My own experience has been similar to Sidgwick’s. For twenty-five years I have been in touch with the literature of psychical research, and have had acquaintance with numerous “researchers.” I have also spent a good many hours (though far fewer than I ought to have spent) in witnessing (or trying to witness) phenomena. Yet I am theoretically no “further” than I was at the beginning; and I confess that at times I have been tempted13 to believe that the Creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain baffling, to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions all in equal measure, so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and can never be fully14 explained away, they also can never be susceptible15 of full corroboration16.
The peculiarity17 of the case is just that there are so many sources of possible deception18 in most of the observations that the whole lot of them may be worthless, and yet that in comparatively few cases can aught more fatal than this vague general possibility of error be pleaded against the record. Science meanwhile needs something more than bare possibilities to build upon; so your genuinely scientific inquirer — I don’t mean your ignoramus “scientist”— has to remain unsatisfied. It is hard to believe, however, that the Creator has really put any big array of phenomena into the world merely to defy and mock our scientific tendencies; so my deeper belief is that we psychical researchers have been too precipitate21 with our hopes, and that we must expect to mark progress not by quarter-centuries, but by half-centuries or whole centuries.
I am strengthened in this belief by my impression that just at this moment a faint but distinct step forward is being taken by competent opinion in these matters. “Physical phenomena” (movements of matter without contact, lights, hands and faces “materialized,” etc.) have been one of the most baffling regions of the general field (or perhaps one of the least baffling prima facie, so certain and great has been the part played by fraud in their production); yet even here the balance of testimony22 seems slowly to be inclining towards admitting the supernaturalist view. Eusapia Paladino, the Neapolitan medium, has been under observation for twenty years or more. Schiaparelli, the astronomer23, and Lombroso were the first scientific men to be converted by her performances. Since then innumerable men of scientific standing24 have seen her, including many “psychic” experts. Every one agrees that she cheats in the most barefaced25 manner whenever she gets an opportunity. The Cambridge experts, with the Sidgwicks and Richard Hodgson at their head, rejected her in toto on that account. Yet her credit has steadily26 risen, and now her last converts are the eminent27 psychiatrist28, Morselli, the eminent physiologist29, Botazzi, and our own psychical researcher, Carrington, whose book on “The Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism” (against them rather!) makes his conquest strategically important. If Mr. Podmore, hitherto the prosecuting30 attorney of the S. P. R., so far as physical phenomena are concerned becomes converted also, we may indeed sit up and look around us. Getting a good health bill from “Science,” Eusapia will then throw retrospective credit on Home and Stainton Moses, Florence Cook (Prof. Crookes’ medium), and all similar wonder-workers. The balance of presumptions31 will be changed in favor of genuineness being possible at least in all reports of this particularly crass32 and low type of supernatural phenomena.
Not long after Darwin’s “Origin of Species” appeared I was studying with that excellent anatomist and man, Jeffries Wyman, at Harvard. He was a convert, yet so far a half-hesitating one, to Darwin’s views; but I heard him make a remark that applies well to the subject I now write about. When, he said, a theory gets propounded33 over and over again, coming up afresh after each time orthodox criticism has buried it, and each time seeming solider and harder to abolish, you may be sure that there is truth in it. Oken and Lamarck and Chambers34 had been triumphantly35 despatched and buried, but here was Darwin making the very same heresy36 seem only more plausible37. How often has “Science” killed off all spook philosophy, and laid ghosts and raps and “telepathy” away underground as so much popular delusion38. Yet never before were these things offered us so voluminously, and never in such authentic-seeming shape or with such good credentials39. The tide seems steadily to be rising, in spite of all the expedients40 of scientific orthodoxy. It is hard not to suspect that here may be something different from a mere20 chapter in human gullibility41. It may be a genuine realm of natural phenomena.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, once a cheat, always a cheat, such has been the motto of the English psychical researchers in dealing42 with mediums. I am disposed to think that, as a matter of policy, it has been wise. Tactically, it is far better to believe much too little than a little too much; and the exceptional credit attaching to the row of volumes of the S. P. R.‘s Proceedings43, is due to the fixed44 intention of the editors to proceed very slowly. Better a little belief tied fast, better a small investment salted down, than a mass of comparative insecurity.
