386 



NA TURE 



[August 20, 1891 



A luminous and helpful idea is that time is but a relative mode 

 of regarding things ; we progress through phenomena at a certain 

 defin te pace, and this subjective advance we interpret in an 

 objective manner, as if events necessarily happened in this order 

 and at this precise rate. But that may be only one mode of 

 regarding them. The events may be in some sense existent 

 always, both past and future, and it may be we who are arriving 

 at them, not they which are happening. The analogy of a 

 traveller in a railway train is useful. If he could never leave 

 the train nor alter its pace, he would probably consider the 

 landscapes as necessarily successive, and be unable to conceive 

 their coexistence. 



The analogy of a solid cut into sections is closer. We recog- 

 nise the universe in sections, and each section we call the present. 

 It is like the string of slices cut by a microtome ; it is our way 

 of studying the whole. But we may err in supposing that the 

 body only exists in the slices which pass before our microscope 

 in regular order and succession. 



We perceive, therefore, a possible fourth-dimensional aspect 

 about time, the inexorableness of whose flow may be a natural 

 part of oar present limitations. And if once we grasp the idea 

 that past and future may be actually existing, we can recognise 

 that they may have a controlling influence on all present action, 

 and the two together may constitute " the higher plane," or the 

 totality of things, after which, as it seems to me, we are impelled 

 to seek, in connection with the directingof force or determinism, 

 and the action of living beings consciously directed to a definite 

 and preconceived end. 



Inanimate matter is controlled by the vis a tergo ; it is 

 operated on solely by the past.^ Given certain conditions, and 

 the effect in due time follows. Attempts have been made to 

 apply the same principle to living and conscious beings, but 

 without much succe s. These seem to work for an object, even 

 if it be the mere seeking for food; they are controlled by the 

 idea of something not yet palpable. Given certain conditions, 

 and their action cannot certainly be predicted ; they have a sense 

 of option and free will. Either their actions are really arbitrary 

 and indeterminate — which is highly improbable — or they are con- 

 trolled by the future as well as by the past. Imagine beings 

 thus controlled : automata you may still call them, but 

 they will be living automata, and will exhibit all the character- 

 istics of live creatures. Moreover, if they have a merely experi- 

 ential knffia'.edge, necessarily limited by memory and bounded by 

 the past, they will be unable to predict each other's actions 

 with any certainty, because the whole of the data are not before 

 them. May not a clearer apprehension of the meaning of life 

 and vvill and determinism be gradually reached in some such 

 direction as this ? 



By what means is force exerted, and what, definitely, is 

 force ? I can hardly put the question here and now so as to be 

 intelligible, except to those who have approached and thought 

 over the same difiiculties ; but I venture to say that there is here 

 something not provided for in the orthodox scheme of physics ; 

 that modern physics is not complete, and that a line of possible 

 advance lies in this direction. 



I might go further. Given that force can be exerted by an act of 

 will, do we understand the mechanism by which this is done ? And 

 if there is a gap in our knowledge between the conscious idea of a 

 motion and the liberation of muscular energy needed to accom- 

 plish it, how do we know that a body may not be moved without 

 ordinary material contact by an act of will ? I have no evidence 

 that such a thing is possible. I have tried once or twice to ob- 

 serve its asserted occurrence, and failed to get anything that 

 satisfied me. Others may have been more fortunate. In any 

 case, I hold that we require more knowledge before we can 

 deny the possibility. If the conservation of energy were upset 

 by the process, we should have grounds for denying it ; but 

 nothing that we know is upset by the discovery of a novel 

 medium of communication, perhaps some more immediate action 

 through the ether. It is no use theorising ; it is unwise to de- 

 cline to examine phenomena because we feel too sure of their 

 impossibility. We ought to know the universe very thoroughly 

 and completely before we take up that attitude. 



Again, it is familiar that a thought may be excited in the 

 brain of another person, transferred thither from our brain, 

 by pulling a suitable trigger; by liberating energy in the 

 form of sound, for instance, or by the mechanical act of 



• This is, of course, not assertion, but suggestion. It may be erroneous 

 *o draw any such distinction between animate and inanimate. 



