1 64 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVIII. No. 450 



past, and that to attempt to deduce those actions from the 

 past only will prove impossible. In some way matter can 

 be moved, guided, disturbed, by the agency of living beings; 

 in some way there is a control, a directing-agency active, and 

 events are caused at its choice and will that would not other- 

 wise happen. 



A luminous and hopeful idea is that time is hut a relative 

 mode of regarding things; we progress through phenomena 

 at a certain definite 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 neces- 

 sarily successive, and be unable to conceive their co-exist- 

 ence. 



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

 ognize 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 natu- 

 ral part of our present limitations. And if once we grasp 

 the .idea that past and future may be actually existing, we 

 can recognize 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 

 directing of 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 success. 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 pre- 

 dicted ; they have a sense of option and free will. Either 

 their actions are really arbitrary and indeterminate, which 

 is highly improbable, or they are controlled 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 characteristics of live creatures. 

 Moreover, if they have a merely experiential knowledge, 

 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 

 will and determinism be gradually reached in some such di- 

 rection 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 difficulties ; 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 accomplish 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 possi- 

 ble. I have tried once or twice to observe its asserted occur- 

 rence, 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 com- 

 munication, perhaps some more immediate action through 

 the ether. It is no use theorizing; it is unwise to decline to 

 examine phenomena because we feel too sure of their im- 

 possibility. 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 

 writing, or in other ways. A prearranged code called lan- 

 guage, and a material medium of communication, are the 

 recognized methods. May there not also be an immaterial 

 (perhaps an ethereal) medium of communication ? It is pos- 

 sible that an idea can be transferred from one person to an- 

 other 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 1 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 

 consequence 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 mag- 

 netism, and all magnets are sympathetically connected, so 

 that, if suitably suspended, a vibration from one disturbs 

 others, even though they be distant ninety-two million 

 miles. 



It is sometimes objected that, granting thought-transfer- 

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

 lower forms of life, and that as the cerebral hemispheres de- 

 velop 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 study- 

 ing or attending to it. It may be that it is an immature 

 mode of communication, adapted to lower stages of con- 

 sciousness 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 communication, 

 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 a way 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. 