But, however wise as a policy the S. P. R.‘s maxim45 may have been, as a test of truth, I believe it to be almost irrelevant46. In most things human the accusation47 of deliberate fraud and falsehood is grossly superficial. Man’s character is too sophistically mixed for the alternative of “honest or dishonest” to be a sharp one. Scientific men themselves will cheat — at public lectures — rather than let experiments obey their well-known tendency towards failure. I have heard of a lecturer on physics, who had taken over the apparatus48 of the previous incumbent49, consulting him about a certain machine intended to show that, however the peripheral50 parts of it might be agitated51, its centre of gravity remained immovable. “It will wobble,” he complained. “Well,” said the predecessor52, apologetically, “to tell the truth, whenever I used that machine I found it advisable to drive a nail through the centre of gravity.” I once saw a distinguished53 physiologist, now dead, cheat most shamelessly at a public lecture, at the expense of a poor rabbit, and all for the sake of being able to make a cheap joke about its being an “American rabbit”— for no other, he said, could survive such a wound as he pretended to have given it.
To compare small men with great, I have myself cheated shamelessly. In the early days of the Sanders Theater at Harvard, I once had charge of a heart on the physiology54 of which Professor Newell Martin was giving a popular lecture. This heart, which belonged to a turtle, supported an index-straw which threw a moving shadow, greatly enlarged, upon the screen, while the heart pulsated55. When certain nerves were stimulated56, the lecturer said, the heart would act in certain ways which he described. But the poor heart was too far gone and, although it stopped duly when the nerve of arrest was excited, that was the final end of its life’s tether. Presiding over the performance, I was terrified at the fiasco, and found myself suddenly acting57 like one of those military geniuses who on the field of battle convert disaster into victory. There was no time for deliberation; so, with my forefinger58 under a part of the straw that cast no shadow, I found myself impulsively59 and automatically imitating the rhythmical60 movements which my colleague had prophesied61 the heart would undergo. I kept the experiment from failing; and not only saved my colleague (and the turtle) from a humiliation62 that but for my presence of mind would have been their lot, but I established in the audience the true view of the subject. The lecturer was stating this; and the misconduct of one half-dead specimen63 of heart ought not to destroy the impression of his words. “There is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood,” is a maxim which I have heard ascribed to a former venerated64 President of Harvard. The heart’s failure would have been misunderstood by the audience and given the lie to the lecturer. It was hard enough to make them understand the subject anyhow; so that even now as I write in cool blood I am tempted to think that I acted quite correctly. I was acting for the larger truth, at any rate, however automatically; and my sense of this was probably what prevented the more pedantic65 and literal part of my conscience from checking the action of my sympathetic finger. To this day the memory of that critical emergency has made me feel charitable towards all mediums who make phenomena come in one way when they won’t come easily in another. On the principles of the S. P. R., my conduct on that one occasion ought to discredit66 everything I ever do, everything, for example, I may write in this article — a manifestly unjust conclusion.
Fraud, conscious or unconscious, seems ubiquitous throughout the range of physical phenomena of spiritism, and false pretence67, prevarication68 and fishing for clues are ubiquitous in the mental manifestations69 of mediums. If it be not everywhere fraud simulating reality, one is tempted to say, then the reality (if any reality there be) has the bad luck of being fated everywhere to simulate fraud. The suggestion of humbug70 seldom stops, and mixes itself with the best manifestations. Mrs. Piper’s control, “Rector,” is a most impressive personage, who discerns in an extraordinary degree his sitter’s inner needs, and is capable of giving elevated counsel to fastidious and critical minds. Yet in many respects he is an arrant71 humbug — such he seems to me at least — pretending to a knowledge and power to which he has no title, nonplussed72 by contradiction, yielding to suggestion, and covering his tracks with plausible excuses. Now the non-“researching” mind looks upon such phenomena simply according to their face-pretension and never thinks of asking what they may signify below the surface. Since they profess1 for the most part to be revealers of spirit life, it is either as being absolutely that, or as being absolute frauds, that they are judged. The result is an inconceivably shallow state of public opinion on the subject. One set of persons, emotionally touched at hearing the names of their loved ones given, and consoled by assurances that they are “happy,” accept the revelation, and consider spiritualism “beautiful.” More hard-headed subjects, disgusted by the revelation’s contemptible73 contents, outraged74 by the fraud, and prejudiced beforehand against all “spirits,” high or low, avert75 their minds from what they call such “rot” or “bosh” entirely76. Thus do two opposite sentimentalisms divide opinion between them! A good expression of the “scientific” state of mind occurs in Huxley’s “Life and Letters”:
