Chapter XII: Explanatory Hypotheses--Theories and Doctrines--Conclusions of the Author (2)

Spiritualists attribute the movement and the dictations at their
seances to the action of disembodied intelligences. But if a table
execute movements without being touched, there is no reason to
attribute these movements to the intervention of my deceased
grandfather, rather than to my own proper intervention; for if I do
not see how I could have done it myself, it is not clear to me how the
effect could have been produced by the action of my grandfather. As
for dictations, the most plausible explanation seems to me to be for
us to admit that they do not come from the conscious _me_, but from
that profound and hidden region where fragmentary and incoherent
dreams are elaborated.

This explanatory hypothesis is held, with an important modification, by a distinguished savant to whom also we owe long and patient researches into the obscure phenomena of normal psychology; I mean Dr. Geley, who thus sums up his own conclusions:

A certain amount of the force, intelligence, and matter of the body
may perform work outside of the organism,--act, perceive, organize,
and think without the collaboration of muscles, organs, senses and
brain. It is nothing less than the uplifted sub-conscious portion of
our being. It constitutes, in truth, an externalizable sub-conscious
nature, existing in the _me_ with the normal conscious nature.[91]

This sub-conscious nature does not seem to depend upon the organism. It is probably anterior to it, and will survive it. It seems to be superior to it, endowed with powers and acquirements very different from the powers and acquirements of the normal, supernormal, and transcendent consciousness.

Assuredly, there is in this view of the case more than one mystery still, were it only the feat of performing a material act at a distance, and that (not less strange) of apparently having nothing to do with that kind of an act.

The first rule of the scientific method is first to seek explanations in the known before having recourse to the unknown, and we should never fail to comply with this rule. But if this method of sailing does not bring us to port, it is our duty to confess it.

I very much fear that that is what is the matter here. We are not satisfied. The explanation is not clear, and is floating a little too much at random in the waves--and the wavering uncertainty--of the hypothesis.

At the point at which we have now arrived in this chapter of explanations we are precisely in the position of Alexander Aksakof when he wrote his great work, _Animism and Spiritualism_, in reply to the book of Dr. von Hartmann on _Spiritualism_. Hartman claimed to explain all of these psychical phenomena by the following hypothesis.

A nervous force producing, outside of the limits of the human body,
mechanical and plastic effects.

Duplicate hallucinations of this same nervous force, and producing
also physical and plastic effects.

A latent somnambulistic consciousness, capable (the subject being in
his normal state) of reading in the intellectual background of another
man, his present and his past, and being able to divine the future.

Akaskof tried to see if these hypotheses (the last of which is a pretty bold one) are sufficient to explain everything, and he concludes that they are not. That is also my opinion. There is something else. This something else, this residue at the bottom of the crucible of experiment, is a psychic element, the nature of which remains still wholly hidden from us. I think that all the readers of this book will share my conviction.

Anthropomorphic hypotheses are far from explaining everything. Besides, they are only hypotheses. We must not hide from ourselves that these phenomena introduce us into another world, into an unknown world, one that is still to be explored in its whole extent.

As to beings different from ourselves,--what may their nature be? Of this we cannot form any idea. Souls of the dead? This is very far from being demonstrated. The innumerable observations which I have collected during more than forty years all prove to me the contrary. No satisfactory identification has been made.[92]

The communications obtained have always seemed to proceed from the mentality of the group, or, when they are heterogeneous, from spirits of an incomprehensible nature. The being evoked soon vanishes when one insists on pushing him to the wall and having the heart out of his mystery. And then my greatest hope has been deceived, that hope of my twentieth year, when I would so gladly have received celestial light upon the doctrine of the plurality of worlds. The spirits have taught us nothing.

Nevertheless, the agents seem sometimes to be independent. Crookes mentions having seen Miss Fox write automatically a communication for one of her sitters while another communication upon another subject was given to her for a _second_ person by means of the alphabet and by raps, and all the while she was chatting with a _third_ person upon another subject totally different from the other two. Does this remarkable fact prove with certainty the action of a spirit other than that of the medium?

The same scientist mentions that, during one of his seances, a little rod crossed the table, in full light, and came and rapped his hand, giving him a communication by following the letters of the alphabet spelled out by him. The other end of the rod rested on the table at a certain distance from the hand of the medium Home.

This case seems to me, as well as to Crookes, more conclusively in favor of an exterior spirit, so much the more since the experimenter having asked that the raps be given by the Morse telegraphic code, another message was thus rapped out. I also remember that the learned chemist mentions that the word "however" hidden by his finger, upon a newspaper, and unknown even to himself, was rapped out by a little rod.

Wallace also mentions a name written upon a piece of paper fastened by him under the central leg of the experiment table; Joncieres, a water-color correctly painted in complete darkness, and a musical theme written with a pencil; M. Castex Degrange, the announcement of a death, and the place where a lost object might be found. We have also seen sentences dictated either backwards or in such a way that every other letter only must be read to get the sense, or else by strange combinations showing the action of an unknown intellect. We have a thousand examples of this kind.

But if the mind of the medium may liberate itself and appear in an extra-normal state, why might it not be this mind which acts? Do we not have several distinct personalities in our dreams? If they could dynamically appear, would they not act somewhat in this way?

We ought not to lose sight of the fact that these phenomena are of a _mixed_ character. They are at once physical and psychical, material and intellectual, are not always produced by our conscious will, and are rather the subject of _observation_ than _experiment_.

It is expedient to insist on this characteristic. I one day, (January 31, 1901) heard E. Duclaux, member of the Institute, director of the Pasteur Institute, express the following confused idea (an idea held by so many physicists and so many chemists), in a company which was yet quite competent to discuss these phenomena: "There is no scientific fact except a fact which can be reproduced at will."[93] What a singular reasoning! The witnesses of the fall of a meteor bring us an aerolite which has just fallen from the sky and been dug up, all hot, from the hole it had made in the ground. "Error! illusion!" we ought to reply: "We shall only believe when you repeat the experiment."

They bring to us the body of a man killed by a stroke of lightning, stripped of his clothes, and shaved as if with a razor. "Impossible!" we ought to reply; "pure invention of your deluded senses." A woman sees appear before her, her husband, who has just died nearly two thousand miles away. We are asked to believe that this is not so, and will not be so until the apparition appears a second time.

This confusion between observation and experiment is a very strange thing as coming from cultivated men.

In psychical phenomena there is a voluntary, capricious, incoherent, intellectual element.

