CONCLUSION
And so we seem to find—in the farthest and loftiest reaches of life, as
in its first beginnings—Love and Death strangely linked and strangely
related. Changing their form but not their essence they accompany us to
the last; and we forebode them, in the final account, as no longer the
tyrannous and often terrible over-lords of our mortal days, but rather
our most indispensable companions without whom life in its higher ranges
could not well be maintained.
For a time, certainly, we cling to our limited and tiny self-life and
consciousness; and deem that all good resides in the careful guarding of
the same. But again there comes a time when the bounds of personality
confine and chafe beyond endurance, when an immense rage sweeps us far
out into the great ocean; when to save our lives we deliberately lose
them; when Death becomes a passion even as Love is.
The mystery of mortal life clears, or dissolves away, by our passing in
a sense beyond personality; and the hour arrives when we look down on
these local days, these self-limitations, as phases—phases of some far
vaster state of being. Death is the necessary door by which we pass from
one such phase to another; and Love is even a similar door.
Growing silently within there emerges at last something which has its
home in the great spaces, which dives under and through Death, and is
the companion of Titanic and Cosmic beings; something strangely
surpassing all barriers and limits, and strangely finding identity by
fusing and losing it in the life of others; something which at times
seems almost mockingly to abandon its own identity and rise creative in
new forms—sporting in the great ocean; and yet can somehow instantly
recall its past and the tiny limits from which it first sprang—trailing
forever with it the wonderful cloud-wreaths of earth-memory and
association, and the myriad fragrance of personal remembrance. “What are
thou then?” says the poet, addressing his departed friend:—
“What art thou then?—I cannot guess;
But tho’ I seem in star and flower
To feel thee some diffusive power
I do not therefore love thee less.”
Even in the farthest spheres the poignant syllables ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ will
surely still be heard; and a thousand deaths shall not avail to exhaust
their meaning or to make of Love a pale and cold abstraction.
The memory of the earth-life and of personal identity is never lost; but
it passes out into that far greater form, the memory and resumption into
a coherent Whole of many lives, and the sense of an Individuality which
has value because it is merged in and is an expression of the All.
Memory indeed changes from being the faint dream-shadow that we know, of
things in the past, to being the things _themselves_, actual and ever
present at our command; and with this finding of the inner soul and
heart’s core of all beings it becomes possible to live over again with
them the days gone by, in all detail and with ever deeper understanding
of their true meaning.
The supra-liminal returns into harmony with the subliminal; the
individual life and the mass-life are reunited. With the overpassing of
the local and terrestrial self we are liberated into a fluid region
where a thousand personalities yield their secrets and their
co-operation into our hands. With the releasing of our attention from
personal objects and terrestrial gains, materials and people
correspondingly cease to obstruct. They find nothing which they _can_
obstruct! The body moves freely about the world; life ceases to be the
‘obstacle race’ and the queer perpetual vista of barricades which it
mostly now is; and _a fortiori_ the soul moves freely, because truly for
the redeemed soul it is possible to feel that all things and creatures
are friendly, all beings a part of itself. These and many other such
realizations are indeed possible now—even in our present terrestrial
state—under those rare conditions when the divine creature which is
within the mortal body achieves a momentary deliverance, and under which
we sometimes pass out of our little mundane dream into that other land
where the great Voices sound and Visions dwell.
APPENDIX
SUMMARY OF CHAPTER II
1. Every kind of cell or other organism has a natural limit of size
(dependent partly on the relation between surface and volume).
2. When that limit is reached, superfluity of nutrition and growth tends
to bring about Reproduction.
3. Reproduction begins with simple division or budding.
4. Conjugation in its primitive form (as among protozoa where there is
no distinction of sex) takes place between similars, and is an exchange
to some degree of cell-contents.
5. It apparently affords a superior nutrition, and is a kind of
Regeneration, essential to the continued health of the species, and
favorable to reproduction.
6. Hunger and Love are thus related at this stage.
7. Later, conjugation takes place between dissimilars (of the same
species); and the distinct phenomena of sex appear—of male and female.
