Chapter IX: The Experiments of Sir William Crookes (2)

The spare at my disposal will not permit me to give more details here; but all my readers must appreciate, as I do, the importance of these experiments of the eminent chemist. I will especially call attention to the proofs they afford of the presence of a mind or intelligence, other than that of the experimenters; to the formation of hands and spirit-forms; and to the passage of matter through matter.

These experiments date from the years 1871 to 1873. During the last mentioned year, a new medium, endowed with particularly remarkable powers, appeared in London, namely, Miss Florence Cook, who was born in 1856, and was, therefore, seventeen in 1873. Since the preceding year (1872), she had often seen the apparition by her side of a young girl. This spectral form had taken a liking to her, and told her she was called _Katie King_ in the other world, and had been a lady called Annie Morgan during one of her lives on earth. Some observers told marvellous stories of these apparitions, which they also saw,--among them being William Harrison, Benjamin Coleman, Mr. Luxmore, Dr. Sexton, Dr. Gully, the Prince of Sayn Wittgenstein, who have all published accounts of them which breathe an air of sincere belief. Professor Crookes got in touch with this new medium in December, 1873. In _The Spiritualist_--a journal edited by Mr. Harrison, at whose home several sittings had taken place--there appeared in the numbers for February and March, 1874, two letters from Professor Crookes. A few extracts from these letters here follow:

I have reason to know that the power at work in these phenomena, like
Love, "laughs at locksmiths."

The seance of which you speak and at which I was present, was held at
the house of Mr. Luxmore, and the "cabinet" was a back drawing-room
separated from the front room in which the company sat by a curtain.

The usual formality of searching the room and examining the fastenings
having been gone through, Miss Cook entered the cabinet.

After a little time the form of Katie appeared at the side of the
curtain, but soon retreated, saying her medium was not well, and could
not be put into a sufficiently deep sleep to make it safe for her to
be left.

I was sitting within a few feet of the curtain close behind which Miss
Cook was sitting, and I could frequently hear her moan and sob, as if
in pain. This uneasiness continued at intervals nearly the whole
duration of the _seance_, _and once, when the form of Katie was
standing before me in the room, I distinctly heard a sobbing, moaning
sound, identical with that which Miss Cook had been making at
intervals the whole time of the seance, come from behind the curtain
where the young lady was supposed to be sitting_.

I admit that the figure was startlingly life-like and real, and, as
far as I could see in the somewhat dim light, the features resembled
those of Miss Cook; but still the positive evidence of one of my own
senses that the moan came from Miss Cook in the cabinet, whilst the
figure was outside, is too strong to be upset by a mere inference to
the contrary, however well supported.

Your readers, sir, know me, and will, I hope, believe that I will not
come hastily to an opinion, or ask them to agree with me on
insufficient evidence. It is perhaps expecting too much to think that
the little incident I have mentioned will have the same weight with
them that it had with me. But this I do beg of them--Let those who are
inclined to judge Miss Cook harshly suspend their judgment until I
bring forward positive evidence which I think will be sufficient to
settle the question.

Miss Cook is now devoting herself exclusively to a series of private
seances with me and one or two friends. The seances will probably
extend over some months, and I am promised that every desirable test
shall be given to me. These seances have not been going on many weeks,
but enough has taken place to thoroughly convince me of the perfect
truth and honesty of Miss Cook, and to give me every reason to expect
that the promises so freely made to me by Katie will be kept.

WILLIAM CROOKES.

Here is the second letter from the cautious investigator:

In a letter which I wrote to this journal early in February last,
speaking of the phenomena of spirit-forms which have appeared through
Miss Cook's mediumship, I said, "Let those who are inclined to judge
Miss Cook harshly suspend their judgment until I bring forward
positive evidence which I think will be sufficient to settle the
question."

In that letter I described an incident which, to my mind, went very
far towards convincing me that Katie and Miss Cook were two separate
material beings. When Katie was outside the cabinet, standing before
me, I heard a moaning noise from Miss Cook in the cabinet. I am happy
to say that I have at last obtained the "absolute proof" to which I
referred in the above-quoted letter.