I repeat, we must learn to comprehend that everything cannot be explained and resign ourselves to waiting for an extension of our knowledge. There is intelligence, thought, psychism, mind, in these phenomena. There is still more in certain communications. Can the observations be confirmed and justified by assuming the mind of the living merely as the active agents? Yes, perhaps, but only by attributing to us unknown and supernormal faculties. Yet it must be remembered that this is only an hypothesis. The Spiritualistic hypothesis of communication with the souls of the dead remains also as a working hypothesis.

That souls survive the destruction of the body I have not the shadow of a doubt. But that they manifest themselves by the processes employed in seances the experimental method has not yet given us absolute proof. I add that this hypothesis is not at all likely. If the souls of the dead are about us, upon our planet, the invisible population would increase at the rate of 100,000 a day, about 36 millions a year, 3 billions 620 millions a century, 36 billions in ten centuries, etc.,--unless we admit re-incarnations upon the earth itself.

How many times do apparitions, or manifestations occur? When illusions, auto-suggestions, hallucinations, are eliminated, what remains? Scarcely anything. Such an exceptional rarity as this pleads against the reality of apparitions.

We may suppose, it is true, that all human beings do not survive their death, and that, in general, their psychical entity is so insignificant, so wavering, so ineffectual, that it almost disappears in the ether, in the common reservoir, in the environment, like the souls of animals. But thinking beings who have the consciousness of their psychical existence do not lose their personality, but continue the cycle of their evolution. It would seem natural therefore to see them manifest themselves under certain circumstances. Persons condemned to death, in consequence of judicial errors, and executed, should they not return to protest their innocence? Would it not be reasonable to suppose that persons put to death in such a way that violence was not suspected would return to accuse the assassins? Knowing the characters of Robespierre, of Saint-Just, of Fouquier-Tinville, I should like to have seen them revenge themselves a little on those who triumphed over them. The victims of '93, should they not have returned to disturb the sleep of the conquerors? Out of the twenty thousand citizens shot by fusillades during the time of the Commune of Paris I should like to have seen a dozen unceasingly harassing the Hon. M. Theirs, who was really too puffed up and vain-glorious over his having first permitted the organization of that insurrection and then punished it.

Why do not children whose death is lamented by their parents ever come to console them? Why do our dearest attachments seem to disappear forever? And how about last wills and testaments stolen away, and the last will of the dead ignored and their intentions purposely misinterpreted?

"It is only the dead that do not return," says an old proverb. This aphorism is not of absolute application, perhaps; but apparitions are rare, very rare, and we do not understand their precise nature. Are they actual apparitions of the dead? It is not yet demonstrated.

Up to this day, I have sought in vain for certain proof of personal identity through mediumistic communications. And then one does not see why spirits, if they exist around us, should have need of mediums at all, in order to manifest themselves. They surely must form a part of nature, of the universal nature which includes all things.

Nevertheless, it seems to me that the Spiritualistic hypothesis should be preserved by the same right as those I have summed up in the immediately preceding pages, for the discussions have not eliminated it.[94]

But why are there manifestations the result of the grouping of five or six persons around the table? That this should be a _sine qua non_ is not a very likely thing either.

It may be, it is true, that spirits exist around us, and that it is normally impossible for them to make themselves visible, audible, or tangible, not being able to reflect rays of light accessible to our retina, or to produce sonorous waves, or to effect touches. Therefore, certain conditions present in mediums might be necessary for their manifestation. Nobody has the right to deny this. But why so many puzzling incoherences and solecisms?

I have on a bookshelf before me several thousand communications dictated by "spirits." In the last analysis, a dim obscurity remains hanging over the causes. Unknown psychic forces: fugitive entities; vanishing figures; nothing solid to grasp, even for the thought. These things do not yield us the consistency of a definition of chemistry or of a theorem in geometry. A molecule of hydrogen is a granite cliff in comparison.

The greater part of the phenomena observed,--noises, movement of tables, confusions, disturbances, raps, replies to questions asked,--are really childish, puerile, vulgar, often ridiculous, and rather resemble the pranks of mischievous boys than serious bona-fide actions. It is impossible not to notice this.

Why should the souls of the dead amuse themselves in this way? The supposition seems almost absurd.

We know that an ordinary man does not change his intellectual or moral value from day to day, and, if his spirit continues to exist after the death of his body, we may expect to find it such as it was before. But why so many oddities and incoherences?

However these things may be, it behooves us not to have any preconceived idea, and our bounden duty is to seek to prove the facts as they present themselves to us.

The unknown natural force brought into play for the lifting of a table is not the exclusive property of mediums. In different degrees it forms a part of all organisms, with different coefficients, 100 for organisms such as those of Home, or Eusapia, 80 for others, 50 or 25 for less favored individuals. But I should hold it as certain that it never drops in any case to 0. The best proof of this is that, with patience, perseverance, and the exercise of the will, almost all the groups of experimenters who have seriously occupied themselves with these researches have succeeded in obtaining, not merely movements, but also complete levitations, raps, and other phenomena.

The word "medium" scarcely has any longer a reason for being, since the existence of an intermediary between the spirits and us is not yet proved. But still the word may be preserved, logic being the rarest of things in grammar and in everything else that is human. The word "electricity" has had no connection for a long time with amber ([Greek: elektron]), nor the word "veneration" with the genitive case of Venus (_Veneris_), nor the (at first astrological) term "disaster" with _aster_ (star), nor the word "tragedy" with _goat-song_ ([Greek: tragos ode]). But this does not hinder these words from being understood in their habitual sense.[95]

As respects explanatory hypotheses, I repeat, the field is open to all. It is to be noted that communications dictated are closely related to the condition of mind, the ideas, the opinions, the beliefs, the knowledge, and even the literary culture, of the experimenters. They are like a reflection, or counterpart, of this ensemble of ideas and faculties. Compare the communications noted down in the house of Victor Hugo in Jersey, those of the Phalansterian Society of Eugene Nus, those of astronomical meetings, those of religious believers,--Catholics, Protestants, etc.

If the hypothesis were not so bold as to seem unacceptable to us, I should dare to think that the concentration of the thoughts of psychic experimenters creates a momentary intellectual being who replies to the questions asked and then vanishes.

_Reflection, reflex action?_ That is perhaps the true expression. Everybody has seen his image reflected in a mirror, and nobody is astonished by it. However, analyse the thing. The more you look at this optical being moving there behind the mirror, the more remarkable the image appears to you. Now suppose looking-glasses had not been invented. If we had not knowledge of those immense mirrors which reflect whole apartments and the visitors in them, if we had never seen anything of the kind, and if someone should tell us that images and reflections of living persons could thus manifest themselves and thus move, we should not comprehend, and should not believe it.

