s,
etc.; in the upper, the hyper-normal cognitions of the medium-trance.
Whatever the judgment of the future may be on Mr. Myers's speculations,
the credit will always remain to them of being the first attempt in any
language to consider the phenomena of hallucination, hypnotism,
automatism, double personality, and mediumship as connected parts of
one whole subject. All constructions in this field must be
provisional, and it is as something provisional that Mr. Myers offers
us his formulations. But, thanks to him, we begin to see for the first
time what a vast interlocked and graded system these phenomena, from
the rudest motor-automatisms to the most startling sensory-apparition,
form. Quite apart from Mr. Myers's conclusions, his methodical
treatment of them by classes and series is the first great step toward
overcoming the distaste of orthodox science to look at them at all.

{317}

One's reaction on hearsay testimony is always determined by one's own
experience. Most men who have once convinced themselves, by what seems
to them a careful examination, that any one species of the supernatural
exists, begin to relax their vigilance as to evidence, and throw the
doors of their minds more or less wide open to the supernatural along
its whole extent. To a mind that has thus made its _salto mortale_,
the minute work over insignificant cases and quiddling discussion of
'evidential values,' of which the Society's reports are full, seems
insufferably tedious. And it is so; few species of literature are more
truly dull than reports of phantasms. Taken simply by themselves, as
separate facts to stare at, they appear so devoid of meaning and sweep,
that, even were they certainly true, one would be tempted to leave them
out of one's universe for being so idiotic. Every other sort of fact
has some context and continuity with the rest of nature. These alone
are contextless and discontinuous.

Hence I think that the sort of loathing--no milder word will do--which
the very words 'psychical research' and 'psychical researcher' awaken
in so many honest scientific breasts is not only natural, but in a
sense praiseworthy. A man who is unable himself to conceive of any
_orbit_ for these mental meteors can only suppose that Messrs. Gurney,
Myers, & Co.'s mood in dealing with them must be that of silly
marvelling at so many detached prodigies. And such prodigies! So
science simply falls back on her general _non-possumus_; an