ago urged the
possibility of this vibratory action of telepathy; but Mr. Myers has
pointed out its defects and stated that all we can at present say about
telepathy is that "life has the power of manifesting to life"--a formula
surely general enough, yet highly significant.

Again, the theory has been advanced that all minds are in touch in a
sort of subterranean way--through their subliminal regions--just as all
spokes of a wheel ultimately reach the hub, though each spoke is
distinctive. In this way we could imagine an inter-connection taking
place, of which we are quite unaware, under certain favourable
conditions. To use an analogy somewhere employed by Professor James,
our conscious minds are like the leaves of the trees which whisper
together, but the roots of the trees are all embedded in the same soil
and are interlaced inextricably. So our minds, though they appear to be
so separate and apart, may really be at basis fundamentally _one_. There
must be, it is said, some common ground of interaction; possibly a sort
of universal fluid, in which all minds are bathed, and by means of which
interaction of thought is effected. This is somewhat akin to the theory
first propounded by Mesmer, and which has been revived, in somewhat
altered form, more than a hundred years later. Mesmer held that thought
was communicated from brain to brain "by the vibrations of a subtle
fluid with which the nerve substance is in continuity." Truly, if any
sort of physical action is employed, this seems a significant enough
remark. We know that two tuning forks will resound in unison, if one of
them be struck. Put in motion a magnetized needle; at a certain distance
and without contact another magnetized needle will oscillate
synchronously with the first. Set in vibration a violin string, or the
string of a piano; and at a certain distance the string of another piano
or violin will vibrate in unison with it. Such analogies make us wonder
whether or not communication of this kind might not exist, and,
certainly, in order to make telepathy intelligible at all, we must
suppose some such action taking place. We all have a tendency to think
in physical symbols, owing to our materialistic training.

For if we try to picture to ourselves the process of telepathy as taking
place in some manner other than physical, how are we to conceive such
action? Does one consciousness stretch out, as it were, and grasp the
other passive mind? or does the agen