Reference to Special Cases
It will be observed that none of those indications or intimations or intuitions which are referred to in a note on page 34, Part I, if they mean anything, raise the difficult question of prevision. In every case the impression was felt after or at the time of the event, though before reception of the news. The only question of possible prevision in the present instance arises in connexion with the 'Faunus' message quoted and discussed in Part II. But even here nothing more than kindly provision, in case anything untoward should happen, need be definitely assumed. Moreover, if the concurrence in time suggests prognostication, the fact that a formidable attempt to advance the English Front at the Ypres salient was probably in prospect in August 1915, though not known to ordinary people in England, and not fully carried out till well on in September, must have been within human knowledge; and so would have to be considered telepathically accessible, if that hypothesis is considered preferable to the admission of what Tennyson speaks of as—
"Such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise."
Prognostication can hardly be part of the evidence for survival. The two things are not essential to each other; they hardly appear to be connected. But one knows too little about the whole thing to be sure even of this, and I decline to take the responsibility for suppressing any of the facts. I know that Mr. Myers used to express an opinion that certain kinds of prevision would constitute clear and satisfactory evidence of something supernormal, and so attract attention; though the establishment of such a possibility might tend to suggest a kind of higher knowledge, not far short of what might be popularly called omniscience, rather than of merely human survival.
CHAPTER VI
INTERACTION OF MIND AND MATTER
"Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
Æneid, vi. 726
LIFE and mind and consciousness do not belong to the material region; whatever they are in themselves, they are manifestly something quite distinct from matter and energy, and yet they utilise the material and dominate it.
Matter is arranged and moved by means of energy, but often at the behest of life and mind. Mind does not itself exert force, nor does it enter into the scheme of physics, and yet it indirectly brings about results which otherwise would not have happened. It definitely causes movements and arrangements or constructions of a purposed character. A bird grows a feather, and a bird builds a nest: I doubt if there is less design in the one case than in the other. How life achieves the guidance, how even it accomplishes the movements, is a mystery, but that it does accomplish them is a commonplace of observation. From the motion of a finger to the construction of an aeroplane, there is but a succession of steps. From the growth of a weed to the flight of an eagle,—from a yeast granule at one end, to the human body at the other,—the organising power of life over matter is conspicuous.
Who can doubt the supremacy of the spiritual over the material? It is a fact which, illustrated by trivial instances, may be pressed to the most portentous consequences.
If interaction between mind and matter really occurs, and if both are persistent and enduring entities, there is no limit to the possibilities under which such interaction may occur—no limit which can be laid down beforehand—we must be guided and instructed solely by experience.
Whether the results produced are styled miraculous or not, depends on our knowledge,—our knowledge of all the powers latent in nature, and a knowledge of all the intelligences which exist. A savage on his first encounter with white men must have come into contact with what to him was supernatural. A letter, a gun, even artificial teeth, have all aroused superstition; while a telegram must be obviously miraculous, to anyone intelligent enough to perceive the wonder. A colony of bees, unused to the ministrations or interference of man, might puzzle itself over the provision made for its habitation and activities, if it had intelligence enough to ponder the matter. So human beings, if they are open-minded and developed enough to contemplate all the happenings in which they are concerned, have been led to recognise guidance; and they have responded to the perception by the worshipful attitude of religion. In other words, they have essentially recognised the existence of a Power transcending ordinary nature—a Power that may properly be called supernatural.