“I regret,” he writes, “that I am unable to accept the invitation of the Committee of the Dialectical Society. . . . I take no interest in the subject. The only case of ‘Spiritualism’ I have ever had the opportunity of examining into for myself was as gross an imposture77 as ever came under my notice. But supposing these phenomena to be genuine — they do not interest me. If anybody would endow me with the faculty78 of listening to the chatter79 of old women and curates in the nearest provincial80 town, I should decline the privilege, having better things to do. And if the folk in the spiritual world do not talk more wisely and sensibly than their friends report them to do, I put them in the same category. The only good that I can see in the demonstration82 of the ‘Truth of Spiritualism’ is to furnish an additional argument against suicide. Better live a crossing-sweeper, than die and be made to talk twaddle by a ‘medium’ hired at a guinea a Seance.” 11
Obviously the mind of the excellent Huxley has here but two whole-souled categories namely revelation or imposture, to apperceive the case by. Sentimental11 reasons bar revelation out, for the messages, he thinks, are not romantic enough for that; fraud exists anyhow; therefore the whole thing is nothing but imposture. The odd point is that so few of those who talk in this way realize that they and the spiritists are using the same major premise83 and differing only in the minor84. The major premise is: “Any spirit-revelation must be romantic.” The minor of the spiritist is: “This is romantic”; that of the Huxley an is: “this is dingy85 twaddle”— whence their opposite conclusions!
Meanwhile the first thing that anyone learns who attends seriously to these phenomena is that their causation is far too complex for our feelings about what is or is not romantic enough to be spiritual to throw any light upon it. The causal factors must be carefully distinguished and traced through series, from their simplest to their strongest forms, before we can begin to understand the various resultants in which they issue. Myers and Gurney began this work, the one by his serial86 study of the various sorts of “automatism,” sensory87 and motor, the other by his experimental proofs that a split-off consciousness may abide88 after a post-hypnotic suggestion has been given. Here we have subjective89 factors; but are not transsubjective or objective forces also at work? Veridical messages, apparitions90, movements without contact, seem prima facie to be such. It was a good stroke on Gurney’s part to construct a theory of apparitions which brought the subjective and the objective factors into harmonious91 co-operation. I doubt whether this telepathic theory of Gurney’s will hold along the whole line of apparitions to which he applied92 it, but it is unquestionable that some theory of that mixed type is required for the explanation of all mediumistic phenomena; and that when all the psychological factors and elements involved have been told off — and they are many — the question still forces itself upon us: Are these all, or are there indications of any residual93 forces acting on the subject from beyond, or of any “meta-psychic” faculty (to use Richet’s useful term) exerted by him? This is the problem that requires real expertness, and this is where the simple sentimentalisms of the spiritist and scientist leave us in the lurch94 completely.
“Psychics” form indeed a special branch of education, in which experts are only gradually becoming developed. The phenomena are as massive and wide-spread as is anything in Nature, and the study of them is as tedious, repellent and undignified. To reject it for its unromantic character is like rejecting bacteriology because penicillium glaucum grows on horse-dung and bacterium95 termo lives in putrefaction96. Scientific men have long ago ceased to think of the dignity of the materials they work in. When imposture has been checked off as far as possible, when chance coincidence has been allowed for, when opportunities for normal knowledge on the part of the subject have been noted97, and skill in “fishing” and following clues unwittingly furnished by the voice or face of bystanders have been counted in, those who have the fullest acquaintance with the phenomena admit that in good mediums there is a residuum of knowledge displayed that can only be called supernormal: the medium taps some source of information not open to ordinary people. Myers used the word “telepathy” to indicate that the sitter’s own thoughts or feelings may be thus directly tapped. Mrs. Sidgwick has suggested that if living minds can be thus tapped telepathically, so possibly may the minds of spirits be similarly tapped — if spirits there be. On this view we should have one distinct theory of the performances of a typical test-medium. They would be all originally due to an odd tendency to personate, found in her dream life as it expresses itself in trance. [Most of us reveal such a tendency whenever we handle a “ouija-board” or a “planchet,” or let ourselves write automatically with a pencil.] The result is a “control,” who purports98 to be speaking; and all the resources of the automatist, including his or her trance-faculty of telepathy are called into play in building this fictitious99 personage out plausibly100. On such a view of the control, the medium’s will to personate runs the whole show; and if spirits be involved in it at all, they are passive beings, stray bits of whose memory she is able to seize and use for her purposes, without the spirit being any more aware of it than the sitter is aware of it when his own mind is similarly tapped.
