1875]. The Possibility of a Future Life. 481 
show to the contrary, this second universe, if it exists at all, 
may contain anything. In this unknown and hypothetical 
region, a spiritual body—if such a term may be logically 
applied to what seems after all merely a matter extremely 
rarefied—is being elaborated for each of us after this fashion. 
Every thought or emotion which passes through our minds 
occasions, as is now generally admitted by physiologists, a 
certain molecular action in our brain. This action disturbs 
the ordinary luminous or interstellar ether, and a portion 
of such disturbance, like a portion of the light of the stars, 
is handed over to the second ether or unseen universe. By 
degrees, an organised structure is thus built up, though 
devoid of consciousness. When at last we die, our con- 
sciousness is, in some mysterious manner, transferred to 
this second body, and we begin a new life, though retaining 
our personal identity, and being mindful of all that has 
occurred to us in our present state of existence. 
All this, the reader must carefully bear in mind, is sup- 
posed to happen, not by miracle, not in virtue of any direct 
interposition of God, but in obedience to the ordinary ‘‘ laws 
of nature.’’ Certain questions, therefore, arise, the answers 
to which are in the highest degree doubtful. That a mole- 
cular disturbance in the human brain may affect the ether, 
may be transmitted to an unseen universe, and may there 
produce physical effects, are propositions which we are not 
prepared to deny. But how are these effects to be localised 
and kept separate? We know that the light-waves thrown 
off from any illuminated body are capable of producing 
chemical effects upon certain substances, and of thus stamp- 
ing the image of such body upon a duly prepared surface. 
But for this purpose care must be taken that the light-waves 
thrown back by other bodies do not interfere. If we place 
a sensitive paper, not in a camera, but in the open air, we 
do not obtain a landscape, but a blot. The undulations 
from each object do not select some part of the paper to 
impress themselves upon, but act indiscriminately upon the 
whole surface. What in the unseen universe is to play the 
part of the camera? How are the impressions emanating 
from the brain of each of the thousand millions of the 
human inhabitants of the earth—to say nothing of its brute 
population, and of the possible intelligences dwelling in 
other heavenly bodies—to be sorted out and compelled to 
act, each on the one spot required, and nowhere else ? 
The authors, indeed, make an attempt to meet this diffi- 
culty, an attempt so feeble that we marvel how it can pro- 
ceed from men who elsewhere show themselves capable of 
