medium's vision does not allow her to give us. If asked, for instance,
about a soldier who is a prisoner in Germany, she will see the soldier
in question very plainly, will perceive his state of health and mind,
the manner in which he is treated, his companions, the fortress or
group of huts in which he is interned, the appearance of the camp, of
the town, of the surrounding district; but she will very seldom indeed
be able to mention the name of the camp, town or district. In fact,
she can describe only what she sees; and, unless the town or camp have
a board bearing its name, there will be nothing to enable her to
identify it with sufficient accuracy. Let us add, lastly, that, with
mediums in a state of trance, who are not conscious of what they are
saying, we are exposed to terrible shocks. If they see death, they
announce the fact bluntly, without suspecting that they are in the
presence of a horror-stricken mother, wife or sister, so much so that,
in the case of Mme. M. particularly, it has been found necessary to
take certain precautions to obviate any such shock.

3

Now what is the nature of this strange and incredible faculty? In the
book which I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I tried to
examine the different theories that suggested themselves. The
argument, unfortunately, is infinitely too long to be republished
here, even if I were to compress it ruthlessly. I will give merely a
brief summary of the conclusions, or rather of the attempted
conclusions, for the mystery, like most of the world's mysteries, is
probably unfathomable. After dismissing the spiritualistic theory,
which implies the intervention of the dead or of discarnate entities
and is not as ridiculous as the profane would think, but which nothing
hitherto has adequately confirmed, we may reasonably ask ourselves
first of all whether this faculty exists in us or in the medium. Does
it simply decipher, as is probably the case where the future is
concerned, the latent ideas, knowledge and certainties which we bear
within us, or does it alone, of its own initiative and independently
of us, perceive what it reveals to us? Experience seems to show that
we must adopt the latter hypothesis, for the vision appears just as
distinctly when the illuminating object is brought by a third person
who knows nothing and has never heard of the individual to whom the
object once belonged. It seems therefore almost certain that the
strange virtue is