This is one possible way of interpreting a certain type of psychical phenomenon. It uses psychological as well as “spiritual” factors, and quite obviously it throws open for us far more questions than it answers, questions about our subconscious101 constitution and its curious tendency to humbug, about the telepathic faculty, and about the possibility of an existent spirit-world.
I do not instance this theory to defend it, but simply to show what complicated hypotheses one is inevitably103 led to consider, the moment one looks at the facts in their complexity104 and turns one’s back on the na?ve alternative of “revelation or imposture,” which is as far as either spiritist thought or ordinary scientist thought goes. The phenomena are endlessly complex in their factors, and they are so little understood as yet that off-hand judgments105, whether of “spirits” or of “bosh” are the one as silly as the other. When we complicate102 the subject still farther by considering what connection such things as rappings, apparitions, poltergeists, spirit-photographs, and materializations may have with it, the bosh end of the scale gets heavily loaded, it is true, but your genuine inquirer still is loath106 to give up. He lets the data collect, and bides107 his time. He believes that “bosh” is no more an ultimate element in Nature, or a really explanatory category in human life than “dirt” is in chemistry. Every kind of “bosh” has its own factors and laws; and patient study will bring them definitely to light.
The only way to rescue the “pure bosh” view of the matter is one which has sometimes appealed to my own fancy, but which I imagine few readers will seriously adopt. If, namely, one takes the theory of evolution radically108, one ought to apply it not only to the rock-strata, the animals and the plants but to the stars, to the chemical elements, and to the laws of nature. There must have been a far-off antiquity109, one is then tempted to suppose, when things were really chaotic. Little by little, out of all the haphazard110 possibilities of that time, a few connected things and habits arose, and the rudiments111 of regular performance began. Every variation in the way of law and order added itself to this nucleus112, which inevitably grew more considerable as history went on; while the aberrant113 and inconstant variations, not being similarly preserved, disappeared from being, wandered off as unrelated vagrants114, or else remained so imperfectly connected with the part of the world that had grown regular as only to manifest their existence by occasional lawless intrusions, like those which “psychic” phenomena now make into our scientifically organized world. On such a view, these phenomena ought to remain “pure bosh” forever, that is, they ought to be forever intractable to intellectual methods, because they should not yet be organized enough in themselves to follow any laws. Wisps and shreds115 of the original chaos116, they would be connected enough with the cosmos117 to affect its periphery118 every now and then, as by a momentary119 whiff or touch or gleam, but not enough ever to be followed up and hunted down and bagged. Their relation to the cosmos would be tangential120 solely121.
Looked at dramatically, most occult phenomena make just this sort of impression. They are inwardly as incoherent as they are outwardly wayward and fitful. If they express anything, it is pure “bosh,” pure discontinuity, accident, and disturbance122, with no law apparent but to interrupt, and no purpose but to baffle. They seem like stray vestiges123 of that primordial124 irrationality125, from which all our rationalities have been evolved.
To settle dogmatically into this bosh-view would save labor126, but it would go against too many intellectual prepossessions to be adopted save as a last resort of despair. Your psychical researcher therefore bates no jot127 of hope, and has faith that when we get our data numerous enough, some sort of rational treatment of them will succeed.
When I hear good people say (as they often say, not without show of reason), that dabbling128 in such phenomena reduces us to a sort of jelly, disintegrates129 the critical faculties130, liquifies the character, and makes of one a gobe-mouche generally, I console myself by thinking of my friends Frederic Myers and Richard Hodgson. These men lived exclusively for psychical research, and it converted both to spiritism. Hodgson would have been a man among men anywhere; but I doubt whether under any other baptism he would have been that happy, sober and righteous form of energy which his face proclaimed him in his later years, when heart and head alike were wholly satisfied by his occupation. Myers’ character also grew stronger in every particular for his devotion to the same inquirings. Brought up on literature and sentiment, something of a courtier, passionate131, disdainful, and impatient naturally, he was made over again from the day when he took up psychical research seriously. He became learned in science, circumspect132, democratic in sympathy, endlessly patient, and above all, happy. The fortitude133 of his last hours touched the heroic, so completely were the atrocious sufferings of his body cast into insignificance134 by his interest in the cause he lived for. When a man’s pursuit gradually makes his face shine and grow handsome, you may be sure it is a worthy135 one. Both Hodgson and Myers kept growing ever handsomer and stronger-looking.
