THE publication of an essay on the subject of apparitions in the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW (January, 1884) has been the cause of a variety of communications, which have been addressed to me by old friends as well as by strangers. Amongst them is one from the well-known Cambridge mathematician, Dr. Percival Frost, in which he writes inter alia as follows:—

       "I wish you had taken the case of hearing a sound in your mind's ear — quite as common as the apparition. I don't think you would have spoken of the little anvils, and hammers, and harp-strings by which the external vibrations would have been transmitted to the brain."

       This remark has suggested to me that it might be well to consider generally the possibility of communications between one mind and another mimicking (so to speak) any one of the senses — not the sense of sight only. The communication of an impression to the brain, and so of a thought or perception to the mind, comes (as we know) generally through the senses. The senses are the gateways of knowledge; gateways of very different magnitudes and different degrees of dignity — all gateways, nevertheless; and in the normal condition of communication between the external world and the mind, there is commonly no doubt or question as to which gate it is through which any given communication has been transmitted; though even here it may be noted that the transmission itself, and not the particular mode of transmission, is so much the more important point, that frequently we forget, rapidly and without difficulty, which gateway it was through which some particular knowledge entered the mind. We know, for example, that a certain thing has happened; but we sometimes cannot satisfy ourselves whether we saw it in a newspaper, or whether we heard it from the mouth of some informant. Hearing and seeing are, in fact, so completely recognized as partners in the conveyance of knowledge, that they are not unfrequently confused with each other, and either may pass under the title of the other without offence or jealousy. Thus, in replying to the letter of a friend, who announces his arrival at the end of a journey, one writes naturally enough, "I am glad to hear of your safe arrival," though the writer has never heard anything, but only seen the news in a letter; and, on the other hand, a person listening to an explanation from one with whom he is arguing by word of mouth, says equally naturally, "Yes, I see what you mean," though sight has, in fact, never been called in aid. Thus, one gateway of knowledge may be familiarly changed for another without any evil result; and, as I have already said, there may sometimes be a doubt as to the particular gate by which any given piece of knowledge has found access to the mind.

       What will be the case, if it be possible — as at least for argument may be supposed — for one mind to act upon another, not directly through the senses, but by what I have called a mimicry of the senses? This action upon the mind has acquired, amongst the members of the Psychical Research Society, the name of Telepathy. Let us adopt the name, for it seems to be a useful one — adopt it, of course, without absolutely assuming that it corresponds to anything real and actual, but only as a convenient expression for something the reality and actuality of which it is our purpose to investigate. Using then this terminology, the question before us is, will telepathic communication simulate one sense rather than another? Can that reverse action, which in my former paper I speculatively suggested in the case of the eye, be suggested as possible in the case of the ear, or of any other organ of the senses?

       The answer to such questions as these may well be prefaced by a few remarks upon the position of sight amongst the senses. It will, I suppose, be at once recognized as facile princeps amongst the teachers of the mind. It is no doubt wonderful to what an extent hearing can take the place of seeing when the eyes have become blind. The mind seems almost to develop new powers, specially in the direction of memory, and in drawing conclusions from slight inarticulate sounds, scarcely perceived by those who can see. The sense of touch, also, in the case of the blind, frequently strengthens to a wondrous degree, and becomes almost a new sense. There are even cases in which touch supplies a medium of communication to those who are both blind and deaf. Moreover, the relative values of seeing and hearing are different, if I am not mistaken, in different persons: some acquire knowledge more readily by the eye, some by the ear. Still, speaking generally, the eye is the chief and highest organ of sense, the supreme external bodily instrument of mental power; and thus it comes to pass that the kingly prerogative of sight is stretched, as prerogatives are apt to be, beyond its due limit. Language is framed not unfrequently upon the implied assumption that the eye is the only test of the material and sensible, instead of being the chief and most indubitable. Thus, for example, we speak of visible and invisible as exhaustive of all that exists. In the Nicene Creed the Almighty Father is described as "Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." The phrase is sufficient for its purpose, and for use in a popular universally repeated formula is better than one which might attempt more scientific exactness — better, for example, than if the phrase had been used "material and spiritual." Nevertheless, the phrase, when carefully examined, is certainly open to the objection that it arrogates to the eye a prerogative of distinguishing between one department of creation and another which does not belong to it, and for which it is inadequate. Visible implies the quality of being seen; but seen by whom or by what? An object may be visible to one eye and invisible to another. Vision depends, also, upon the presence of some illuminating power: objects are as material in a dark night as in the daytime, but they may be quite invisible. It is probable that vision in the case of insects is a very different power from what it is in the case of quadrupeds or men. Moreover, there are portions of the material universe, say the medium, the vibrations of which constitute light, or the electric fluid, if there be such a thing, concerning which it may possibly be asserted that they are actually invisible. The luminiferous ether, in fact, must be invisible, because it is the means by which everything is seen, and therefore cannot be seen itself. So that visible and invisible will not mean exactly the same thing as material and spiritual. Both phrases may be entirely exhaustive of creation, because it may be said that whatever is not included in the one category will be included in the other; but the dividing line in the two classifications will not necessarily be the same. You may have that which is material and which yet is invisible; material and visible need not be co-extensive, and cannot in fact be so.