8. Reproduction by simple division or budding leads to a kind of
‘immortality,’ since each descendant cell is continuous, in a sense,
with the original one.
9. This simple division or virgin-birth process may go on to many
generations—even to hundreds among the Protozoa.
10. But since at some time or other conjugation is apparently necessary
in order to restore vitality, the immortality at this point ceases to be
an individual immortality, and becomes rather a joint or racial
immortality.
11. The main thing in conjugation would appear to be that the two
factors should be complementary to each other, however differentiated,
so that in their union the whole race-life should be restored, and the
Regeneration therefore be complete.
12. The special sex-differentiation called male and female depends on
the separation of the active from the sessile qualities (and other
qualities respectively related to each) into two great branches.
13. Since the female takes the sessile part she appears sometimes as the
goal and object of conjugation, and the more important factor; but
actual observation so far shows each factor, male and female, to be
equally important.
14. In the fertilized ovum there are an equal number of chromosomes
derived from each parent; and if the female provides the shrine in which
the new development takes place, the male (centrosome) appears as the
organizing genius of the process.
15. This process, by which a fertilized germ-cell divides and redivides,
and so builds up a “body,” is quite similar to that by which a protozoön
divides and redivides to form a numerous colony.
16. A ‘body’ indeed _is_ such a colony, coöperatively associated in
definite form, of which all the millions of cells are practically
continuous with the original fertilized germ, and one with it.
17. Every cell in such a body has apparently the same nuclear elements
as the original cell, equally derived from both parents; but is
differentiated so far as to be able to fulfil its special part in the
body.
18. The process of division of these microscopic cells is strangely
exact and complex; and the various elements of the nucleus seem to be
themselves divided into two, on each occasion, with strange preciseness.
19. The constituent cells of each race of animals have always a certain
number of nuclear threads or chromosomes—fixed for that particular
race.
20. When, therefore, a sperm-cell and germ-cell unite, they each first
extrude or expel half the number of their chromosomes, so that after
union the joint cell is provided again with the precise number of
chromosomes characteristic of the race.
21. The exact nature of these ‘maturation’ divisions and expulsions is
far from clear; but it would seem that they are carried out in such a
way as, while retaining always the basic elements of the Race, to secure
a continual and endless sorting of these into new combinations.
22. These complex evolutions occurring, as described, in the interior of
the most primitive cells, look as much like the last results of some far
antecedent or invisible operations (of which we know nothing) as like
the first commencement of the visible organic world with which we are
acquainted.
[Footnotes]
[1] “In November 1885, M. Maupas isolated an infusorian (_Stylonichia
pustulata_), and observed its generations till March 1886. By that
time there had been 215 generations produced by ordinary division,
and since these lowly organisms do not conjugate with near relatives,
there had of course been no sexual union.—What was the result? At the
date referred to, the family was observed to have exhausted itself.
The members, though not exactly old, were being born old. The sexual
division came to a standstill, and the powers of nutrition were also
lost” (_Evolution of Sex_, Geddes and Thomson, 1901, p. 177).
[2] See, however, _Evolution of Sex_, p. 178, where a case is
recorded of 458 generations of another infusorian apparently without
degeneration. See also _The Cell_, by Dr. Oscar Hertwig (Sonnenschein,
1909), p. 292.
[3] The _exchange_ of life-elements between two individuals is well
illustrated in the case of the infusorian _Noctiluca_. Two Noctilucas,
A and B, [Illustration: small diagram of conjunction of A and B]
coalesce; and then later divide again along a plane (indicated
by dotted line) at right angles to the plane of contact. Two new
individuals are thus formed, and each Noctiluca has absorbed half of
the other. Their activities are regenerated and they begin a new life.
[4] As in Volvox; see _Evolution of Sex_, p. 138.
[5] And we may say also here that it is even supposable that the
special differentiation which we call male and female is only one
out of many possible sex-differentiations—the important and main
condition being that the differentiations, whatever they are, should
be complementary to each other, and should together make up the total
qualities and character of the race.
[6] As sixteen for a human being, twelve for a grasshopper, twenty-four
for a lily, and so forth.
