"Every living being is a dynamic focus. A dynamic focus tends ever to propagate the motion that is proper to it. Propagated motion becomes transformed according to the medium it traverses. Motion always tends to propagate itself. Therefore, when we see work of any kind—mechanical, electrical, nervic, or psychic—disappear without visible effort, then of two things, one happens, namely, either a transmission or a transformation. Where does the first end, and where does the second begin? In an identical medium there is only transmission; in a different medium there is transformation.
"You send an electric current through a thick wire. You have the current, but you do not perceive any other force. But cut that thick wire, and connect the ends by means of a fine wire, and this fine wire will grow hot—there will be a transformation of a part of the current into heat. Take a pretty strong current, and interpose a wire still more resistant, or a very thin carbon rod, and the carbon will emit light. A part of the current, then, is transformed into heat and light. The light acts in every direction around about, first visibly as light, then invisibly as heat and electric current. Hold a magnet near it. If the magnet is weak and movable, in the form of a magnetic needle, the beam of light will cause it to deviate; if it is strong and immovable, it will in turn cause the beam of light to deviate. And all this from a distance, without contact, without special conductors.
Dynamic Correlate of Thought.
"A process that is at once chemical, physical and psychical, goes on in the brain. A complex action of this kind is propagated through the gray brain matter, as waves are propagated in water. Regarded on its physiological side, an idea is only a vibration, a vibration that is propagated, yet which does not pass out of the medium in which it can exist as such. It is propagated only as far as other vibrations allow. It is propagated more widely if it assumes the character which subjectively we call emotive. But it cannot go beyond without being transformed. Nevertheless, like force in general, it cannot remain in isolation, and it escapes in disguise.
"Thought stays at home, as the chemical action of a battery remains in the battery; it is represented by its dynamic correlate, called in the case of the battery a 'current,' and in the case of the brain, I know not what; but whatever its name may be, it is the dynamic correlate of thought. I have chosen the name 'dynamic correlate.' There is something more than that; the universe is neither dead nor void.
"A force that is transmitted meets other forces, and if it is transformed only little by little it usually limits itself to modifying another force at its own cost, though without suffering materially thereby. This is the case particularly with forces that are persistent, concentrated, well seconded by their medium. It is the case with the physiological equilibrium, nervic force, psychic force, ideas, emotions, tendencies. These modify environing forces, without themselves disappearing. They are imperceptibly transformed, and if the next man is of a nature exceptionally well adapted to them, they gain in inductive action."
Answer to Skeptical Critics
The two most likely objections advanced against this conception by sceptical critics are as follows: "(1) The mental vibratory motion, or vibratory waves, are not known to science, nor recorded on scientific instruments such as the galvanometer. What is the rate of such vibrations, and what is their general character? (2) Granted the existence of such vibratory energy, or thought-waves, how and by means of what channel does the second person receive them from the first person? How are they registered or recorded?" These objections are capable of being met in a scientific manner, to the satisfaction of any fair-minded critic or investigator. We shall now give you, briefly, the gist of the answer of science to the aforesaid objections.
The World of Vibrations
It is true that the scientific instruments of the laboratory, such as the galvanometer, do not record thought vibrations. This, because such instruments are capable of registering and recording on certain rates and modes of vibratory energy. Thought vibrations are registered only by their appropriate instruments, namely, the Chitta of Mind substance of living persons. As to the "general character and rate of vibration" of these waves of mental force, we can only say that their general character is that of "mental force" as opposed to "physical force."