u2014that the most\nintimate self of any of us cannot be realized short of externalization\nin a vast number of separate manifestations or lives. One has the\nimpression with regard to one\u2019s body, that \u201cthis is one of my bodies\u201d;\nor that \u201cthis body represents a portion of myself\u201d; but one does _not_\nfeel \u201cthis body represents my total, complete and final self.\u201d And as we\nhave just suggested that in a more intimate state of being we may become\ndistinctly aware of having relation to several bodies simultaneously, so\nthe world-old doctrine of reincarnation in its general form has long\nsuggested that our most intimate selves are related to a great number of\nbodies in _succession_ to each other in Time. The higher or inner\nIndividual\u2014of agelong and \u00e6onian life\u2014is reincarnated (it is said)\nthousands of times; thus to embody that aspect of the Divine which it\nrepresents.\n\nThese embodiments may be in forms by no means resembling each\nother\u2014though doubtless there will be a thread of similarity running\nthrough; and one embodiment may have little idea (except in moments of\ninspiration) of its relation to the others, or of any continuity of\nmemory between itself and the others. Yet the memories of these lives\nand embodiments passing into the inner sphere are ultimately gathered\ntogether and drawn up to constitute that most glorious world of each\nBeing of which we have spoken\u2014a world in which each overlooks and\nordains its various lives and manifestations as from a mountain-top.\nThese are indeed \u201cthe ageless immortal gods who seek ever to come in the\nforms of men\u201d\u2014whom we ever and anon seem to feel and hear knocking at\nthe inner door of our little local selves, as though they would gain\nadmittance and acknowledgment.\n\n\n\n\n  CHAPTER XVI\n\n  CONCLUSION\n\n\nAnd so we seem to find\u2014in the farthest and loftiest reaches of life, as\nin its first beginnings\u2014Love and Death strangely linked and strangely\nrelated. Changing their form but not their essence they accompany us to\nthe last; and we forebode them, in the final account, as no longer the\ntyrannous and often terrible over-lords of our mortal days, but rather\nour most indispensable companions without whom life in its higher ranges\ncould not well be maintained.\n\nFor a time, certainly, we cling to our limited and tiny self-life and\nconsciousness; and deem that all good resides in the careful guarding of\nthe same. But again there comes a time when the bounds of personality\nconfine and chafe beyond endurance, when an immense rage sweeps us far\nout into the great ocean; when to save our lives we deliberately lose\nthem; when Death becomes a passion even as Love is.\n\nThe mystery of mortal life clears, or dissolves away, by our passing in\na sense beyond personality; and the hour arrives when we look down on\nthese local days, these self-limitations, as phases\u2014phases of some far\nvaster state of being. Death is the necessary door by which we pass from\none such phase to another; and Love is even a similar door.\n\nGrowing silently within there emerges at last something which has its\nhome in the great spaces, which dives under and through Death, and is\nthe companion of Titanic and Cosmic beings; something strangely\nsurpassing all barriers and limits, and strangely finding identity by\nfusing and losing it in the life of others; something which at times\nseems almost mockingly to abandon its own identity and rise creative in\nnew forms\u2014sporting in the great ocean; and yet can somehow instantly\nrecall its past and the tiny limits from which it first sprang\u2014trailing\nforever with it the wonderful cloud-wreaths of earth-memory and\nassociation, and the myriad fragrance of personal remembrance. \u201cWhat are\nthou then?\u201d says the poet, addressing his departed friend:\u2014\n\n   \u201cWhat art thou then?\u2014I cannot guess;\n      But tho\u2019 I seem in star and flower\n      To feel thee some diffusive power\n    I do not therefore love thee less.\u201d\n\nEven in the farthest spheres the poignant syllables \u2018I\u2019 and \u2018Thou\u2019 will\nsurely still be heard; and a thousand deaths shall not avail to exhaust\ntheir meaning or to make of Love a pale and cold abstraction.\n\nThe memory of the earth-life and of personal identity is never lost; but\nit passes out into that far greater form, the memory and resumption into\na coherent Whole of many lives, and the sense of an Individuality which\nhas value because it is merged in and is an expression of the All.\nMemory indeed changes from being the faint dream-shadow that we know, of\nthings in the past, to being the things _themselves_, actual and ever\npresent at our command; and with this finding of the inner soul and\nheart\u2019s core of all beings it becomes possible to live over again with\nthem the days gone by, in all detail and with ever deeper understanding\nof their true meaning.