[7] For diagram and illustration of this whole process, see Appendix,
_infra_, p. 289. Also see August Forel’s _The Sexual Question_ (English
translation; Rebman, 1908), pp. 6 and 11; _The World of Life_, by A.
R. Wallace, ch. xvii, p. 343; _The Plant Cell_, by H. A. Haig (Griffin,
1910), ch. viii; and other books.
[8] Stephane Leduc, in his _Théorie Physico-chémique de la vie_ (Paris,
1910), endeavors to trace all the above phenomena to the simple
action of diffusion and osmose (see ch. viii, on _Karyokinesis_)
but though the resemblance of some of the forms above described to
diffusion-figures is interesting—as also is their resemblance to the
forms of magnetic fields—this does not prove their genesis either
from diffusion or magnetism. It only makes probable that some of
the phenomena in question are related to the very obscure forces of
diffusion or magnetism—a thing which, of course, is already admitted
and recognized. With regard to all this the reader should study the
astonishing resurrection of the mature blow-fly from the mere milky pap
which is all that the pupa at a certain stage consists of. (See _The
Biology of the Seasons_, by J. Arthur Thomson, 1911.)
[9] “In every known case an essential phenomenon of fertilization is
the union of a sperm nucleus of paternal origin with an egg nucleus
of maternal origin, to form the primary nucleus of the embryo. This
nucleus ... gives rise by division to all the nuclei of the body, and
hence every nucleus of the child may contain nuclear substance derived
from both parents” (_The Cell in Development and Inheritance_, by E. B.
Wilson, Macmillan Co., 1904, p. 182).
[10] The latter, of course, being just discernible by the naked eye.
[11] _Parallel Paths_, by T. W. Rolleston (Duckworth, 1908), p. 53.
[12] _Parallel Paths_, p. 52. See also, for further accounts, _The
Evolution of Sex_, pp. 112–14; _The Plant Cell_, by H. A. Haig, pp.
121, 123 _et seq._; Die Vererbung, by Dr. E. Teichmann (Stuttgart,
1908), pp. 39, 40, &c. Throughout it must be remembered that these
‘maturation’ processes in the generative cells are not only exceedingly
complex, but also very various in the various plants and animals; and
the reader should be warned against too easily accepting ready-made
descriptions and generalizations supposed to fit all cases.
[13] Here and elsewhere in his book Professor Wilson uses “germ-cells”
to include “sperm-cells”; and I have indicated this by the bracket.
[14] _The Cell_, p. 285.
[15] It appears that in the ordinary conjugation of Protozoa a quite
similar process is observable.
[16] “Nowhere in the history of the cell do we find so unmistakable and
striking an adaptation of means to ends or one of so marked a prophetic
character, since maturation looks not to the present but to the future
of the germ [and sperm] cells” (_The Cell_, p. 233).
[17] It might be said that, notwithstanding this, the female obviously
has the greater sway, on account of the conjunction taking place within
the body of the mother, and subject to all her influences. But there is
a curious compensation to this in the fact that while after conjugation
the centrosome of the germ-cell disappears, the male centrosome is
retained and becomes the organ of division for the new cell, and
consequently for the whole future body. (See _Parallel Paths_, p. 56;
also Professor E. B. Wilson in _The Cell_, p. 171.)
[18] “That a cell can carry with it the sum total of the heritage of
the species, that it can in the course of a few days or weeks give rise
to a mollusk or a man, is the greatest marvel of biological science”
(_The Cell_, p. 396).
[19] For summary of the conclusions of this chapter, see Appendix,
_infra_, p. 289.
[20] Havelock Ellis’s very fine essay on “The Art of Love” (see
his _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi, ch. xi) must also
be mentioned, as including much of the subject matter of the above
treatises, but having a very much wider scope and outlook.
[21] See _The Cell_, by E. B. Wilson, p. 391; _Das Leben_, by Jacques
Loeb (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 10–20, &c. It seems also to be thought that
gall-formations on plants, tumors on animal bodies, &c., are instances
of such chemical or indirect fertilization.
