and, like the use of bad grammar, marks with inferiority those who employ it.

This materialistic view of the wonder and mystery of life is, however, rarely held by those biologists who have made a study of philosophy. The masterly work on "Body and Mind" by that distinguished physiologist and psychologist, Dr. W. McDougall, ought to be carefully read by all students of nature. Dr. McDougall, after a searching and dispassionate examination of various theories to account for human life and thought, arrives at the conclusion that the soul in man is a necessary postulate; in other words, he adopts a spiritualistic, as opposed to a materialistic, philosophy.

This is precisely the conclusion to which Sir Oliver Lodge has been led by a wholly different path. To explain the psychical in terms of physics and chemistry, he showed, was simply impossible: and he gave an amusing illustration of how the varied activities in this world would appear to, and be explained by, an observer from another world versed in physics and chemistry, but to whom the existence of man was unknown and undiscoverable. Such an observer would plausibly and confidently explain the growth of, say, the Forth Bridge or the Nile dam by purely physico-chemical processes. If told that these structures were designed by an engineer at a distance, he would scout the idea as preposterous, for the engineer is not there, and plainly cannot act where he is not.

Passing next to the continuity of life, from life on earth to life in the Unseen, Sir Oliver Lodge said:

"Science might not be able to reveal human destiny, but it certainly should not obscure it. . . . I am one of those," he added. "who think the methods of science can be applied to the Psychic region. Allow us, anyhow, to make the attempt. Let those who prefer the materialistic hypothesis by

all means develop their thesis as far as they can, but let us also try what we can do in the Psychical region, and see which wins."

He then had the rare intellectual courage to state the following conclusion, to which he had been driven after thirty years experience of psychical research; although he started with the usual hostile prejudice against the subject:

"In justice to myself and my coworkers I must risk annoying my present hearers, not only by leaving on record our conviction that occurrences now regarded as occult can be examined and reduced to order by the methods of science carefully and persistently applied, but by going further and saying, with the utmost brevity, that already the facts so examined have convinced me that memory and affection are not limited to that association with matter by which alone they can manifest themselves here and now, and that personality persists beyond bodily death. The evidence to my mind goes to prove that discarnate intelligence, under certain conditions, may interact with us on the material side, thus indirectly coming within our scientific ken; and that gradually we may hope to attain some understanding of the nature of a larger, perhaps ethereal, existence, and of the conditions regulating intercourse across the chasm."

The whirligig of time, indeed, brings its revenges. Thirty-seven years ago the present writer ventured to read a paper before the British Association at Glasgow, entitled "On some phenomena connected with abnormal conditions of mind." A series of carefully conducted experiments had led the writer to the conviction that with certain individuals, and under certain circumstances, a direct action of one mind upon another could occur without the intervention of any sense impressions. The paper inter alia related these and ended with a plea for the

appointment of a scientific committee to examine whether the evidence adduced was real or illusory. This was scouted as preposterous, and the paper was stigmatized as "the recrudescence of superstition." Now we find the foremost representative of official science, speaking ex cathedra from the presidential chair of the British Association, avowing his belief, not only in the value of psychical research, but stating further that the prolonged study of the cumulative evidence so obtained, goes to prove the survival of human personality after the shock of death.

This pronouncement will, of course, excite wide criticism and discussion; if it be instructive criticism the discussion will be useful, but it is to be feared that many "fools will rush in where angels fear to tread." Would that all scientific men were as openminded and fearless as Sir Oliver Lodge. More than thirty years ago, before he had joined the ranks of psychical researchers, I discussed the question of thought-transference with him, and gave him some of the evidence which had convinced me of its existence. After listening patiently, he said "I don't believe it; the thing is impossible." I said it did not contradict any known laws, and was only a question of adequate and unimpeachable évidence, which perhaps he had not studied. He was silent, but after a long interval said, "You are perfectly right, I know nothing of the matter, but will look into it." And this he did, obtaining in Liverpool valuable confirmatory evidence of the fact of telepathy, and throwing himself with characteristic energy and insight into the work of the Society for Psychical Research.

3 It was the refusal of scientific societies to publish further evidence on behalf of thoughttransference, or telepathy as it is now widely known, that led the author, with the aid of a few friends, to found the Society of Psychical Research in January, 1882; since then, twentysix bulky volumes of its "Proceedings" and twelve volumes of its "Journal" have been issued.

