Measured by human standards - and we have no others to guide us - the purpose or object of thought is to enhance the power, both in scope and quality, of our intelligence, and to raise us as a personality, an intellectual and spiritual entity, into a higher sphere or grade of being. It has been said that some daring explorer has just discovered some grass from the "path of rectitude." We are not at all surprised at the discovery. The "path of rectitude" is traveled by so very few people in these degenerate days, that the grass must grow on it with great luxuriance - in fact, the path itself is almost obliterated. There was a time when it was called a great highway; but cunning opened a track of policy beside it, and the world has generally preferred its greater smoothness to the rugged but more wholesome route maintained by the upright. Rays go out from the sun and help to constitute a world of life and beauty. In the same way, thought-waves proceed from the soul and take shape according to their inner nature. Men of science tell us that nature is evenly balanced on positive and negative principles; that the positive seeks the negative and the negative the positive, in all conditions and forms of life.

If we wish to move a limb of our body, the act of willing frees a power which transmits itself to the branches of the motor nerve-system and influences the corresponding muscle. When we think, we do not indeed know what goes on in the brain; but it is a priori certain that in the complication of nerve fibres which we call brain, some sort of a force is active. According to prevailing opinion, these powers of thought and will are locked up with the organism and cannot step over its circumference. Action at a distance is therefore denied. The occultist, on the contrary, asserts that these forces, like all forces of nature, are able to operate at a distance and ascribes to them various wonderful acts. The fundamental phenomena to which the representatives of this latter opinion can appeal, is animal magnetism, which conveys a force from a sound organism to a sick one without disturbance. This power is peculiar to every organism, but in different degrees; persons who possess it and can exercise it in a high degree are called magnetizers. Now, if the power animating the organism can operate at a distance, why not also thought and will? Because, so say the opponents, there is no animal magnetism at all.

They do not, indeed, deny the phenomena to which the magnetizers refer, but ascribe them to another cause. So did the discoverer of hypnotism (Braid), who came to his discovery through magnetizer, Lafontaine. Seither has especially strengthened more and more the opinion among physicians, that there is no human magnetism which could touch the privileges of the medical profession; but only a hypnotism, and that all apparently magnetic operations were only such through suggestion. If, they say, one can put a man to sleep through suggestion and then can, through further suggestion, produce physiological changes in the organism of the one hypnotized, it would be an unnecessary doubling of the cause, should one assume, in addition to this, a human magnetism. Auto-hypnotism was the next link in the new psychological evolution. It was found that a man might hypnotize himself - in fact, that was "mental suggestion." Tyndal said: "Matter contains the potencies and possibilities of life." Crooke says: "Life contains the potencies and possibilities of matter." History shows that the progress of mankind is like the making of a steep ascent when the earth is covered with depths of sleet: when a rush to get forward is followed by a slipping backward; then another increase of intellectual vigor, and again a slipping down the steep; but by every fresh attempt, gaining inch by inch the summit.

Some minds are like Fourth of July pinwheels; they run rapidly enough but go nowhere; their light is sufficiently bright, but it cannot be utilized; their heat serves only to consume themselves. One of the greatest disadvantages under which the materialist labors in his investigation of animal magnetism and hypnotism and kindred subjects, is the inability to conceive of an unseen reality, an actual existence, which makes no impress sion upon the physical senses. In this type of mind - the materialistic - the belief that all real existence is necessarily known to man; that the five senses put him in possession of all that is, is hard to eradicate. Herbert Spencer tells us that the force that is manifested in the universe around us is the same force as that which wells up in ourselves under the form of consciousness. Identity, then, exists between our inner life - ourselves - and the inner life - the universal force of the universe around us. Now, the intelligent investigator of hypnotism and animal magnetism who is trying to bring into an orderly system the chaotic and conflicting opinions of the separate schools of thinkers; trying to harmonize their differences and have them work in concord on the great problem of hypnotism, must admit that taking an average and comparing the ancient races, civilized and barbarous, with those at the present time which are classed in the same category, that we have done even better than the son of Erin's Isle, who said that he started with nothing and held his own; and that we have advanced a step toward solving the problem of hypnotism; and where it is becoming more of a fact and not a fanciful theory that, "Our country is the world and our countrymen all mankind." Whether the world can be said to pronounce any verdict at all, except stupidly to wonder at and accept success, is, to most reflecting minds, a question.