[22] Translation by J. Wright, M.A., _Golden Treasury Series_, p. 57.
[23] _Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p. 517.
[24] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. i.
[25] _Ars. Am._ iii. 605.
[26] _Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p. 542.
[27] _Ibid._, p. 544.
[28] “The disgrace which has overtaken the sexual act, and rendered it
a deed of darkness, is doubtless largely responsible for the fact that
the chief time for its consummation among modern civilized peoples is
the darkness of the early night in stuffy bedrooms when the fatigue of
the day’s labors is struggling with the artificial stimulation produced
by heavy meals and alcoholic drinks. This habit is partly responsible
for the indifference or even disgust with which women sometimes view
coitus” (H. Ellis, _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. vi. p.
558).
[29] See H. Ellis, vol. v. pp. 11 and 12.
[30] See also Kraft-Ebing, _Psychopathia sexualis_, 7th edition, p. 165.
[31] _Modern Woman: Her Intentions_, p. 30.
[32] English edition; Heinemann, 1906.
[33] Fischer, Berlin, p. 192.
[34] Berlin, 1910, p. 290.
[35] Berlin, 1905, p. 332. English translation, _Love and Marriage_;
Putnam’s, 1911.
[36] See chapter on “Visions of the Dying” in _Death: its Causes and
Phenomena_, by Carrington and Meader (1911); also _infra_, ch. vi. p.
103.
[37] See H. Pieron, “Contribution à la Psychologie des Mourants,” in
_Revue Philosophique_, Dec., 1902.
[38] See _Civilization: its Cause and Cure_ (George Allen, 2s. 6d.),
pp. 11–21.
[39] See Carrington and Meader on _Death: its Causes and Phenomena_, p.
300.
[40] Reference may be made to the _Upanishads_ (“Sacred books of the
East,” vols. i. and xv.); to the _Bhagavat Gita_; to R. M. Bucke’s
_Cosmic Consciousness_ (Purdy Publishing Co., Chicago); to the _Raja
Yoga Lectures_, by Vivekananda (New York, 1899); to the _Ancient
Wisdom_, by Annie Besant; _The Art of Creation_, and _A Visit to a
Gnani_, by E. Carpenter; and to many other works, of course.
[41] If I seem here to personify unduly these psychic elements and to
ascribe to them too much in the way of consciousness and intelligence,
I must refer for explanation to the Note at the end of this chapter.
[42] See ch. vii., _infra_, p. 119.
[43] See _The Art of Creation_, ch, xii. pp. 209, 210.
[44] _Human Personality_, &c., ch. vi.
[45] _Ibid._ p. 196, edition 1909, edited by L. H. Myers.
[46] For evidence on the subject of Phantasms, Wraiths, Haunted Houses,
and so forth, see _Phantoms of the Living_, by Gurney, Myers, and
Podmore; and _The Report on the Census of Hallucinations_, Proceedings
of the Psychical Research Society, vol. x.; also _L’inconnu et les
problems psychiques_, by Camille Flammarion; and Lombroso’s chapter
on Haunted Houses, in his book _Fenomeni Ipnotici e Spiritici_ (Turin,
1909), ch. xii.; also ch. viii. of the present book, _infra_.
[47] See Carrington and Meader, _op. cit._ pp. 318–27.
[48] Dr. Morton Prince’s study, _The Dissolution of a Personality_
(Longmans, 1906), should be read, as going deeply into the whole
subject. He suggests (p. 530) the use of the word “co-consciousness,”
to indicate the secondary chains of mental operation which coexist side
by side with or beneath the primary. Dr. R. Assagioli, in his pamphlet
_Il Subcosciente_ (Florence, 1911), also follows the same line.
[49] _De Rerum Natura_, iii. 890, translated by Mr. H. S. Salt.
[50] See Geddes and Thomson, _Evolution of Sex_ (1901), p. 275.
[51] See ch. ii. p. 18, _supra_; also, for amplification of this view,
Myers’s _Human Personality_, _op. cit._, edition 1909, pp. 90, 91.
