Introduction 



also and this is, indeed, the greater achievement 

 gives us a new and larger theory of the origin and 

 constitution of life. 



Of the content of the present work, however, I do 

 not propose to speak in detail, but I will say that I 

 have found in it the evidences of a new classic. I believe 

 that, in fifty years' time, Dr Geley's From the Unconscious 

 to the Conscious will be looked upon as bearing the same 

 kind of relation to the discoveries of the twentieth 

 century that Darwin's Origin of Species bore to the 

 nineteenth. This may sound rather an extravagant 

 claim to make, but if Geley's theory is, as I believe, a 

 true one, it must inevitably revolutionise our knowledge 

 both of biology and psychology, and may, at the same 

 time, lay the foundations of a world-wide religion. 



And we must remember that Dr Geley comes before 

 us backed by the authority of the practical scientist and 

 scholar. His medical works have already brought him 

 a measure of fame, both in the study of local anaesthetics 

 and of the new method of treating such specifically 

 eruptive diseases as smallpox, erysipelas, and scarlatina. 

 He is not a 'spiritualist,' he refuses to identify himself 

 with any particular school of thought, but an original 

 researcher. He was chosen by scientific men of the 

 highest standing and repute, such as Professor Charles 

 Richet and Camille Flammarion, to be the Director of 

 the International Metapsychical Institute in Paris. In 

 short, Dr Geley is not some impetuous theorist rushing 

 into print with a premature hypothesis, but a patient, 

 unprejudiced investigator, whose sole aim is the search 

 for truth. 



J. D. BERESFORD. 