On March 12th, during a seance here, after Katie had been walking
amongst us and talking for some time, she retreated behind the curtain
which separated my laboratory, where the company was sitting, from my
library which did temporary duty as a cabinet. In a minute she came to
the curtain and called me to her, saying, "Come into the room and lift
my medium's head up, she has slipped down." Katie was then standing
before me clothed in her usual white robes and turban head-dress. I
immediately walked into the library up to Miss Cook, Katie stepping
aside to allow me to pass. I found Miss Cook had slipped partially
off the sofa, and her head was hanging in a very awkward position. I
lifted her on to the sofa, and in so doing had satisfactory evidence,
in spite of the darkness, that Miss Cook was not attired in the
"Katie" costume, but had on her ordinary black velvet dress, and was
in a deep trance. Not more than three seconds elapsed between my
seeing the white-robed Katie standing before me and my raising Miss
Cook onto the sofa from the position into which she had fallen.

On returning to my post of observation by the curtain, Katie again
appeared, and said she thought she would be able to show herself and
her medium to me at the same time. The gas was then turned out and she
asked for my phosphorus lamp. After exhibiting herself by it for some
seconds, she handed it back to me, saying, "Now come in and see my
medium." I closely followed her into the library, and by the light of
my lamp saw Miss Cook lying on the sofa just as I had left her. I
looked round for Katie, but she had disappeared. I called her, but
there was no answer.

On resuming my place, Katie soon reappeared, and told me that she had
been standing close to Miss Cook all the time. She then asked if she
might try an experiment herself, and taking the phosphorus lamp from
me she passed behind the curtain, asking me not to look in for the
present. In a few minutes she handed the lamp back to me, saying she
could not succeed, as she had used up all the power, but would try
again another time. My eldest son, a lad of fourteen, who was sitting
opposite me, in such a position that he could see behind the curtain,
tells me he distinctly saw the phosphorus lamp apparently floating
about in space over Miss Cook, illuminating her as she lay motionless
on the sofa, but he could not see anyone holding the lamp.

I pass on to a seance held last night at Hackney. Katie never appeared
to greater perfection, and for nearly two hours she walked about the
room, conversing familiarly with those present. On several occasions
she took my arm when walking, and the impression conveyed to my mind
that it was a living woman by my side, instead of a visitor from the
other world, was so strong that the temptation to repeat a recent
celebrated experiment became almost irresistible.

Feeling, however, that if I had not a spirit, I had at all events a
_lady_ close to me, I asked her permission to clasp her in my arms, so
as to be able to verify the interesting observations which a bold
experimentalist has recently somewhat verbosely recorded. Permission
was graciously given, and I accordingly did--well, as any gentleman
would do under the circumstances. Mr. Volckman will be pleased to know
that I can corroborate his statement that the "ghost" (not
"struggling" however) was as material a being as Miss Cook herself.

Katie now said she thought she would be able this time to show herself
and Miss Cook together. I was to turn the gas out, and then come with
my phosphorus lamp into the room now used as a cabinet. This I did,
having previously asked a friend who was skillful at shorthand to take
down any statement I might make when in the cabinet, knowing the
importance attaching to first impressions, and not wishing to leave
more to memory than necessary. His notes are now before me.

I went cautiously into the room, it being dark, and felt about for
Miss Cook. I found her crouching on the floor.

Kneeling down, I let air enter the lamp, and by its light I saw the
young lady dressed in black velvet, as she had been in the early part
of the evening, and to all appearance perfectly senseless; she did not
move when I took her hand and held the light quite close to her face,
but continued quietly breathing.