Yes, the ephemeral personification created in Spiritualistic seances sometimes recalls the image that we see in a mirror, which has nothing real in itself, but which yet exists and reproduces the original. The image fixed by the photograph is of the same kind, only durable. The potential image formed at the focus of the mirror of a telescope, invisible in itself, but which we can receive on a level mirror and study, at the same time enlarging it by the microscope of the eye-piece, perhaps approaches nearer to that which seems to be produced by the concentration of the psychical energy of a group of persons. We create an imaginary being, we speak to it, and in its replies it almost always reflects the mentality of the experimenters. And just as with the aid of mirrors we can concentrate light, heat, ether-waves, electric waves, in a focus, so, in the same way, it seems sometimes as if the sitters added their psychic forces to those of the medium, of the dynamogen, condensing the waves, and helping to produce a sort of fugitive being more or less material.

The sub-conscious nature, the brain of the medium, or his astral body, the fluidic mind, the unknown powers latent in sensitive organisms, might we not consider these as the mirror which we have just imagined? And might this mirror also not receive and reproduce impressions, or influence, from a soul at a distance?

But we must not generalize partial conclusions which we have already had much trouble in defining.

I do not say that spirits do not exist: on the contrary, I have reasons for admitting their existence. Even certain sensations expressed by the animals,--by dogs, by cats, by horses,--plead in favor of the unexpected and impressive presence of invisible beings or agents. But, as a faithful servant of the experimental method, I think that we ought to exhaust all the simple, natural hypotheses, already known, before having recourse to others.

Unfortunately, a large number of Spiritualists prefer not to go to the bottom of things, or analyse anything, but to be the dupes of nervous impressions. They resemble certain worthy women who tell their beads while believing that they have before them Saint Agnes or Saint Filomena. There is no harm in that, says some one. But it is an illusion. Let us not be its dupes.

If the elementals, the _elementaires_, the spirits of the air, the gnomes, the spectres of which Goethe speaks (following Paracelsus in this), exist, they are natural and not supernatural. They are in nature, for nature includes all things. The supernatural does not exist. It is then the duty of science to study this question as it studies all others.

As I have already remarked, there are in these different phenomena several causes in action. Among these causes the ones that supposes the action to proceed from disembodied spirits, the souls of the dead, is a plausible hypothesis which ought not to be rejected without examination. It seems sometimes to be the most logical; but there are weighty objections to it, and it is of the highest importance to be able to demonstrate it with certainty. Its partisans _ought to be the first to approve the severity of the scientific methods which we apply in our studies of the phenomena_, for Spiritualism will receive thereby so much the more solid a foundation and will have so much the more value. The illusions and the artless faith of simple souls cannot give it any more solid and substantial basis. The religion of the future will be the religion of science. There is only one kind of truth.

Sometimes authors are made to say that which they have never said. For my part, I have had frequent proof of this, notably in the case of Spiritualism. I should not be surprised if certain interpretations of the pages which precede should come to light, shaped into the opinion that I do not believe in the existence of spirits. Yet it will be impossible to find any affirmation of this kind in this work, or in any other published by me. What I say is that the physical phenomena studied in these pages _do not prove_ the existence of spirits, and may probably be explained without them,--that is, by unknown forces emanating from the experimenters, and especially from mediums. But these phenomena indicate, at the same time, the existence of a psychical atmosphere or environment.

What is this environment? It is indeed very difficult to get a true idea of it, since we are not able to apprehend it by any of our senses. It is also very difficult not to admit it in view of the multitude of psychical phenomena. If we admit the survival of individual souls, what becomes of these souls? Where are they? It may be replied that the conditions of space and of time in which our material senses exist do not represent the real nature of space and time, that our estimates and our measures are essentially relative, that the soul, the spirit, the thinking entity, does not occupy space. Still, we may consider also that pure spirit does not exist, that it is attached to a substance occupying a certain point. We may also consider that all souls are not equal; that there is a superior and inferior class; that certain human beings are scarcely conscious of their existence; that superior souls, being self-conscious, as well after death as during life, preserve their entire individuality, have the power of continuing their evolution, of voyaging from world to world and adding to their moral and intellectual growth by successive reincarnations. But the others, the unconscious souls, are they more advanced the day after death than the day before? Why should death bestow upon them any perfection? Why should it make a genius out of an imbecile? How could it make a good man out of a bad one? Why should it turn an ignoramus into a wise man? How could it make a shining light out of an intellectual nobody?

These unconscious souls,--that is to say, the multitude,--do they not disappear at death into the surrounding ether, and do they not constitute a kind of psychic atmosphere, in which a subtle analysis can discover spiritual as well as material elements? If the psychic force performs an action in the existing order of things, it is as worthy of consideration as the different forms of energy in operation in the ether.

Without, then, admitting the existence of spirits to be demonstrated by the phenomena, we feel that these do not all belong to a simply material order,--physiological, organic, cerebral,--but that there is _something else_ involved, something else inexplicable in the actual state of our knowledge.

But a something else of the psychical order. Perhaps we shall be able to go a little farther, some day, in our independent impartial researches, guided by the experimental scientific method, denying nothing in advance, but admitting whatever is proved by sufficient observation.

* * * * *

To sum up: _In the actual state of our knowledge it is impossible to give a complete, total, absolute, final explanation of the observed phenomena_. The Spiritualistic hypothesis ought not to be dismissed. Still, we may admit the survival of the soul without necessarily admitting a physical communication between the dead and the living. But then all the observed facts leading up to the affirmation of this communication are worthy of the most serious attention of the philosopher.

One of the chief difficulties in the way of these communications seems to be the condition itself of the soul freed from bodily senses. It would have other ways of perceiving. It would not see, hear, touch. How then can it enter into relation with our senses?

There is a whole problem in that which is not to be neglected in the study of any psychical manifestations whatever.

We take our ideas to be realities. This is a mistake. For example, to our senses the air is not a solid body; we pass through it without effort, while we cannot pass through an iron door. The converse is true of electricity: it passes through iron, and finds the air to be a solid impassible body. To the electrician, a wire is a canal leading electricity across the solid rock of the air. Glass is opaque to electricity and transparent to magnetism. The flesh is transparent to the X-rays, while glass is opaque, etc.

We feel the need of explaining everything, and we are driven to admit only the phenomena of which we have had an explanation; but that does not prove that our explanations are valid. Thus for example, if some one had affirmed the possibility of instantaneous communication between Paris and London, before the invention of the telegraph, people would have regarded the assertion as utopian. Later it would not have been admitted, except on condition of the existence of a wire between the two stations, and any communication without the medium of an electric wire would have been declared impossible. Now that we have wireless telegraphy we can apply this discovery to the explanation of the phenomena of telepathy. But it is not yet proved that this explanation is the true one.