[52] _The Story of My Life_, by Helen Keller (1908), p. 17.
[53] For a further account of the subliminal or underlying self, see
next chapter.
[54] The only alternative to this seems to be to suppose that the
“soul” comes into association with the body, not at the very first
inception of the latter, but at some later pre-natal or post-natal
stage, when the body is already partially or wholly built up by the
primitive process of cell-division—that the soul then takes possession
of the organism so formed, and makes use of it for self-expression;
and finally at death discards it. This theory—though it seems a
possible one, and in accordance with the apparent “possession” and
control of the bodies of trance mediums by independent spirits—presents
some difficulties. One difficulty is the absence of any obvious or
acknowledged period when such entry of the soul takes place; another
is the difficulty of seeing how a real and effective harmony could be
permanently established between a body already formed and organized on
hereditary lines, and an independent soul entering on its own errand
at a later date. These (and other) difficulties, however, are not
insuperable, and it may well be, in the great variety of Nature, that
the process of incarnation actually does take place in both ways—_i.e._
in the way outlined in this note, as well as (more generally) in the
way mentioned in the text.
[55] See _The Art of Creation_, 1908, p. 82 _et seq._ Compare also
Bergson’s “elan vital,” in _L’Évolution Créatrice_, p. 100 _et seq._
[56] The _Upanishads_, whose authority on these subjects is surely
great, seem often to try to express the other-dimensional nature of
the soul by a paradox of opposites. “The self, smaller than small (or
more subtle than subtle), greater than great, is hidden in the heart of
each creature” (Katha-Up. I. Adh. 2 valli. 20; also Svetasvatara-Up.
III. Adh. 20)—or again, “The embodied soul is to be thought like the
hundredth part of the point of a hair, divided into a hundred parts;
he is to be thought infinite” (Svet.-Up. v. 9). And the last quoted
passage continues: “He is not woman, he is not man, nor hermaphrodite;
whatever body he assumes, with that he is joined (only); and as by the
use of food and drink the body grows, so the individual soul, by means
of thoughts, touching, seeing and the passions, assumes successively in
various places various forms in accordance with his deeds.”
[57] See Myers, _op. cit._ p. 233, on Clairvoyance of the Dying.
[58] Even on the battlefield, after the battle, faces of the dead have
been observed with this expression upon them.
[59] It is, of course, quite possible that our ordinary consciousness
is discontinuous, even down to its minutest elements, and that it
is only made up of successive and separate sensations which, as in
a cinematograph, follow each with lightning speed. But even this
almost compels us to the assumption of another and profounder and more
continuous consciousness beneath, which is the means of the synthesis
and comparison of these sensations.
[60] _Human Personality_, _op. cit._ p. 29.
[61] See _The Art of Creation_, pp. 105–8.
[62] This well-known case, given by Coleridge in his _Biographia
Literaria_, is amply confirmed by scores of similar cases which have
been carefully examined into and described by modern research.
[63] See _Proceedings S.P.R._ vol. xii, pp. 176–203; quoted by
Frederick Myers, _Human Personality_, ch. v.
[64] This is contested by H. Ellis in his _World of Dreams_, p. 215,
but not very successfully, I think.
[65] See Myers, _op. cit._ ch. iii. p. 66; also T. J. Hudson’s
interesting account of Zerah Colburn, in _Psychic Phenomena_ (1893), p.
64.
[66] _Op. cit._ p. 100. De Quincey, it will be remembered, in a
well-known passage of his _Confessions_, says: “Of this at least I
feel assured, that there is no such thing as _forgetting_ possible to
the mind; a thousand accidents may and will interpose a veil between
our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions on the mind;
accidents of the same sort will also rend away this veil; but alike,
whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains forever.”
[67] See _Journal S.P.R._, vol. iii. p. 100; also T. J. Hudson, _op.
cit._, p. 153.
[68] New York, 1903, p. 64.
[69] See Lombroso, _Fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici_, Turin, 1909, pp.
28–31.
[70] I leave the question of the possibility of the latter open for the
present. See Note at end of this chapter.
