rsons of exalted sensibility are liable. In such liability there
lie, however, consequences for theology. Beliefs are strengthened
wherever automatisms corroborate them. Incursions from beyond the
transmarginal region have a peculiar power to increase conviction. The
inchoate sense of presence is infinitely stronger than conception, but
strong as it may be, it is seldom equal to the evidence of
hallucination. Saints who actually see or hear their Saviour reach the
acme of assurance. Motor automatisms, though rarer, are, if possible,
even more convincing than sensations. The subjects here actually feel
themselves played upon by powers beyond their will. The evidence is
dynamic; the God or spirit moves the very organs of their body.[324]

[323] Above, pp. 25, 26.

[324] A friend of mine, a first-rate psychologist, who is a subject of
graphic automatism, tells me that the appearance of independent
actuation in the movements of his arm, when he writes automatically, is
so distinct that it obliges him to abandon a psychophysical theory
which he had previously believed in, the theory, namely, that we have
no feeling of the discharge downwards of our voluntary motor-centres.
We must normally have such a feeling, he thinks, or the SENSE OF AN
ABSENCE would not be so striking as it is in these experiences.
Graphic automatism of a fully developed kind is rare in religious
history, so far as my knowledge goes. Such statements as Antonia
Bourignon's, that "I do nothing but lend my hand and spirit to another
power than mine," is shown by the context to indicate inspiration
rather than directly automatic writing. In some eccentric sects this
latter occurs. The most striking instance of it is probably the bulky
volume called, "Oahspe, a new Bible in the Words of Jehovah and his
angel ambassadors," Boston and London, 1891, written and illustrated
automatically by Dr. Newbrough of New York, whom I understand to be
now, or to have been lately, at the head of the spiritistic community
of Shalam in New Mexico. The latest automatically written book which
has come under my notice is "Zertouhem's Wisdom of the Ages," by George
A. Fuller, Boston, 1901.

The great field for this sense of being the instrument of a higher
power is of course "inspiration." It is easy to discriminate between
the religious leaders who have been habitually subject to inspiration
and those who have not. In the teachings of the Buddha, of Jesus, of