Why do we wish to explain these phenomena at all hazards? Because we naively imagine that we are able to do so in the present state of our knowledge.

The physiologists who claim to see daylight in this matter are like Ptolemy persisting in accounting for the movements of the heavenly bodies by holding to the idea of the immobility of the earth; or Galileo explaining the attraction of amber by the rarefaction of the surrounding air; or Lavoisier seeking (with the common people) the origin of aerolites in thunder storms or denying their existence; or Galvani, who saw in his frogs a _special_ organic electricity. I put my physiologists in good company, surely, and they have nothing of which to complain. But who does not feel that this natural propensity to explain everything is not justified, that science progresses from age to age, that what is not known to-day will be known later, and that we ought sometimes to know how to wait?

The phenomena of which we are speaking are manifestations of the universal dynamism, with which our five senses put us very imperfectly in relation. We live in the midst of an unexplored world, in which the psychical forces play a role still very insufficiently investigated.

These forces are of a class superior to the forces usually analyzed in mechanics, in physics, in chemistry: they are of the psychical order, have in them something vital and a kind of mentality. They confirm what we know from other sources,--that the purely mechanical explanation of nature is insufficient and that there is in the universe something else than so-called matter. It is not matter that rules the world: it is a dynamic and psychic element.

What light will the study of these still unexplained forces shed upon the origin of the soul and upon the conditions of its survival? That is something that the future has to teach us.

The truth that the soul is a spiritual entity distinct from the body is proved by other arguments. These arguments are not made for the purpose of injuring this doctrine; but while confirming it and while putting in clear light the application of psychic forces, they still do not solve the great problem by the material proofs that we should like to have.

However, if the study of these phenomena has not yet yielded all that is claimed for it, nor all that it will in the future yield, we still cannot help recognizing that it has considerably enlarged the sphere of psychology, and that the knowledge of the nature of the soul and of its faculties has been once for all expanded under grander and deeper skies and wider horizons.

There is in nature, especially in the domain of life, in the manifestation of instinct in vegetables and animals, in the general soul of things, in humanity, in the cosmic universe, a psychic element which appears more and more in modern studies, especially in researches in telepathy, and in the observation of the unexplained phenomena which we have been studying in this book. This element, this principle, is still unknown to contemporary science. But, as in so many other cases, it was divined by the ancients.

Besides the four elements fire, water, air and earth, the ancients admitted a fifth, belonging to the material order, which they named _animus_, the soul of the world, the animating principle, ether. "Aristotle" (writes Cicero, _Tuscul. Quaest._ I. 22), "after having mentioned the four kinds of material elements, believes that we ought to admit a fifth kind from which the soul proceeds; for, since the soul and the intellectual faculties cannot reside in any of the material elements, we must admit a fifth kind, which had not yet received a name and which he styles _entelechy_; that is to say, eternal and continued movement." The four material elements of the ancients have been dissected by modern analysis. The fifth is perhaps more fundamental.

Citing the philosopher Zeno, the same orator adds that this wise man did not admit this fifth principle, which might be compared to fire. But, from all the evidence, fire and thought are two distinct things.

Virgil has written in the _AEneid_ (Book VI) these admirable verses which are known to everybody:

Principio coelum ac terras camposque liquentes
Lucentemque globum Lunae Titaniaque astra
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
MENS AGITAT MOLEM, _et magno se corpore miscet_.

Martianus Capella, like all the authors of the first centuries of Christianity, mentions this directive force, also calling it the fifth element, and furthermore describes it under the name "ether."

A Roman emperor, well known to the Parisians, since it was in their city (in the palace built by his grandfather near the present _Thermes_, or old Roman baths) that he was proclaimed emperor in the year 360 (I mean Julian, called the Apostate), celebrates this fifth principle in his discourse in honor of the "The Sun, the Monarch,"[96] styling it sometimes the solar principle, sometimes the soul of the world, or intellectual principle, sometimes ether, or the soul of the physical world.

This psychical element is not confounded by the philosophers with God and Providence. In their eyes, it is something which forms part of nature.

* * * * *

One more word before closing. Human nature is endowed with faculties as yet little explored, that the observations made with mediums, or dynamogens, bring to light--such as human magnetism, hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and premonition. These unknown psychic forces are worthy of being embraced within the scope of scientific analysis. At present they have been almost as little studied as in the time of Ptolemy, and have not yet found their Kepler, and their Newton, yet fairly obtrude themselves upon our notice, and cry out to be examined.

Many another unknown force will be revealed. The earth and the planets were circling about the sun in their harmonious orbits while astronomical theories saw in them only a complicated whirl of seventy-nine crystalline shells. Magnetism was encircling the earth with its currents long before the invention of the mariner's compass which reveals them to us. The waves of wireless telegraphy existed long before they were arrested in their flight. The sea was moaning along its shores ages before the ear of any being had come to hear it. The stars were darting their rays through the ether before any human eye had been raised to them.

The observations set forth in this work prove that the conscious will, or desire, on the one hand, and the subliminal consciousness on the other hand, exert an influence, or perform work, beyond the limits of our body. The nature of the human soul is still a deep mystery to science and to philosophy.

It seems rather remarkable that the conclusions drawn from my labors here are the same as those of my work _The Unknown_, which were founded upon the examination of the phenomena of telepathy, apparitions of the dying, communications at a distance, premonitory dreams, etc. Indeed, the following deductions were drawn at the close of that volume:

1. _The soul exists as a real entity independent of the body._

2. _It is endowed with faculties still unknown to science._

3. _It is able to act at a distance, without the intervention of the senses._

The conclusions of the present work concord with those of the former, and yet the subjects studied in this are entirely different from the subject-matter of that.

I may sum up the whole matter with the single statement that there exists in nature, in myriad activity, a _psychic element_ the essential nature of which is still hidden from us. I shall be happy for my part, if I have helped to establish by these two works the above important principle, exclusively based upon the scientific verification of certain phenomena studied by the experimental method.

INDEX

Academy of Sciences, its scepticism xvi, 19, investigates Angelica
Cottin, 224 _et seq._

Acoustic Mediumistic Phenomena,--Cases of, 71, 73, 89, 96, 112, 121,
144, 163, 167, 183, 274, 292, 299, 369, 373, 374, 378, 380.

Aksakof, Alexander, 63, 151, 178;
cited, 55, 66, 188, 435;
his account of alleged spirit communication regarding satellites of
Uranus, 50-52.

Albert the Great, xxi.

Alcofribaz Nazier, anagram signature of Rabelais, _q.v._

Alterations in weight of bodies in mediumistic phenomena (including
variations in scales without contact), 88, 153, 173, 199, 354, 413,
414.

