demand physical explanations of the known and unknown laws of the universe. The president of the Society for Psychical Research (1894,) A. J. Balfour, in an address on the relation of the work of the Society to the general course of modern scientific investigation, is more cautious than the writers already quoted. He says:

“Is this telepathic action an ordinary case of action from a center of disturbance? Is it equally diffused in all directions? Is it like the light of a candle or the light of the sun which radiates equally into space in every direction at the same time? If it is, it must obey the law—at least, we should expect it to obey the law—of all other forces which so act through a non-absorbing medium, and its effects must diminish inversely as the square of the distance. It must, so to speak, get beaten out thinner and thinner the further it gets removed from its original source. But is this so? Is it even credible that the mere thoughts, or, if you please, the neural changes corresponding to these thoughts, of any individual could have in them the energy to produce sensible effects equally in all directions, for distances which do not, as far as our investigations go, appear to have any necessary limit? It is, I think, incredible; and in any case there is no evidence whatever that this equal diffusion actually takes place. The will power, whenever will is used, or the thoughts, in cases where will is not used, have an effect, as a rule, only upon one or two individuals at most. There is no appearance of general diffusion. There is no indication of any disturbance equal at equal distances from its origin and radiating from it alike in every direction.

“But if we are to reject this idea, which is the first which ordinary analogies would suggest, what are we to put in its place? Are we to suppose that there is some means by which telepathic energy can be directed through space from the agent to the patient, from the man who influences to the man who is influenced? If we are to believe this, as apparently we must, we are face to face not only with a fact extraordinary in itself, but with a kind of fact which does not fit in with anything we know at present in the region either of physics or of physiology. It is true, no doubt, that we do know plenty of cases where energy is directed along a given line, like water in a pipe, or like electrical energy along the course of a wire. But then in such cases there is always some material guide existing between the two termini, between the place from which the energy comes and the place to which the energy goes. Is there any such material guide in the case of telepathy? It seems absolutely impossible. There is no sign of it. We can not even form to ourselves any notion of its character, and yet, if we are to take what appears to be the obvious lesson of the observed facts, we are forced to the conclusion that in some shape or other it exists.”

Telepathy once conceded, we have a satisfactory explanation of that class of cases in modern Spiritualism on the subjective side of the question. There is no need of the hypothesis of “disembodied spirits”.

Some years ago, I instituted a series of experiments with a number of celebrated spirit mediums in the line of thought transference, and was eminently successful in obtaining satisfactory results, especially with Miss Maggie Gaule, of Baltimore, one of the most famous of the latter day psychics.

Case A.

About three years prior to my sitting with Miss Gaule, a relative by marriage died of cancer of the throat at the Garfield Hospital, Washington, D. C. He was a retired army officer, with the brevet of General, and lived part of the time at Chambersburg, Penn., and the rest of the time at the National Capital. He led a very quiet and unassuming life, and outside of army circles knew but few people. He was a magnificent specimen of physical manhood, six feet tall, with splendid chest and arms. His hair and beard were of a reddish color. His usual street dress was a sort of compromise with an army undress uniform, military cut frock-coat, frogged and braided top-coat, and a Sherman hat. Without these accessories, anyone would have recognized the military man in his walk and bearing. He and his wife thought a great deal of my mother, and frequently stopped me on the street to inquire, “How is Mary?” I went to Miss Gaule’s house with the thought of General M— fixed in my mind and the circumstances surrounding his decease. The medium greeted me in a cordial manner. I sat at one end of the room in the shadow, and she near the window in a large armchair. “You wish for messages from the dead,” she remarked abruptly. “One moment, let me think.” She sank back in the chair, closed her eyes, and remained in deep thought for a minute or so, occasionally passing her hand across her forehead. “I see,” she said, “standing behind you, a tall, large man with reddish hair and beard. He is garbed in the uniform of an officer—I do not know whether of the army or navy. He points to his throat. Says he died of a throat trouble. He looks at you and calls “Mary,—how is Mary?” “What is his name?” I inquired, fixing my mind on the words David M—. “I will ask”, replied the medium. There was a long pause. “He speaks so faintly I can scarcely hear him. The first letter begins with D, and then comes a—I can’t get it. I can’t hear it.” With that she opened her eyes.

The surprising feature about the above case was the alleged spirit communication, “Mary—how is Mary?” I did not have this in my mind at the time; in fact I had completely forgotten this form of salutation on the part of Gen. M—, when we had met in the old days. It is just this sort of thing that makes spirit-converts.

However, the cases of unconscious telepathy cited in the “Reports of the Society for Psychical Research,” are sufficient, I think, to prove the existence of this phase of the phenomena.

T. J. Hudson, in his work entitled “A scientific demonstration of the future life”, says: * * “When a psychic transmits a message to his client containing information which is in his (the psychic’s) possession, it can not reasonably be attributed to the agency of disembodied spirits. * * When the message contains facts known to some one in his immediate presence and with whom he is en rapport, the agency of spirits of the dead cannot be presumed. Every investigator will doubtless admit that sub-conscious memory may enter as a factor in the case, and that the sub-conscious intelligence—or, to use the favorite terminology employed by Mr. Myers to designate the subjective mind, the ‘sublimal consciousness’—of the psychic or that of his client may retain and use facts which the conscious, or objective mind may have entirely forgotten.”

But suppose the medium relates facts that were never in the possession of the sitter, what are we to say then? Considerable controversy has been waged over this question, and the hypothesis of telepathy is scouted. Minot J. Savage has come to the conclusion that such cases stretch the telepathic theory too far; there can be but one plausible explanation—a communication from a disembodied spirit, operating through the mind of the medium. For the sake of lucidity, let us take an example: A has a relative B who dies in a foreign land under peculiar circumstances, unknown to A. A attends a séance of a psychic, C, and the latter relates the circumstances of B’s death. A afterwards investigates the statements of the medium, and finds them correct. Can telepathy account for C’s knowledge? I think it can. The telepathic communication was