HIDDEN CAUSES 109 



grateful, even when there is nothing living to see 

 — not a jay nor a wood-mouse nor even an insect. 

 And the chief pleasure or fascination of these restful 

 intervals is in the seemingly causeless motions in 

 himself — the person sitting still and thinking of 

 nothing. They come to him; they touch him as if 

 a small insect or spider, scarcely felt, had fallen on 

 and run over his hand or face ; and they pass through 

 him and are gone, to be succeeded by others and still 

 others like wavelets of air, producing effects that are 

 like little thrills, tremors, minute nerve storms, as 

 if he actually saw things coming and going before 

 his sight, and heard faint mysterious sounds wafted 

 to him from a great distance. 



I take it that these movements in me are actually 

 caused by the hidden hfe about me. The psycho- 

 logist wiU say : " Oh, no, they are the effect of 

 expectation, since you are watching and listening." 

 That, indeed, is what I have thought myself; but 

 the explanation was not good enough, since it did not 

 fit the whole case; for it has often happened that 

 when sitting silent and motionless in a wooded place 

 I have fallen into a reverie, and my mind has been 

 called back by these same little physical stirrings. I 

 also find that I may sit as still and as long as I care 

 to in any place barren of life without experiencing 

 any such motions in me. 



When it first occurred to me that these little nerve 

 stirrings in me were caused byfthe presence of in- 

 visible living creatures near me, I formed the notion 

 that all creatures have something — a force of some 