Animism vs. Spiritism, 187 _et seq._

Antoniadi, M., report on E. Paladino, 109-111.

Apparitions, 419.
_See also_, Materializations.

Apports (objects brought in from outside the seance room), 99, 112, 186,
187, 292, 373, 378, 380.

Arago, 178;
investigates Angelica Cottin, 223;
alleged spirit communication from, 389.

Aristotle, quoted, 450.

Armelin G., report on E. Paladino, 103-109.

Ascensi M., 143.

Astral body, 166.

Astronomical discoveries, xvi.

Automatic writing and drawing, theories of, 26-30, 58 _et seq._;--methods
of, 28;
by Victorien Sardou, 25, 46;--by Camille Flammarion, 26, 47-49;
reflect the thoughts of the experimenter, 49 _et seq._;
by children, 274;
other cases, 384-387.

Azam, Dr., 141;
---- Felida's case, 59.

Babinet, M., 266;
report on Angelica Cottin, 224-227;
de Gasparin's criticisms of, 260-265.

Bacle, Louis ("Louis Elbe"), 368.

Baschet, Rene, 34, 98, 101, 103, 128;
arms partial materialization, 131.

Basilewska, M. and Mme., 98, 101.

Bianchi, M., 147.

Binet, Alfred, 188.

Bisschofsheim, Mme., 101.

Blech family, hold sittings with E. Paladino, 63-84, 173.

Bloch, Andre, 84, 93, 101.

Bois, Jules, 84, 103, 128, 203.

Boisseaux, Mme., 173.

Boissier, Edmond, 27.

Bourrer, M., 141.

Boutigny, M., 114.

Bredif, C., medium, 196.

Brisson, Adolphe, 95, 98, 101, 103, 114, 128, 200, 203;
report on E. Paladino.

Brisson, Mme. A., 93, 95, 101, 103, 114.

Buffern, Prof., 151.

Buguet, medium, 196.

Burot, 141.

Cactoni, M. and Mme., 368.

Calonne, xvi.

Castex-Degrange, M., 437;
reports of mediumistic phenomena, 381-393.

Charcot, Dr., 4.

Chardon, Dr. Beaumont, notes on Angelica Cottin, 223.

Chevigny, Countess de, 101.

Chevreul, M., 266.

Chiaia, Prof. E., first obtains impressions in clay through Paladino, 78;
challenges Lombroso to investigate Paladino, 136.

Cicero, quoted, 450.

Claretie, Jules, 45, 98;
report on E. Paladino, 98-101.

Coleman, Benjamin, 334.

Cook, Florence, medium (afterwards Mrs. Elgie Corner), remarkable case
of materialization, 334;
investigated by Crookes, 335-347.

Cottin, Angelica, the Electric Girl, 219;
Dr. Tanchou's report of, 220-222;
notes of M. Hebert, 222;
Dr. Beaumont Chardon, 223;
Academy of Sciences investigates, 224-227.

Coues, Dr. and Mrs. Elliott; report on mediumistic phenomena, 401-405.

Crookes, Sir William, 65, 121, 196, 297, 305, 358;
his experiments in psychical research, 306-347;
his mechanical contrivances for testing such phenomena, 308, 318, 319,
322, 323;
his views in 1898, 347-351;
his theory regarding such phenomena, 408.

Crystal vision, 292.

Cumberlandism, 171.

Curie, Pierre, 360.

Daguerre, an anecdote of, 11.

Dariex, Dr., 63, 173, 218, 368;
cited, 3, 210;
his opinion of fraud in mediums, 203-205.

D'Arsouval, Prof., 360.

Darkness as a factor in psychical phenomena, 10-13, 68, 89.

Davenport Brothers, the, xi, xiii, xiv, xxi.

Delanee, G., 84, 98, 101, 375.

Delfour, Abbe, cited, 398.

Delgaiz, Raphael, Husband of Eusapia Paladino, 67.

Desbeaux, Emilie, 173.

Dialectical Society of London, its organization, 289;
its experiments in psychical research, 291-302;
Huxley declines to join, 290;
Flammarion's letter to, 302-304.

Divination of Numbers, 240, 249 _et seq._

Double Personality, an hypothesis for spiritistic communication, 58 _et
seq._;
Dr. Pierre Janet's studies in, 60.

Drayson, Gen. A. W., on solution of scientific problems by Spirits, 50
_et seq._;
errors of, 53, 55.

Duclaux, E., 438.

Du Prel, Dr. Charles, 151.

Dusart, Dr., 289.

Dynamic theory of matter, 427.

Eglington, medium, 196.

Ephrussi, M., 101.

Ermacora, Dr., 151.

Faith not a necessity in psychic phenomena, 279.

Faraday, 188, 259, 262, 266.

Felida, case of double personality, 59.

Finzi, M., 151.

Flammarion, Camille, some scientific researches of, vi;
early writings on _Unknown Natural Forces_, xi;
experiments with Eusapia Paladino, 5-23, 63-134;
acquaintance with Allan Kardec, 24 _et seq._;
automatic writing by, 26;
delivers funeral oration of Kardec, 30;
experiments with Mme. Huet, 36 _et seq._;
letter to London Dialectical Society, 302-304;
his "General Inquiry" concerning unexplained phenomena, 376;
some specimen cases, 377-405.

Fluidic action, theories of, 166, 179, 253, 258, 282, 422, 427.

Fluidic projection of limbs, etc. _See_ Materializations.

Fontenay, Guillaume de, 3, 21, 84, 95, 368;
participates in Paladino sittings, 69-83, 123;
his dynamic theory of matter, 427-431.

Foucault, M., 264.

Fourth dimension, 420.

Fourton, Mme., 93, 95, 98, 101, 103, 114, 128, 202.

Fox sisters, case of the, 34.

Fox, Miss, automatic communication by, 437.

Fraud in mediums, 194, _et seq._

Frauenhofer, cited, 19.

Fremy, M., cited, xix.

Fresnel, 190.

Fulton's invention of steamboat, xvi.

Gagneur, Mme., 98, 101.

Galileo, alleged spiritistic communication from, 26, 47-49;
his erroneous theory for frictional attraction, 188, 189.

Galvani's experiments in electricity, xvi.

Gasparin, Count Agenor de, 305;
experiments with moving tables, 229-253;
his hypotheses, 253-258, 408;
his rejoinder to Babinet's negations, 258-265;
Prof. Thury's comments on, 268, 273, 276, 279, 282 _et seq._

Geley, Dr., his hypothesis of subliminal consciousness, 434.

Gerosa, Prof., 151.

