July, 1913. 



KNOWLEDGE. 



259 



behold ! it flowed from me like small talk," and he 

 finished it at the rate of a chapter a day. It is 

 interesting to remember, in this connection, that 

 Stevenson used to dream most of his plots, as he 

 describes in " Across the Plains." 



Similar statements of experience could be culled 

 from other fields of creative art. Perhaps it is even 

 more marked in music than in literature Mozart, 

 for example, had a vivid perception of the extraneous 

 nature of the afflatus — extraneous, that is, to the 

 conscious mind ; and, among painters, Watteau 

 frankly and quaintly avows himself puzzled at the 

 " queer trick he possesses," evidently not knowing 

 in the least how he did it. Indeed, no genius does 

 know " how he does it." If he knew, he could teach 

 others to do it also. No, it is not the knowing part 

 of the mind that is the agent, nor is it any part that 

 the consciousness can understand. The power lies 

 deep buried in the subliminal levels. It is only its 

 results — its exfoliations — that we see. 



It is established, then, that there can be mental 

 or psychic activity of many kinds — sensational, 

 intellectual, reminiscent, emotional, creative — over 

 and above anything that the conscious mind is 

 aware of. Science has proved that we are greater 

 than we knew. The hinter horizons of the mind 

 have receded and fled away. New vistas open out 

 in metaphysical psychology. The soul is become 

 immense, immeasurable. We are suddenly trans- 

 planted from a cellar dwelling to the illimitable 

 prairie. Not only do we not know what we shall 

 be, but we do not even know what we are. Like 

 Malvolio, therefore, we may again "think nobly of 

 the soul." The Psalmist, quoted approvingly by 

 Jesus, said : " Ye are gods." A blinding and stunning 

 thought ! But, whether we go so far as that or not — 

 and, after all, it is not a very great thing to say, for 

 we are certainly more wonderful creatures than many 

 of the Greek and Norse gods — we can at least 

 subscribe to that profoundly wise and suggestive 

 triplet of Emerson's, who in so many of these 

 things had a curiously prophetic instinct: — 



Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line, 

 Severing rightly his from thine, 

 Which is human, which divine. 



III. 



The late Professor William James used to say that 

 he thought the most fundamental problem in 

 philosophy was that of the One and the Many. 

 How can a Universe which is Whole and One, 

 containing everything that is, both material and 

 immaterial — how can this One Thing be at the 

 same time Many ? And if we start with the many- 

 ness, this and that tree and house and mountain and 

 country, this and that microbe, blade of grass, 

 butterfly, how are we ever going to visualise them 

 as one, when they are so incontestably disparate ? 

 The problem is at present insoluble. We can begin 

 at either end, but there is no meeting-place in the 

 middle. One remains One, and Many remains 

 Many. 



But in the region of mind or soul the modern 

 doctrine of the subliminal self — which, first pro- 

 pounded by Myers twenty-five years ago, was after- 

 wards hailed by James as the greatest modern 

 advance in psychology, and which is continually 

 being buttressed by new facts — is at least pointing 

 to a kind of solution to this problem. Human 

 minds are many, it is true ; but they are closely 

 alike, and in all biological science it is found that 

 close similarity points to a common source. In some 

 sort, then, it is to be surmised that all human minds 

 descend from a common source. But the pheno- 

 mena of psychical research — telepathy, to name only 

 one — indicate that there is absolute connection 

 between the minds here and now existing, in ways 

 over and beyond those accounted for by the known 

 senses. And there is reason to believe, though the 

 evidence is too complex to specify here, that in 

 telepathy and allied phenomena it is the subliminal 

 part of the mind that is active. These and other 

 considerations point to the supposition that though 

 our ordinary normal consciousnesses are severed 

 from each other, and apparently distinct, so that we 

 have to communicate with each other by the clumsy 

 means of speech and writing, we are nevertheless all 

 in connection with each other in the subliminal levels. 

 To vary the metaphor, each of us is like a stream of 

 water issuing from one of the thousands of taps in a 

 city, but the water is the same, coming from the 

 same reservoir. The same soul thinks in all of us. 

 The One is the Many. 



It may be said that this conclusion is a specu- 

 lative and abstract proposition. On the contrary, it 

 is extremely practical ; for it has close connection 

 with human action. Remember how we feel about 

 our brothers and sisters ; how we stand shoulder to 

 shoulder with them, feeling that the interest of the 

 family is a common interest, for which each indi- 

 vidual is bound to fight. Remember also how, broadly 

 speaking, the individual's welfare is bound up with 

 that of the family, and what is good for it, is also 

 good for its component units. And now think what 

 would happen if all men, or even all civilised and 

 educated men, could regard humanity at large as one 

 huge family, one in interest and, further, one in 

 reality and essence, being joined together in that 

 subliminal region, the individual separation of the 

 conscious minds being illusion, due to ignorance of 

 our real nature. Would not a revolution be effected? 

 I am sure it would. And, sooner or later, it will. 

 The religious doctrine of the brotherhood of man 

 was a noble moral inspiration but its appeal was to 

 the affective side, and it was consequently inopera- 

 tive against the coldly intellectual. But it is now 

 supported by science. Knowledge now goes hand in 

 hand with faith and love. A new dawn begins to 

 send up its shafts of light in the East. A new era 

 is at hand. 



According to present conventions, it is bad form 

 to be in earnest about anything ; the proper thing is 

 to cultivate a manner of light banter which shall 

 give an impression of cleverness and wit. The 