Such personal examples will convert no one, and of course they ought not to. Nor do I seek at all in this article to convert any one to belief that psychical research is an important branch of science. To do that, I should have to quote evidence; and those for whom the volumes of S. P. R. “Proceedings” already published count for nothing would remain in their dogmatic slumber136, though one rose from the dead. No, not to convert readers, but simply to put my own state of mind upon record publicly is the purpose of my present writing. Some one said to me a short time ago that after my twenty-five years of dabbling in “Psychics,” it would be rather shameful137 were I unable to state any definite conclusions whatever as a consequence. I had to agree; so I now proceed to take up the challenge and express such convictions as have been engendered138 in me by that length of experience, be the same true or false ones. I may be dooming139 myself to the pit in the eyes of better-judging posterity140; I may be raising myself to honor; I am willing to take the risk, for what I shall write is my truth, as I now see it.
I began this article by confessing myself baffled. I am baffled, as to spirit-return, and as to many other special problems. I am also constantly baffled as to what to think of this or that particular story, for the sources of error in any one observation are seldom fully knowable. But weak sticks make strong faggots; and when the stories fall into consistent sorts that point each in a definite direction, one gets a sense of being in presence of genuinely natural types of phenomena. As to there being such real natural types of phenomena ignored by orthodox science, I am not baffled at all, for I am fully convinced of it. One cannot get demonstrative proof here. One has to follow one’s personal sense, which, of course, is liable to err19, of the dramatic probabilities of nature. Our critics here obey their sense of dramatic probability as much as we do. Take “raps” for example, and the whole business of objects moving without contact. “Nature,” thinks the scientific man, is not so unutterably silly. The cabinet, the darkness, the tying, suggest a sort of human rat-hole life exclusively and “swindling” is for him the dramatically sufficient explanation. It probably is, in an indefinite majority of instances; yet it is to me dramatically improbable that the swindling should not have accreted141 round some originally genuine nucleus. If we look at human imposture as a historic phenomenon, we find it always imitative. One swindler imitates a previous swindler, but the first swindler of that kind imitated some one who was honest. You can no more create an absolutely new trick than you can create a new word without any previous basis. — You don’t know how to go about it. Try, reader, yourself, to invent an unprecedented142 kind of “physical phenomenon of spiritualism.” When I try, I find myself mentally turning over the regular medium-stock, and thinking how I might improve some item. This being the dramatically probable human way, I think differently of the whole type, taken collectively, from the way in which I may think of the single instance. I find myself believing that there is “something in” these never ending reports of physical phenomena, although I have n’t yet the least positive notion of the something. It becomes to my mind simply a very worthy problem for investigation143. Either I or the scientist is of course a fool, with our opposite views of probability here; and I only wish he might feel the liability, as cordially as I do, to pertain144 to both of us.
I fear I look on Nature generally with more charitable eyes than his, though perhaps he would pause if he realized as I do, how vast the fraudulency is which inconsistency he must attribute to her. Nature is brutal145 enough, Heaven knows; but no one yet has held her non-human side to be dishonest, and even in the human sphere deliberate deceit is far rarer than the “classic” intellect, with its few and rigid146 categories, was ready to acknowledge. There is a hazy147 penumbra148 in us all where lying and delusion meet, where passion rules beliefs as well as conduct, and where the term “scoundrel” does not clear up everything to the depths as it did for our forefathers149. The first automatic writing I ever saw was forty years ago. I unhesitatingly thought of it as deceit, although it contained vague elements of supernormal knowledge. Since then I have come to see in automatic writing one example of a department of human activity as vast as it is enigmatic. Every sort of person is liable to it, or to something equivalent to it; and whoever encourages it in himself finds himself personating someone else, either signing what he writes by fictitious name, or, spelling out, by ouija-board or table-tips, messages from the departed. Our subconscious region seems, as a rule, to be dominated either by a crazy “will to make-believe,” or by some curious external force impelling150 us to personation. The first difference between the psychical researcher and the inexpert person is that the former realizes the commonness and typicality of the phenomenon here, while the latter, less informed, thinks it so rare as to be unworthy of attention. I wish to go on record for the commonness.
