SURVIVAL OR TELEPATHY?

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1854, 13 September 1913, Page 4

SURVIVAL OR TELEPATHY?

The inaugural address delivered by Sir Oliveh Lodge at the meeting of the British Association for tho Advancement of Scienco was a remarkably interesting utterance by one of the most striking personalities in the scientific world, though the brief summary which appeared in our cable columns yesterday is only sufficient to whet the intellectual appetite. Sir Oliver Lodge is Principal of Birmingham University, and has made a world-wide reputation as a physicist, having devoted special attention to the study of electricity and the aether of space; but he is not merely a scientist in the narrower sense of; the word, for ha takes a keen interest'in the main currents of modern thought, including those fascinating 'problems connected_ with psychical research. Scientists of the old school were accustomed to view with disfavour the investigation of those forms of mental and spiritual phenomena to which the Society for Psychical Research is devoting so much 'attention; but in recent years this restricted view of the province of scienoe has been brushed aside by many of tho most 1 brilliant pioneers of thought, who contend that any interpretation of Nature which ignores half tho facts cannot be considered satisfactory. Psychical research has been called a superstitious folly, but it is surely j more superstitious to shut our eyes ! to facts that do not happen to fit in with our preconceived ideas than to approach all questions with an open mind ready to weigh the whole of tho evidence, and to follow truth wherever it may- lead. The fact that men like Me. A. J. Balfour, M. Henri Bergson, Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Chooses, Lord Rayleigh, and Professor William James have shown a keen interest in the investigation of psychical phenomena is sufficient to show that such matters are well worthy of examina- ! tiou on scientific lines, and it is a significant indication of tho direction in which modern thought 'is tending when the president of the British Association boldly asserts his belief in the persistence of personality beyond bodily death, as evidenced by the results of psychical research. It is only fair to ]!>oint out, however, that the phenomena, on which Sir Oliver Lodge bases his belief that "discarnato intelligence tsnay interact under certain conditions with us on the material side" are regarded by other careful and coinpet"ent investigators as capable of a different interpretation; but the opinion is growing in strength that some of the most striking facts that have been brought to light by psychical research cannot bo accounted for by tho mechanical or materialistic view of Nature. This is the opinion of Mil. M'Dougall, Reader in Mental Philosophy in tho University of Oxford, one of the leading authorities on modern psychology, who in his reccnfc book on "Body and Mind" makes the following interesting statement:— "So long* as wo consider oaly the evidence of telepathy between persons at no great distance tram 0110 another, it. is possible to make the facts appwir compatible with tho mechanistic assumption by uttering • the 'blessed' word 'brain waves.' But the strain upon the mechanistic assumption becomes ijnsupportablo by it when wo consider tho following facts: Minuto.studies of automatic writings, and especially those recently reported under tho head of 'Cross-corro--1 spondepces,' have shown that such writings frequently reveal knowledge of facts which could not have been acquired by the writer by>norraal moans, and could not. have been tele.pathicaliy communicated by any living person in the neighbourhood of tho writer. In short, tho ervidence is 6uch that the keenest adverse critics of the view which sees in these writings the expression of the surviving personalities of deceased persons are driven to postulate as tho only possible explanation of somo of thoni tho direct communication of complex and 6ubtlo thoughts between persons separated _ by hundreds and even thousands of mites. . . . There is good evidence also that in some cases thrco persons widely separated in spac« have taken : part in oppressing by automatic writing a single thought. Unless, then, we are prepared to adopt tho supposition of a senseless' and motiveless conspiracy of fraud among a number of persons who have shown themselves to be perfectly upright and. earnest in every other relation, we must ro- ■ cognise that wo stand before the dilemma —survival or telepathy of this far-reach-ing kind. The acceptance of either horn of the dilemma is fatal to the mechanistic scheme of things. For, even if tho hypothesis of 'brain waves bo regarded as affording a possible explanation of simple telepathic communication at short range, it bcoonwa wholly mcredibQo if it is suggested as an the cooperation of widely-separated automatic writers in tho expression of one thought. Mr Gerald Balfour, in commenting on Mr. M'Dougall's words, remarks that telepathy between _ the living of "this far-reaching kind involves some.' very strange suppositions concerning the capacities and moral character of the "secondary selves" of the automatistsj but ho is of opinion that no other sufficient account can bo given of the crosscorrespondences in somo of cases referred to save by. calling _ in the agency of spirit communication. "Neither Mr.' M'Dougall nor Mr. Gerald Balfour appears to be prepared to go as far as Sir Oliver Lodge, ' and definitely declare that, in their opinion, spirit communicatio.n has been absolutely proved; but they agree that the acceptance of the telepathic explanation involves farreaching consequences, and it certainly seems to have an important bearing on the psychology of religious experience. It would, of course, be extremely, interesting if psychical research brought to light some unassailable proof in the persistence of personality after bodily death; but the belief in a future life to which tho great mass of mankind, both civilised and savage, have clung in all ages and places, does not depend on evidenco of this character. Eternity has been put in our very hearts. It must bo bo—Plato, thou reasonest well !— Elso whence this pleasing hope, this fond desiro, This longing after immortality ? Many thinkers declare that belief in a future life rests on a porsistont instinct or intuition which goes deeper than any logic. Others contend that it is involved in the veryidea of personality and of the existence of a rational universe. A vast literature has been written on tho subjoct, but the belief is not the result of any proccss of formal reasoning; it existed first and tho reasons camo afterwards in order to explain it. It may not bo capable of logical demonstration, but if we are going to appeal to strict logic, philosophers tell us that it is impossible to prove our own cxistonoe or the existenco of a world outside 0111' own minds, Even tho aether of space, to which Sir Oliver Lodge paid so much attention in his address, is only a creation of the scientific- imagination, and. a leading sciontifio authority, telk u« that it in,

quite possible that it is in danger of passing into "the great historical museum of intellectual curiosities."