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investigation into the Night-side of Nature. It is safe to hazard

the prediction that this investigation will lift the accepted
phenomena from the realm of the supernatural, and will place
them in their proper position in the kingdom of the natural.
It is perhaps a daring guess to predict that before long telepathy
will be much better understood and that communication
between mind and mind without the employment of spoken
word or sign will be quite common. It would be interesting to
speculate what would be the result on the life of the race were
telepathy to become a common possession of all persons. If all
persons were able to read the minds of each other, all pretense,
hypocrisy, fraud, lying, deception and untruth would vanish
as the mist before the rising sun. If each could read the truth
in the mind of the other, truth would reign and falsehood
disappear the conventional lies of civilization would fade
away; the Ananias Club would stand forth self-confessed; and
the liar would be shunned as pestilential. If the gift of perfect
telepathy were to be given the race overnight, the morning
would witness the greatest social and moral revolution of all
time. If each could gaze into the soul of every other if the
naked soul of each were perceived by all then each individual
would stand forth as in the legendary Day of Judgment, and
men and women would then be graded according to their real
worth or unworth, rather than by their pretensions, claims, and
false reputation. In that day Character, not Reputation, would
be the real standard. I do not mean to indicate our belief that
the men of tomorrow will possess this degree of development,
but merely to show the possibilities in connection with the
probabilities of the increasing knowledge on this subject.
I think it extremely likely that to-morrow will possess a
scientific knowledge of the underlying principles of Mental
Suggestion, and the powers of the mind which form the
subject of attention of so many schools, cults and writers
to-day. I think that the creative imagination and the dynamic
will will be accepted as actual constructive forces. I believe that
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an entirely new field of scientific research will be opened up
through an appreciation of these subjects. I think that just as
the other natural forces have been raised from the category of
superstition and base credulity, and are now mastered and used
in the service of the race, so will the great forces of the mind be
raised from the category of superstition, pseudo-science, and
absurd theories, and, being understood by science, will be used
intelligently for the upbuilding of the race.
I feel that many social and economic changes are coming
to the race, the advance movement of which has even now
begun. But I believe that the real change will come not alone by
reason of the dissatisfaction of the masses, and the increasing
burden of living under the present economic conditions, but
also by reason of the dawning social conscience of the race.
I believe that this social conscience is a forerunner of the
cosmic consciousness of which I have spoken. I believe that the
evolving sense of the oneness of all life the dawning awareness
that life is one at the last, and that each is a part of that One,
and closely related to every other part will bring about a new
sense of the brotherhood of man. Already we may see signs
of this dawning consciousness of the race. Men are beginning
to feel the world pain. When we feel the pain of our brother,

then we will be impelled to relieve his pain. The sympathy

which comes from the growing and extending consciousness
of the individual, must eventually cause the pain of one to be
the pain of all the joy of one to become the joy of all. With
this enlarged consciousness must necessarily come the tearing
down of the present cruel conditions which afflict so many of
our brothers and sisters, and the building up of a new social and
economic structure in which the human family will be felt to
include every individual, even the lowest and most unworthy;
and with this feeling must come the exertion of every power
of the race to raise up the downtrodden and depraved, and to
unite all once more at the table of the Father. I predict that in
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167
this way will come the social revolution that so many have
looked for in some other form.
I predict that these and other great and wonderful changes
shall and will come to the human thought of to-morrow,
and that the active principle operating under and in all
these changes will be seen to be that most marvelous of all
forces known to man the Law of Love. Just as the original
self-love of the primitive man developed so as to include his
mate, and then his offspring; then his family; then his tribe;
then his confederation of tribes; then his nation; then all of
kindred speech and beliefs; then in constantly broadening
circles according to his development so will the man of
to-morrow, feeling the dawning Cosmic Consciousness, learn
to love every living thing, reaching out extend understanding,
sympathy and love to the all in All. For at the last, Love not
only makes the world go round, but is also the cause of every
uplift and improvement that the world has ever experienced.
Indeed, many careful thinkers believe that in Love we have the
explanation of Evolution itself.
William Marion Reedy says:
Man has always felt that there was nothing inanimate, from the
beginning of time. His intuition has always been in advance of his
reason. His poetry has led his science everywhere. The Oneness of
things is being demonstrated in these days; that is all. God, in every
language was both masculine and feminine. Life is but force. Matter
holds together by force. Matter therefore has life. The star is brother
to the clod; the moth is kin to the mastodon. Worlds are made to
blossom in space as flowers are fructified by floating pollen. Mingling
atoms make suns. Cell seeks affinity with cell. Dust blown from the
unimaginable outer rim of silence finds its fellow dust and a nebula
is formed, and from that nebula suns and systems of suns. Worlds in
contact give birth to worlds. The crystals meet and kiss and mingle and
produce other crystals. Love is the only law. Love is spirit, and matter
the child of spirit. All this any man who reads may know. But where
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does it end this intelligent Love? There is a limit to the finite. But the
finite is part of the Infinite. It would seem that the pursuit of the law of
love would bring one only to the unknowable, pushing it only a little
further back. Love may follow where love leads unto the essence of
God even for God is Love. The material aspect of love, dwelt on so far,
need not deter us from pushing farther North. To those who believe
in the Oneness of Matter and Spirit, there is no unknowable. The end
of the law of Love, and of the spiritual faculties for its perception, can
be the knowing of this unknowable union with the Infinite. Let us
make a flight.

And this then is my feeble conception of what to-morrow

may bring forth. I may have erred in the details, but I feel certain
that I have seen and mentioned the general trend of the coming
thought. The urge of Evolution, material, mental and spiritual,
is still under way. The womb of the future contains unborn
good beyond the wildest dreams, hopes and anticipations of
man. The very hopes and aspirations of the highest of the race
are but prophecies of their ultimate fulfillment and realization.
But, after all, the mere intellectual conception of philosophies,
metaphysics, theologies, theories of all sorts and kinds are of the
mind alone the only satisfying realization is that which comes
from the soul itself, the message of the spirit. The realization
indwelling in the soul of each brings to the troubled mind that
peace which passeth all understanding, and stills the tempest
raging within the thought of each individual who dares ask
himself why? and how? After traveling round and round the
endless circle of thought after running up all the blind-alleys
of speculation rest and peace come only when one regains
the Holy of Holies within his soul.
For at the end of our philosophical speculations, how many
of us but echo the words of Emerson:
I laugh at the love and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan,
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169
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?
How many a soul perplexed by circular reasoning; fatigued
by running around the speculative wheel of the squirrel-cage of
thought; or bruised by having dashed its wings against the bars
of the cage of Experience, in which it has been confined, finds
comfort and peace in the words of good old Newman:
Lead kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom;
Lead thou me on,
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on,
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me,
Lead thou me on.
Finis.
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