We do not think it can. It is the tyranny of events that overcomes it. Because we cannot transform the coarser into the finer, because we cannot resolve the so-called material into the so-called immaterial, as we resolve a solid into a liquid, into a gas, is no reason for denying the possibility of such transformation, or of hypnotism and magnetism, or of the unity of substances of the tangible and intangible. Study hypnotism and know how this wonderful machinery of yours operates. Understand nature's laws and listen to her commands, and obey them, and save doctors' bills and, perhaps, an undertaker's bill. What then may we conclude life is? Life is motion. Life is activity. Life is air. Life is vital force. Life is substance. Life is energy. Life is immortality. life is all, and all is life. Life is unit. Life is eternal, without beginning or ending -omnipotent,' omniscient, omnipresent and invisible I There are many expressions of life emphasizing its many changes. But life never ceases to be. Life is being. Life is the breath of God. Animal magnetism is the breath of man. All creation is evolved in accordance with the harmonious laws of vibration. Melody in the heart makes music in the life.

If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth; he will find both. If a man ever really receives the light, he can no more keep from radiating that light than he can refrain from breathing. Remember, man-made laws are temporal; God-made law is eternal. A young student in a certain theological seminary recently persuaded a fellow student to listen to him while he rehearsed a sermon. His subject was "Light." With a violent gesture with the right arm he said, "Blot out the sun;" with a similarly frantic movement of the left arm he roared, "Blot out the moon!" then with a combined gesture, made with both arms, he bellowed, "Blot out the stars!" But it was enough; the auditor arose to leave and said, with a hoarse, cruel whisper, "Turn off the gas." Beauty is like a temple whose exterior is all that is seen by the profane. The divine mystery of the artist's thought reveals itself only to minds in sympathy with his own. The smallest part of a sublime work contains an inspiration which escapes the perception of the vulgar. The sensitive mind argues in vain against the brutal intellectuality of false education - a form of mental savagery still lingering in the human family, an inheritance of a barbarous past.

Only naturalists and biologists know how near to each other animal and plant life can come. Even to these students the dividing line is sometimes hazy. The theories of Linnaus, of Ptolmey, of Galen - where are they now? Man has accepted them; he has profited by them; he has utilized them; he has now, long since, moved past them. It requires courage to move on. The pioneer, the path-finder, the leader, is often alone - hurt and pierced by misunderstandings, misconstructions and misrepresentations; nevertheless, like a true pathfinder, he must fare forth. To-morrow the rest will camp where the ashes of his tent are to-day. Progress is universal. Science is progressive. The larger hope of man lies in this fact. The science of medicine, law, biology, theology, in common with all sciences, are under the same dominion. A smart man once said that all German proverbs hit when reversed. If ever this was true it is certainly applicable to the adage: Voxpopuli, vox Dei (The voice of the people is the voice of God). Do not believe a thing simply because others do, but think and reason about it; consider it from all sides. There is nothing more valuable than truth, and therefore we should be cautious as to what we accept as truth.

He who is deaf to the entreaties of his higher self is poor indeed, no matter what amount of power he may yield in worldly affairs; but to him, who through silent prayer uncovers the higher self and obeys its promptings, is given a power the world knows not. It never wanes. Hence, if we love soulless things, we become soulless also; for we are giving our souls, our lives, our affections, our all to things that can give us nothing of real value in return. Thus we become empty and vacant, inviting disease, unrest, and discord, as vacuums invite the tornado.

"Hush! Hark what sound breaks in once more As if the clouds its echo did repeat. * * * * * * * «

Nearer, clearer, deadlier than before,

To arms f to arms! It is-it is-the cannon's opening roar."

Viewed in the light of dynamics, man is a regular steam engine. His motive power and mental volitions are verily great. A sound mind is the first principle of a sound body. Physical disorder is to be traced back to mental disorder, though no clew maybe found to special diseases. Both common sense and sound philosophy bid us seek the highest tonic in joy and the softest opiates in "the peace that passeth understanding." True elevation of mind does not take a being out of the circle of those who are below him, but binds him faster to them; gives advantages for a closer attachment and conformity to him. Those who exercise their reason and intuition can accumulate a larger amount of truth than those who are inclosed within sectarian barriers. Most things are formed by a certain rate of vibration. Everything has its key-note to which it may respond, as a tuning fork will through a sympathetic vibration. The communication of thought and ideas from one mind to another, without the use of the spoken words, at great distances, has been practiced in all ages of the world by the spiritually unfolded man.

It is the connecting link between the physical and the spiritual; the determining factor in the continued existence of man; the bridge over which the race marches to immortality; the keystone of the arch which bears aloft the possibility of eternal life,