Raising the lamp, I looked around and saw Katie standing close behind
Miss Cook. She was robed in flowing white drapery as we had seen her
previously during the seance. Holding one of Miss Cook's hands in
mine, and still kneeling, I passed the lamp up and down so as to
illuminate Katie's whole figure, and satisfy myself thoroughly that I
was really looking at the veritable Katie whom I had clasped in my
arms a few minutes before, and not at the phantasm of a disordered
brain. She did not speak, but moved her head and smiled in
recognition. Three separate times did I carefully examine Miss Cook
crouching before me, to be sure that the hand I held was that of a
living woman, and three separate times did I turn the lamp to Katie
and examine her with steadfast scrutiny, until I had no doubt whatever
of her objective reality. At last Miss Cook moved slightly, and Katie
instantly motioned me to go away. I went to another part of the
cabinet, and then ceased to see Katie, but did not leave the room till
Miss Cook woke up, and two of the visitors came in with a light.

Before concluding this article I wish to give some of the points of
difference which I have observed between Miss Cook and Katie. Katie's
height varies; in my house I have seen her six inches taller than Miss
Cook. Last night, with bare feet, and not "tiptoeing," she was
four-and-a-half inches taller than Miss Cook. Katie's neck was bare
last night; the skin was perfectly smooth both to touch and sight,
whilst on Miss Cook's neck is a large blister, which under similar
circumstances is distinctly visible and rough to the touch. Katie's
ears are unpierced, whilst Miss Cook habitually wears earrings.
Katie's complexion is very fair, while that of Miss Cook is very dark.
Katie's fingers are much longer than Miss Cook's, and her face is also
larger. In manners and ways of expression there are also many decided
differences.

After the observations summarized in these two letters Professor Crookes continued his experiments at his own home, for a space of two months. The result of all is embodied in the following statements made by Crookes himself:

During the week before Katie took her departure she gave seances at my
house almost nightly, to enable me to photograph her by artificial
light. Five complete sets of photographic apparatus were accordingly
fitted up for the purpose, consisting of five cameras, one of the
whole-plate size, one half-plate, one quarter-plate, and two binocular
stereoscopic cameras, which were all brought to bear upon Katie at the
same time on each occasion on which she stood for her portrait. Five
sensitizing and five fixing baths were used, and plenty of plates were
cleaned ready for use in advance, so that there might be no hitch or
delay during the photographic operations, which were performed by
myself, aided by one assistant.

My library was used as a dark cabinet. It has folding doors opening
into the laboratory; one of these doors was taken off its hinges, and
a curtain suspended in its place to enable Katie to pass in and out
easily. Those of our friends who were present were seated in the
laboratory facing the curtain, and the cameras were placed a little
behind them, ready to photograph Katie when she came outside, and to
photograph anything also inside the cabinet, whenever the curtain was
withdrawn for the purpose. Each evening there were three or four
exposures of plates in the five cameras, giving at least fifteen
separate pictures at each seance; some of these were spoilt in the
developing, and some in regulating the amount of light. Altogether, I
have forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent, and some
excellent.

Katie instructed all the sitters but myself to keep their seats and to
keep conditions; but for some time past she has given me permission to
do what I liked--to touch her, and to enter and leave the cabinet
almost whenever I pleased. I have frequently followed her into the
cabinet, and have sometimes seen her and her medium together, but most
generally I have found nobody but the entranced medium lying on the
floor, Katie and her white robes having instantaneously disappeared.

During the last six months Miss Cook has been a frequent visitor at my
house, remaining sometimes a week at a time. She brings nothing with
her but a little hand-bag, not locked. During the day she is
constantly in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, or some other
member of my family, and, not sleeping by herself, there is absolutely
no opportunity for any preparation even of a less elaborate character
than would be required for enacting Katie King. I prepare and arrange
my library myself as the dark cabinet, and usually, after Miss Cook
has been dining and conversing with us, and scarcely out of our sight
for a minute, she walks directly into the cabinet, and I, at her
request, lock its second door, and keep possession of the key all
through the seance. The gas is then turned out, and Miss Cook is left
in darkness.

On entering the cabinet, Miss Cook lies down upon the floor, with her
head on a pillow, and is soon entranced. During the photographic
seance, Katie muffled her medium's head up in a shawl to prevent the
light falling upon her face. I frequently drew the curtain on one side
when Katie was standing near, and it was a common thing for the seven
or eight of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie at the
same time, under the full blaze of the electric light. We did not on
these occasions actually see the face of the medium because of the
shawl, but we saw her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily under
the influence of the intense light, and we heard her moan
occasionally. I have one photograph of the two together, but Katie is
seated in front of Miss Cook's head.