The scientific scepticism which confronts inquirers in new fields of thought is a necessary and wholesome opposition, as it tends to suppress hasty and ill-considered departures into what may prove treacherous regions. At the same time, we need to be aware that the inertia of our settled beliefs makes a dislocation of any one of them a troublesome and painful effort, and too often leads to a mental laziness which gladly pooh-poohs any evidence requiring time and patience to obtain. Moreover, as Goethe said to Ecker

mann:

"What has been laid down and learnt in the schools is regarded as property. Comes now one with something new, opposed to, or even threatening quite to subvert the Credo which we have for years repeated after others, and again handed on to others: passions are excited against him and all means are employed to suppress him. He is resisted in any way possible; by pretending not to hear, not to understand, by speaking of the thing contemptu. ously, as not at all worth the trouble even to look at and inquire into, and so a new truth may be kept long waiting till it has made a path for itself."

Exception might be taken to the dilemma put by Sir Oliver: "Either we are immortal beings or we are not," as "immortal" usually denotes rmperishable, but the etymological meaning was probably intended by Sir Oliver. It does not follow that life beyond the grave confers immortality, and obviously no conceivable experimental evidence can demonstrate this fact. All that psychical research can possibly hope to prove is (1) that life and consciousness can exist without a material body and brain such as we have here; and (2) that the communicating intelligence is the survival in the Unseen of an individual who once lived on earth. Evidence that has been growing in abundance and quality during recent years justifies, in my opin

ion, belief in the first statement. The proof of the identity of that intelligence with a deceased person is a very different and far more difficult matter, so that many who accept the former hesitate to accept the latter statement.

It may well be that human personality as we know it here, conditioned in time and space, does not survive. For human personality as we know it, and as an object of consciousness represented by the succession of different states in time, is not, as Kant pointed out

"the real proper self, as it exists in itself not the transcendental subject, but only a phenomenon, which is presented to the sensibility of this, to it, unknown being," ie., to our true self.

The fact of telepathy, argues an able writer, Mr. F. C. Constable, in his work on Personality and Telepathy, is evidence that our human personality "is merely a partial and mediate manifestation in a world of time and space of a transcendental self not thus conditioned." In any case we can form no conception of the state of life in the Unseen based upon our experiences on earth, nor do any of the communications which purport to come from discarnate beings give us any definite conception of that state."

Putting aside these considerations, the proof of the identity of an unknown individual is very difficult, even under cross-examination on earth, as shown in the Tichborne case. Dr. Hyslop, the indefatigable leader of psychical research in the United States, has made a series of interesting experiments to ascertain how the identity of a distant unseen person can be established to the satisfaction of a friend who was ignorant of the name of the

4 Swedenborg claimed to have had intromission to the spiritual world, and his statements of the life and activities therein, throughout all his voluminous writings, are so consistent and apparently veridical, that they deserve respectful consideration.

person. Telegraphic communication was established between A and B, the latter having no idea who A was, whilst A knew that his friend B was at the other end of the line, but was not allowed to give his name to B. It was found, as the result of many experiments with different pairs of individuals, that in every case it was a series of trivial incidents, common to the past life of A and B that enabled B to discover the identity of A. This experiment (which might well be repeated as a game over a short telephone line, using an intermediary to prevent voice recognition), helps to remove the common objection as to the trivial and absurd communications which form the staple of so-called spiritualistic communications. The passionate desire to know if the unseen intelligence is really the deceased friend he professes to be, is sure to lead to a recital of commonplace and apparently foolish incidents. Shreds and patches of information are given, some true, some false, which perplex and irritate outsiders who study the evidence. The intrusion of the intelligence of the subconscious self of the psychic into the messages he attempts to convey is another well-recognized but annoying feature. Nor have we any conception of the difficulties which may attend the transmission of messages from the unseen operator, if such indeed he be.

Another frequent objection to the evidence afforded by psychical research, whether as regards telepathy or survival, is expressed by the writer of a thoughtful and appreciative leading article on Sir Oliver Lodge's address in the Manchester Guardian, one of the ablest and best of our provincial papers:

"The curious part of this evidence is that while it is evidently satisfactory to those who have it at first hand, it carries no conviction to a second indi

vidual on a first transmission, at least among educated people."

This is not altogether true, for many who have patiently studied the voluminous evidence, now accessible in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research and elsewhere, have been convinced, though they have never obtained first-hand evidence. But the objection remains, nevertheless, and it is worth enquiring why it exists. The reason probably is that our personal knowledge of one another here on earth is derived from our perceptions, which require no exercise of thought or reason to demonstrate their existence. They are to us certainties arising from our sensations, from the immediacy of feeling. Nor can we communicate this conviction of their existence to others; for our feelings are incommunicable, and only feebly expressed in thought and speech. We may know about a friend whom we have never seen, but we do not know him till we are brought into immediate communion with him." Thus it is that those who have been convinced by first-hand evidence of psychical phenomena find it difficult or impossible to convey their conviction to others.

