Spiritualists discuss with great enthusiasm the problem of telepathy. Telepathy means "far-feeling." Mental activity exhibits in all its elements instances of telepathy in the literal sense of the word. We do not feel our sense-organs; but in and through our sense-organs objects outside of us are felt. In and through our eyes most distant stars are seen. If telepathy has no other but its natural and proper meaning we must confess that the whole activity of the mind rests upon telepathy.
However, we cannot recognise telepathy in the sense in which the word is often employed by spiritualists. With many it denotes a process of such far-feeling as is not caused in the natural way and as stands in contradiction to the mechanical interconnection of causes and effects in the universe. It is supposed to supersede the order of nature. We recognise telepathy fully in the sense that feelings represent distant events and that mind can thus penetrate into the remotest regions of time and space, but not in any other sense that stands in contradiction with the universal order of mechanical causation.
What is the soul but a telepathic machine! It is an organised totality of representations in feeling substance employed for the purpose of reacting appropriately upon the stimuli of external things. Man is a part of the cosmos, he consists of a certain group of facts, belonging to and being in intimate connection with the whole universe. Man's mind is the cosmos represented in this special group of facts. A correct representation of the cosmos includes a proper adaptation. Accordingly the human soul is a microcosm and its function is the endeavoring to conform to the macrocosm.
#Mind and light.#
Light is a most wonderful phenomenon; and yet we know that the objective process taking place in luminous bodies and thence transmitted through ether vibrations to our eye where it causes the sensation of light, is a mode of motion that can be produced mechanically by changing simple or mechanical motion (i. e., change of place) through friction into molecular motion. As light originates out of darkness, being a special mode of motion, so feeling originates out of the not-feeling. The not-feeling accordingly contains the conditions of feeling in a similar way as potential energy contains the potentiality of kinetic energy, or as molar motion contains potentially the molecular motion of heat, light, and electricity.
Mind sheds light upon the interconnection of all things and gives meaning to the world. If the world consisted of purely objective facts only, it would remain a meaningless play of forces. Mind and the whole realm of spiritual existence rises from most insignificant beginnings; yet is it so grand and divine because it represents the world in its wonderful harmony and cosmic order.
#Continuity in the transient.#
The function of spiritual activity appears to us as transient; but mind is not as transient as it seems. The continuous light of a flame depends in every instance upon the conditions of the moment. But the continuity of mind shows a preservation of mind-forms, the corresponding spiritual activity of which is called memory. Memory or the mind-form of former states is the most important factor in the determination of the representative value of present states of mind. The continuity thus effected makes it possible for mind to represent not only things and processes distant in space, but also those distant in time.
The continuation of form in feeling substance, not merely in the life of single individuals, but also in the life of the race, produces the growth, the development, and evolution of mind. Thus facts can be represented in their connections, and the necessity of their connection can be understood. To use Spinoza's phrase: The world can be viewed sub specie æternitatis.
#Mind and Eternity.#