2 20 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the forces which, should bring ahout that movement upon which 

 growth depends. The economist of the past generation still holds 

 his ground, and our best hope lies in the fuller acceptance of his 

 ideas. The economist, however, must feel, if he is to animate 

 multitudes and inspire legislatures, that he, too, has a religion. 

 Beneath the calmness of his analysis must be felt the throb of 

 humanity. Slow in any case must be the secular progress of any 

 branch of the human family ; but if we take our stand upon facts, 

 if our eyes are open to distinguish illusions from truth, if we are 

 animated by the single purpose of subordinating our investiga- 

 tions and our actions to the lifting up of the standard of living^ 

 we may possess our souls in patience, waiting upon the promise 

 of the future. 







POSSESSION AND MEDIUMSHIP. 



By Prof. WILLIAM EOMAINE NEWBOLD. 



ALL the phenomena of which I have been treating in my past 

 -^^^ papers can be grouped under the three conceptions of sug- 

 gestibility, automatism, and subconscious mental states. Sugges- 

 tibility, in its narrowest sense, denotes an increased tendencj^ on 

 the part of certain mental states to work out their own proper 

 results, without interference from other states, and especially 

 without interference from that innermost essence of our sense 

 of self which we call our will. It applies, therefore, primarily 

 to states existing within the range of the individual's con- 

 sciousness. The suggestible individual, when he can remember 

 or describe his condition, usually feels his will or self in abeyance, 

 and describes himself as the victim of a power which he can not 

 resist. His body obeys commands which he himself is unwilling 

 to obey ; ideas and beliefs possess his consciousness which he him- 

 self is unable to expel, even though he recognizes their absurdity ; 

 hallucinations of all the senses obtrude themselves upon him, or 

 portions of his conscious realm are withdrawn from him in a 

 manner which he can not but ascribe to the workings of some 

 force foreign to himself. When this sense of opposition is lack- 

 ing, it is because the suggestion meets with no opposition on the 

 part of his accredited beliefs and instincts, and thus merely aug- 

 ments the stream of his normal consciousness without his discov- 

 ering its extraneous origin. 



Suggested hallucinations and ideas do not differ in any respect 

 from spontaneous hallucinations and automatic ideas, save that 

 the source of the former is apparent and that of the latter is not. 

 In the fields of sensation and ideation, therefore, the conceptions 

 of suggestibility and automatism practically coincide. The case 



