1 86 



The Review of Reviews. 



February to. 1906. 



AN AGNOSTIC'S PROGRESS : 



The Wicket Gate of Psychical Research. 



One of the most fascinating papers published this 

 month is Mr. W. S. Palmer's " Agnostic's Progress" 

 in the Content porarx Review. It is written with 

 much simplicity and charm. Mr. Palmer tells us 

 how he escaped from the City of Destruction by a 

 devious road, and after many wanderings passed 

 through the wicket gate of psychical research into 

 the road that leads to the Celestial City. He has 

 now found his soul, and rejoices exceedingly in the 

 constant progress which he is making in discovering 

 its marvellous nature and attributes. 



HIS LITTLE BOOK. 



Mr. Palmer begins by telling us how — 



In the early sixties— when, like Christian. I war- stirred 

 up to flee from my City of Destruction; and, like Chris- 

 tian, burdened as I was, I fled. I, too, had found a. book: 

 it was " The Origin of Species." For me. as for him, the 

 face of the world was changed. Before that time religion 

 as a personal matter, religion as a life, did not exist for 

 me or my family. I knew nothing of a Divine Humanity, 

 of an extending Incarnation by which the world moves 

 towards the fulfilment of an eternal idea; in fact of any 

 dynamic conception, true or false, about religion. Static, 

 conceptions ruled my ignorance in this matter as they had 

 ruled me everywhere. 



THE STABS UPON HIS PATH. 

 In his wanderings in the darkness star after star 

 came out to guide him on his way. (hie ol the 

 first of such was the discovery that Pauls sermon 

 on Mars Hill was a very heretical discourse: — 



The barbaric conception of a religion full-orbed, com- 

 plete, like the pre-Darwinian conception of a world ot 

 living creatures, its origin a matter of past history, 

 isolated, over and done, left me for ever. 



THE ALADDIN LAMP OF SCIENCE. 



He began to devour everything, from the " Essays 

 and Reviews " to " Supernatural Religion " and " Lux 

 Mundi." Then, abandoning theology as idle, he ap- 

 plied himself to the study of science. Put — 



Not at all the splendid conquests of science could keep 

 me at her feet. I recognised in her the sovereign rnistrese 

 of the use and management of things, the giver into the 

 hands of man of an Aladdin's lamp, the Genie's magic 

 ring, the mastership and government of the world; but 

 my desirious heart asked more. " Bankrupt of life, yet 

 prodigal of ease," she stood, this lady of great gifts; and 

 I turned away from her and set my face to follow the 

 pointing finger of my unresting other self, whom nothing 

 of this superficial world can wholly please. 



"DIVINE PHILOSOPHY. 



From science he turned to divine philosoph) : — 



I began the stony philosophic track with Spencer, as 

 was natural enough. I owe him much; I learnt from him 

 the weakness of the agnostic position; I learnt to leave 

 him for better philosophers. Idealist malgre lui, he sent 

 me to the idealists. 1 went on to Thomas Hill Green, 

 and he complet-ed in me the work that Spencer had begun. 

 Spencer sowed in me a suspicion to match a rising hope 

 that I was not a product of material "Kraft und Stoff " ; 

 and my hope and my suspicion were confirmed by Green. 

 Green had taught me that the angels and the apes might 

 hoth be of my kin. " L'homme h'est ni ange >ii bete," says 

 Pascal; I began to see that I might be the meeting-point 

 of both, a place of union in the universe of tilings. I 

 owe to philosophy at least the beginnings, or the needed 

 starting-point of my own belief in God, freedom, immor- 

 tality; and I deem the philosophic manner a right advance 

 upon and a correlative and corrective of the scientific 

 manner; although neither in this manner nor in that do 

 all men find that which I have found. 



THE WICKET GATE OF PSYCHISM 



Mr. Palmer having got thus far on his road, now 

 found his wicket gate: — 



Suddenly, quite suddenly, there opened out before we a 

 new turn of my expanded road, and 1 discovered round 

 the bend the next thing for me, another shining star — a 

 volume of the " Proceedings of the Society for Psychical 

 Research. containing an account of some of Professor 

 Oliver Lodge's experiments in " the communication of mind 

 with mind otherwise than through the recognised organs 

 of sense." 



Psychical research helped me to a firmer grip on the 

 meaning of my philosophers and of my philosophically- 

 conceived self; but it did far more, as it has done for 

 other men who have been more deeply, more publicly and 

 professionally, and in reputation, pledged to oppose sets of 

 convictions on the most important problems of real life. 1 

 had to begin the revision of all those problems; I began 

 to review what I knew and what I did not know — by far, 

 indeed, the larger part — concerning religion. " Qui reut 

 guirir r ignorance il ini fautle con-fetter": confession was 

 wrong from me at last. Facing these new revelations, I 

 saw that in " (lod, freedom, immortality" there must be 

 depth of meaning to which, so far, I had been blind. 



HIS "SHADowv COMPANION." 



Mr. Palmer speaks vaguely and mystically con- 

 cerning his soul, which he stvles " mv Shadowy Com- 



O ... 



pinion." He says : — 



In the year 1888 my Shadowy Companion took advantage 

 of the psychological discovery of that subliminal region 

 wherein he habitually dwells, and whence he issues Ins 

 persuasions and commands, to present himself to my de- 

 liberate notice. He came at first delicately, unobtrusively, 

 as one willing but not presumptuous or pressing; and later, 

 when his welcome was assured, more persistent. Now he 

 i> my familiar friend and sometimes master. 



I have only to turn my eyes towards the Shadowy Com- 

 panion who is my inner, demanding, growing self, to see 

 shining --tars standing out as his opportunities and his 

 of reminder. Sinning stars of this kind are the in- 

 struments and occasions of all our Shadowy Companion*; 

 their rays pierce the penumbra! >had'j wherein much of us 

 must always dwell as we are now. The men who have no 

 shining stars, the men for whom no Epiphany feast has 

 its appropriateness, may well remain unacquainted with 

 their Shadowy Companions, their greater selves, who 

 should he known as selves that may endure. I, at least, 

 have found that as star after star has come to me with 

 a revelation of new light, my Shadowy Companion has been 

 the more made known and made to be more certainly 

 tnvself— my lasting self; or so it seems to me. 



A PLAIN MANS GHOST. 



There is more to follow next month. 

 savs : — 



Mr. Palmer 



1 had much to learn before my subliminal ghost and I 

 settled down together on these friendly terms, and I have 

 still much to tell concerning the process of my learning; 

 but I may as well say now once for all that his intercourse 

 with me is ever orderly, like myself. Day by day and year 

 by year I gain upon my ghost— I overtake him and ap- 

 propriate him— and day by day and year by year he shows 

 me a vista of himself beyond, hut never as the Daemon of 

 genius. He is a plain man's ghost. 



Laundry Work at Sea. 



The World's Work says that 



apparently it will soon be a common thing for laundry 

 work to be carried on at sea, since it is claimed that the 

 difficulties of washing linen satisfactorily in salt water 

 have at last been overcome. It is a matter to which 

 numerous inventors have turned their attention from time 

 to time, and as far back as 1771 a patent was taken out, 

 but the result was failure. 



A salt-water powder has now been invented, by 

 which it is said that- linen can be washed and " pot 

 up " at sea as well as on land. The invention has 

 aroused much interest, and at a demonstration ot 

 its possibilities two representatives of the Admiralty 

 were present. 



