Pal 
victorious assimilation of the new is, in fact, the type of all 
intellectual pleasure. The lust for it is curiosity. The relation 
of the new to the old, before the assimiiation is performed, is 
wonder. The successful performance of it is satisfaction. How 
important then is the possession of a sufficient number of 
sufficiently large mental chambers iu which to house the new 
guest. This is a materialistic age, we are constantly confronted 
with the ignorant and yet blatant statement that it does not in 
the least matter what a man believes or what he thinks. Our 
study of this subject to-night, brief and fragmentary though it 
has been, will at least have convinced us of the vital importance 
of the breadth and sanity of that mass of mental equipment 
which we call belief, for we see only that which we bring with 
us the power to see. Beauty of form and conception, as well as 
ugliness of vision are indeed in the eye of the beholder; and 
nothing is more true than this—that what we believe we shall 
sooner or later see, and what we think to-day we shall do to- 
morrow, and nowhere is this more true than in regard to the 
highest and noblest of all visions, our conception of Spiritual 
Reality. 
The discussion was opened by Mr. Jas. Kay, J.P., who thought 
the explanation of the Santa Claus illusion was that the child 
saw nothing but dreamt it; and that the origin of the Towneley 
Boggart was that some mischievous ghost was seen. He himself 
had just had an experience of an illusion. An Irish painter had 
painted a striking picture of Christ. One night the painter went 
into his studio, and saw distinctly a large cross lying on the right 
shoulder of the figure. Next morning he went again, and on 
examining it he could not see the cross there; but at night the 
cross was seen again, but could not be seen by daylight. 
He (the speaker) went to see this picture. He was shown it 
by daylight and then in the dark, and was told that he ought to 
see the cross, but said he could not see it. His friends could all 
see it, and said he was determined that he would not see it. As 
his friends could see the cross he began to see it. Many 
thousands of persons paid about one shilling each to see that 
cross, and they all came away saying they had seen it. The 
chemist could find no solution of the problem, and he therefore 
thought it must be an illusion. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. T. Crossland expressed himself rather sceptical on some of 
the theories of the paper, and suggested that they would scarcely 
apply in the case of ‘crocodile tears,” and in that of a man 
relieving himself by swearing when his toes were trod upon. 
They all knew that one man had a great influence over another, 
striking instances of which they saw in thought reading with 
