It can be said with confidence that whatever in the future may be learned as to the physiologic functions of the pituitary body and the pineal gland, it suffices to know that it is life which they express and that, too, in a far superior manner than any of the other sense organs. The modus of these two glands differs in a very marked way from that of the organs of sight, hearing, taste, smell and feeling. For these latter are designed for contact with the external, objective world of sensations, their growth and evolution being dependent upon stimuli received from without while with the former the case is far different, in fact, just the opposite. The mode of life of the pituitary body and the pineal gland, instead of receiving sustenance and impetus from external stimuli, is rather dependent upon impacts received from the Thinker's own consciousness and made to impinge upon them by an exclusively interior process. Situated in the mid-brain, safely secluded from all external interference, they are naturally limited to stimuli which come from within, or it may be said, they are responsive to excitations that are more spiritual than those which come through the external sense-organs. If, as has been said they control the internal processes of metabolism (anabolism and katabolism), oxygenation, nutrition, and other important internal movements, none of which can be said to be under the control of the intellect, is it not, therefore, justly assumed that their response is directed towards stimuli which arise interiorly or upon a plane higher than the intellectual? It is a matter of scientific knowledge that those persons gifted with clairvoyance, and commonly known as "sensitives" are far more responsive to nervous excitation than those who are not so gifted. This would seem to imply that, on account of the superactivity of these two organs, the entire nerve-body has, in consequence, become more delicately and subtly organized. They seem to act as a switchboard for the regulation of the flow of the current of life through the body. Not only do they come more nearly to an adequate expression of the physiologic function of life, but, as their energization means an enlargement of the scope of perception by giving the Thinker's active consciousness access to hitherto unapproachable realities and by penetrating the outer mask which life ensouls and also laying bare a domain of unlimited knowledge the manifestation of which is far more real than anything the senses can disclose, it is evident that they constitute, in their collaborative functions, a more highly adaptable medium for the expression of the Thinker's consciousness. And if so, for the kosmic consciousness which is the source of all forms of consciousness, they furnish a specializing and adaptizing agency.
Now, in all those cases of inspirations, revelations, telepathic communications, clairaudience, clairvoyance, dreams, visions, etc., wherein the Thinker is enabled to perceive facts and verities which are then presented to his consciousness in a manner clearly without the province of the common sense-organs, it must be apparent that these manifestations are apprehended by a perceptual mechanism which is entirely independent of external sense presentations but which is an interior and subtler form of psychic activity. Sounds which are heard by so-called "sensitives" and objects which are perceived by eyes that are keener than those organs said to have been evolved from the "medusa" cannot be heard by other persons nor perceived by them in any way. Thus it would seem that there are inner organs of perception which respond to these finer vibrations and which enable the person so gifted to apprehend them.
There are those who, presumably basing their assertions upon actual observation and knowledge, unqualifiedly assert that in order "to gain contact with the inner worlds all that remains to be done is the awakening of the pituitary body and the pineal gland. When this is accomplished man will again possess the faculty of perception in the higher worlds, but on a grander scale than formerly (when humanity was in its infancy and exercised a lower form of psychic power only); because it will be in connection with the voluntary nervous system, and therefore, under the control of the will. Through this inner perceptive faculty all avenues of knowledge will be opened to him and he will have at his service a means of acquiring information compared with which all other methods of investigation are but child's play."[31] It is the lack of this ability to see, with our physical eyes, as it were, by the "Roentgen rays," to penetrate the inwardness of things that has baffled and confounded men for so long a time and which has eventually led certain mathematicians and others to conjecture such strange, and in many cases, illogical possibilities for the denizens of four-space. This inability together with the desire to fathom the innermost complexities of solids and to handle, albeit with unholy hands, the supersensuous, the mysterious and the unapproachable identity of "things-in-themselves" have induced the more zealous among them to contrive some kind of hypothesis which would, at least, offer an explanation of these phenomena. It has driven them to wrestle with metaphysical possibilities in a vain endeavor to grasp that which, ignis-fatuus like, ever evades their slightest intellectual approach. But why this prolonged struggle, why this intellectual maneuvering and sophistry? "We can calculate, compute, excogitate," says Paul Carus,[32] "and describe all the characteristics of four-dimensional space, so long as we remain in the realm of abstract thought and do not venture to make use of our motility and execute our plans in an actualized construction of motion; but as soon as we make an a priori construction of the scope of our motility, we find out the incompatibility of the whole scheme." Thus mathematicians are forced to relinquish all hopes of transforming the world of life into a sort of four-space dwelling place where everything is done according to the laws of mathematics. But whether they shall accept it or not there is a wider, truer and more rational view which recognizes all metageometrical investigations, as well as all kindred phenomena, as universal evidences indeed, as the very causes which, in the future humanity, will actually awaken and cause to be accelerated in their development these little inner sense-organs, the pineal gland and the pituitary body, whose perfect development promises to provide for the Thinker's