46 Riley Presidential Address. 



ble and unscientific, I am just as much out of sympathy with 

 that class of materialistic scientists who refuse to recognize that 

 there may be and are subtle psychical phenomena beyond the 

 reach of present experimental methods. The one class too readily 

 assumes supernatural power to explain abnormal phenomena ; 

 the other denies the abnormal because it likewise is past our 

 limited understanding. "Even now," says William Crookes, 

 who speaks with authority, "telegraphing without wires is pos 

 sible within a radius of a few hundred yards," and, in a most in 

 teresting contribution to our present knowledge of vibratory 

 motion and the possibilities of electricity, the same writer 

 remarks:* 



"The discovery of a receiver sensitive to one set of wave lengths and 

 silent to others is even no\v partially accomplished. The human eye is an 

 instance supplied by nature of one which responds to the narrow range of 

 electro-magnetic impulses between the three ten-millionths of a millimeter 

 and the eight ten-millionths of a millimeter. It is not improbable that 

 other sentient beings have organs of sense which do not respond to some or 

 to any of the rays to which our eyes are sensitive, but are able to appreciate 

 other vibrations to which we are blind. Such beings would practically be 

 living in a different world from our own. Imagine, for instance, what idea 

 we should form of surrounding objects were we endowed with eyes not sen 

 sitive to the ordinary rays of light, but sensitive to the vibrations concerned 

 in electric and magnetic phenomena. Glass and crystal would be among the 

 most opaque of bodies. Metals would be more or less transparent, and a 

 telegraph wire through the air would look like a long narrow hole drilled 

 through an impervious solid body. A dynamo in active work would re 

 semble a conflagration, while a permanent magnet would realize the dreams 

 of mediaeval mystics and become an everlasting lamp with no expenditure 

 of energy or consumption of fuel. 



In some parts of the human brain may lurk an organ capable of trans 

 mitting and receiving other electrical rays of wave lengths hitherto un 

 detected by instrumental means. These may be instrumental in transmit 

 ting thought from one brain to another. " * * * 



INTELLIGENCE IN INSECTS. 



Anyone who has closely studied the ways of insects, especially 

 as exemplified in the social species we have been considering, will 

 not doubt that they possess intelligence. They communicate 

 with each other by a language, which, though unspoken, is no 

 less eloquent of all their wishes and desires. They work for the 



* " Some possibilities of electricity." FortnigUly Review, March, 1892. 