[71] This was no doubt, for instance, the case with Eusapia
Paladino—as admitted by her warmest supporters. But it does not
contravene the fact, proved by most abundant evidence and experiment,
of the astounding physical phenomena which from her early childhood
accompanied her, and in some strange way exhaled from her.
[72] It is impossible, for instance, to read slowly and in detail such
works as A. R. Wallace’s _Miracles and Modern Spiritualism_, William
Crookes’ _Researches into Spiritualism_, C. Lombroso’s _Fenomeni
ipnotici e spiritici_, and to note the care and exactness with which
in each case experiments were conducted, tests devised, and results
recorded, without being persuaded that in the mass the conclusions
(confirmed in the first two instances by the authors themselves after
an interval of twenty or thirty years) are correct. Already a long list
of scientific and responsible men, like Charles Richet (professor of
physiology at Paris), Camille Flammarion (the well-known astronomer),
Professor Zöllner of the Observatory at Leipzig, C. F. Varley the
electrician, Sir Oliver Lodge of Birmingham, have made important
contributions to the evidence; while others, like Professor De Morgan
the mathematician, Professor Challis the astronomer, Sergeant Cox the
lawyer, and Professor William James the psychologist, have signified
their general adhesion.
[73] For references see _supra_, ch. vi. p. 92, footnote.
[74] See _Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 289, also the
experience of Mrs. A., given in _Footfalls on the Boundary of Another
World_, by R. Dale Owen, 1881, p. 256 _et seq._ This latter book, which
is a mine of well-authenticated information, has suffered somewhat
from its rather sensational title. The author, however, was an able,
distinguished, and reliable man, son of Robert Owen of Lanark, Member
of Congress in the United States, and U. S. Minister at Naples.
[75] See R. Dale Owen, _The Debatable Land_ (1871), pp. 385–400.
[76] See Crookes’ _Researches in Spiritualism_, pp. 104 _et seq._ See
also the book _New Light on Immortality_, by Fournier d’Albe, pp. 218
_et seq._, where the evidence is given in great detail.
[77] See _Phénomènes de la Ville Carmen, avec documents nouveaux_;
Paris, 1902.
[78] C. Lombroso, _Fenomeni ipnotici e spiritici_, p. 193.
[79] See _Shadow-land_ (1906).
[80] See pamphlet _Materializations, by Mme. D’Espérance_ (Light
Publishing Co.).
[81] See, for instance, the account of the haunted mill at Willington,
given at some length by Mr. W. T. Stead in the _Review of Reviews_
for Jan., 1892; also the _Memoirs of the Wesley Family_, vol. i, pp.
253–60; and Whitehead’s _Lives of the Wesleys_, vol. ii, pp. 120–66;
also _Footfalls_, b; R. Dale Owen, book iii, ch. ii.
[82] See Myers, _op cit._, p. 154. As many writers have remarked,
the term “superconscious” might often be more applicable than
“subconscious.”
[83] With regard to this question of hypnotism and crime, T. J. Hudson
says (_Psychic Phenomena_, p. 129) that it is almost impossible to
persuade a hypnotic to do what he firmly believes to be wrong. And
Myers maintains that whatever the subliminal being may be, it is
never malignant. “In dealing with automatic script, for instance, we
shall have to wonder whence come the occasional vulgar jokes or silly
mystifications. We shall discuss whether they are a kind of dream
of the automatist’s own, or whether they indicate the existence of
unembodied intelligences on the level of the dog or the ape. But,
on the other hand, all that world-old conception of Evil Spirits,
of malevolent powers, which has been the basis of so much of actual
devil-worship and so much more of vague supernatural fear—all this
insensibly melts from the mind as we study the evidence before us.”
(_Op. cit._, p. 252.)
[84] See _Mediumship_, by James B. Tetlow (Keighley, 1910), price 6d.
[85] _Op cit._, pp. 168–69.
[86] See a long chapter on “Manifestations de Mourants” in C.
Flammarion’s _L’Inconnu_.
[87] As in the case of a man drowning in a storm off the island of
Tristan d’Acunha, who was seen at the same hour in a Norfolk farmhouse.