\n\nThe supra-liminal returns into harmony with the subliminal; the\nindividual life and the mass-life are reunited. With the overpassing of\nthe local and terrestrial self we are liberated into a fluid region\nwhere a thousand personalities yield their secrets and their\nco-operation into our hands. With the releasing of our attention from\npersonal objects and terrestrial gains, materials and people\ncorrespondingly cease to obstruct. They find nothing which they _can_\nobstruct! The body moves freely about the world; life ceases to be the\n\u2018obstacle race\u2019 and the queer perpetual vista of barricades which it\nmostly now is; and _a fortiori_ the soul moves freely, because truly for\nthe redeemed soul it is possible to feel that all things and creatures\nare friendly, all beings a part of itself. These and many other such\nrealizations are indeed possible now\u2014even in our present terrestrial\nstate\u2014under those rare conditions when the divine creature which is\nwithin the mortal body achieves a momentary deliverance, and under which\nwe sometimes pass out of our little mundane dream into that other land\nwhere the great Voices sound and Visions dwell.\n\n\n\n\n  APPENDIX\n\n  SUMMARY OF CHAPTER II\n\n\n1. Every kind of cell or other organism has a natural limit of size\n(dependent partly on the relation between surface and volume).\n\n2. When that limit is reached, superfluity of nutrition and growth tends\nto bring about Reproduction.\n\n3. Reproduction begins with simple division or budding.\n\n4. Conjugation in its primitive form (as among protozoa where there is\nno distinction of sex) takes place between similars, and is an exchange\nto some degree of cell-contents.\n\n5. It apparently affords a superior nutrition, and is a kind of\nRegeneration, essential to the continued health of the species, and\nfavorable to reproduction.\n\n6. Hunger and Love are thus related at this stage.\n\n7. Later, conjugation takes place between dissimilars (of the same\nspecies); and the distinct phenomena of sex appear\u2014of male and female.\n\n8. Reproduction by simple division or budding leads to a kind of\n\u2018immortality,\u2019 since each descendant cell is continuous, in a sense,\nwith the original one.\n\n9. This simple division or virgin-birth process may go on to many\ngenerations\u2014even to hundreds among the Protozoa.\n\n10. But since at some time or other conjugation is apparently necessary\nin order to restore vitality, the immortality at this point ceases to be\nan individual immortality, and becomes rather a joint or racial\nimmortality.\n\n11. The main thing in conjugation would appear to be that the two\nfactors should be complementary to each other, however differentiated,\nso that in their union the whole race-life should be restored, and the\nRegeneration therefore be complete.\n\n12. The special sex-differentiation called male and female depends on\nthe separation of the active from the sessile qualities (and other\nqualities respectively related to each) into two great branches.\n\n13. Since the female takes the sessile part she appears sometimes as the\ngoal and object of conjugation, and the more important factor; but\nactual observation so far shows each factor, male and female, to be\nequally important.\n\n14. In the fertilized ovum there are an equal number of chromosomes\nderived from each parent; and if the female provides the shrine in which\nthe new development takes place, the male (centrosome) appears as the\norganizing genius of the process.\n\n15. This process, by which a fertilized germ-cell divides and redivides,\nand so builds up a \u201cbody,\u201d is quite similar to that by which a protozo\u00f6n\ndivides and redivides to form a numerous colony.\n\n16. A \u2018body\u2019 indeed _is_ such a colony, co\u00f6peratively associated in\ndefinite form, of which all the millions of cells are practically\ncontinuous with the original fertilized germ, and one with it.\n\n17. Every cell in such a body has apparently the same nuclear elements\nas the original cell, equally derived from both parents; but is\ndifferentiated so far as to be able to fulfil its special part in the\nbody.\n\n18. The process of division of these microscopic cells is strangely\nexact and complex; and the various elements of the nucleus seem to be\nthemselves divided into two, on each occasion, with strange preciseness.\n\n19. The constituent cells of each race of animals have always a certain\nnumber of nuclear threads or chromosomes\u2014fixed for that particular\nrace.