266 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



special forms of such closely systematized — self-contained — individual 

 — psychic systems. 



It appears j)ossible then to conceive that in this universe there are 

 innumerable grades of consciousnesses, other than human conscious- 

 nesses. At times human consciousnesses may become inherent parts 

 of such other forms of consciousness : and their existence might affect 

 us by resulting in an alteration of what James might call our ' feel/ 



We often seem to appreciate that we are swayed by some far-reach- 

 ing but ill-defined influence of this nature, the effects of which we 

 experience mainly in a negative way when we break away from it. 



Lowell has expressed this experience in some beautiful lines in his 



' Under the Willows ' : 



My soul was lost, 

 Gone from me like an ache, and what remained 

 Became a part of the universal joy. 

 My soul went forth, and, mingling with the tree, 

 Danced in the leaves; or, floating in the cloud, 

 Saw its white douhle in the stream below; 

 Or else, siiblimed to purer ecstasy, 

 Dilated in the broad blue over all. 

 I was the wind that dappled the lush grass, 

 The tide that crept with coolness to its roots, 

 The thin-winged swallow skating on the air; 

 The life that gladdened everything was mine. 



But suddenly the sound of human voice 



Or footfall, like the drop a chemist pours, 



Doth in opacious cloud precipitate 



The consciousness that seemed but now dissolved 



Into an essence rarer than its own: — 



And I am narrowed to myself once more. 



If such other forms of consciousness exist in the universe, not only 

 may we at times, as we have just seen, become inherent parts of some 

 of those of higher grade than ours ; but it is also possible that at other 

 times such diverse consciousnesses may merely attach themselves to 

 ours, as it were, leaving our own consciousnesses essentially intact; but 

 in such cases the other consciousnesses may serve to produce noticeable 

 modifications in our own consciousnesses, which may point to influences 

 from outside of such human consciousnesses as are familiar to us. 



All readers of this article are familiar with the voluminous records 

 of facts made by Hodgson and others in connection with the Society 

 of Psychical Research, and brought into prominence in Frederick 

 Myers's lately published work; facts which are more or less mysterious, 

 and which not a few people think of as corroborative of that most 

 vague of hypotheses, the spiritualistic, or spiritistic, hypothesis as it is 

 now called. 



Had these records been made twenty-five years ago they would 

 have been immensely more voluminous, because they would have in- 

 cluded accounts of what were then the most convincing pieces of 



