rld. I have examined this question freely
from many points of view, because whatever may be the vehemence with
which particular opinions are insisted upon, its solution is
unquestionably doubtful. There is a wide and growing conviction
among truth-seeking, earnest, humble-minded, and thoughtful men,
both in this country and abroad, that our cosmic relations are by no
means so clear and simple as they are popularly supposed to be,
while the worthy and intelligent teachers of various creeds, who
have strong persuasions on the character of those relations, do not
concur in their several views.

The results of the inquiries I have made into certain alleged forms
of our relations with the unseen world do not, so far as they go,
confirm the common doctrines. One, for example, on the objective
efficacy of prayer[20] was decidedly negative. It showed that while
contradicting the commonly expressed doctrine, it concurred with the
almost universal practical opinion of the present day. Another
inquiry into visions showed that, however ill explained they may
still be, they belong for the most part, if not altogether, to an
order of phenomena which no one dreams in other cases of calling
supernatural. Many investigations concur in showing the vast
multiplicity of mental operations that are in simultaneous action,
of which only a minute part falls within the ken of consciousness,
and suggest that much of what passes for supernatural is due to one
portion of our mind being contemplated by another portion of it, as
if it had been that of another person. The term "individuality" is
in fact a most misleading word.

[Footnote 20: Not reprinted in this edition.]

I do not for a moment wish to imply that the few inquiries published
in this volume exhaust the list of those that might be made, for I
distinctly hold the contrary, but I refer to them in corroboration
of the previous assertion that our relations with the unseen world
are different to those we are commonly taught to believe.

In our doubt as to the character of our mysterious relations with
the unseen ocean of actual and potential life by which we are
surrounded, the generally accepted fact of the solidarity of the
universe--that is, of the intimate connections between distant parts
that bind it together as a whole--justifies us, I think, in looking
upon ourselves as members of a vast system which in one of its
aspects resembles a cosmic republic.

On the one hand, we know