The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-08

vestigators of the world almost to the
exclusion of the problems Of the spirit.
That realm has been left to the poet,
sometimes inspired but sometimes also
merely fantastic, to the metaphysician
with his purely logical and barren ar
guments, and to. the wizards that peep
and that mutter and the common faker.
A whole realm of life, pregnant with
the most wonderful possibilities and
fairly bursting with truths that could
not be concealed, has been deserted
through the ages; and its very exist
ence as world to be explored, mapped
and brought under the rule of universal
law has been secuted and denied.
Within our own time men imbued
with more generous scientific spirit
have set aside this strange PROPOSES
sion and begun the investigation of i'm
material phenomena in truly scientific
way. The societies for psychical re-
search in Great Britain and in the
United States went about their work
exactly as men like Darwin and Her
bert Spencer went about theirs. They
collected great volumes Of phenomena,
sifted the true from the false, applied
to them rigidly the laws of evidence
and accepted only such as could stand
exactly the same test required in a
work on biology or chemistry Under
ridicule, misunderstood, suffering un-
deserved reproach, these inquiring spir-
it's have succeeded finally in isolating
residuum of fact relating to mental
and spiritual energy which cannot be
successfully attacked; which is, in 9TH
er words, as worthy of final credence
as any of the statements to be found in
the text books of natural science.
The body of these conclusions has
been set forth with rare clearness, force
and fairness by the lamented w. n. H.
Meyers in his great work on Human
Personality and Its Survival After
Bodily Death" In these two immense
volumes will be found the bulk of such
truths relating to immaterial phe-
nomena and their laws of operation as
have been fairly established, with such
wealth of illustration, supported by
such carefully prepared scientific con-
ditions, that doubt would be severely
unscientific. One may not accept all
the conclusions of Mr.. Meyers, but one
must accept his facts. From these
facts the existence of telepathy is as
well demonstrated as that of hypno-
tism. From these facts one knows
that there is a secondary personality,
or what is called a subliminal self, Just
as surely as he knows that there is a
continent called Africa. He knows that
the possibility and truth of clairvoy-
ance, although there have been in
Vulnerable pretenders and frauds, are
no more to be doubted than the prac-
ticability of telegraphic communication
without use of the wires.
What Mr.. Newton announces, there
fore, is no novelty, no uncertainty, and,
with the exception, that the spirits of the
dead can communicate with those of the
living, has been just as well establish
ed and accepted by thoughtful and well
informed persons as the ability to
move a motor by an electric current.
This last proposition, involving what
has been commonly denominated .'spir-
itualism," Mr.. Meyers accepted for him
self, but his evidence is inconclusive.
The utmost effect that it can produce
open and to admit an improved possi-
bility either way.
The subject deserves a larger atten-
ton and a wider audience because OF
it's immense Importance. The man
who should make discovery which
would add millions to the wealth OF
the world tomorrow would be heralded
from end to end of it as one Of the
great ones of his age. How infinitely
more important is the man who dis
covers realm of law that might ex-
pand indefinitely the action and estab-
lish the permanence of those differing
and obscure forces which we call life
Wireless telegraphy is commercially
valuable. The possibility of communi-
cation from mind to mind across a
| world of intervening space without a
| medium Of written or spoken word is
as much grander as the heavens are
higher than the earth. TO this field OF
infinite possibilities it seems to us the
energy, the enthusiasm and the deYo-
tion of the scientific instinct in this
generation ought to be directed. Out OF
| 1t are to come the discoveries and the
| laws that will give new Y,oeanipo no.