The next thing I wish to go on record for is the presence, in the midst of all the humbug, of really supernormal knowledge. By this I mean knowledge that cannot be traced to the ordinary sources of information — the senses namely, of the automatist. In really strong mediums this knowledge seems to be abundant, though it is usually spotty, capricious and unconnected. Really strong mediums are rarities; but when one starts with them and works downwards151 into less brilliant regions of the automatic life, one tends to interpret many slight but odd coincidences with truth as possibly rudimentary forms of this kind of knowledge.
What is one to think of this queer chapter in human nature? It is odd enough on any view. If all it means is a preposterous152 and inferior monkey-like tendency to forge messages, systematically153 embedded154 in the soul of all of us, it is weird155; and weirder156 still that it should then own all this supernormal information. If on the other hand the supernormal information be the key to the phenomenon, it ought to be superior; and then how ought we to account for the “wicked partner,” and for the undeniable mendacity and inferiority of so much of the performance? We are thrown, for our conclusions, upon our instinctive157 sense of the dramatic probabilities of nature. My own dramatic sense tends instinctively158 to picture the situation as an interaction between slumbering159 faculties in the automatist’s mind and a cosmic environment of other consciousness of some sort which is able to work upon them. If there were in the universe a lot of diffuse160 soul-stuff, unable of itself to get into consistent personal form, or to take permanent possession of an organism, yet always craving161 to do so, it might get its head into the air, parasitically162, so to speak, by profiting by weak spots in the armor of human minds, and slipping in and stirring up there the sleeping tendency to personate. It would induce habits in the subconscious region of the mind it used thus, and would seek above all things to prolong its social opportunities by making itself agreeable and plausible. It would drag stray scraps164 of truth with it from the wider environment, but would betray its mental inferiority by knowing little how to weave them into any important or significant story. This, I say, is the dramatic view which my mind spontaneously takes, and it has the advantage of falling into line with ancient human traditions. The views of others are just as dramatic, for the phenomenon is actuated by will of some sort anyhow, and wills give rise to dramas. The spiritist view, as held by Messrs. Hyslop and Hodgson, sees a “will to communicate,” struggling through inconceivable layers of obstruction165 in the conditions. I have heard Hodgson liken the difficulties to those of two persons who on earth should have only dead-drunk servants to use as their messengers. The scientist, for his part, sees a “will to deceive,” watching its chance in all of us, and able (possibly?) to use “telepathy” in its service.
Which kind of will, and how many kinds of will are most inherently probable? Who can say with certainty? The only certainty is that the phenomena are enormously complex, especially if one includes in them such intellectual flights of mediumship as Swedenborg’s, and if one tries in any way to work the physical phenomena in. That is why I personally am as yet neither a convinced believer in parasitic163 demons81, nor a spiritist, nor a scientist, but still remain a psychical researcher waiting for more facts before concluding.
Out of my experience, such as it is (and it is limited enough) one fixed conclusion dogmatically emerges, and that is this, that we with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple166 and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves, and Conanicut and Newport hear each other’s fog-horns. But the trees also commingle167 their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean’s bottom. Just so there is a continuum of cosmic consciousness, against which our individuality builds but accidental fences, and into which our several minds plunge168 as into a mother-sea or reservoir. Our “normal” consciousness is circumscribed169 for adaptation to our external earthly environment, but the fence is weak in spots, and fitful influences from beyond leak in, showing the otherwise unverifiable common connection. Not only psychic research, but metaphysical philosophy, and speculative170 biology are led in their own ways to look with favor on some such “panpsychic” view of the universe as this. Assuming this common reservoir of consciousness to exist, this bank upon which we all draw, and in which so many of earth’s memories must in some way be stored, or mediums would not get at them as they do, the question is, What is its own structure? What is its inner topography? This question, first squarely formulated171 by Myers, deserves to be called “Myers’ problem” by scientific men hereafter. What are the conditions of individuation or insulation172 in this mother-sea? To what tracts173, to what active systems functioning separately in it, do personalities174 correspond? Are individual “spirits” constituted there? How numerous, and of how many hierarchic175 orders may these then be? How permanent? How transient? And how confluent with one another may they become?