\n\n20. When, therefore, a sperm-cell and germ-cell unite, they each first\nextrude or expel half the number of their chromosomes, so that after\nunion the joint cell is provided again with the precise number of\nchromosomes characteristic of the race.\n\n21. The exact nature of these \u2018maturation\u2019 divisions and expulsions is\nfar from clear; but it would seem that they are carried out in such a\nway as, while retaining always the basic elements of the Race, to secure\na continual and endless sorting of these into new combinations.\n\n22. These complex evolutions occurring, as described, in the interior of\nthe most primitive cells, look as much like the last results of some far\nantecedent or invisible operations (of which we know nothing) as like\nthe first commencement of the visible organic world with which we are\nacquainted.\n\n\n\n\n  [Footnotes]\n\n\n[1] \u201cIn November 1885, M. Maupas isolated an infusorian (_Stylonichia\npustulata_), and observed its generations till March 1886. By that\ntime there had been 215 generations produced by ordinary division,\nand since these lowly organisms do not conjugate with near relatives,\nthere had of course been no sexual union.\u2014What was the result? At the\ndate referred to, the family was observed to have exhausted itself.\nThe members, though not exactly old, were being born old. The sexual\ndivision came to a standstill, and the powers of nutrition were also\nlost\u201d (_Evolution of Sex_, Geddes and Thomson, 1901, p. 177).\n\n[2] See, however, _Evolution of Sex_, p. 178, where a case is\nrecorded of 458 generations of another infusorian apparently without\ndegeneration. See also _The Cell_, by Dr. Oscar Hertwig (Sonnenschein,\n1909), p. 292.\n\n[3] The _exchange_ of life-elements between two individuals is well\nillustrated in the case of the infusorian _Noctiluca_. Two Noctilucas,\nA and B, [Illustration: small diagram of conjunction of A and B]\ncoalesce; and then later divide again along a plane (indicated\nby dotted line) at right angles to the plane of contact. Two new\nindividuals are thus formed, and each Noctiluca has absorbed half of\nthe other. Their activities are regenerated and they begin a new life.\n\n[4] As in Volvox; see _Evolution of Sex_, p. 138.\n\n[5] And we may say also here that it is even supposable that the\nspecial differentiation which we call male and female is only one\nout of many possible sex-differentiations\u2014the important and main\ncondition being that the differentiations, whatever they are, should\nbe complementary to each other, and should together make up the total\nqualities and character of the race.\n\n[6] As sixteen for a human being, twelve for a grasshopper, twenty-four\nfor a lily, and so forth.\n\n[7] For diagram and illustration of this whole process, see Appendix,\n_infra_, p. 289. Also see August Forel\u2019s _The Sexual Question_ (English\ntranslation; Rebman, 1908), pp. 6 and 11; _The World of Life_, by A.\nR. Wallace, ch. xvii, p. 343; _The Plant Cell_, by H. A. Haig (Griffin,\n1910), ch. viii; and other books.\n\n[8] Stephane Leduc, in his _Th\u00e9orie Physico-ch\u00e9mique de la vie_ (Paris,\n1910), endeavors to trace all the above phenomena to the simple\naction of diffusion and osmose (see ch. viii, on _Karyokinesis_)\nbut though the resemblance of some of the forms above described to\ndiffusion-figures is interesting\u2014as also is their resemblance to the\nforms of magnetic fields\u2014this does not prove their genesis either\nfrom diffusion or magnetism. It only makes probable that some of\nthe phenomena in question are related to the very obscure forces of\ndiffusion or magnetism\u2014a thing which, of course, is already admitted\nand recognized. With regard to all this the reader should study the\nastonishing resurrection of the mature blow-fly from the mere milky pap\nwhich is all that the pupa at a certain stage consists of. (See _The\nBiology of the Seasons_, by J. Arthur Thomson, 1911.)\n\n[9] \u201cIn every known case an essential phenomenon of fertilization is\nthe union of a sperm nucleus of paternal origin with an egg nucleus\nof maternal origin, to form the primary nucleus of the embryo. This\nnucleus ... gives rise by division to all the nuclei of the body, and\nhence every nucleus of the child may contain nuclear substance derived\nfrom both parents\u201d (_The Cell in Development and Inheritance_, by E. B.\nWilson, Macmillan Co., 1904, p. 182).\n\n[10] The latter, of course, being just discernible by the naked eye.\n\n[11] _Parallel Paths_, by T. W. Rolleston (Duckworth, 1908), p. 53.\n\n[12] _Parallel Paths_, p. 52. See also, for further accounts, _The\nEvolution of Sex_, pp. 112\u201314; _The Plant Cell_, by H. A. Haig, pp.