Gigli, M., 143.

Girardin, Mme. de, 61.

Gramont, Count de, 173.

Grasset, Dr., his opinion on pyschical phenomena, 409.

Grove, quoted, xix.

Guerronnan, A., 173.

Gully, Dr., 334.

Hallucination, collective, does not satisfactorily account for
phenomena, 130, 179.

Harrison, William, 334.

Hartman, Dr. von, 435.

Hebert, M., note on Angelica Cottin, 322.

Herschel, William, 50.

Herschel, Sir John, cites, 50.

Hodgson, Dr. Richard, 305.

Home, Daniel Dunglas, 195, 437;
experiments with an accordion, 121;
Crooke's investigation of, 307-322;
324-334;
declares Miss Cook an impostor, 343.

Huet, Mme., mediumistic experiments with, 36 _et seq._

Hugo, Leopoldine, alleged spirit communication of, 212, _et seq._

Hugo, Victor, 61, 212, 443.

Husson, M., 263.

Huxley, T. H., his letter declining to join in psychical research, 290.

Hyslop, Prof. James H., 305;
his opinion on phenomena, 409.

Impressions in plastic substances, 420;
photographs of, 76, 138;
cases of, 22, 74-78, 158, 163, 184.

Institute, its disregard of papers on table-movements, 263.

Invisible hands, action of, 418.
_See also_, Acoustic phenomena, _and_ Materializations (tactile).

Intelligence manifested in mediumistic phenomena, 421.

James, Prof. William, 305.

Janet, Dr. Pierre, 60, 188.

Joncieres, Victorin, 437;
reports mediumistic phenomena, 378-381.

Joubert, M., 37, 42.

Jouffroy's invention of the steamboat, xvi.

Julian the Apostate, cited, 451.

Jupiter, Sardou's drawings of landscapes in, 25, 45.

Kardec, Allan, his society for spiritualistic study, 24;
death of, 30;
his funeral oration by Flammarion, 30-32.

Kepler, 55.

King, John, alleged spirit control of E. Paladino, 71, 78, 141, 169;
a psychic double of Paladino, 166.

King, Katie, a materialized spirit, 141;
appears to Florence Cook and others, 334;
investigated by Crookes and other scientist, 335-346;
Home's opinion of her, 343.

Labadye, Countess de, 103.

Lacroix, medium, 196.

Laplace, 51.

Lateau, Louise, stigmata of, 20.

Laurent, M., 101.

Lebel, M., 218.

Le Bocain, M., 114;
report on E. Paladino, 116-118.

Le Bou, Dr. Gustave, report on E. Paladino, 101-103.

Lemerle, M., 368.

LeVerrier, 213.

Leymarie, Paul, 218.

Levitations, 5-8, 33, 79, 80, 118, 414-416;
photographs of, 6, 83, 156, 368;
denied by one sitter, 132;
the flour test of 1. without contact, 247, 248;
cases of, 6, 17, 70, 73, 74, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 96, 99, 104, 105,
111, 113, 114, 144-147, 154-156, 160, 164, 167, 174, 180, 183-87,
204, 229, 232, 236, 238, 239, 240-248, 292, 354, 357, 364, 368-370,
373, 379, 380, 403.

Levy, Arthur, 200;
report on E. Paladino, 86-92.

Levy, Mme. A., 200.

Levy, J. H., 289.

Lewes, George Henry, 290.

Lifting of weights, etc., 413.
_See also_, Levitation.

Lamoncelli, M., 147.

Lodge, Sir Oliver, 63, 65, 305;
his opinion of Paladino's phenomena, 167.

Lomatsch, J., 372.

Lombroso, Cesare, 63, 151, 178, 188;
Prof. Chiaia invites examination of Paladino, 136;
investigates Paladino, 143-150;
his theories regarding the phenomena, 150, 409.

Louis XIV, a fable of, 43.

Lubbock, Sir John, 289.

Luminous mediumistic phenomena, cases of, 74, 97, 105, 108, 125, 148,
186, 198, 371.

Luxmore, Mr., 334, 335.

Luys, Dr., 4.

Mairet, M., 98.

Mangin, Marcel, 162, 173, 218;
his opinion on psychical phenomena, 410.

Marcianus Capella, cited, 451.

Marks produced at a distance, 167.

Mars, discovery of satellites of, 55.

Martelet, Adele, relates an incident of Alfred de Musset, 398.

Materializations, theory of fluidic projection of limbs, etc., 121 _et
seq._, 166, 198, 208.
Cases of:
(a) TACTILE:--of hands or arms, 71, 72, 89, 97, 98, 101, 106-108,
111, 113, 116-118, 124, 146, 148, 160, 167, 174, 181, 186,
292, 371, 374;
of heads, 73, 89, 115, 161, 177, 187, 371.
(b) VISIBLE:--of hands and arms, 10, 73, 116, 159, 175, 185, 292;
of heads and busts, 21, 72, 115, 128, 177, 185, 366;
of complete figure, "Katie King," 334-346.

Mathieu, Georges, 93, 101, 200;
report on E. Paladino, 111-114.

" P. F., 37.

Matter passing through matter, _see_ Solid.

Maxwell, Dr. Joseph, 63, 172, 173.
Extracts from his investigations, 360-368;
his opinions, 410.

Mediums, cheating of professional, 3, 207;
their conscious and unconscious deception, 4;
use of the word, 5;
their will and health as factors, 14;
pecuniary temptations of, 157.
_See also_, Bredif, Florence Cook, Angelica Cottin, Davenport
brothers, Eglington, Fox sisters, Daniel D. Home, Mme. Huet, Allan
Kardee, A. Politi, E. Paladino, Anna Rothe, Sambor, Slade, Mrs.
Williams, Mme. X.

Mediumistic Phenomena, a chapter in physics, 2;
effects of antipathy of by slanders, 15;
genuineness of, 21, 184;
reflections upon those of Paladino, 118 _et seq._;
experiments with an accordion, 121 _et seq._;
confirmatory of magnetism rather than hypnotism, 166;
always of psycho-physical nature, 166;
hypothesis of fluidic double (astral body), 166, 179;
fraud in, 194 _et seq._;
agency is in the person, not in the object, 254;
mechanical tests of, by Prof. Thury, 269 _et seq._;
by Sir William Crookes, 306 _et seq._;
unconscious muscular action considered, 280;
no indications of electricity in, 281;
experiments of London Dialectical Society, 291-303;
Sir William Crookes' experiments, 306-347;
his opinions of, 347-351;
investigations of Alfred Russel Wallace, 353-359;
of Dr. J. Maxwell, 359-368;
of other scientists, 368-375;
popular ignorance of, 406 _et seq._;
recapitulation of scientist's theories regarding, 408;
recapitulation of phenomena with Flammarion's comments, 411-423 _et
seq._;
subliminal consciousness as a factor in, 433 _et seq._;
Dr. von Hartmann's hypothesis, 435;
Aksakof's reply, 435;
of mixed character, 438.
_See also_, Acoustic phenomena, Alteration in weight, Apparitions,
Apports, Automatic writing, Fluidic Action, Impressions, Invisible
hands, Levitations, Luminous phenomena, Materializations, Movement
of objects, Ordeals, Predictions, Raps, Solid passing through solid,
Spirit communications, Spiritualism, Thermal radiations, Typtology,
Touchings, Writing produced at a distance.

