JcNE 5, 1885. 



* KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



487 



^/=>. 



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THEBE IS NOTHING -'NEW UNDEK TllE SUN. 



[1733] — I would recommend "Hallyards" to peruse that re- 

 markable work of llr. Volney, the famous Assyrian traveller, and 

 member of the National Assembly of rrance of 17S9, viz., the 

 " Rains of Empires," which treats most imiiartially of the origin 

 of all the most noteworthy ancient religions systems, &c. If not 

 transgressing your rule, I will note what seems to me the idea 

 aimed at by " Hallyards." showing that there is nothing new in his 

 '• ultra gas," otherwise ether; viz., on p. 235, ho (Volney) says|: — 

 " In the system of the first spiritualists, the soul was not created 

 with or at the same time as the body, in order to be inserted in it ; 

 its existence was supposed to be anterior and from all eternity." 

 Such, in a few words, is the doctrine of Macrobius on this head. 

 Tom, Leip. passim. He says : — " There exists a luminous, igneous, 

 subtle fluid, which, under the name of ether and spiritus, fills the 

 universe. It is the essential principle and agent of motion and 

 life — it is the Deity," &c., &c. 



Again, p. 158 : " Some made this agent the igneous prin- 

 ciple, the acknowledged author of all motion ; others made it the 

 fluid called ether, because it was thought to be more active and 

 subtile ; now, as they always reasoned by comparison, and denomi- 

 nating the vital and motive principle in animals a soul, a spirit, and 

 particularly in comparison with human existence, they gave to the 

 motive principle of the whole universe the name of soul, intelli- 

 gence, spirit ; and God was the vital spirit, which, diffused through 

 all beings, animated the vast body of the world. This idea was 

 sometimes represented by You-piter, essence of motion and anima- 

 tion, principle of existence, or, rather, existence itself ; or, at other 

 times, by Vulcan or Phta, elementary principle of fire, &c. — Vesta 

 Krepte, ifc. 



Aa a consequence from this system, every being containing in 

 itself a portion of the igneous or ethereal fluid, the universal and 

 common mover, and that fluid, soul of the world, being the deity, 

 it followed that the souls of all beings were a part of God himself, 

 partaking of all his attributes, that is, being an indivisible, simple, 

 and immortal substance ; and hence is derived the whole system of 

 I he immortalitv of the soul, which, at first, was etemitv, &c. 



"F. W. H. 



CONVENTIONAL DARWINISM. 



[173-tJ — I know 1 am rather heterodox on this subject, at least 

 pendente lite, but I also know your love of fair play ; and, there- 

 fore, 1 trust you will admit my thoughts, such as they are, upon it. 



Hardly a week passes but what I can find something in Know- 

 ledge which confirms my suspicion of the theory of {;volution — at 

 least, of natural selection ; though I do not doubt the operation of 

 that as one of the wheels within wheels. 



Take the case of the cocooning spider. What right have we to 

 assume that this creature (like all others, according to the 

 Darwinians) "acquired" its structure, capacities, and habits? What 

 right have we to assume that all things began wronir. and only, so 

 to speak, jumbled right r That is the weak point of Darwinism, 

 more so than what the German savant adduces, ^-iz., that Darwin 

 assumes all beings to be imperfect. 



How much lower do the Darwinians want to go? If they take 

 the lowest organism known — say, a spore of lichen or speck of 

 jelly, for instance — they find the same mysterious {lace "George 



Eliot!"), nay, divine fitness; and tlio lichen spore is tho lichen 

 spore now. It does not evolve; and it is so low down that, when 

 tho biological bigots of this latest sect still demand that wo should 

 postiilate'^aud grant their conuuon progenitor— ho really is too con- 

 venient — wo are inclined to laugh. 



Docs not the spider, o.;?., look " very like " an automaton .■' Who 

 could have fabricated from the first as he does now, who now 

 fabricates not by virtue of " inherited memory " (how did tho first 

 manaire'r). but 'by virtue of that unconscious reason (generally 

 termed instinct), which lives, moves, and has its being (tho 1 AM) 

 in the animate or less than inanimate world, which manifests 

 itself in the masks of all form, which is all-incarnate. 