       Nevertheless, that visible and material are commonly regarded as synonymes may be concluded from such a phrase as that which has been adopted as the title of their book by the authors of the "Unseen Universe." It gives a marvellous emphasis to the sublime passage, "Let there be light, and there was light," to consider that so far as we know the universe might have existed without light; the non-existence of the luminiferous ether appears to be mentally conceivable; and even if this be not so, there would seem to be no necessary reason why the vibrations of the ether should find an instrument such as the eye to receive them and to convert them into sight. We have no such organ adapted to electric agency; it is only in the most recent times that the action of electricity has been so converted as to become perceptible by eye and ear. Yet what a different creation a universe in this signification of the term unseen must have been; unseen, not because in its nature spiritual, and on that account invisible, but because the medium of sight, or the optical mechanism, or both, had been left out of the creational scheme.

       Now let us return to the question which has been proposed — namely, whether a reverse action may not be conceived in the case of other senses than that of sight. To make what is here advanced intelligible, let me remind the reader of what is meant by the reverse action of which I speak. I have urged in my former essay that if, as is undoubtedly the case, an object affects the eye by means of luminous vibrations, which, falling on the retina, convey their effect to the brain, and there, by a mysterious process which it baffles us to conceive, are transmuted into thought or mental perception, then it is at least conceivable that the same thought or mental perception may be produced by some other action upon the mind, and that when so produced it may cause the belief that it proceeds from an external object acting upon the brain, and so upon the mind through the optical machinery of the eye. If it be asked, supposing this true of sight, Why not of the other senses? I reply, Why not? A priori, I know of no reason why it should be true of one of the gateways of knowledge rather than of another, except that, in accordance with the views above expounded, I should be disposed to expect that sight, being beyond all doubt the grandest and most important gateway, would exhibit more examples of the process than any other.

       And this expectation seems to me to coincide with fact and experience, so far as fact and experience can be admitted to exist in this mysterious region. Let us examine what the several senses have to say for themselves.

       1. First, take hearing. In the vulgar ghost story the ear has sufficient occupation; clanking of chains, rustling of dresses, all kinds of uncanny sounds, have their recognized place. A ghost story would lack much of its creepiness if it confined itself to the sense of sight, though undoubtedly many do so confine themselves. But in apparition stories, of a kind which would be accepted by the Psychical Research Society, sound is not always wanting. For example: in a most strange tale, published in the July number of the Nineteenth Century, by Messrs. Gurney and Myers, on the personal testimony of Sir Edmund Hornby, the sense of hearing plays almost, if not quite, as important a part as the sense of seeing. Taking a broad view of apparition stories, the claims of which to acceptance are respectable, I think it may be said that while sight, as the very name apparition implies, is the sense chiefly simulated, it is impossible to exclude narratives in which the sense of hearing occurs. It may be a result of that marvellous instinct which lifts Shakspeare almost out of the level of ordinary human intellect, that the ghost of Hamlet's father is represented as appealing to sight more frequently and (so to speak) more readily than to hearing. Horatio, when he first opened the mystery to Hamlet, had seen the ghost and was certain of its personality, but had never heard it speak: speech first showed itself under the influence of Hamlet himself.

