THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
AUGUST, 1882. 
I. OCCULTISM RECONSIDERED.* 
(Concluded from page 4 og.) 
w N what sense the Occultists pronounce the soul a 
“ material reality ” is not quite clearly shown. Mr. 
^ Sinnett writes, “ Not material as chemistry under- 
stands matter, but as physical science en bloc might under- 
stand it if the tentaculse of each branch of science were to 
grow more sensitive, and were to work more in harmony.” 
The author here scarcely recognises the great and increasing 
harmony between physics and chemistry, which are becoming 
more and more difficult to distinguish from each other. We 
are naturally reminded of the speculations of Prof. Jager 
which were discussed in the “ Journal of Science ” for 1880 
(p. 298). With him, as with Mr. Sinnett, the spirit is a 
more subtle principle, the “ soul of the soul.” But the chief 
point to be noted is this — to the vast majority of educated 
Europeans in the present day man is essentially during life 
a unitary being, capable of perceiving and adting only where 
his body happens to be. This body he neither views as his 
“ dwelling ” nor as his “ prison,” but, for the present at least, 
as himself. The sole difference between the monist and the 
ordinary philosophically and theologically orthodox dualist 
is that, according to the former, personality and conscious- 
ness are finally extinguished at death, whilst the latter con- 
siders that the soul or the spirit, which he does not sharply 
diagnose, will survive the decomposition of the body. The 
* The Occult World. By A. P. Sinnett. Second Edition. London ; 
Triibner and Co. 
Zanoni. By Lord E. Bulwer Lytton. 
A Strange Story. By Lord E. Bulwer Lytton. 
VOL. IV. (THIRD SERIES). 2G 
