NATURE 



[May 9, 1889 



accumulated content of the whole individual. The per- 

 sonal Ego must be brought to the point of view of the 

 transcendental subject to which the mere happiness of 

 that Ego is indifferent. What to us as persons are but 

 high ideal motives may be alone of interest to the larger 

 self which only maintains the organic personality for its 

 own purposes. Such is Mr. Massey's analysis of the 

 master's views, and it must be obvious that on this 

 showing matters are decidedly in favour of the higher 

 Ego which has, so to speak, got it all its own way. But 

 since that exalted essence is, according to its moral 

 nature, a product of development, the greater morality is 

 not always on its side, for were that the case, terrestrial 

 existence would have no educational value, and it is 

 comfortable, therefore, to learn that our moral conscious- 

 ness in earth-life can erect itself against its larger self, 

 and may thus enrich the latter by the moral fruits of 

 mundane existence ; the struggle which takes place 

 between the divisions of the subject being analogous to 

 the process of Nature in its endeavour to expel disease, 

 and drive whatever is morbid in an organism to the 

 surface, or, to put it baldly, a species of spiritual measles. 

 Such a theory, it is contended, fits the progress of the in- 

 dividual into the progress of the race, avoiding the waste 

 of energy involved in the conception that the former is 

 sacrificed to the latter, and supplies a wondrous harmony 

 in which pessimism is subordinated to optimism. 



The author is erudite, and he hails from the Father- 

 land ; it is therefore not a matter for surprise that 

 somewhat Shandean theories are exposed in sentences 

 of wondrous construction. With these Mr. Massey has 

 manfully wrestled ; but, in his commendable desire to 

 play the part of a faithful translator, he has at times 

 given us such specimens of Teutonic English "as she is 

 wrote " as render the good Baron's mysticism ten times 

 more mysterious. We have read and re-read a passage, 

 and a dozen perusals have left us still in doubt whether 

 the meaning which the author and translator intended to 

 convey were really grasped. Fidelity may be carried 

 too far. At other times he who runs may read, and the 

 author expresses his sentiments with an ingenuous frank- 

 ness, as when he writes that "every criticism will be 

 welcome which is adapted to advance the subject and 

 myself." 



Assuming that we have mastered the Baron's theory, 

 an assumption we hesitate to make, we may place if 

 before such of our readers as prefer a crude simile to 

 the technicalities of metaphysics, in an illustration de- 

 rived from natural history. Those who have visited the 

 rock-pools of our coasts must have noticed the amusing 

 little hermit crab {Pagurus ber?thardus), who ensconces 

 his soft unarmoured tail in the temporary shelter of an 

 empty shell. He wriggles into his self-chosen habitation, 

 and holds on to it with the pinchers with which his tail is 

 provided, until he voluntarily leaves it before the ap- 

 proach of death. The hermit crab is the unconscious 

 whole whose tail is tucked into the shell of self-conscious 

 existence. As he emerges from it, or retires more com- 

 pletely, the amount of crab within the shell varies, the 

 threshold of sensibility is shifted, and the shell benefits 

 or suffers accordingly. The development of the moral 

 nature of the subject, and its fitness for higher re-incar- 

 nation, are likewise shadowed forth in the fattening of 



the crab's tail, and his search for a roomy whelk-shell in 

 place of the restricted covering of the modest periwinkle. 

 Or, once again, the threshold of sensibility may be 

 hkened to the lid of the box from which the Jack of 

 memory leaps, and upon the closure of which forgetfulness 

 ensues. 



It may be readily imagined that the author does not 

 ask us to accept his theories unproven, and he has col- 

 lected a mass of curious information from the most varied 

 sources. Some of his anecdotes are oases of entertain- 

 ment, which will, we fear, be missed by readers who do 

 not, as we have done, peruse the volumes from cover to 

 cover. As instances of our meaning, we may cite the 

 case of a weak-minded youth upon whom all instruction 

 in languages and science was thrown away, but who, 

 after a fall on the head, became distinctly clever, intel- 

 lectual, and highly cultivated, quickly seizing what he 

 had been taught in vain before — a demonstration of the 

 value of a box on the ears in the case of a stupid boy ; 

 the girl who, in her waking life, was reminded of her 

 self-imposed somnambulistic treatment by the vision of a 

 squirt ; the military author who entered the barracks to 

 take charge of the watch, in obedience to a dreamed 

 order which he conceived to be a reality (had the case 

 been one of neglect of a real order which he believed 

 himself to have dreamt, we fear the court-martial would 

 not have admitted the plea) ; or the wife who, subject to 

 conditions of alternating consciousness, resented the 

 presence of her husband, whom she treated with maid- 

 enly reserve. To prove the existence of a transcendental 

 measure of time which is totally different from the nor- 

 mal, we are told of a flea-bite which occasioned a dream, 

 concluding with a stab in the part of the body upon 

 which the insect operated ; of a pinch on the thigh, 

 which caused the sleeper to imagine himself bitten by a 

 wild beast ; of De Quincey's opium dreams, which ap- 

 peared to him to extend over vast periods of time ; and 

 of Mahomet, who, having knocked over a pitcher of water 

 when translated by the Archangel Gabriel, viewed all 

 things in heaven and hell, and held ninety thousand con- 

 ferences with the Deity, returning to his still warm couch 

 before the contents of the pitcher were expended. A 

 somnambulistic girl exclaimed, " Where am I ? I am not 

 at home in the head. There is a strange struggle between 

 the pit of the stomach and the head ; both would prevail, 

 both see and feel." So you see that "transcendental physio- 

 logical functions seem to be parallel with corresponding 

 changes in the ganglionic system." Authorities jostle in 

 kaleidoscopic confusion ; the " Novum Organum " stand- 

 ing cheek by jowl with the Bhagavadgita and the Vedas ; 

 whilst Aristotle and Proctor, Plato and Mrs. Crowe, 

 Habakkuk, Galen, Plotinus, L. Oliphant, Daniel, Darwin, 

 Kant, Olcott, and scores of others, jostle each other in 

 ill-assorted series, but each with his contribution to the 

 mosaic of marvels. On such a catena of evidence are 

 based the two volumes ; and, in spite of their wayward- 

 ness, there is a thread of argument running through 

 them which it would be unfair to the author to sunder 

 by attempting an imperfect precis of his work, had 

 we even the heart to impose it upon our readers. It 

 has been said that, sooner or later, all books come into 

 the hands of those for whom they were written, and there 

 is no special reason for an exception in this case because 