\n121, 123 _et seq._; Die Vererbung, by Dr. E. Teichmann (Stuttgart,\n1908), pp. 39, 40, &c. Throughout it must be remembered that these\n\u2018maturation\u2019 processes in the generative cells are not only exceedingly\ncomplex, but also very various in the various plants and animals; and\nthe reader should be warned against too easily accepting ready-made\ndescriptions and generalizations supposed to fit all cases.\n\n[13] Here and elsewhere in his book Professor Wilson uses \u201cgerm-cells\u201d\nto include \u201csperm-cells\u201d; and I have indicated this by the bracket.\n\n[14] _The Cell_, p. 285.\n\n[15] It appears that in the ordinary conjugation of Protozoa a quite\nsimilar process is observable.\n\n[16] \u201cNowhere in the history of the cell do we find so unmistakable and\nstriking an adaptation of means to ends or one of so marked a prophetic\ncharacter, since maturation looks not to the present but to the future\nof the germ [and sperm] cells\u201d (_The Cell_, p. 233).\n\n[17] It might be said that, notwithstanding this, the female obviously\nhas the greater sway, on account of the conjunction taking place within\nthe body of the mother, and subject to all her influences. But there is\na curious compensation to this in the fact that while after conjugation\nthe centrosome of the germ-cell disappears, the male centrosome is\nretained and becomes the organ of division for the new cell, and\nconsequently for the whole future body. (See _Parallel Paths_, p. 56;\nalso Professor E. B. Wilson in _The Cell_, p. 171.)\n\n[18] \u201cThat a cell can carry with it the sum total of the heritage of\nthe species, that it can in the course of a few days or weeks give rise\nto a mollusk or a man, is the greatest marvel of biological science\u201d\n(_The Cell_, p. 396).\n\n[19] For summary of the conclusions of this chapter, see Appendix,\n_infra_, p. 289.\n\n[20] Havelock Ellis\u2019s very fine essay on \u201cThe Art of Love\u201d (see\nhis _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi, ch. xi) must also\nbe mentioned, as including much of the subject matter of the above\ntreatises, but having a very much wider scope and outlook.\n\n[21] See _The Cell_, by E. B. Wilson, p. 391; _Das Leben_, by Jacques\nLoeb (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 10\u201320, &c. It seems also to be thought that\ngall-formations on plants, tumors on animal bodies, &c., are instances\nof such chemical or indirect fertilization.\n\n[22] Translation by J. Wright, M.A., _Golden Treasury Series_, p. 57.\n\n[23] _Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p. 517.\n\n[24] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. i.\n\n[25] _Ars. Am._ iii. 605.\n\n[26] _Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p. 542.\n\n[27] _Ibid._, p. 544.\n\n[28] \u201cThe disgrace which has overtaken the sexual act, and rendered it\na deed of darkness, is doubtless largely responsible for the fact that\nthe chief time for its consummation among modern civilized peoples is\nthe darkness of the early night in stuffy bedrooms when the fatigue of\nthe day\u2019s labors is struggling with the artificial stimulation produced\nby heavy meals and alcoholic drinks. This habit is partly responsible\nfor the indifference or even disgust with which women sometimes view\ncoitus\u201d (H. Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p.\n558).\n\n[29] See H. Ellis, vol. v. pp. 11 and 12.\n\n[30] See also Kraft-Ebing, _Psychopathia sexualis_, 7th edition, p. 165.\n\n[31] _Modern Woman: Her Intentions_, p. 30.\n\n[32] English edition; Heinemann, 1906.\n\n[33] Fischer, Berlin, p. 192.\n\n[34] Berlin, 1910, p. 290.\n\n[35] Berlin, 1905, p. 332. English translation, _Love and Marriage_;\nPutnam\u2019s, 1911.\n\n[36] See chapter on \u201cVisions of the Dying\u201d in _Death: its Causes and\nPhenomena_, by Carrington and Meader (1911); also _infra_, ch. vi. p.\n103.\n\n[37] See H. Pieron, \u201cContribution \u00e0 la Psychologie des Mourants,\u201d in\n_Revue Philosophique_, Dec., 1902.\n\n[38] See _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_ (George Allen, 2s. 6d.),\npp. 11\u201321.\n\n[39] See Carrington and Meader on _Death: its Causes and Phenomena_, p.\n300.\n\n[40] Reference may be made to the _Upanishads_ (\u201cSacred books of the\nEast,\u201d vols. i. and xv.); to the _Bhagavat Gita_; to R. M. Bucke\u2019s\n_Cosmic Consciousness_ (Purdy Publishing Co., Chicago); to the _Raja\nYoga Lectures_, by Vivekananda (New York, 1899); to the _Ancient\nWisdom_, by Annie Besant; _The Art of Creation_, and _A Visit to a\nGnani_, by E. Carpenter; and to many other works, of course.\n\n[41] If I seem here to personify unduly these psychic elements and to\nascribe to them too much in the way of consciousness and intelligence,\nI must refer for explanation to the Note at the end of this chapter.\n\n[42] See ch. vii., _infra_, p. 119.\n\n[43] See _The Art of Creation_, ch, xii. pp. 209, 210.