       If we look to the reason of the thing, it is difficult to suppose that communications to the mind by some spiritual agency would be confined to the mimicry of sight and not extend to hearing. For if the communication be made for any special purpose, that purpose may conceivably be unattainable by simple vision; vision may be enough, but also it may be insufficient; if the purpose of the communication be the giving of some definite knowledge, the latter would probably be the case. Hence, I suppose, it is that those Divine communications which are recognized in Holy Scripture universally involve speech: "The Lord said unto him in a vision" — εἶπεν πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐν ὁράματι;^* the extraordinary conditions of the communication are all implied in the term vision; but the vision is for the very purpose, and only for the purpose, of conveying a direction which could only be given under the form of speech. In fact, in the case now cited there is no record of sight being called into play at all; the command to Ananias is represented as being given by a voice, and the utterer of the words remains, so far as the history informs us, unseen throughout the interview.

* Acts ix. 10.

       To quote another case from Holy Scripture, we read of the first revelation being made to Samuel by a voice: "The Lord called Samuel, and he answered, Here am I." The whole of the interview was vocal; in fact, it was He who is emphatically the unseen God that revealed himself to the child prophet. Yet the writer tells us that "Samuel feared to show Eli the vision."^* The highest attribute of God is that He is unseen and may not be represented by a visible image; but the Word of God is the keynote both of the Old Testament and of the New.

* 1 Sam, iii. 15.

       In reality, it is impossible to keep seeing and hearing clear of each other. A word used by myself, in each of the two preceding paragraphs may be cited as a witness. I have spoken of an interview being vocal, and of a speaker being unseen in an interview; and probably there is no incorrectness in doing so; yet an interview, by the very composition of the word, implies sight; view cannot be vocal. Nevertheless, in the interviewing of which, in these days, we know so much, the mere seeing of some illustrious visitor is manifestly of second-rate importance, or perhaps of no importance at all; the essence of interviewing consists in the extraction of information or the ascertaining of opinion. A newspaper correspondent could carry on an interview from behind a curtain almost as easily as in broad daylight; sight, which is the essence of the name, may be disregarded in considering the thing.

       To return, however, to the main question. I know of no good reason why, if the reverse process suggested in the case of seeing be possible, the same reversal should not take place in the case of hearing. The difficulty which I feel is to assign a reason why, in some cases, one sense should be chosen as the medium of communication rather than the other. Supposing, for example, that it is possible for a man who has been drowned to communicate the fact to one yet in the body, it is difficult to say that an appearance to the eye in clothes dripping with water is more appropriate than the uttering of the sentence, "I have just been drowned while bathing." But it is manifest that we have not data enough to enable us to deal with the problem in this fashion; we cannot say what is appropriate or inappropriate in such a subject; some may regard any kind of communication with the mind, except through the senses, as inappropriate, or even as impossible. But we are in the position of persons having alleged facts with which to deal; and if the alleged facts have sufficient evidence upon which to rest, it may be our duty to consider whether they are so absolutely incredible, per se, as to make them unworthy of discussion, and to render it waste of time to attempt to bring them even approximately within the limits of scientific thought. The mode of regarding the competing claims of sight and sound which commends itself most to my own judgment is this: grant the possibility of a communication to the mind made directly and not through the senses, and it will then depend upon conditions, of which we have no knowledge, whether the communication presents itself under the form of sight or of hearing, or of the two combined.

       There is a fine passage in the Book of Job, in which this combination is expressed in language of genuine poetry:&151;

       "In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men,
       "Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake.
       "Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up;
       "It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof; an image was before mine eyes; there was silence, and I heard a voice."^*

* Job iv. 13-16.