What again, are the relations between the cosmic consciousness and matter? Are there subtler forms of matter which upon occasion may enter into functional176 connection with the individuations in the psychic sea, and then, and then only, show themselves? — So that our ordinary human experience, on its material as well as on its mental side, would appear to be only an extract from the larger psycho-physical world?
Vast, indeed, and difficult is the inquirer’s prospect177 here, and the most significant data for his purpose will probably be just these dingy little mediumistic facts which the Huxleyan minds of our time find so unworthy of their attention. But when was not the science of the future stirred to its conquering activities by the little rebellious178 exceptions to the science of the present? Hardly, as yet, has the surface of the facts called “psychic” begun to be scratched for scientific purposes. It is through following these facts, I am persuaded, that the greatest scientific conquests of the coming generation will be achieved. Kühn ist das Mühen, herrlich der Lohn!
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celebrated
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ardor
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judgment
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possessed
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chaotic
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phenomena
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psychical
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| adj.有关特异功能现象的；有关特异功能官能的；灵魂的；心灵的 | |
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elicited
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sentimental
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founders
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| n.创始人( founder的名词复数 ) | |
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tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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corroboration
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| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
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peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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19
err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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21
precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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23
astronomer
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| n.天文学家 | |
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24
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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barefaced
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| adj.厚颜无耻的，公然的 | |
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steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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27
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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28
psychiatrist
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| n.精神病专家；精神病医师 | |
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29
physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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30
prosecuting
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| 检举、告发某人( prosecute的现在分词 )； 对某人提起公诉； 继续从事（某事物）； 担任控方律师 | |
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31
presumptions
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| n.假定( presumption的名词复数 )；认定；推定；放肆 | |
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32
crass
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| adj.愚钝的，粗糙的；彻底的 | |
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33
propounded
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| v.提出（问题、计划等）供考虑[讨论]，提议( propound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
chambers
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| n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅 | |
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35
triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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36
heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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37
plausible
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| adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的 | |
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38
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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39
credentials
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| n.证明，资格，证明书，证件 | |
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40
expedients
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| n.应急有效的，权宜之计的( expedient的名词复数 ) | |
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41
gullibility
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| n.易受骗，易上当，轻信 | |
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42
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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43
proceedings
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| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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45
maxim
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| n.格言，箴言 | |
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46
irrelevant
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| adj.不恰当的，无关系的，不相干的 | |
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47
accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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48
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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49
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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50
peripheral
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| adj.周边的，外围的 | |
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51
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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52
predecessor
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| n.前辈，前任 | |
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53
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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54
physiology
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| n.生理学，生理机能 | |
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55
pulsated
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| v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的过去式和过去分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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56
stimulated
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| a.刺激的 | |
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57
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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58
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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59
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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60
rhythmical
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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61
prophesied
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| v.预告，预言( prophesy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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62
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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63
specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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64
venerated
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| 敬重（某人或某事物），崇敬( venerate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
pedantic
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| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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66
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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67
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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68
prevarication
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| n.支吾；搪塞；说谎；有枝有叶 | |
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69
manifestations
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| n.表示，显示（manifestation的复数形式） | |
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70
humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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71
arrant
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| adj.极端的；最大的 | |
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72
nonplussed
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| adj.不知所措的，陷于窘境的v.使迷惑( nonplus的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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73
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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74
outraged
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| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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75
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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76
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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77
imposture
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| n.冒名顶替，欺骗 | |
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78
faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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79
chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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80
provincial
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| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
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81
demons
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| n.恶人( demon的名词复数 )；恶魔；精力过人的人；邪念 | |
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82
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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83
premise
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| n.前提；v.提论，预述 | |
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84
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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85
dingy
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| adj.昏暗的，肮脏的 | |
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86
serial
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| n.连本影片，连本电视节目；adj.连续的 | |
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87
sensory
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| adj.知觉的，感觉的，知觉器官的 | |
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88
abide
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| vi.遵守；坚持；vt.忍受 | |
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89
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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90
apparitions
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| n.特异景象( apparition的名词复数 )；幽灵；鬼；（特异景象等的）出现 | |
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91
harmonious
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| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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92