\n\n[44] _Human Personality_, &c., ch. vi.\n\n[45] _Ibid._ p. 196, edition 1909, edited by L. H. Myers.\n\n[46] For evidence on the subject of Phantasms, Wraiths, Haunted Houses,\nand so forth, see _Phantoms of the Living_, by Gurney, Myers, and\nPodmore; and _The Report on the Census of Hallucinations_, Proceedings\nof the Psychical Research Society, vol. x.; also _L\u2019inconnu et les\nproblems psychiques_, by Camille Flammarion; and Lombroso\u2019s chapter\non Haunted Houses, in his book _Fenomeni Ipnotici e Spiritici_ (Turin,\n1909), ch. xii.; also ch. viii. of the present book, _infra_.\n\n[47] See Carrington and Meader, _op. cit._ pp. 318\u201327.\n\n[48] Dr. Morton Prince\u2019s study, _The Dissolution of a Personality_\n(Longmans, 1906), should be read, as going deeply into the whole\nsubject. He suggests (p. 530) the use of the word \u201cco-consciousness,\u201d\nto indicate the secondary chains of mental operation which coexist side\nby side with or beneath the primary. Dr. R. Assagioli, in his pamphlet\n_Il Subcosciente_ (Florence, 1911), also follows the same line.\n\n[49] _De Rerum Natura_, iii. 890, translated by Mr. H. S. Salt.\n\n[50] See Geddes and Thomson, _Evolution of Sex_ (1901), p. 275.\n\n[51] See ch. ii. p. 18, _supra_; also, for amplification of this view,\nMyers\u2019s _Human Personality_, _op. cit._, edition 1909, pp. 90, 91.\n\n[52] _The Story of My Life_, by Helen Keller (1908), p. 17.\n\n[53] For a further account of the subliminal or underlying self, see\nnext chapter.\n\n[54] The only alternative to this seems to be to suppose that the\n\u201csoul\u201d comes into association with the body, not at the very first\ninception of the latter, but at some later pre-natal or post-natal\nstage, when the body is already partially or wholly built up by the\nprimitive process of cell-division\u2014that the soul then takes possession\nof the organism so formed, and makes use of it for self-expression;\nand finally at death discards it. This theory\u2014though it seems a\npossible one, and in accordance with the apparent \u201cpossession\u201d and\ncontrol of the bodies of trance mediums by independent spirits\u2014presents\nsome difficulties. One difficulty is the absence of any obvious or\nacknowledged period when such entry of the soul takes place; another\nis the difficulty of seeing how a real and effective harmony could be\npermanently established between a body already formed and organized on\nhereditary lines, and an independent soul entering on its own errand\nat a later date. These (and other) difficulties, however, are not\ninsuperable, and it may well be, in the great variety of Nature, that\nthe process of incarnation actually does take place in both ways\u2014_i.e._\nin the way outlined in this note, as well as (more generally) in the\nway mentioned in the text.\n\n[55] See _The Art of Creation_, 1908, p. 82 _et seq._ Compare also\nBergson\u2019s \u201celan vital,\u201d in _L\u2019\u00c9volution Cr\u00e9atrice_, p. 100 _et seq._\n\n[56] The _Upanishads_, whose authority on these subjects is surely\ngreat, seem often to try to express the other-dimensional nature of\nthe soul by a paradox of opposites. \u201cThe self, smaller than small (or\nmore subtle than subtle), greater than great, is hidden in the heart of\neach creature\u201d (Katha-Up. I. Adh. 2 valli. 20; also Svetasvatara-Up.\nIII. Adh. 20)\u2014or again, \u201cThe embodied soul is to be thought like the\nhundredth part of the point of a hair, divided into a hundred parts;\nhe is to be thought infinite\u201d (Svet.-Up. v. 9). And the last quoted\npassage continues: \u201cHe is not woman, he is not man, nor hermaphrodite;\nwhatever body he assumes, with that he is joined (only); and as by the\nuse of food and drink the body grows, so the individual soul, by means\nof thoughts, touching, seeing and the passions, assumes successively in\nvarious places various forms in accordance with his deeds.\u201d\n\n[57] See Myers, _op. cit._ p. 233, on Clairvoyance of the Dying.\n\n[58] Even on the battlefield, after the battle, faces of the dead have\nbeen observed with this expression upon them.\n\n[59] It is, of course, quite possible that our ordinary consciousness\nis discontinuous, even down to its minutest elements, and that it\nis only made up of successive and separate sensations which, as in\na cinematograph, follow each with lightning speed. But even this\nalmost compels us to the assumption of another and profounder and more\ncontinuous consciousness beneath, which is the means of the synthesis\nand comparison of these sensations.\n\n[60] _Human Personality_, _op. cit._ p. 29.\n\n[61] See _The Art of Creation_, pp. 105\u20138.\n\n[62] This well-known case, given by Coleridge in his _Biographia\nLiteraria_, is amply confirmed by scores of similar cases which have\nbeen carefully examined into and described by modern research.