       2. I proceed now to discuss with reference to the subject in hand the sense of feeling.

       This shall be done by quoting from a letter written to me by a medical correspondent in connection with my former article. My correspondent writes as follows:—

       "With reference to your article in this month's CONTEMPORARY, which I have just read with very great pleasure, it occurred to me whilst reading it that there are certain physiological facts which give support to your views of reverse action. One, and perhaps the most striking, is the familiar one of irritation of any part of a nerve being referred by the consciousness to the terminal expansion of it, and this even when the end is cut off, as in the case of the amputated limb. This is a clear case of reverse action. There are also instances of hallucinations of sight, hearing, and taste, due doubtless to the same mode of action, the cause in the latter instances being morbid; but even a morbid activity establishes the possibility of such activity, and where there is morbid action there is also a field for healthy action.

       "Granting the supposition of direct spiritual communications, it is in the highest degree probable that the ideational centres of the brain will be stimulated in action, and through them the nerves that lead to the senses, and so the result to which you refer will be brought about. More especially is this likely to be the case during sleep, which is a state highly favourable to the objective projection of images in the mind."

       The remarks here quoted cover a wider surface than that in connection with which they have been adduced; but I have thought it best to give them in their completeness, as illustrative of the whole subject with which I am dealing. The physiological fact adduced — namely, that of apparent sensation in a foot after the foot has been amputated, differs from the case of apparent vision when there is no actual external object to stimulate the eye in this — namely, that although the foot is gone the nerves still exist, and are in communication with the brain, although their extremities are removed; whereas in the case of vision all the machinery is there, and we must suppose the machinery put in motion in an absolutely abnormal manner; but there is a strong analogy and resemblance between the two cases nevertheless, for in both the mind is deceived by an abnormal action; in the one case, the man sees, as he believes, an object which has no existence; in the other he feels, as he believes, pain or itching in a foot which equally has no existence. In this way, therefore, one case explains and supports the other.

       But regarding the sense of feeling with reference to telepathic phenomena, no illustration can be more remarkable or more complete than that afforded by the experience of Mrs. Arthur Severn, as detailed in the May number of the Nineteenth Century. Here we have testimony, apparently irrefragable, of a wife imagining herself, or believing herself, to be the subject of a blow actually experienced by the husband at a distance from the wife, and with no possibility of any communication with her, saving such as may be called spiritual. No apparition theory can easily be more wonderful, in a certain sense more incredible, than this; yet it may be said, not only that it would seem difficult to shake the evidence, but also that if in any circumstances and under any conditions telepathy be possible, there would seem to be no reason why the communication should not mimic the sense of feeling as much as that of seeing or hearing.

       3. My correspondent, whom I quoted not long ago, speaks of hallucinations of taste being as certain as those of sight and hearing. An instance which occurred within my own knowledge a short time since may be enough for my present purpose.

       A young woman, whom I will call A, suffered much from headache, and asked another young woman, whom I will call B, whether she could give her relief. B said she thought she could do so, and went upstairs for a dose of sal volatile. Finding her bottle empty, with the exception of a few drops, and wishing not to disappoint her friend, she determined upon a bold experiment. Putting a drop or two into a glass she filled the glass with water, and carried the dose to her suffering friend. A put the amateur medicine to her lips, and remarking that it was very nasty to the taste, swallowed it. The result was that the headache departed; and so remarkable was the success, that the dose was repeated for several days, always with the like effect; and when A and B separated, A made petition that she might have the prescription for this marvellous medicine. The curative power of this harmless treatment is a matter upon which I shall have something to say presently; the point to which I now direct attention is the hallucination of taste. The nasty flavour which A experienced could not have originated in the fluid (which practically was merely water) acting upon the tongue; but must, I suppose, have originated in the brain itself, or in that part of the mind which deals with taste, if there be a department of the mind in which such vulgar business is transacted. The result is parallel to that of an apparition, or of a man having sensation in his toes when his foot has been amputated. Cases such as that which I have adduced do not illustrate directly the telepathic side of the subject; but they show that the sense of taste, like the other senses, is subject to hallucination, and I should not be surprised to hear of persons being so brought into rapport that a taste experienced by one should be imagined as an experience by the other.