_Phantasms of the Living_, vol. ii. p. 52.
[88] See further on this subject ch. xi. _infra_, p. 211.
[89] _Towards Democracy_, p. 490.
[90] For a discussion of this question, see Myers, _op. cit._, ch. vii.
on _Phantasms of the Dead_.
[91] See _supra_, ch. ii. p. 15; also _The World of Life_, by A. R.
Wallace, ch. xvii. “The Mystery of the Cell.”
[92] Of the conditions which may cause the invisible cloud to become
visible we shall speak farther on.
[93] See, for a list of these, Flammarion’s _L’Inconnu_, pp. 565–69;
also Lombroso’s _Fenomeni ipnotici_, &c., p. 199. The numerous
quasi-historical records of the appearance after death of the saints
(generally in a cloud-like form) must also not be passed over; though,
on account of these records being connected with the various churches,
they are necessarily subject to suspicion!
[94] We may mention _Death: Its Causes and Phenomena_, Carrington &
Meader (London, 1911); and the list of works quoted in the same book,
p. 540 _et seq._
[95] Longmans, 1908.
[96] “At the end of three hours and forty minutes he expired, and
suddenly, coincident with death, the beam end of the scale dropped with
an audible stroke, hitting against the lower limiting bar and remaining
there with no rebound. The loss was ascertained to be three-fourths of
an ounce.” See reference given by Carrington and Meader, _op. cit._, p.
373. The reports of the experiments are apparently given in the annals
of the American Society for Psychical Research for June, 1907.
[97] See a long account in the _Spiritualist_ for 15th May, 1873; also
given by F. d’Albe, _op. cit._, p. 220, _et seq._
[98] See R. J. Thompson’s _Proofs of Life after Death_ (1906).
[99] See _Phénomènes de la Villa Carmen_, by Charles Richet, Paris,
1902; also Lombroso, _op. cit._, pp. 194–96.
[100] Mr. H. Carrington, in his _Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism_,
has described in detail fraudulent methods of photography with which he
is well acquainted. Nevertheless he seems to believe that some cases
of “spirit photography” are genuine, and gives instances; see his
book already quoted _Death_, &c., pp. 359, _et seq._ See also Mr. E.
T. Bennett’s book on _Spiritualism_, with introduction by Sir Oliver
Lodge, pp. 113–20.
[101] See _The Art of Creation_, ch. vi.
[102] _The World of Dreams_ (Constable, 1911), p. 107.
[103] _The World of Dreams_, p. 190.
[104] See _Electrons_, by Sir Oliver Lodge (George Bell, 1910).
[105] Say, in millionths of an inch, fifteen millionths for the violet
(at the dark line A), and twenty-seven millionths for the red (at B).
[106] See, for examples, ch. x. pp. 186–7, _supra_.
[107] See document signed by five responsible witnesses and published
in the _Spiritualist_ of 15th May, 1873.
[108] See _Materializations_, by Mme. D’Espérance, a lecture given in
1903 in London (Light Publishing Co.).
[109] See illustrations in _Shadowland_, _passim_.
[110] The cobwebby sensation alluded to above is often mentioned
by other writers. Dr. J. Maxwell, in his _Metaphysical Phenomena_
(Duckworth, 1905), p. 329, describes a case in which the radiation
of force from the fingers of a medium was great enough to move a
small statuette five or six inches distant, and absolutely without
contact; but the phenomenon was accompanied by a “Spider-web or
cobwebby sensation in the hands.” The author of that interesting book
_Interwoven_ (Boston, 1905, copyright by S. L. Ford), speaks of “the
protoplasmic vapor of the inner man,” and says (p. 15): “It is this
frail vapor which comes out at death and tries to form into spiritual
body”; and again (p. 19): “I notice at death that nature draws or
relieves the fire of the ganglia first and all the lines of sensation
in light which were running down the nerves. It looks like white
seaweed, very light and airy and fragile ... a veil of shining which is
scarcely substance because of its white fire.”
[111] _Fenomeni ipnotici_, &c., p. 195.