Finally, the oft-repeated question of why some special person, psychic, medium or automatist, is necessary to be the intermediary in psychical research, finds an analogy in the fact that in the inorganic world an intermediate body, such as a photographic plate or a fluorescent screen, is always necessary to translate the unseen into the seen. And as regards psychical phenomena, it is reasonable to suppose that certain persons possess a subconscious life more accessible to psychic

In like manner the knowledge of God possessed by the saints in all ages, is very different from the knowledge about God, for the former is intuitive and incommunicable, and suggests the existence within us all of higher sensory faculties belonging to our transcendental self.

influences than others. As the late Professor William James has said:

"Just as our primary wide-awake consciousness throws open our senses to the touch of things material, so it is logically conceivable that if there be higher spiritual agencies that considerably touch us, the psychological conditions of their doing so might be our possession of a subconscious region which alone could yield access to them. The hubbub of the waking life might close a door which in the dreamy subliminal might remain ajar or open."

Theologians are so much fettered by authority that it is not surprising so many of them have denounced psychical research. They should, however, remember what the learned Rev. Dr. Glanville says in the dedication to his Saducismus Triumphatus:

"These thing relate to our biggest interests; if established they secure some of the outworks of religion, and regain a parcel of ground which bold infidelity hath invaded." Only, however, the outworks for psychical research, like all other scientific inquiry, deals with the external, though it be in a region as yet unrecognized by orthodox science as a whole. "The methods of science," as Sir Oliver Lodge said, striking a high note of sincere conviction at the conclusion of his address, "are not the only way, though they are our way of arriving at truth. . . . We are deaf and blind to the immanent Grandeur around us, unless we have insight enough to appreciate the Whole, and to recognize in the woven fabric of existence, flowing steadily from the loom in an infinite progress towards perfection, the ever-growing garment of a transcendent God."

The noble words in which that great philosopher, Sir John Herschel, tells us what is the true spirit of science may well be turned into a command and written over the door of every laboratory as a motto for all seekers after truth: "Cherish as a vital principle an

unbounded spirit of enquiry and ardency of expectation, unfetter the mind from prejudices of every kind, leave it open and free to every impression of a higher nature which it is susceptible of receiving-guarding only against self-deception by a habit of strict investigation-encourage rather than suppress everything that can offer The Contemporary Review.

the prospect of a hope beyond the present obscure and unsatisfactory state. The character of the true philosopher is to hope all things not impossible and to believe all things not unreasonable. ... Humility of pretension no less than confidence of hope is what best becomes his character."

W. F. Barrett.

Since we have the authority of the Prayer Book for stating "There was never anything by the wit of man so well devised which hath not been corrupted," it is not wonderful that grumbling long and loud has accompanied the introduction of three measures honestly intended to benefit-amongst others the home-workers. The Old Age Pensions, the Trades Board Act, and the Insurance Act have, each in turn, received the label "The Ruin of the Country."

Being of the company of those who "where an equal poise of hope aud fear does arbitrate" incline to hope, I have found myself at times on my knees, returning thanks for these imperfect laws.

Possibly the Old Age Pensions Act has done less good, so far, to the women employed in tailoring, boxmaking, etc., than we had hoped; but that is mainly because it is difficult, though not impossible, to live to be seventy in Shoreditch. Yet blessed be that Act! A short time ago, paying a call on an old woman engaged in making "Guardsmen's coats for ladies" -or so she said-I found her bubbling over with excitement. She could hardly wait to pay me the usual East End compliment of assuring me that I was not looking strong before bursting out with "I have good news at last! I have found out that I am a

year older than I thought I was!" "Are you sure?" I asked. "Quite. It was a letter did it coming from an old friend who never came up to London when we did; he writes every few years, and this time he said he had taken his pen to tell me he was poorly, as was to be expected at seventy, and didn't suppose he would be kept long now, and that if his memory served I was not far short myself. That set me thinking. I got out my marriage lines and made out the sum. 'Twasn't proof enough, for I had put down 'Full Age.

You can do that if you like, and as 1 was twenty-four, and that was held getting on when I was young, and as I didn't want everyone to know too much, I did it. But I sent later on for my birth certificate, and that made it plain. All I've got to do now is to live till September."

That pension will come late enough as it is. A few months earlier I had found my friend as sad as her brave heart would allow her to be. She had been to the Eye Infirmary, driven there by a persistent illusion that she was in the midst of a snow-storm, and inability to account for the halo she could see round people and things. "They told me it was cataract," she said. "In which eye?" "Both, and nothing to be done till I'm stone blind. But there" and she looked hungrily at me for confirmation of her hope. "I