       4. The remaining sense is that of smelling, concerning which, I confess, there is not much to be said. It is no doubt in a certain manner and degree a gateway of the mind; but it has this peculiarity, that it becomes more narrow and less passable as the mind itself becomes elevated and refined. Taking a general view of the animal kingdom, with man as the head of it, we may say that the sense of smelling is of almost supreme importance in some departments of the kingdom, but that with civilized man it has become nearly extinct, and chiefly noticeable in connection with such things as lavender-water and eau de Cologne.

       Hence, although for the sake of completeness and symmetry I have mentioned this almost discarded sense, I have nothing to advance respecting it in furtherance of my general argument.

       Passing away then from the consideration of the particular senses into the general discussion of the subject which includes them all, I think it may be maintained with some considerable force of argument —

       (1) That there may be, and sometimes is, exhibited a reversal of the ordinary process, according to which the senses are the inlets to the mind of the perception of external things; so that the mind is affected first, and produces as an effect either an actual or an imagined sensation.

       (2) That there is not a little evidence to show that this mental affection sometimes arises from the sympathy of other minds, and even from the influence of those who are no longer alive in the body.

       The first of these two propositions is much the simpler of the two; it is only in the second that we trench upon the land of telepathy and ghosts. Nevertheless, the first is important in itself, and helps so much towards the second, that it may be worth while to dwell upon it for a few moments.

       Take as an illustration results which are said to arise from imagination. We are told that the worst preparation for the cholera is to be afraid of it, and that the belief that you have got the complaint is not unlikely to verify itself. This may or may not be true; but the same kind of result can be placed beyond all doubt by actual observation in a less terrible field. Let me give an example. A gentleman was leaving Ostend in company with a friend who was an excessively bad sailor and dreaded the passage. Having two or three hours to wait until the tide served for the starting of the steamer, the bad sailor retired to his berth and prepared for the worst. After an hour or more his friend, going down to see him, found him in the horrors of sea-sickness, although the ship had all the time been as immovable as the pier to which she was moored. Most persons have met with experiences similar to that here related, and the common explanation is that "it is all fancy." But why should fancy produce such results? One can understand that a person dreading some particular misery may fall asleep and dream that he is undergoing it, but that the mind by the process of dread should produce the very physical condition which is connected with the dread, is certainly a very remarkable result. and one which would scarcely have been anticipated. And I do not say that to speak of reversing the order of operations between the senses, the brain, and the mind can really explain the phenomenon, but certainly this theory of reversal seems to enable us to comprehend better than we otherwise should what takes place; and the phenomenon seems to indicate that this is the method of operation, and that we have in this view at least a partial explanation of what we mean when we say that a curious result is "all fancy" or "all imagination." It is possible that in this view is to be found the key to such strange experiences as the alleged stigmata of St. Francis.

       It seems to me also that I may claim as corroborative evidence of the view which I am now putting forward, the opinions of that remarkable man, James Hinton. Those who have read his life will remember how much importance he attached to the medical theory which he described as curing by the emotions. It seemed to him that the solution of the mysteries of homœopathy and the reconciliation of homœopathists with the orthodox school of medicine was to be found in the supposition that the emotions of the mind might be made the originations of the curative process. Of course I, as a layman in medical matters, pronounce no opinion upon a medical question; but, in connection with the views of this paper, I venture to introduce two or three passages from Mr. Hinton's letters. In one of them he writes as follows:—

       "To come to my work. The last month has been an invaluable one to me. I have made a great step in knowledge, and have gained a great accession of humility. I have become wise, and discovered that I was a fool. . . . . My grand discovery is nothing but that simple fact I told you of before, which has been embodied in the common proverb that fancy kills or fancy cures. . . . .

       "Twenty years ago a doctor was walking through a field of peas. He took a few in his hand, and as he meditated he rolled them between his fingers. While thus engaged, he passed by a house where lived a woman deranged in health. She thought if a doctor was rolling anything in his hand it must be a pill, and asked him to give her some, for she had taken much medicine, and could get no better. He gave her two peas; she took them; the next day he called, and found that they had cured her. . . .

