The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-04-05

ANN ARBOft, MICH, April f.-1)df-
ing as are the assertions at the present
moment being made by our leading
psychologists, they are scarcely more
so than those made by our accredited
leaders of psychological science.
In fact, so strongly are the results
of the latter being felt that the pre-
tensions of the ultra materialiStS are
rapidly giving way before the argu-
mentS of the mere philosophers. That
life is not "a narrow vale between the
peaks of two eternities" is not yet def
nitely proven, but when the guns OF
the mature analytical intellects of the
day are trained upon the psychological
part Of man as steadily as they have
been upon the physiological we are
likely to learn something which will
definitely prove that there are more
things in Heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in our philosophy"
A leading New York newspaper re-
Gently gave symposium of opinions
by eminent divines and others on the
subject of telepathy. Not only did
these persons aver their belief IN such
a thing, but they went so far as to
say that telepathy between mind and
mind, irrespective of distance, was a
common occurrence between the living
and the dead, and the living and the
living, and that probably the sixth
sense" would become common after a
less telegraphy.
The psychical research societies have
for a long time been attempting to
solve the mystery Of the after life and
have accumulated much valuable mat
ter among a lot of intangible, unintel-
ligible rubbish. An earnest and abso-
lutely honest student of this great puZ-
Zle was the late DR.. Robert Newton,
a member of the American institute,
who devoted the latter years of his
life to trying to solve this problem.
He approached the question from both
scientific and a philosophical point
of view, had iron cages especially built
in his laboratory in which he placed
SplrltualtStlc mediums and aVOWed his
inability to confine that mysterious
something about them by mere bars
of iron or steel. DR.. Newton died posi-
tive that his hypothesis to the effect
that there We're forces in human ma
ture which he could not analyze and
that some mediums at least were posi-
tive puzzles to the sharpest and most
critical minds. No one ever said that
DIR. Newton was q dupe, although many
who had not taken the pains and gone
TO the expense to investigate as he had
done doubtless considered him crazy.
The same class of persons would tell
You that planchette is only a fools toy,
but let them give an explanation of
Ghetto and there will be plenty of hon
or for them from the highest sources.
The most severe shock which the
scoffers at the "unknOwable" have had
in a generation is the publication of a
posthumous work by F. w. II. Myers,
Of England, called Human Personality
and It's Survival of Bodily Death" 1t
is a very expensive work and will find
little sale except among the, erudite.
As long since atteSted by Prof. James,
Myers had an extraordinary grasp Of
the principles of evolution, and a rare
faculty for working out suggestions of
mental evolution by means of biological
analysis.
His preliminary inquiry leads him to
essay a classification and co-ordina-
tiOn of the obscure and sporadic phe-
nQnlena, which at all stages of human
history have disturbed and baffled the
intellect-the phenomena of genius, of
trance, of dreams, of disintegrated per-
sOnality, of second sight, mind healing,
demOniacal possession, the stigmata of
the saint and the alterations of the
hysteric, sensOry and motor automa-
tism hypnotic talaesthesia and telep-
athy, and Of that wide field of persist
ent human belief in phantasm or APP
partition. The path leads through the
tangled underground of this enchanted
forest to a theory at once simple and
striking. Human personality, as it
has developed from loWly ancestors,
has become differentiated into two
phases; one of them, mainly adapted to
material or planetary, the other to
spiritual or coSmic operation" The
former is the self known to conscious
ness; the latter-and here we touch the
core Of the arguments the sublimi
nal consciousness, of whose existence
We are at most dimly aware, as re-
aNEll
threshold of ordinary waking life and
thought, which is at once a storehouse
of all that has ever passed through the
usual avenues of sense, and has thus
accumulated a world of experience, not
indeed recoverable at will, but never
lost-a palimpSest from which no writ
ing is erased-but also the home of the
true self or soul, in touch with the
'metetherial' or spiritual environment,
capable of the activities different ir
kind and quality from those known to
our ordinary waking mind, and des-
tined to survive the disintegration of
the physical organism.
Hitherto, in Myers view, evolution
has developed, in response to the slim
uil Of earthly evirQnment, conscious
ness adapted only to the maintenance
and guidance of earthly life. I'VE are
still watching the emergence of un-
guessed potentialities from the primal
germ we at times have evidence of
the response of faculty to stimulus not
yet universally felt, so that the expe.
Tlence of the genius or the "sensitiven
IS like that OF our early ancestor who
felt upon his pigment spot the solar
ray, an announced to his tribe a new
sensation, light" The world which
tby virtue of the early development of
latent power) they announce to US
is world to communication with
winch, IN the process of evolution the
whole race must eventually attain. In
the Phenomena associated with the ac-
uon OF the subliminal self we have a
glimpse OF faculties newly daWning
and of a destiny greater than we
KNOW Here, it is suggested, we have
the source of the dramas of the peonled
world of sleep, recalled, if at all, on
waking IN dim imperfect fashion. but
occasionally so vivid as to force their
way unimpaired into the chain of con-
Sclous memory, and at times-who
knows how?-telephatic beyond rea-
sOnable doubt.
OF Mr.. Myers work the London
Times literary reviewer saws:
Frederick Myers held no philosophi-
cal chair, the work upon which during
the greater part of his life he was engage
ed received the sanction of few AMONG
the leaders of thought in the counfrv
Yet 1t IS not too much to say that in
this posthumous work, which sums nm the
iabors Of his life, we have the most dar-
ing excursion into psychology produced
in the present generation, a work which
II REQUIRES no unusual acumen to nre-
dict will take high rank in the libiarv of
psychoIoSlcal science. 1t will compel at
tention to a field of investigation which
the official world of knowledge has hith-
ertO refused to include in its bo1lndar iec
a field in which the pioneer work has