ADDRESS. 31 



two physical facts — the physical change in the brain of A, the suggestei-, 

 and the analogous physical change in the brain of B, the recipient of the 

 suggestion. Between these two physical events there must exist a train 

 of physical causes. Whenever the connecting sequence of intermediate 

 causes begins to be revealed the inquiry will then come within the range of 

 one of the Sections of the British Association. Such a sequence can only 

 occur through an intervening medium. All the plienomena of the universe 

 are presumably in some way continuous, and it is unscientific to call in the 

 aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in knowledge 

 it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes abundantly 

 equal to any demand — even to the transmission of thought. It is sup- 

 posed by some pliysiologists that the essential cells of nerves do not 

 actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which widens in sleep 

 while it narrows almost to extinction during mental activity. This con- 

 dition is so singularly like that of a Branly or Lodge coherer as to suggest 

 a further analogy. The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is 

 conceivable there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in tlie 

 brain whose special function it may be to receive impulses brought from 

 without through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate 

 order of magnitude. Rontgen has familiarised us with an order of vibra- 

 tions of extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which 

 we have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the 

 distances between the centres of the atoms of which the material universe 

 is built up ; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here reached 

 the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought is accom- 

 panied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here we have 

 physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of acting direct 

 on individual molecules, while their rapidity approaches that of the internal 

 and external movements of the atoms themselves. 



Confirmation of telepathic phenomena is aSbrded by many converging 

 experiments, and by many spontaneous occurrences only thus intelligible. 

 The most varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from analysis of the sub-conscious 

 workings of the mind, when these, whether by accident or design, are 

 brought into conscious survey. Evidence of a region, below the threshold 

 of consciousness, has been presented, since its first inception, in the 

 Proceeding ti of the Society for Psychical Research ; and its various aspects 

 are being interpreted and welded into a comprehensive whole by the perti- 

 nacious gein'us of F. W. H. Myers. Concurrently, our knowledge of the 

 facts in this obscure region has received valuable additions at the hands 

 of labourers in other countries. To mention a few names out of many, 

 the observations of Richet, Pierre Janet, and Binet (in France), of Breuer 

 and Freud (in Austria), of William James (in America) have strikingly 

 illustrated the extent to which patient experimentation can probe sub- 

 liminal processes, and can thus learn the lessons of alternating personali- 

 ties, and abnormal states. Whilst it is clear that our knowledge of 



