But then either the atom consists of smaller parts with interstices between them, and we stand again before the original problem, or the atom is simple, and then it is nonsense to attribute elasticity to it. Thus we have seen that the miracle of the force which acts at a distance has to be accepted. Now if we do not wonder at gravitation, light, magnetism, trans-mitted through space, if we see in wireless telegraphy electricity accomplish work at great distances, why should we wonder at the molecular movements of one brain influencing another, if the latter is somewhat harmoniously tuned for it? Just as well as electric waves may penetrate filled and empty space without visible effect, except that on an especially arranged receiver, so the molecular movements going on in the central office of the machinery of the human body, the brain, may be propagated, radiated into space by means of ether vibrations. Such cerebral waves, as we may call them, certainly exist, although we have not yet in our days constructed an artificial receiver for them. But there are natural receivers in other brains of like or similar disposition. Thus telepathy is no greater enigma to physical science than the propagation of light, or gravitation.

But after all, there are underlying the physical problems of the distant-acting forces question's whose solution is usually taken for granted, when no solution is possible. The usual discussion of forces which act at a distance presupposes objectivity of space and time, to assume which we have absolutely no right. No matter how strong may be our "belief" in space and time existing independently of our consciousness, we have no "knowledge" of such space and time. Space and time are, so to speak, the instruments by which we grasp this world of ours. It is as if we had made a contract with an unseen power, the Creator, by which He lets us have the use of a pair of glasses, space and time. We are allowed to appre-* hend, to perceive, as long as we apply these glasses. Thus we may have the joy of viewing the whole world through these spectacles, but as soon as we would take them off to look at them we are struck with blindness. Even the attempt to take them off is impossible because of the contract. We can never, know what space and time really are, if they are anything at all outside of our consciousness.

Thus when the lease of these powerful spectacles expires, i. e., when we close our eyes of space and time, we may open others on which there is no restriction, and all the miracles with regard to space and time, light, gravitation, electricity, telepathy may assume an entirely, different aspect, and the problem of the forces acting at a distance may be no longer an enigma.

* The pepper experiments by professional hypnotizers are, at least, in part, a fraud. They give the subject half a tea spoonful of pepper, but they are very careful to put it far back on the tongue. where the sensitiveness for pepper is not so very great. They throw imaginary pepper into the pub* ject's eyes with great effect, but I have never seen them throw real pepper into the eyes of the hypnotized person and prevent the effect by suggestion.

In the foregoing we have always assumed that the hypnotized person when under the influence of suggestion has really the sensations he is alleged to have, and which he himself by his words and actions, asserts he has. Here is just the weak point of the discussion of hypnotic experiments. We do not know whether the hypnotized person has the alleged sensations, or whether he only says he has. This does not mean that the hypnotized is a deceiver, for we all continually do this kind of. lying. - We say we see a house, and we would swear to our knowledge of the house having four walls, being hollow inside, and furnished. But it is not true. We see only one or two walls at a time and we supplement what we actually perceive by that which we think we know is there, but which is only the product of association or auto-suggestion. Just as we in this case are under the ban of the authority of common belief and our own former experiences, so also the hypnotized is under the power of the hypnotist. We state things as absolutely certain, although we have never experienced or proved them, simply because some authorities in whom we trust, or the majority of the people we know say so.

Everybody "knows" that we cannot reach the age of 200 years, although there is absolutely nothing which could prevent a man who is 100 or 120 years old from living 20 years longer, and so on. It might be that this unfounded but firm conviction prevents many old people from reaching a still greater age.

So the hypnotized accepts as truth whatever he is told by the hypnotist. It is very questionable whether these sensations produced by suggestion approach in vividness those of normal life. I am inclined to think they are by no means as ,vivid as those of dreams or sleep-walking. They are perhaps different from memory-images and the products of imagination only by the greater degree of attention which is paid to them. That the alleged visual sensations produced by suggestion lack some of the qualities which real sensations have has been proved by experiment. The hypnotized perceives even things which are impossible, because contradictory. Thus, for instance, in a hypnotic seance in Leipsic where all efforts of a professional hypnotizer to hypnotize scientifically educated people failed, an uneducated laborer who was called in was hypnotized by a few movements of the hand before his face. I then suggested to the subject that a green monkey was sitting on the window-sill, and he somewhat ostentatiously enjoyed this unusual sight. When I told him that the green monkey was red he "saw" this also, and declared that he beheld a green monkey which was red all over. Some experiments to test whether the hypnotized would see the after-images of a suggested color failed completely.