During the time I took an active part in these seances Katie's
confidence in me gradually grew, until she refused to give a seance
unless I took charge of the arrangements. She said she always wanted
me to keep close to her, and near the cabinet, and I found that after
this confidence was established, and she was satisfied I would not
break any promise I might make to her, the phenomena increased greatly
in power, and tests were freely given that would have been
unobtainable had I approached the subject in another manner. She often
consulted me about persons present at the seances, and where they
should be placed, for of late she had become very nervous, in
consequence of certain ill-advised suggestions that force should be
employed as an adjunct to more scientific modes of research.

One of the most interesting of the pictures is one in which I am
standing by the side of Katie; she has her bare foot upon a particular
part of the floor. Afterwards I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed
her and myself in exactly the same position, and we were photographed
by the same cameras, placed exactly as in the other experiment, and
illuminated by the same light. When these two pictures are placed over
each other, the two photographs of myself coincide exactly as regards
stature, etc., but Katie is half a head taller than Miss Cook, and
looks a big woman in comparison with her. In the breadth of her face,
in many of the pictures, she differs essentially in size from her
medium, and the photographs show several other points of difference.

But photography is as inadequate to depict the perfect beauty of
Katie's face as words are powerless to describe her charms of manner.
Photography may, indeed, give a map of her countenance; but how can it
reproduce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or the ever-varying
expression of her most mobile features, now overshadowed with sadness
when relating some of the bitter experiences of her past life, now
smiling with all the innocence of happy girlhood when she had
collected my children round her and was amusing them by recounting
anecdotes of her adventures in India?

"Round her she made an atmosphere of life;
The very air seemed lighter from her eyes,
They were so soft and beautiful, and rife
With all we can imagine of the skies;
Her overpowering presence made you feel
It would not be idolatry to kneel."

Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she has been illuminated by
the electric light, I am enabled to add to the points of difference
between her and her medium which I mentioned in a former article. I
have the most absolute certainty that Miss Cook and Katie are two
separate individuals so far as their bodies are concerned. Several
little marks on Miss Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's
hair is so dark a brown as almost to appear black; a lock of Katie's,
which is now before me, and which she allowed me to cut from her
luxuriant tresses, having first traced it up to the scalp and
satisfied myself that it actually grew there, is a rich golden auburn.

One evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat steadily at 75, whilst Miss
Cook's pulse a little time after was going at its usual rate of 90. On
applying my ear to Katie's chest I could hear a heart beating
rhythmically inside, and pulsating even more steadily than did Miss
Cook's heart when she allowed me to try a similar experiment after the
seance. Tested in the same way, Katie's lungs were found to be sounder
than her medium's, for at the time I tried my experiment Miss Cook was
under medical treatment for a severe cough.

This mysterious being, this strange Katie King, had announced, from the time of her first appearances, that she would be able to show herself in this way for only three years. The end of this period was now approaching.

When the time came for Katie to take her farewell I asked that she
would let me see the last of her. Accordingly when she had called each
of the company up to her and had spoken to them a few words in
private, she gave some general directions for the future guidance and
protection of Miss Cook. From these, which were taken down in
shorthand, I quote the following: "Mr. Crookes has done very well
throughout, and I leave Florrie with the greatest confidence in his
hands, feeling perfectly sure he will not abuse the trust I place in
him. He can act in any emergency better than I can myself, for he has
more strength." Having concluded her directions Katie invited me into
the cabinet with her, and allowed me to remain there to the end.

After closing the curtain she conversed with me for some time, and
then walked across the room to where Miss Cook was lying senseless on
the floor. Stooping over her, Katie touched her, and said: "Wake up,
Florrie, wake up! I must leave you now."

Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated Katie to stay a little
time longer. "My dear, I can't; my work is done. God bless you," Katie
replied, and then continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several minutes
the two were conversing with each other, till at last Miss Cook's
tears prevented her speaking. Following Katie's instructions I then
came forward to support Miss Cook, who was falling onto the floor,
sobbing hysterically. I looked round, but the white-robed Katie had
gone. As soon as Miss Cook was sufficiently calmed, a light was
procured and I led her out of the cabinet.

One word more about this astonishing phenomenon. The medium Home, employed, as we have seen, in the first experiments of Professor Crookes, gave it to me as his personal opinion that Miss Cook was only a skilful trickster, and had shamefully deceived the eminent scientist, and as for mediums, why _there was only one absolutely trustworthy and that was himself, Daniel Dunglas Home_! He even added that the fiance of Miss Cook had given striking proofs of her extreme cantankerousness!

He who has observed at close hand the rivalries of mediums--which are as strongly marked as those of doctors, actors, musicians and women--will not, it seems to me, find in this talk of Home any intrinsic value whatever. But I must confess that this matter of Katie King is really so extraordinary that I am forced to try every possible explanation before admitting its truth. This is also the opinion of Mr. Crookes himself.

In order to convince myself (says he) I was constantly on my guard,
and Miss Cook readily assisted me in all my investigations. Every test
that I have proposed she has at once agreed to submit to with the
utmost willingness; she is open and straightforward in speech, and I
have never seen anything approaching the slightest symptom of a wish
to deceive. Indeed, I do not believe she could carry on a deception if
she were to try, and if she did she would certainly be found out very
quickly, for such a line of action is altogether foreign to her
nature. And to imagine that an innocent school-girl of fifteen would
be able to conceive and then successfully carry out for three years so
gigantic an imposture as this, and in that time would submit to any
test which might be imposed upon her, would bear the strictest
scrutiny, would be willing to be searched at any time, either before
or after a seance, and would meet with even better success in my own
house than at that of her parents, knowing that she visited me with
the express object of submitting to strict scientific tests--to
imagine, I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be the
result of imposture does more violence to one's reason and common
sense than to believe her to be what she herself affirms.

It will perhaps not be superfluous to round out these accounts of William Crookes by giving an extract from the journal _The Spiritualist_ of the 29th of May, 1874.

From the beginning of the mediumship of Miss Cook, the spirit Katie
King or Annie Morgan, who had produced the greater portion of the
physical part of the manifestations, had announced that she would not
be able to be with her medium longer than three years, and that after
that time she would say good-bye to her forever.

The end of that period came last Thursday; but before leaving her
medium, she gave her friends three more seances.

The last took place on Thursday, the 21st of May, 1874. Among the
spectators was Prof. William Crookes.

At 7.23 in the evening Professor Crookes led Miss Cook into the dark
cabinet, where she lay down upon the floor, her head resting on a
cushion. At 7.28 Katie spoke for the first time, and at 7.30 she
showed herself outside of the curtain in her full form. She was
dressed in white, short sleeves and bare neck. She had long light
auburn hair of a rich tint, falling in curls on each side of her head
and down her back to her waist. She wore a long white veil which was
not drawn down over her face more than once or twice during the
sitting.

The medium wore a light blue merino robe. During almost the whole of
the seance, Katie remained standing before us. The curtain of the
cabinet was drawn aside and all could distinctly see the medium lying
asleep, having her face covered with a red shawl, in order to shield
it from the light. Katie spoke of her approaching departure and
accepted a bouquet which Mr. Tapp had brought her, as well as a bunch
of lilies offered by Mr. Crookes. She asked Mr. Tapp to untie the
bouquet and to put the flowers before her on the floor. She then sat
down in the Turkish style and asked all to sit around her in the same
way. Then she divided the flowers and gave to each a little bouquet
tied up with a blue ribbon.