Mery, Gaston, 84, 95, 375.

Miller, American medium, 375.

Milesi, Prof., 368.

Mind, action of, upon matter, 283 _et seq._, 365.

Moliere, xiv., quoted, 264, 265.

Montaigne, 1.

Morgan, Prof., 297-359;
accepts Spiritistic theory, 409.

Morselli, Prof. Enrico, 188;
investigates E. Paladino, 177-192.

Mouchez, Admiral, 197, 213.

Mouzay, Countess de, 211.

Movements of natural objects, in mediumistic phenomena, 411-416;
cases of, 9, 17, 70-74, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95-99, 105, 106, 108, 109,
111-114, 125, 126, 144, 147, 148, 156, 157, 163, 165, 167, 175, 176,
181-183, 185, 187, 234, 237, 271, 274, 275, 293, 295, 297, 299-301,
353, 354, 358, 359, 369, 370, 371, 373, 378, 382, 383, 398, 399, 403.

Musset, Alfred de, 398.

Myers, F. W. H., 63, 162, 305, 350;
on Subliminal Consciousness, 433, 434.

Newton, cited, 19.

Nus, Eugene, 61, 443.

Ochorowicz, Dr. Julien, 63, 162, 188;
his studies of Eusapia Paladino, 76-78;
his conclusions, 166, 409;
condemns the rejection of Paladino by English scientists, 168;
his explanation of her substitution of hands, 170.

Ordeals, 292.

Ostwald, Dr., arranges seance with E. Paladino, 15.

Paladino, Eusapia (Mme. Raphael Delgaiz), 2, 3;
her exhaustion after phenomena, 7;
her fraud (conscious and unconscious), 10;
influence of her health on experiments, 15;
darkness demanded for best results, 10, 68, 89;
her personality and history, 67, 86, 87, 140;
Flammarion's estimate of the comparative authenticity of her
phenomena, 70;
unknown natural forces evidenced, 80, 152;
investigated by Flammarion, 5-23, 63-134;
by Lombroso, 143-150;
by Enrico Morselli, and Francois Porro, 177-192;
by other scientists, at Milan, 151 _et seq._;
at other places, 162 _et seq._;
M. Antoniadi considers her phenomena fraudulent, 109-111;
unsuccessful attempt to photograph fluidic hand, 123;
M. L---- denies levitations, 132;
Professor Chiaia challenges Lombroso to investigate, 136;
photographs of facial imprints, 76, 136;
her spiritualistic education, 141;
her symptoms during the production of phenomena, 142;
her sensations, 143;
Ochorowicz's apparatus to control feet, 164;
results of sympathetic trance of a sitter, 165;
detected in fraud at Cambridge, 168;
an incident at Ochorowicz's home, 168 _et seq._;
her deceptions, their reasons and their relevance to phenomena,
194-211;
Dr. Dariex's opinion of them, 206;
her sensitiveness to suggestion, 207.
Reports on her phenomena by Dr. Julien Ochorowicz, 76-78, 166;
by Prof. Chiaia, 78, 136-140;
by Arthur Levy, 86-92;
Adolph Brisson, 93, 94;
Victorien Sardou, 95-98;
Jules Claretie, 98-101;
Gustave Le Bon, 101-103;
G. Armelin, 103-109;
M. Antoniadi, 109-111;
M. Mathieu, 111-114;
M. Palotti, 114-116;
M. Le Bocain, 116-118;
A. de Rochas, 140-143, 174-176;
M. Ciolfi's account of Lombroso's seances, 143-150;
the Milan scientists, 151-161;
M. de Siemradski, 163, 164;
Sir Oliver Lodge, 167;
Sully-Prudhomme, 176;
Francois Porro's reports of seances with Morselli, 177-192.

Recorded cases of her phenomena.
(a) Raps (including typtological communications), 8, 13, 17, 70, 75,
80, 105, 114, 144, 145, 147, 175, 203.
(b) Movements of natural objects (_see also_ (d) apports), 9, 17,
70-74, 88, 90, 91, 93, 95-99, 105, 106, 108, 109, 111-114, 125,
126, 144, 147, 148, 156, 157, 163, 167, 175, 176, 181-183, 185,
187-203, 209, 210.
(c) Levitations, 6, 16, 70, 73, 74, 83, 88, 91, 93, 94, 96, 99, 104,
105, 111, 113, 114, 144-147, 154-156, 160, 164, 167, 174, 180,
183-187, 204, 364.
(d) Apports (objects brought in from outside the room), 99, 112, 186,
187.
(e) Alteration in weight of bodies and variation in weighing apparatus
without contact, 88, 153, 173, 191.
(f) Thermal radiations, 115, 117, 125, 186.
(g) acoustic phenomena (sounds other than raps q.v.), 71, 73, 89, 96,
112, 144, 163, 167, 183, 209, 210.
(h) writing and marks produced at a distance, 167.
(i) impressions in plastic substances, 22, 74-78, 158, 163, 184;
photographs of, 76.
(j) luminous phenomena, 74, 97, 105, 108, 125, 148, 186, 199.
(k) trance speaking, 71, 160.
(l) Materializations.
(I) Tactile,--of hands and arms, 71, 72, 89, 97, 98, 101, 106-108,
111, 113, 116-118, 124, 146, 148, 160, 167, 174, 181, 186;
of heads, 73, 89, 115, 161, 177, 187.
(II) visible,--of hands of arms, 10, 73, 116, 159, 175, 185;
of heads and busts, 21, 72, 115, 128, 177, 185, 366.
(m) a solid passing through a solid substance, 107, 128.
(n) cases apparently produced by fraud, 200.

Palotti, M., report on E. Paladino, 114-116.

Palotti, Mme., 114.

Pelletier, M., 220.

Penta, Dr., 147.

Phaedrus, quoted, xx.

Phalansterians, the, 61, 443.

Phantoms, 419, _see also_ Materializations.

Plautus, xiv.