Here is my point : the (so-called) elements, e.:/., have their attri- 

 butes and affinities, their natures and fitness, properties and pro- 

 prieties just as much as living beings, yet thc[i have not "acquired 

 their qualities per heredity and struggle for existence. What they 

 ai-e they are per law (the transgression of which— and not of the 

 law " — is sin), and so is all. 



Tho soul of Darwinism, the open sesame of tho epoch, is con- 

 tinuity, but the Darwinians violate this, their own first and last 

 commandment, bv trying to account for beauty and fitness by 

 natural selection, "only' on f/iis side of tho line; stopping short at 

 the inorganic world. . 



They reiterate over and over again that we i»«s( accept their 

 theory or admit independent creation (by a willing Creator) ; but 

 there" is another hypothesis, namely, what I am wont to term 

 self-existence, self-design. Matter, with its laws (dis-assuming 

 Berklevism), always was and always will be a self-existenoe, 

 self-de'sign, by virtue of tho same power (same 1 -VM of All). 

 Organic matter may likewise live and move and have its being. 



CoM.MENTATOE. 



THOUGnT.READlNG. 



[1735]— I have read with much interest Mr. Mnnro's letter 

 [1710] upon the above subject ; but while I fuUy agree that certain 

 of the phenomena of "thought-reading" are explicable upon tho 

 muscle-reading hypothesis, there are certain classes of cases where 

 such a theory is quite untenable. 



I gather from Mr. Munro's letter that he is not acquainted with 

 tlie researches of the Society for Psychical Research upon this sub- 

 ject, otherwise he would not have omitted all notice of a most 

 curious class of instances of thought-reading— or, as it should 

 perhaps be called, " thought-transference "—that class of instances, 

 namelv, where pictures are transferred from the mind of one person 

 to that of another without any recognisable communication by 

 means of the ordinary senses. 



In order to show n-hat care was taken to render such communi- 

 cation impossible, I cannot, 1 think, do better than quote the 

 account of the mn^his oiicrandi of the committee appointed tp 

 consider the subject when they were conducting a series of experi- 

 ments :—" The percipient, Jlr. Smith, is seated blindfolded at a 

 table in our own room ; a paper and pencil are within his reach, 

 and a member of the committee is seated by his side. Another 

 member of the committee leaves the room, and, outside the closed 

 door, draws some figure at random. Mr. Blackburn, who, so far, 

 has remained in the room with Mr. Smith, is now called out, and 

 the door closed : the drawing is then held before him for a few 

 seconds till its impression is stamped upon his mind. Then, closing 

 his eyes, Mr. Bkckburn is led back into the room and placed 

 standing or sitting behind Mr. Smith, at a distance of some two 

 feet from him. A brief period of intense mental concentration on 

 Mr. Blackburn's part now follows. Presently, Mr. Smith takes up 

 the pencil amidst the unbroken and absolute silence of all present, 

 and attempts to reproduce on pajier the impression he has gained. 

 He is allowed to do as he pleases as regards the bandage round his 

 eyes. Sometimes he pulls it down before he begins to draw ; but, 

 if" the figures be not distinctly present to his mind, he prefers to 

 let it remain on, and draws fragments of the picture as they are 

 perceived. During all this time, Mr. Blackburn's eyes are, gene- 

 rally, firmly closed (sometimes he requests us to bandage his eyes 

 tightly as an aid to concentration), and, except when it is dis- 

 tinctly recorded, he has not touched Mr. Smith, and has not gone 

 in front of him, or in any way within his possible field of vision, 

 since he re-entered the room." — (" Proceedings of the Society for 

 Psychical Research," Vol. I., p. 162.) 



Under these conditions, four of the recognised "gateways of 

 knowledge "-taste, smell, touch, and sight— were completely 

 closed; the sense of hearing alone remains. But it is difficult to 

 see how, unheard by the investigating committee, any signals could 

 pass between the agent and the percipient which would be suflicient 

 to show the form of the pictures which were to be transferred from 

 the mind of the agent to that of the percipient. 



Under these conditions, several series of experiments have been 