\n\n[63] See _Proceedings S.P.R._ vol. xii, pp. 176\u2013203; quoted by\nFrederick Myers, _Human Personality_, ch. v.\n\n[64] This is contested by H. Ellis in his _World of Dreams_, p. 215,\nbut not very successfully, I think.\n\n[65] See Myers, _op. cit._ ch. iii. p. 66; also T. J. Hudson\u2019s\ninteresting account of Zerah Colburn, in _Psychic Phenomena_ (1893), p.\n64.\n\n[66] _Op. cit._ p. 100. De Quincey, it will be remembered, in a\nwell-known passage of his _Confessions_, says: \u201cOf this at least I\nfeel assured, that there is no such thing as _forgetting_ possible to\nthe mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between\nour present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind;\naccidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike,\nwhether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever.\u201d\n\n[67] See _Journal S.P.R._, vol. iii. p. 100; also T. J. Hudson, _op.\ncit._, p. 153.\n\n[68] New York, 1903, p. 64.\n\n[69] See Lombroso, _Fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici_, Turin, 1909, pp.\n28\u201331.\n\n[70] I leave the question of the possibility of the latter open for the\npresent. See Note at end of this chapter.\n\n[71] This was no doubt, for instance, the case with Eusapia\nPaladino\u2014as admitted by her warmest supporters. But it does not\ncontravene the fact, proved by most abundant evidence and experiment,\nof the astounding physical phenomena which from her early childhood\naccompanied her, and in some strange way exhaled from her.\n\n[72] It is impossible, for instance, to read slowly and in detail such\nworks as A. R. Wallace\u2019s _Miracles and Modern Spiritualism_, William\nCrookes\u2019 _Researches into Spiritualism_, C. Lombroso\u2019s _Fenomeni\nipnotici e spiritici_, and to note the care and exactness with which\nin each case experiments were conducted, tests devised, and results\nrecorded, without being persuaded that in the mass the conclusions\n(confirmed in the first two instances by the authors themselves after\nan interval of twenty or thirty years) are correct. Already a long list\nof scientific and responsible men, like Charles Richet (professor of\nphysiology at Paris), Camille Flammarion (the well-known astronomer),\nProfessor Z\u00f6llner of the Observatory at Leipzig, C. F. Varley the\nelectrician, Sir Oliver Lodge of Birmingham, have made important\ncontributions to the evidence; while others, like Professor De Morgan\nthe mathematician, Professor Challis the astronomer, Sergeant Cox the\nlawyer, and Professor William James the psychologist, have signified\ntheir general adhesion.\n\n[73] For references see _supra_, ch. vi. p. 92, footnote.\n\n[74] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 289, also the\nexperience of Mrs. A., given in _Footfalls on the Boundary of Another\nWorld_, by R. Dale Owen, 1881, p. 256 _et seq._ This latter book, which\nis a mine of well-authenticated information, has suffered somewhat\nfrom its rather sensational title. The author, however, was an able,\ndistinguished, and reliable man, son of Robert Owen of Lanark, Member\nof Congress in the United States, and U. S. Minister at Naples.\n\n[75] See R. Dale Owen, _The Debatable Land_ (1871), pp. 385\u2013400.\n\n[76] See Crookes\u2019 _Researches in Spiritualism_, pp. 104 _et seq._ See\nalso the book _New Light on Immortality_, by Fournier d\u2019Albe, pp. 218\n_et seq._, where the evidence is given in great detail.\n\n[77] See _Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la Ville Carmen, avec documents nouveaux_;\nParis, 1902.\n\n[78] C. Lombroso, _Fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici_, p. 193.\n\n[79] See _Shadow-land_ (1906).\n\n[80] See pamphlet _Materializations, by Mme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance_ (Light\nPublishing Co.).\n\n[81] See, for instance, the account of the haunted mill at Willington,\ngiven at some length by Mr. W. T. Stead in the _Review of Reviews_\nfor Jan., 1892; also the _Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, vol. i, pp.\n253\u201360; and Whitehead\u2019s _Lives of the Wesleys_, vol. ii, pp. 120\u201366;\nalso _Footfalls_, b; R. Dale Owen, book iii, ch. ii.\n\n[82] See Myers, _op cit._, p. 154. As many writers have remarked,\nthe term \u201csuperconscious\u201d might often be more applicable than\n\u201csubconscious.