HORIZON LINES 



bodies, we think of it as gone out, non-existent, as 

 truly so as is the flame of the candle when we blow 

 it out, or as is the star form of the snowflake when 

 it is melted. Does it help us any to think of the soul, 

 or consciousness, in terms of the imponderable bod- 

 ies — light, electricity, radio-activity? Do all these 

 wireless messages that go forth into the air, go on 

 forever? Do these impulses reach the farthest stars, 

 and still persist? Do our thoughts persist upon the 

 ether? Here, in this room, here in this air that you 

 may inclose with your two hands, are vibrating 

 wireless messages from far and near, though we are 

 not able to detect them. Here also the ether may be 

 tremulous with the thoughts of our friends on the 

 other side of the globe, yes, and with the thoughts of 

 our friends who have ceased to live, as we know life. 

 The ether of space may still be vibrating with the 

 thoughts of Plato and Aristotle, of Moses and Solo- 

 mon. 



Do we impress ourselves momentarily upon the 

 ether around us, and is this what the mediums and 

 the clairvoyants recover? Is the persistence of our 

 thoughts upon the ether the secret of the mind- 

 reader's art, and of all the marvelous things dis- 

 closed by psychic research? Is this the only immor- 

 tality, the immortality of the endless persistence 

 of vibrations from our brains? Or must we think 

 of our personalities as disembodied and drifting 

 about as separate entities in the great Nowhere? 



247 