She then wrote letters to some of her friends, signing them "Annie
Owen Morgan," saying that was her true name during her life on earth.
She also wrote a letter to her medium, and chose for her a rosebud as
a good-bye gift. Katie then took the scissors, cut off a lock of her
hair and gave some of it to all of us. She then took Mr. Crookes' hand
and made the tour of the room, pressing the hand of each of us in
turn. She then sat down again and cut off several pieces of her robe
and of her veil for remembrances. Seeing such holes in her robe (she
being seated all this while between Mr. Crookes and Mr. Tapp), some
one asked her if she could repair the damage, as she had done on
previous occasions. She then held the cut part of the robe in the
light, gave one rap upon it, and instantly that part was whole and
unblemished as before. Those near her touched and examined the stuff,
with her permission. They affirmed that there was neither hole nor
scam, nor anything added at the very place where an instant before
they had seen holes several inches in diameter.

She next gave her last instructions to Mr. Crookes. Then, seeming
fatigued, she added that her force was disappearing, and repeated her
good-bye to everyone in the most affectionate manner. All present
thanked her for the wonderful manifestations which she had given them.

While she was directing toward her friends a last grave and pensive
look, she let fall the curtain, and it hid her from our view. We heard
her waking up the medium, who begged her with tears to remain a little
longer. But Katie said, "It is impossible, my dear; my mission is
accomplished; God bless you!" And we heard the sound of a kiss. The
medium then came out among us wholly exhausted and in a state of deep
dismay.

Such are the experiments of Sir William Crookes. I have restricted myself to relating his own personal observations, as set forth by himself. The story of Katie King is truly one of the most mysterious, the most incredible, to be found in the whole history of Spiritualistic research, and is at the same time, one of the cases that have been most scrupulously studied by the experimental method, including photography.

The medium, Miss Florence Cook, married in 1874 Mr. Elgie Corner, and, from that time on, her contributions to psychical research almost ceased. I have several times been assured that she also had been caught in the very act of cheating. (Always that feminine hysteria!) But the investigations of Crookes were conducted with such care and competence, that it is very difficult to refuse our credence. Besides, this scientist was not the only one to study the mediumship of Florence Cook. Among other works that may be consulted on this subject is one containing a large number of proofs and testimonies, as well as several photographs (alluded to above).[68]

These recorded cases, or testimonies, form a collection of records, the study of which is most instructive. The study of the great chemist surpass the rest, to be sure, but it does not diminish the intrinsic value of the others. All the observations agree and mutually confirm each other.

As to the explanation of the phenomena, Crookes thinks that we cannot discover it. Was this apparition what it claimed to be? There is nothing to prove it.

Might it not be a _double_ of the medium, a product of her psychic force?

The learned chemist did not change his opinion (as has been claimed) about the authenticity of the phenomena studied by him. In an address delivered at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Bristol in 1898, and of which he was President, he expressed himself as follows:

No incident in my scientific career is more widely known than the part
I took many years ago in certain psychic researches. Thirty years have
passed since I published an account of experiments tending to show
that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a Force exercised
by intelligence differing from the ordinary intelligence common to
mortals. This fact in my life is, of course, well understood by those
who honored me with the invitation to become your President. Perhaps
among my audience some may feel curious as to whether I shall speak
out or be silent. I elect to speak, although briefly.

To enter at length on a still debatable subject would be to insist on
a topic which,--as Wallace, Lodge and Barrett have already
shown,--though not unfitted for discussion at these meetings, does not
yet enlist the interest of the majority of my scientific brethren. To
ignore the subject would be an act of cowardice, an act of cowardice I
feel no temptation to commit.

To stop short in any research that bids fair to widen the gates of
knowledge, to recoil from fear of difficulty or adverse criticism, is
to bring reproach on science. There is nothing for the investigator to
do but to go straight on, "to explore up and down, inch by inch, with
the taper, his reason;" to follow the light wherever it may lead, even
should it at times resemble a will-o'-the wisp.

I have nothing to retract. I adhere to my already published
statements. Indeed, I might add much thereto. I regret only a certain
crudity in those early expositions, which, no doubt justly, militated
against their acceptance by the scientific world. My own knowledge at
that time scarcely extended beyond the fact that certain phenomena new
to science had assuredly occurred, and were attested by my own sober
senses, and, better still, by automatic record.

I was like some two-dimensional being who might stand at the singular
point of a Riemann's surface, and thus find himself in infinitesimal
and inexplicable contact with a plane of existence not his own.