\u201d\n\n[83] With regard to this question of hypnotism and crime, T. J. Hudson\nsays (_Psychic Phenomena_, p. 129) that it is almost impossible to\npersuade a hypnotic to do what he firmly believes to be wrong. And\nMyers maintains that whatever the subliminal being may be, it is\nnever malignant. \u201cIn dealing with automatic script, for instance, we\nshall have to wonder whence come the occasional vulgar jokes or silly\nmystifications. We shall discuss whether they are a kind of dream\nof the automatist\u2019s own, or whether they indicate the existence of\nunembodied intelligences on the level of the dog or the ape. But,\non the other hand, all that world-old conception of Evil Spirits,\nof malevolent powers, which has been the basis of so much of actual\ndevil-worship and so much more of vague supernatural fear\u2014all this\ninsensibly melts from the mind as we study the evidence before us.\u201d\n(_Op. cit._, p. 252.)\n\n[84] See _Mediumship_, by James B. Tetlow (Keighley, 1910), price 6d.\n\n[85] _Op cit._, pp. 168\u201369.\n\n[86] See a long chapter on \u201cManifestations de Mourants\u201d in C.\nFlammarion\u2019s _L\u2019Inconnu_.\n\n[87] As in the case of a man drowning in a storm off the island of\nTristan d\u2019Acunha, who was seen at the same hour in a Norfolk farmhouse.\n_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 52.\n\n[88] See further on this subject ch. xi. _infra_, p. 211.\n\n[89] _Towards Democracy_, p. 490.\n\n[90] For a discussion of this question, see Myers, _op. cit._, ch. vii.\non _Phantasms of the Dead_.\n\n[91] See _supra_, ch. ii. p. 15; also _The World of Life_, by A. R.\nWallace, ch. xvii. \u201cThe Mystery of the Cell.\u201d\n\n[92] Of the conditions which may cause the invisible cloud to become\nvisible we shall speak farther on.\n\n[93] See, for a list of these, Flammarion\u2019s _L\u2019Inconnu_, pp. 565\u201369;\nalso Lombroso\u2019s _Fenomeni ipnotici_, &c., p. 199. The numerous\nquasi-historical records of the appearance after death of the saints\n(generally in a cloud-like form) must also not be passed over; though,\non account of these records being connected with the various churches,\nthey are necessarily subject to suspicion!\n\n[94] We may mention _Death: Its Causes and Phenomena_, Carrington &\nMeader (London, 1911); and the list of works quoted in the same book,\np. 540 _et seq._\n\n[95] Longmans, 1908.\n\n[96] \u201cAt the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired, and\nsuddenly, coincident with death, the beam end of the scale dropped with\nan audible stroke, hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining\nthere with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of\nan ounce.\u201d See reference given by Carrington and Meader, _op. cit._, p.\n373. The reports of the experiments are apparently given in the annals\nof the American Society for Psychical Research for June, 1907.\n\n[97] See a long account in the _Spiritualist_ for 15th May, 1873; also\ngiven by F. d\u2019Albe, _op. cit._, p. 220, _et seq._\n\n[98] See R. J. Thompson\u2019s _Proofs of Life after Death_ (1906).\n\n[99] See _Ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la Villa Carmen_, by Charles Richet, Paris,\n1902; also Lombroso, _op. cit._, pp. 194\u201396.\n\n[100] Mr. H. Carrington, in his _Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism_,\nhas described in detail fraudulent methods of photography with which he\nis well acquainted. Nevertheless he seems to believe that some cases\nof \u201cspirit photography\u201d are genuine, and gives instances; see his\nbook already quoted _Death_, &c., pp. 359, _et seq._ See also Mr. E.\nT. Bennett\u2019s book on _Spiritualism_, with introduction by Sir Oliver\nLodge, pp. 113\u201320.\n\n[101] See _The Art of Creation_, ch. vi.\n\n[102] _The World of Dreams_ (Constable, 1911), p. 107.\n\n[103] _The World of Dreams_, p. 190.\n\n[104] See _Electrons_, by Sir Oliver Lodge (George Bell, 1910).\n\n[105] Say, in millionths of an inch, fifteen millionths for the violet\n(at the dark line A), and twenty-seven millionths for the red (at B).\n\n[106] See, for examples, ch. x. pp. 186\u20137, _supra_.\n\n[107] See document signed by five responsible witnesses and published\nin the _Spiritualist_ of 15th May, 1873.\n\n[108] See _Materializations_, by Mme. D\u2019Esp\u00e9rance, a lecture given in\n1903 in London (Light Publishing Co.).\n\n[109] See illustrations in _Shadowland_, _passim_.\n\n[110] The cobwebby sensation alluded to above is often mentioned\nby other writers. Dr. J. Maxwell, in his _Metaphysical Phenomena_\n(Duckworth, 1905), p. 329, describes a case in which the radiation\nof force from the fingers of a medium was great enough to move a\nsmall statuette five or six inches distant, and absolutely without\ncontact; but the phenomenon was accompanied by a \u201cSpider-web or\ncobwebby sensation in the hands.