       "Now, if he had studied that fact, as God commanded him, what might he have done? First, he might have spared the world a great part of the nonsense that has been talked about mesmerism, electro-biology, and homœopathy, and have saved from pollution the paper on which have been printed the cruel rules with which mankind have been persecuted on these subjects. Secondly, he might have brought into practical use a mighty agent for the relief of our suffering fellow-creatures that God has entrusted to us."

       Again, in another letter:—

       "I'll tell you why women were made to blush. It is that I might discover by means of it how it is that anything that acts on the emotions will cause and cure disease.

       "I think the matter is so plain that I can explain it to you in a very few words. It is as plain as the reason why water rises in a pump — namely, that the air presses it; but that was as mysterious while people didn't know that the air had any weight, as it is now how an infinitesimal dose should cure a disease, the mystery being simply that people haven't yet discovered that the emotions have weight.

       "Mr. Astley Cooper published in his lectures (thirty years ago) that the only cause he could discover for cancer was mental distress; and that, he was sure, would produce it. The whole medical world has read these lectures since; and yet, now go to a medical man, and tell him that a cancer has been cured by the production of emotions, and he will laugh at you. "If a person loses too much blood he has a headache, which is due to there being too little blood in the brain, and the vessels, accordingly, too much contracted. Now, we have seen that depressing emotions contract the blood-vessels, and as such an emotion produces a headache precisely the same as that which is caused by loss of blood, I presume that the same physical condition exists in both cases — namely, a contracted state of the blood-vessels in the brain. Now, having got a headache arising from contraction of these vessels, what is the cure? Of course, relax them. And how shall we do that" One way will immediately suggest itself to you — namely, to produce a cheerful emotion, which, as you know, is seen to relax the vessels. Suppose we excite hope; is not the thing done? — that is to say, give the patient a globule. I should think it would cure him. If it won't, my theory is wrong; but I don't think it is, because a spoonful of water will cure, as in this case that Mr. F. attended last week. A lady sent for him in a great hurry, late in the evening. She was very ill, and her friends thought that she was going to die. She had intense headache, restlessness, vomiting upon the least movement, and so on — in fact, the vessels in her brain were constricted by fear. Mr. F., like a wise man (having profited by my experience), gave her a teaspoonful of water. The first dose stopped the sickness, cured the headache, and sent her to sleep. Is that a mystery 7 The interpretation of it is written easily on every woman's cheek. The hope relaxed the vessels. I haven't selected this case because the affection was nervous, but only because I could describe it easily in simple language. I know of still more striking cases of real disease cured manifestly in the same way."^*

* "Life and Letters of James Hinton," p. 60.

       The reader will perceive how strongly these views of a speculative yet practical medical man bear upon the subject of this essay. Curing by the emotions of the mind, acting upon matter through mind, beginning with the higher part of man's being, and making the higher act upon the lower, may clearly be taken as an example of that reverse action with which I am endeavouring to deal.

       There is something elevating and inspiriting in the thought that the emotions of the mind can really act as a medicine, that hope may in some cases be more potent than calomel. If a teaspoonful of water can act through the emotions, there is no quackery in administering it; to be cured by fancy is as satisfactory as being cured by drugs; and it may be that some of the cures which pass for miraculous, and which it is easier to sneer at than to disprove, may belong to that wide class in which the emotions play a prominent part. It might be well to consider some of the tales of the grotto of Lourdes in our own time, as well as some of more ancient date, in this light.

