14 The Relations of Mind and Matter. [ January, 
these instances there seems to be a general outflow of psychic 
energy of a peculiar kind, which acts to produce accordant states 
in all minds into which it flows, unless they are intellectually 
active enough to resist its influence. We all know how difficult 
it is, even in educated persons, to resist the psychic influence of a 
strongly emotional speaker, even though the reason may resist 
his arguments, and how resistance becomes lulled and conviction 
produced, by the pure force of “personal magnetism.” And 
knowing this we cannot wonder at the remarkable influence of 
some very irrational revivalists. 
The subject has here been very briefly and incompletely treat- 
ed. Had we space to give in full the abundant evidence that 
might be offered, and to detail the strict test conditions under 
which it was often received, the fact of a direct intercourse of 
mind with mind, and control of one mind by another, without 
the intermedium of the senses, might be shown far more clearly. 
And the indications strongly point to some such conclusion as 
that here reached, that the mental powers are based in a special 
psychic substance, and that masses of this substance act upon 
each other through the ether in methods closely similar to those 
in which masses of matter act on each other. © 
One further question of great importance here comes into 
play. If psychic substance begins its existence as “ bound ether,” 
ether condensed by the attractive force of atoms and molecules, 
can it exist in this condensed form separate from the atoms and 
‘molecules? If these continue to exist must their ethereal atmos- 
pheres remain permanently bound to them? If they should in 
any way be destroyed, would the ethereal atmospheres resume 
their original condition of free ether? If we have dealt with 
pure hypothesis so far, it may be well to follow our hypothesis to 
its ultimate consequence. 
That bound ether is an existing fact is becoming more and a 
more generally admitted. Sir William Thomson, in a recent 
paper,’ views it as a necessary condition to the phenomena of 
refraction. And if it exists it seems equally necessary that the 
ethereal atmosphere must be affected by the motions of its 
nucleus and assume accordant motions. If so, the destruction of a 
the material nucleus might leave the condensed ether as a per- 
sistent atom or molecule, since it would possess the motor organ- 
1 Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, January, 1885. 