consciousness an avenue of expression such as humanity has possessed never before. And too, it is not without full knowledge of the fact that it has been customary, among certain scientists or perhaps all of them, to regard these bodies, at least the pineal gland, as vestigal organs belonging to the past of human evolution, that we make these assertions. Yet, as man proceeds in the perfection of mechanical science, in the development of instruments of precision that aid his external senses, responds more and more to the subtle vibrations teeming everywhere in the atmosphere about him, and comes, in the course of time, naturally to possess a more sensitively keyed nervous mechanism, a finer body and higher spiritual aspirations, there will be a corresponding widening of his scope of vision and the attainment of larger powers of perception which must inevitably, in the very nature of things, tend towards a deeper and truer knowledge. In view of the foregoing, it is believed that the general results of this pituitarial awakening which may be expected as humanity continues to evolve should be seen in the marked effects which will be wrought in the entire metabolistic area of the human body whereby a gradual intensification and sensitization of the whole neural mechanism will raise the peculiar efficiency of all the senses whether purely physiologic or psychic. For there are undoubtedly notes so delicate in their intensity that they transcend the grasp of the audital nerves; scents and fragrances so subtle in their excelling purity that it is beyond the powers of our present olfactorial contrivances to detect them; colors and other external stimuli so sublimely supersensuous that a nervous mechanism perhaps ten-fold more delicate and responsive than ours is required to apprehend them. All these, and more than at present is conceivable, will come, with the aid of pituitarial stimulation, within the purview of a more highly developed humanity of the future. And because mathematics have led a movement into the very camp of the intellectuals—logic-bound and tethered by the severest rigors of mathesis—whereby the intolerant intellect has been compelled, by rules of its own making, to recognize the existence of the supersensuous, and by looking into the glaring light of the sun of the intuitable to gain strength of vision and boldness to press forward, a great and far-reaching service has been wrought for humanity. And in the tower of hyperspace mathematics have erected a monument to the intellect which, as long as the human race remains, will mark the great turning point in man's path to the highest life.
What if it were possible that the scientist, when he had carried instruments to their utmost precision and penetration, should suddenly, or otherwise, be endowed with a clear-perceptivity of sight, hearing and smell, so that he could with his own powers of vision, feeling and hearing take up the task where the microscope, the microphone and the micrometer left off and delve into depths far too unfathomable for his appliances, perceiving the innermost realities of things and processes? What if it were possible for him, with these added powers, to see and examine without the aid of the magnifying lens the electron, the atom and the molecule? What if the cell, the bacterium, and other invisible forms of life would then deliver up their secrets to his knowing mind? What if he could sense with his own inner vision, the ultra-violet and the infra-red rays; what indeed, if spirit itself, the innermost sheath of life, should be visible and palpable to him and he could note the internal processes, the action and movements of the infinitesimals of life? Think you not that such direct contact, such immediate and incontrovertible knowledge would be far superior to any advantage which his manufactured devices now bestow? It is even so.
Thus will react upon man's perceptive apparatus the flood of light which the awakened intuition will shed upon them and thus will man rise higher, driven on by the current of life with the mass of materiality, to a point of complete spiritualization and take additional steps in that direction which leads to Raja Yoga or the Royal Union with the divine life of the universe.
Before this step is taken, however, and before the passage from mechanics to biogenetics is made, as made it must be, man must win a complete mastery over matter. But this he will do; for more and more he is learning to put all those forms of labor which are so exacting as to leave him no time for the development of his higher powers into the hands of machinery. He will not be free until he has done this well-nigh completely. This is the task of the intellect and with it man must win his way to these higher faculties which are destined to succeed the intellect whereupon he will be ushered out of a life bound and restricted by mechanics to a life of unimaginable freedom, the intuitive life.
The outcome of these new faculties of perception and the development of the intuition will be the springing up of a new species of art that, turning away from appearances and sinking beneath or rising above, superficialities, will seek to portray in newly found colors, the plastic essence of things so that we shall have an art which pertains to the real, superseding that which pertains to the phenomenal. Language and the need of it will pass away; for man will have outgrown the use of signs and symbols in his communion with his fellows and will use the language of the intuition—direct and instantaneous cognition. Philosophy will be regenerated, re-created. Speculation will give way to truth and there shall be but one philosophy and that shall be the knowledge of the real. Mathematics, the royal insignia of the intellectual life, because it can deal only with immobilities, with segments and parts and has no aptitude for the continuous flow, will yield its kingdom to a higher form of kinetics which will serve the intuitive faculty as mathematics now serve the intellect. Science will then be no longer empirical in its method; but a system of direct and incontrovertible truths. Religion will rise to meet these changes which will come in the path of human evolution; and faith will surrender its place to knowledge. Ethics, recast in a new mold, will deal with the new aspect of man's relation to his fellowmen. Man, for whose highest good these ultimate changes will come, will be a new creature, a higher and better man; and humanity shall evolve a new race. There shall, indeed, be "a new heaven and a new earth."
THE END.