Politi, Auguste, mediums, his phenomena, 368-371.

Poggenpohl, M. de, 373, 374.

Porro, Francois, report on E. Paladino, 177-192;
his theories, 409.

Predictions, 293, 384, 385.

Psychical research, utility of, v, viii, 2, 30-32;
the sceptic's attitude toward, vii;
ignorance of critics of, xii, xv;
scientists unwilling to recognize phenomena, 18-20;
value of cumulative testimony in, 191;
necessity of eliminating fraud in, 194;
society for, 305.

Psychological Institute invites E. Paladino to Paris, 3.

Rabelais, 1;
alleged spirit communications from, 38-40.

Radioculture, vi.

Raps (_see also_, Typtology), their connection with sitters, 22;
hypotheses for, 35;
Dr. J. Maxwell's Studies of, 360-364;
recapitulation of, 416-418;
cases of, 8, 13, 17, 75, 105, 144, 145, 147, 175, 232, 244, 292,
297-301, 353, 357.

Ravachol, alleged spirit communication from, 213.

Regnard, quoted, 101.

Ribero, M., 218.

Richet, Dr. Charles, 3, 63, 65, 84, 93, 95, 151, 162, 178, 202, 305;
his experiments in Algiers, 375;
his theory, 409.

Rochas, Count Albert de, 63, 84, 95, 162, 203, 289, 368;
cited, 3, 135, 179, 188, 198;
his theories, 409.

Rodiere, Mme., medium, 196.

Rothe, Anna, medium, 217.

Rothschild, Ed. de, 101.

Roure, Lucien, cited, 398.

Sabatier, A., 63, 173.

Sambor, Russian medium, his phenomena, 371-374.

Sardou, Victorien, 178, 203, 208;
early mediumistic experiences of, 25;
letter to Jules Claretie, 45;
report on E. Paladino, 95-98;
participates in Paladino sittings, 123, 124.

Sayn-Wittgenstein, Prince, 334.

Schiaparelli, 4, 63, 82, 151, 178, 194;
letter regarding E. Paladino, 64.

Secondary personality, _see_ Double Personality.

Sergines, M. de, 101.

Sexton, Dr., 334.

Sidgwick, Prof. Henry, 305.

Siemiradski, M. de, 162;
quoted, 163.

Simmons, Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, 368.

Sivel the aeronaut, alleged spirit communication from, 213.

Slade, Henry, medium, 66, 420;
his fraud, 196.

Socrates, vii.

Solid passing through a solid, cases of, 107, 128, 372;--a natural
parallel, 130.

Solovovo, Petrovo, describes Sambor's phenomena, 371-374.

Soul, the, xx, 82, 178, 188, 439, 452.

Spirit communications, 384-389;
erroneous, 51, 52, 57;
_see also_, Automatic writing, Raps, Trance-speaking.

Spiritualism (spiritism), 194;
its immateriality in psychical research, xx, 80;
has never taught anything new, 26, 436;
not proven by Paladino phenomena, 166;
dilemma between animism and, 188, 435;
Porro's opinion of its relation to Paladino, 190 _et seq._;
de Gasparin's arguments against, 285;
Thury's comments on, 285 _et seq._;
spiritistic hypothesis accepted by Cromwell Varley, 305, 409, by
Wallace, 409, by Prof. Morgan, 409;
spirits not necessarily souls of dead, 431;
still a working hypothesis, 439, 447;
arguments against its probability, 439 _et seq._

Squanquarillo, Joseph, 368.

Stewart, Prof. Balfour, 305.

Stock, Georges, 50.

Subliminal consciousness, Myers on, 433, 434;
Dr. Geeley's hypothesis, 434;
does not depend upon organism, 435.

Sully-Prudhomme, 173.

Syamour, Mme., 101.

Table movements, 411-413.
_See also_, Levitation _and_ Movements of Natural Objects.

Taine, quoted, 58.

Tamburini, M., 144.

Tanchou, Dr., report on Angelica Cottin, 219-222.

Tapp, Mr., 345.

Taton, M., 368.

Telekinesis, 61.

Thermal radiations (sensations of heat or cold in mediumistic
phenomena), 115, 117, 125, 186.

Thury, Marc, his researches into physical phenomena, 266-287;
his experiments, 269-276;
his theories, 276-287, 408.

Touchings in mediumistic phenomena, 418.
_See also_, Materializations (tactile).

Trance speaking, cases of, 71, 160, 293.

Typtology (intelligible communications by raps), code for, 8;
results generally tally, knowledge of the experimenters, 14, 37, 57;
apparently an extension of hand and brain, 33;
received through Mme. Huet, 37 _et seq._;
answers to unknown questions evidently guess-work, 240;
specimens of, 38-43, 70, 80, 114, 147, 203, 212, 237, 292, 293,
297-301, 355, 356, 380, 403, 437.
_See also_, Raps.

Unknown natural forces, v, xvii, 1-23, 2, 18;
extracts from Flammarion's monograph on, xi-xxi;
evinced in E. Paladino's phenomena, 80, 192;
hypotheses regarding, 81, 406 _et seq._;
danger of too great scepticism against recognition of, 188 _et seq._;
not the exclusive property of mediums, 442.

Uranus, the satellites of, spiritistic communications regarding, 50-57.

Vacquerie, Charles, 213.

Varennes, M. and Mlle. de, 95.

Varley, Cromwell F., 291, 297, 359;
accepts spiritistic hypothesis, 305, 409.

Vignon, Louis, 98, 101.

Virchow, cited, 20.

Virgil, quoted, 451.

Vizioli, M., 143.

Voltaire, 1.

Wagner, Prof., 162.

Wallace Alfred Russel, 65, 290, 297, 437;
accepts spiritistic theory, 409.

Watteville, Baron de, 63, 173, 218;--his investigations of mediumistic
phenomena, 353-359.

Weber, A., 372.

Wellemberg, M., 218.

Will, the, its influence upon phenomena, 273 _et seq._, 365.

Williams, Mrs., medium, 218, 219.

Wolf, M., 218.

Writing and marks produced at a distance, 167, 356, 371, 373, 379.

X., Mme., mediumistic seance with, 211-216.

Zeno, cited, 450.

Zoellner, Prof., 66, 178, 196, 420.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Sosie is a character in Plautus and Moliere. Hermes takes Sosie's form, and, when the latter sees his double, he almost doubts his own identity. So the word came to mean a counterpart, a double, one's _alter ego_.--_Trans._

[2] This seems to be a reference to the wardrobe used by the early Spiritualists as a cabinet in their demonstrations in public halls.--_Trans._

[3] The cock scratching for grain finds a pearl.