       It is perhaps scarcely necessary to guard against the supposition that it is intended to imply that there is any necessary connection between the possibility of a reversed action of the mind and senses, and the possibility of apparitions, or generally of what may be described as telepathic phenomena. The reality or unreality of this whole class of phenomena must, I apprehend, rest upon the question of sufficiency or insufficiency of evidence. If the evidence be insufficient, as in the case of a large number of instances it undoubtedly is, there is an end of the matter; but if, after making every allowance for superstition, exaggeration, error by transmission, positive blunders, and intentional invention, there is still much of what commonly passes for supernatural, and which yet cannot be easily contradicted, much also which seems to indicate a region in which the ordinary laws of matter do not possess a monopoly of influence, then it may be that the consideration of these exceptional facts will be helped by perceiving that such a reversal of the ordinary sequence of matter and mind is in some cases demonstrable, and therefore in other cases at least credible.

       With regard to the general question of the possibility of telepathic action, it may perhaps be asked, and I take this opportunity of asking, whether antecedently the action of mind upon mind is more difficult to conceive and believe than the action of matter upon matter? Yet it is a simple fact, that each particle of matter in existence is in what may almost be described as vital connection with every other particle, whatever may be the distance and whatever amount of matter may intervene. Professor Stokes, in his recently published volume "On the Nature of Light," refers to a conversation which he had with the late Sir David Brewster, who, with reference to the undulatory theory, was "staggered by the idea of filling space with some substance;" and he then adds, "I cannot say that this particular difficulty is one which ever presented itself as such to my own mind. To me the difficulty is rather that of conceiving such an influence as that of gravitation to extend across an absolute void." Professor Stokes then quotes a well-known but remarkable passage from Sir Isaac Newton, who says, "Gravity must be caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether this agent be material or immaterial, I leave to the consideration of my readers."^*

* "On the Nature of Light," p. 15.

       Thus Sir David Brewster had a difficulty in conceiving a universe of matter, Professor Stokes has the opposite difficulty of conceiving a vacuum, and Sir Isaac Newton will not exclude the notion of an immaterial agent; meanwhile the fact remains that, in the case of gravity, telepathic action takes place universally and invariably. In the presence of this mysterious, unexplained, and possibly inexplicable fact, there would seem to be some rashness in asserting the incredibility of mental telepathy.

       And having arrived at this point, I might perhaps bring this essay to a close; but I am tempted to detain the reader one moment longer. Amongst the criticisms which my former paper has called forth, there is one which I think it important to notice, because it contains a remark which ought to be refuted.

       A writer in the periodical entitled Light writes thus:—

       "There is another matter which I am surprised the Bishop did not take into consideration. It (i.e., my theory) destroys, I may say pulverizes, all our confidence in the fact of the Resurrection. If the fact be so, what more likely than that the Apostles, intensely and eagerly desiring the reappearance of their Lord on earth according to His own promise, had the usual process inverted in their own case, and that their minds set in motion the usual process, instead of an external reality? Away goes all certainty in the Resurrection — away goes all certainty in the administration of justice."

       The meaning of the last nine words I do not apprehend; but so far as certainty in the Resurrection is concerned, I should be grieved to think that any line written by me could tend to cause a doubt, and I do not believe that such is likely to be the case. I may, however, point out, as the suggestion of this possibility has been made, the very remarkable care taken to guard against the supposition that the Resurrection was of the nature of an apparition, and that our Lord's risen body was a phantom body. Let me quote two passages. "He said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts, arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see me have; and when he had thus spoken he showed them his hands and his feet."^* Again, in the palmary proof of the reality of the Resurrection granted to the doubting Apostle Thomas we read: "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing."^✗ If it were necessary, it might be pointed out that the notion of "the Apostles intensely and eagerly desiring the reappearance of their Lord" is one which has no foundation in fact, and, on the other hand, is contradicted by the historical record; but it is sufficient for my purpose to observe that if it had been anticipated by the writers of the New Testament that there would be, in future ages, a tendency to explain away the Resurrection as an apparition originating in the minds of the Apostles, and not corresponding to an objective fact, they could not have framed their records more carefully and more completely with the apparent intention of making such a view of the Resurrection altogether untenable. The universal acceptance of the Apostles' Creed as the symbol of the faith of Christendom is the evidence of the measure of their success.

H. CARLISLE.      

* St. Luke xxiv. 39, 40. ✗ St. John xx. 27.

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