\u201d The author of that interesting book\n_Interwoven_ (Boston, 1905, copyright by S. L. Ford), speaks of \u201cthe\nprotoplasmic vapor of the inner man,\u201d and says (p. 15): \u201cIt is this\nfrail vapor which comes out at death and tries to form into spiritual\nbody\u201d; and again (p. 19): \u201cI notice at death that nature draws or\nrelieves the fire of the ganglia first and all the lines of sensation\nin light which were running down the nerves. It looks like white\nseaweed, very light and airy and fragile ... a veil of shining which is\nscarcely substance because of its white fire.\u201d\n\n[111] _Fenomeni ipnotici_, &c., p. 195.\n\n[112] Namely, the highly charged electrostatic condition of mediums,\nthe luminous clouds floating near them, the stars and rays of light in\ntheir vicinity, the photographic activity of their emanations, and so\nforth.\n\n[113] So much smaller than the atom that \u201cif the earth represented an\nelectron, an atom would occupy a sphere with the sun as centre and four\ntimes the distance of the earth as radius.\u201d See _Electrons_, by Oliver\nLodge, p. 98.\n\n[114] _Ibid._, pp. 82, 83.\n\n[115] _Immortality_, p. 148.\n\n[116] _Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism_ (Burns, 1874), p.\n86.\n\n[117] _Materializations_, p. 12.\n\n[118] R. Dale Owen, _The Debatable Land_, p. 399.\n\n[119] See _Annals of Psychical Science_, Report 1910\u201311.\n\n[120] See Gustave Le Bon\u2019s _Evolution of Matter_ (Walter Scott\nPublishing Co., 1907).\n\n[121] See Le Bon, p. 45.\n\n[122] For cases of hypnotic trance induced in one person by the\ntelepathic action of another person at a distance, see Myers, _op.\ncit._, p. 160.\n\n[123] _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1887.\n\n[124] Myers, _op. cit._, p. 149.\n\n[125] _Ibid._, p. 144. See also Henri Bergson\u2019s _L\u2019\u00c9volution\nCr\u00e9atrice_, p. 102, on the _canalization_ of the senses.\n\n[126] See chapter xiii. p. 243.\n\n[127] It seems probable, from many considerations, that at a certain\ndepth within us\u2014in the region of what has been called the cosmic\nconsciousness\u2014memory does in nowise fade, and the past is always\npresent, but, as Bergson says, the ordinary conscious intellect tends\nto only select from this mass what is needed for impending action, and\nhas consequently become limited by this tendency.\n\n[128] See the work of Richard Semon on the _mneme_ as a main factor\nof organic life (_Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des\norganischen Geschehens_, Leipzig, 1904); also quoted by Auguste Forel,\n_The Sexual Question_ (English edition, Rebman, 1908), pp. 14\u201317.\n\n[129] See _An Adventure_, Macmillan & Co., 1911.\n\n[130] See _infra_, ch. xiv. p. 255; also E. B. Wilson, _The Cell_, p.\n433.\n\n[131] Though this process, it would appear, requires _practice_, and is\nnot learned at once.\n\n[132] See the frequent description of the unusual beauty and radiancy\nof the forms seen in connection with trance-mediums and circles.\n\n[133] It may easily be understood, I think, that the process by\nwhich the distinct soul is thus built up may last several lifetimes.\nThat is, there may be a long period during which the budding soul\nstill entangled in the race-life may be reincarnated jointly with\nthe race-soul in a kind of mixed way\u2014family and race-characteristics\nmingling with and obscuring its expression\u2014though these incarnations\nwould become ever less mixed and more individual in character till the\nday of the soul\u2019s final disentanglement.\n\n[134] In the _Symposium_\u2014Shelley\u2019s translation.\n\n[135] Shelley\u2019s translation.\n\n[136] What the _physical_ medium of this transmission may be\u2014whether\nthe germ-plasm of Weismann, or some subtle _aura_ which connects the\nmembers of a race together, or anything else\u2014is a question to which the\nanswer at present is not very clear.\n\n[137] And not only out of the abysmal deeps of Man, but also out of the\nhidden soul of the Earth, and other cosmic beings.\n\n[138] See _supra_, ch. vii. p. 122.\n\n[139] See note at end of chapter vi.\n\n[140] See, for instance, Homer\u2019s _Odyssey_, bk. xi., lines 601 _et\nseq._, where Odysseus speaks with the ghost of Hercules in Hades; but\nit is explained that Hercules himself is in Heaven:\n\n   \u201cThen in his might I beheld huge Hercules, phantom terrific,\n    Phantom I say, for the hero himself is among the immortals.\u201d\n\n[141] In this case, described by Dr. Morton Prince in his _Dissociation\nof a Personality_ (see note to ch. vi., _supra_), at least four or five\ndistinct personalities were recognizable in the one woman.\n\n[142] See _The Art of Creation_, pp. 80, 81.\n\n[143] See Bergson\u2019s _L\u2019\u00c9volution Cr\u00e9atrice_ throughout.\n\n[144] \u201cDer Beginn des erneuten seraphischen Lebens und Einbeziehung\nalles dessen, was ausser der Gegenwartsenge liegt.\u201d","title":"The Drama of Love and Death: A Study of Human Evolution and Transfiguration","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":71205}