own individual body of a real actual living thing
composed of a mysterious substance wherein what we call mind and
what we call matter are fused and intermingled. This is our real and
self-conscious soul, the thing in us which says, "I am I," of which
the physical body is only one expression, and of which all the bodily
senses are only one gateway of receptivity.

The soul within us becomes aware of its own body simultaneously
with its becoming aware of all the other bodies which fill the visible
universe. It is then by an act of faith or imagination that the soul
within us takes for granted and assumes that there must be a soul
resembling our own soul within each one of those alien bodies, of
which, simultaneously with its own, it becomes aware.

And since the living basis of our personality is this real soul within
us, it follows that all those energies of personality, whose
concentration is the supreme work of art, are the energies of this real
soul. If, therefore, we assume that all the diverse physical bodies
which fill the universe possess, each of them, an inner soul
resembling our own soul, we are led to the conclusion that just as
our own soul half-creates and half-discovers the general spectacle of
things which it names "the universe," so all the alien souls in the
world half-create and half-discover what they feel as _their_
universe.

If our revelation stopped at this point we should have to admit that
there was not one universe, but as many universes are there are
living souls. It is at this point, however, that we become aware that
all these souls are able, in some degree or other, to enter into
communication. They are able to do this both by the bodily sounds
and signs which constitute language and by certain immaterial
vibrations which seem to make no use of the body at all. In this
communication between different souls, as far as humanity is
concerned, a very curious experience has to be recorded.

When two human beings dispute together upon any important
problem of life, there is always an implicit appeal made by both of
them to an invisible arbiter, or invisible standard of arbitration, in
the heart of which both seem aware that the reality, upon which
their opinions differ, is to be found in its eternal truth. What then
is this invisible standard of arbitration? Whatever it is, we are
compelled to assume that it satisfies and transcends the deepest and
furthest reach of personal vision in all th