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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93
residual
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| adj.复播复映追加时间；存留下来的，剩余的 | |
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94
lurch
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| n.突然向前或旁边倒；v.蹒跚而行 | |
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95
bacterium
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| n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌 | |
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96
putrefaction
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| n.腐坏，腐败 | |
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97
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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98
purports
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| v.声称是…，（装得）像是…的样子( purport的第三人称单数 ) | |
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99
fictitious
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| adj.虚构的，假设的；空头的 | |
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100
plausibly
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| 似真地 | |
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101
subconscious
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| n./adj.潜意识(的)，下意识(的) | |
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102
complicate
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| vt.使复杂化，使混乱，使难懂 | |
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103
inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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104
complexity
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| n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物 | |
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105
judgments
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| 判断( judgment的名词复数 )； 鉴定； 评价； 审判 | |
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106
loath
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| adj.不愿意的；勉强的 | |
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107
bides
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| v.等待，停留( bide的第三人称单数 )；居住；（过去式用bided）等待；面临 | |
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108
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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109
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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110
haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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111
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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112
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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113
aberrant
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| adj.畸变的，异常的，脱离常轨的 | |
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114
vagrants
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| 流浪者( vagrant的名词复数 )； 无业游民； 乞丐； 无赖 | |
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115
shreds
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| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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116
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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117
cosmos
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| n.宇宙；秩序，和谐 | |
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118
periphery
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| n.(圆体的)外面；周围 | |
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119
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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120
tangential
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| adj.离题的，切线的 | |
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121
solely
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| adv.仅仅，唯一地 | |
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122
disturbance
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| n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调 | |
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123
vestiges
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| 残余部分( vestige的名词复数 )； 遗迹； 痕迹； 毫不 | |
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124
primordial
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| adj.原始的；最初的 | |
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125
irrationality
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| n. 不合理，无理性 | |
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126
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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127
jot
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| n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下 | |
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128
dabbling
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| v.涉猎( dabble的现在分词 )；涉足；浅尝；少量投资 | |
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129
disintegrates
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| n.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的名词复数 )v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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130
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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131
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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132
circumspect
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| adj.慎重的，谨慎的 | |
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133
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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134
insignificance
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| n.不重要；无价值；无意义 | |
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135
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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136
slumber
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| n.睡眠，沉睡状态 | |
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137
shameful
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| adj.可耻的，不道德的 | |
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138
engendered
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| v.产生（某形势或状况），造成，引起( engender的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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139
dooming
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| v.注定( doom的现在分词 )；判定；使…的失败（或灭亡、毁灭、坏结局）成为必然；宣判 | |
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140
posterity
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| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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141
accreted
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| v.共生( accrete的过去式和过去分词 )；合生；使依附；使连接 | |
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142
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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143
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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144
pertain
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| v.(to)附属，从属；关于；有关；适合，相称 | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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148
penumbra
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| n.（日蚀）半影部 | |
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149
forefathers
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| n.祖先，先人；祖先，祖宗( forefather的名词复数 )；列祖列宗；前人 | |
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150
impelling
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| adj.迫使性的，强有力的v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的现在分词 ) | |
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151
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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152
preposterous
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| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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153
systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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154
embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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156
weirder
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| 怪诞的( weird的比较级 )； 神秘而可怕的； 超然的； 古怪的 | |
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157
instinctive
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| adj.(出于)本能的；直觉的；(出于)天性的 | |
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158
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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159
slumbering
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| 微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式） | |
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160
diffuse
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| v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的 | |
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craving
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| n.渴望,热望 | |
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162
parasitically
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| adv.寄生地，由寄生虫引起地 | |
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163
parasitic
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| adj.寄生的 | |
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164
scraps
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| 油渣 | |
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165
obstruction
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| n.阻塞，堵塞；障碍物 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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commingle
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| v.混合 | |
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168
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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circumscribed
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| adj.[医]局限的：受限制或限于有限空间的v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的过去式和过去分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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170
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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171
formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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172
insulation
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| n.隔离；绝缘；隔热 | |
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173
tracts
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| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
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174
personalities
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| n. 诽谤，（对某人容貌、性格等所进行的）人身攻击； 人身攻击；人格, 个性, 名人( personality的名词复数 ) | |
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175
hierarchic
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| 等级制的，按等级划分的 | |
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176
functional
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| adj.为实用而设计的，具备功能的，起作用的 | |
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177
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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