[112] Namely, the highly charged electrostatic condition of mediums,
the luminous clouds floating near them, the stars and rays of light in
their vicinity, the photographic activity of their emanations, and so
forth.
[113] So much smaller than the atom that “if the earth represented an
electron, an atom would occupy a sphere with the sun as centre and four
times the distance of the earth as radius.” See _Electrons_, by Oliver
Lodge, p. 98.
[114] _Ibid._, pp. 82, 83.
[115] _Immortality_, p. 148.
[116] _Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism_ (Burns, 1874), p.
86.
[117] _Materializations_, p. 12.
[118] R. Dale Owen, _The Debatable Land_, p. 399.
[119] See _Annals of Psychical Science_, Report 1910–11.
[120] See Gustave Le Bon’s _Evolution of Matter_ (Walter Scott
Publishing Co., 1907).
[121] See Le Bon, p. 45.
[122] For cases of hypnotic trance induced in one person by the
telepathic action of another person at a distance, see Myers, _op.
cit._, p. 160.
[123] _Revue Philosophique_, August, 1887.
[124] Myers, _op. cit._, p. 149.
[125] _Ibid._, p. 144. See also Henri Bergson’s _L’Évolution
Créatrice_, p. 102, on the _canalization_ of the senses.
[126] See chapter xiii. p. 243.
[127] It seems probable, from many considerations, that at a certain
depth within us—in the region of what has been called the cosmic
consciousness—memory does in nowise fade, and the past is always
present, but, as Bergson says, the ordinary conscious intellect tends
to only select from this mass what is needed for impending action, and
has consequently become limited by this tendency.
[128] See the work of Richard Semon on the _mneme_ as a main factor
of organic life (_Die Mneme als erhaltendes Prinzip im Wechsel des
organischen Geschehens_, Leipzig, 1904); also quoted by Auguste Forel,
_The Sexual Question_ (English edition, Rebman, 1908), pp. 14–17.
[129] See _An Adventure_, Macmillan & Co., 1911.
[130] See _infra_, ch. xiv. p. 255; also E. B. Wilson, _The Cell_, p.
433.
[131] Though this process, it would appear, requires _practice_, and is
not learned at once.
[132] See the frequent description of the unusual beauty and radiancy
of the forms seen in connection with trance-mediums and circles.
[133] It may easily be understood, I think, that the process by
which the distinct soul is thus built up may last several lifetimes.
That is, there may be a long period during which the budding soul
still entangled in the race-life may be reincarnated jointly with
the race-soul in a kind of mixed way—family and race-characteristics
mingling with and obscuring its expression—though these incarnations
would become ever less mixed and more individual in character till the
day of the soul’s final disentanglement.
[134] In the _Symposium_—Shelley’s translation.
[135] Shelley’s translation.
[136] What the _physical_ medium of this transmission may be—whether
the germ-plasm of Weismann, or some subtle _aura_ which connects the
members of a race together, or anything else—is a question to which the
answer at present is not very clear.
[137] And not only out of the abysmal deeps of Man, but also out of the
hidden soul of the Earth, and other cosmic beings.
[138] See _supra_, ch. vii. p. 122.
[139] See note at end of chapter vi.
[140] See, for instance, Homer’s _Odyssey_, bk. xi., lines 601 _et
seq._, where Odysseus speaks with the ghost of Hercules in Hades; but
it is explained that Hercules himself is in Heaven:
“Then in his might I beheld huge Hercules, phantom terrific,
Phantom I say, for the hero himself is among the immortals.”
[141] In this case, described by Dr. Morton Prince in his _Dissociation
of a Personality_ (see note to ch. vi., _supra_), at least four or five
distinct personalities were recognizable in the one woman.
[142] See _The Art of Creation_, pp. 80, 81.
[143] See Bergson’s _L’Évolution Créatrice_ throughout.
[144] “Der Beginn des erneuten seraphischen Lebens und Einbeziehung
alles dessen, was ausser der Gegenwartsenge liegt.”
End of Project Gutenberg's The Drama of Love and Death, by Edward Carpenter