general, the whole of science
and the weight of experience are on Maeterlinck's side. Of course this
assumes that a good many things have been put inside this sphere to
begin with. Speaking in terms of religion, this does not shut God out of
the world, but it does shut up life and experience to conformity with
their own laws and forces them to explain their phenomena in terms of
their own content.

In a sentence, just as the resident forces of the outside world have
been heretofore sufficient, in the measure that we have been able to
discover them, to explain all the phenomena of the outside world, it is
reasonable to believe that the content of personality is sufficient to
explain all personal phenomena, whether normal or abnormal, and that it
is to ourselves and not to the discarnate that we have to look for the
explanation of the phenomena of alleged spiritism.

_The Investigations of Emile Boirac_

The men who are working along this line, particularly Geley and Emile
Boirac, by no means deny the phenomena, but they offer another solution.
Boirac, particularly, finds his point of departure in hypnotism and
suggestibility. Now here is a continuation of the line of approach and
interpretation which cleared up the whole confused matter of mesmerism.
We have already seen how the French investigators found the explanation
of what Mesmer and those who followed him have been able to accomplish,
not in magnetic influence or any such thing, but in the remarkable
changes produced in personality by exterior or autosuggestion, and just
as this was the key to the phenomena of mesmerism, it is more likely
than anything else to prove the key to the explanation of the phenomena
of spiritualism, for these are really nothing more than simply aspects
of the trance state, however induced.

It is not necessary to follow, in this connection, Boirac's analysis of
the phenomena attendant upon the trance state, or to consider his
theories as to hypnosis itself. He believes that there are in our
personalities hidden forces which, in the normal conduct of life, are
not brought into action. They are no necessary part of our adjustment to
our working environment; on the whole they complicate rather than
simplify the business of living and they are best--though this is not
his statement but the writer's conclusion from the whole matter--they
are best left unawakened. What we are normally is the outcome of the
adjustment of personality to t