combined organism is the result.

According to this view, by the simple addition of moners, we obtain something none of them singly possessed. The single moner has only sensitiveness, their infinite aggregate, in the human being, has feeling, intelligence, will, and God-like aspirations. The time old axiom never before disputed is set aside, and the sum is declared to be not only greater than its parts—it is infinitely greater, and acquires qualities which the parts do not possess.

It may be urged that in the acquisition of new qualities the same is true of the chemical union of elements, which yield products entirely different in quality from the combining bodies. These, however, unite in fixed proportions in a manner far from understood, while, with the hypothetical moners, they are aggregated mechanically, as polyps in a cluster, and this union of individuals changes not their functions, but simply increases the mass.

Whether we accept this moner hypothesis, or the more generally received theory that life is the product of organization, arising from the chemical actions in the body, it is impossible to say wherein the dead animal differs from the living. Analysis can not reveal this secret, for the living animal can not be subjected to that test. The life principle escapes before the alembic or retort is brought into requisition. The song of the bird can not be found by chemical analysis. We know that the living being is held together, and dominated over by the strongest forces, and the moment these relax their hold, decomposition commences. What are these forces? Whence do they come? Whither do they go?

Life and Mind.—Taking vital force in its highest expression, in man, it is self-conscious and has independent will. It arises above the atoms of its physical being, above the influences which environ it, and says, I will, and executes that will. I know well that if we here leave physical science for metaphysics, there are philosophers who would not only reason away this force, but the existence of the body itself. They are true intellectual acrobats; amusing jugglers, who throw words instead of painted balls, and confuse by their wonderful dexterity. Yet, after all has been said, we know we exist and have physical bodies. Had we not such bodies the thought of them would never have been fashioned in our minds. As we know the sun will rise, or the night follow, we know we have bodily forms, and are thereby brought in contact with the physical world. It is a fact, and as such can not be reasoned away. In the same manner we are conscious of a mental or spiritual life which arches the physical world as the dome of the sky.

Is the Gulf between Spirit and Matter Bridged?—Here we come to that vague and uncertain realm where spirit touches matter. We leave the coast line of the tangible and seen for the intangible and unseen. There is no bridge over the gulf, which is said to be impassable. Material and spiritual phenomena are united by no common bond, and each stands by itself. The great thought stream has set toward the materialistic interpretation of all spiritual phenomena, or ruled them out of the pale of the believable. If these phenomena are real, if man—the ego—is superior to the oxygen and carbon of his body; if the manifestations of mind are superior to the combustion of tissue in the lungs, then all these manifestations should be amenable to certain laws and conditions, which ascertained, will harmonize them into a perfect system.

The brain is the point of contact between spirit and matter, and as far as the manifestations of that spirit are related to the material world while connected with the physical body, it must be through and by means of the brain. The intimate character of this relation gives strong color to the reasoning based on the material view that the brain produces thought, as the liver produces bile. But such reasoning is from appearance rather than the reality. There is, as Tyndall eloquently expresses, a chasm between matter and mind that can not be passed.

“The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable.... Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling,—we should be as far as ever from the solution of the problem, ‘How are these physical processes connected with the facts of consciousness?’ The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still be intellectually impossible.”

Spiritual Substance.—As the experiments alluded to show that matter may, under certain conditions, take on new properties, ceasing to be matter, in the usual acceptance of that word, the horizon of matter which has been thought to rest over attenuated hydrogen, may extend to infinite reaches beyond, including stuffs or substances which have never been revealed to the senses. As the eye is capable of detecting only a narrow belt of rays, and the ear a scarcely broader belt of sounds, beyond which, on either side, are unknown realms of light and sounds, so we are able to detect only a narrow range of elements; and there may be a realm on one side too gross for recognizance by the senses, and on the other, one too attenuated. Beings fashioned of this attenuated substance might walk by our side unseen, nor cast a shadow in the noon-day sun.

Spirit Ether.—Aside from this spiritual substance, beyond the pale of the most attenuated matter, is the spirit ether. The students of light have found it possible to explain its phenomena only by the hypothesis of an ether, a universal fluid of extreme tenuity, the vibrations of which are interpreted by the eye as light. This ether was at first a dream of the imagination; but, by answering all questions and receiving the verification of mathematics, it has become a demonstrated reality. It is probably the common medium for the transference of electricity, heat, and magnetism as well. It is an illustration of one of the many instances where the Imagination has overreached the Reason in the race of discovery.

In the same manner we may predicate another ether, the medium through which all spiritual phenomena are produced. We may prove the existence of this ether, by the certainty and harmony of the answers it gives, as the existence of the luminiferous ether has been demonstrated. As the great life-giver, we may distinguish it as psycho-ether. It can not be said to be material, for it belongs to the region beyond that recognized as material by our senses. It is the sublimation of matter, vastly more attenuated than light-ether, and thought is propagated in it from thinking centers, as light is in the luminiferous ether from luminous bodies. The qualities of this ether are the possibilities of life and spirit and to it for explanation we refer all psychic phenomena.

What the Senses Teach
OF THE
World and the Doctrine of Evolution.

Is there more than one World—stuff?—Thus far, with a few exceptions which may be called heterodox, physicists have in their speculations used the term matter as though in ultimate conception there is but one kind of matter and the atoms of that matter are absolutely alike. In other words there is but one stuff of which