I think I see a little farther now. I have glimpses of something like
coherence among the strange elusive phenomena; of something like
continuity between those unexplained forces and laws already known.
This advance is largely due to the labors of another Association of
which I have also this year the honor to be President--the Society for
Psychical Research. And were I now introducing for the first time
these inquiries to the world of science I should choose a starting
point different from that of old. It would be well to begin with
_telepathy_; with the fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that
thoughts and images may be transferred from one mind to another
without the agency of the recognized organs of sense, that knowledge
may enter the human mind without being communicated in any hitherto
known or recognized ways.

Although the inquiry has elicited important facts with reference to
the mind, it has not yet reached the scientific stage of certainty
which would entitle it to be usefully brought before one of our
sections. I will therefore confine myself to pointing out the
direction in which scientific investigation can legitimately advance.

If telepathy take place we have two physical facts--the physical
change in the brain of A, the suggester, and the analogous physical
change in the brain of B, the recipient of the suggestion. Between
these two physical events there must exist a train of physical causes.
Whenever the connecting sequence of intermediate causes begins to be
revealed the inquiry will then come within the range of one of the
sections of the British Association. Such a sequence can only occur
through an intervening medium. All the phenomena of the universe are
presumably in some way continous, and it is unscientific to call in
the aid of mysterious agencies when with every fresh advance in
knowledge it is shown that ether vibrations have powers and attributes
abundantly equal to any demand--even to the transmission of thought.
It is supposed by some physiologists that the essential cells of
nerves do not actually touch, but are separated by a narrow gap which
widens in sleep while it narrows almost to extinction during mental
activity. This condition is so singuarly like that of a Branly or
Lodge coherer as to suggest a further analogy.

The structure of brain and nerve being similar, it is conceivable
there may be present masses of such nerve coherers in the brain whose
special function it may be to receive impulses brought from without
through the connecting sequence of ether waves of appropriate order of
magnitude. Roentgen has familiarized us with an order of vibrations of
extreme minuteness compared with the smallest waves with which we
have hitherto been acquainted, and of dimensions comparable with the
distances between centers of the atoms of which the material universe
is built up; and there is no reason to suppose that we have here
reached the limit of frequency. It is known that the action of thought
is accompanied by certain molecular movements in the brain, and here
we have physical vibrations capable from their extreme minuteness of
acting directly on individual molecules, while their rapidity
approaches that of the internal and external movements of the atoms
themselves.

Confirmation of telepathic phenomena is afforded by many converging
experiments, and by many spontaneous occurrences only thus
intelligible. The most varied proof, perhaps, is drawn from analysis
of the sub-conscious workings of the mind, when these, whether by
accident or design, are brought into conscious survey. Evidence of a
region below the threshold of consciousness has been presented, since
its first inception, in the "Proceedings of the Society for Psychical
Research;" and its various aspects are being interpreted and welded
into a comprehensive whole by the pertinacious genius of F. W. H.
Myers.

A formidable range of phenomena must be scientifically sifted before
we effectually grasp a faculty so strange, so bewildering, and for
ages so inscrutable, as the direct action of mind on mind.

An eminent predecessor in this chair declared that "by an intellectual
necessity be crossed the boundary of experimental evidence, and
discerned in that matter, which we, in our ignorance of its latent
powers, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator,
have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the potency and promise of all
terrestrial life." I should prefer to reverse the apophthegm, and to
say that in life I see the promise and potency of all forms of matter.

In old Egyptian days a well-known inscription was carved over the
portal of the temple of Isis: "I am whatever hath been, is, or ever
will be; and my veil no man hath yet lifted." Not thus do modern
seekers after truth confront Nature,--the word that stands for the
baffling mysteries of the Universe. Steadily, unflinchingly, we
strive to pierce the inmost heart of Nature, from what she is to
re-construct what she has been, and to prophesy what she yet shall be.
Veil after veil we have lifted, and her face grows more beautiful,
august, and wonderful, with every barrier that is withdrawn.

It would be difficult to find truer thought better expressed. It is the language of true science, and is also the expression of the highest philosophy.