NO. II 38, VOL. 44] 



writing, or in other ways. A prearranged code called 

 language, and a material medium of communication, are the 

 recognised methods. May there not also be an immaterial 

 (perhaps an ethereal) medium of communication ? Is it 

 possible that an idea can be transferred from one person to 

 another by a process such as we have not yet grown accustomed 

 to, and know practically nothing about? In this case I have 

 evidence. I assert that I have seen it done ; and am perfectly 

 convinced of the fact. Many others are satisfied of the truth of 

 it too. Why must we speak of it with bated breath, as of a 

 thing of which we are ashamed ? What right have we to be 

 ashamed of a truth ? 



And after all, when we have grown accustomed to it, it will 

 not seem altogether strange. It is, perhaps, a natural con- 

 sequence of the community of life or family relationship running 

 through all living beings. The transmission of life may be 

 likened in some ways to the transmission of magnetism, and all 

 magnets are sympathetically connected, so that if suitably sus- 

 pended a vibration from one disturbs others, even though they 

 be distant ninety-two million miles. 



It is sometimes objected that, granting thought-transference 

 or telepathy to be a fact, it belongs more especially to lower 

 forms of life, and that as the cerebral hemispheres develop we 

 become independent of it ; that what we notice is the relic of a 

 decaying faculty, not the germ of a new and fruitful sense ; and 

 that progress is not to be made by studying or attending to it. 

 It may be that it wan immature mode of communication, adapted 

 to lower stages of consciousness than ours, but how much can 

 we not learn by studying immature stages ? As well might the 

 objection be urged against a study of embryology. It may, on 

 the other hand, be an indication of a higher mode of communi- 

 cation, which shall survive our temporary connection with 

 ordinary matter. 



I have spoken of the apparently direct action of mind on 

 mind, and of a possible action of mind on matter. But the 

 whole region is unexplored territory, and it is conceivable that 

 matter may react on mind in away we can at present only dimly 

 imagine. In fact, the barrier between the two may gradually 

 melt away, as so many other barriers have done, and we may 

 end in a wider perception of the unity of nature, such as 

 philosophers have already dreamt of. 



I care not what the end may be. I do care that the inquiry 

 shall be conducted by us, and that we shall be free from the 

 disgrace of jogging along accustomed roads, leaving to out- 

 siders the work, the ridicule, and the gratification, of unfolding 

 a new region to unwilling eyes. 



It may be held that such investigations are not physical and 

 do not concern us. We cannot tell without trying. In that I 

 trust my instinct : I believe there is something in this region 

 which does concern us as physicists. It may concern other 

 sciences too. It must, one would suppose, some day concern 

 biology ; but with that I have nothing to do. Biologists have 

 their region, we have ours, and there is no need for us to hang 

 back from an investigation because they do. Our own science, 

 of Physics or Natural Philosophy in its widest sense, is the 

 King of the Sciences, and it is for us to lead, not to follow. 



And I say, have faith in the Intelligibility of the universe. 

 Intelligibility has been the great creed in the strength of which 

 all intellectual advance has been attempted, and all scientific 

 progress made. 



At first things always look mysterious. A comet, lightning, the 

 aurora, the rainbow — all strange anomalous mysterious appari- 

 tions. But scrutinized in the dry light of science, their 

 relationship with other better-known things becomes apparent. 

 They cease to be anomalous ; and though a certain mystery 

 necessarily remains, it is no more a property peculiar to them, it 

 is shared by the commonest objects of daily life. 



The operations of a chemist, again, if conducted in a hap- 

 hazard manner, would be an indescribable medley of efferves- 

 cences, precipitations, changes in colour and in substance ; but, 

 guided by a thread of theory running through them the processes 

 fall into a series, they all become fairly intelligible, and any 

 explosion or catastrophe that may occur is capable of explanation 

 too. 



Now I say that the doctrine of ultimate intelligibility should 

 be pressed into other departments also. At present we hang 

 back from whole regions of inquiry, and say they are not for us. 

 A few we are beginning to grapple with. The nature of disea-e 

 is yielding to scrutiny with fruitful result ; the mental aberrations 

 and abnormalities of hypnotism, duplex personality, and allied 



