Читать книгу: «The Arena. Volume 4, No. 20, July, 1891», страница 4

I shall not here consider the phenomena of telepathy or ghosts. Readers of The Arena have been favored with Mr. Wallace’s excellent articles on this point, and it would be superfluous to reconsider it. No doubt our readers are also acquainted with the examples reported in my work called Urania, and have long been aware that I believe in the possibility of communications between invisible beings and ourselves. In the point of view at which I have placed myself in this technical and essentially scientific outline, I have taken care to carefully distinguish the things seen by myself from those which I have not seen.

I do not belong to the same class with those who say: “We have not seen it, and therefore it cannot be.” There are honest people everywhere. There are, perhaps, few exact observers, capable of reporting facts, without changing anything in their recitals; but there are witnesses we cannot well gainsay.

Here, for example, is a letter among many recently addressed to me, relative to certain extraordinary facts.

Your work, Urania, has prompted me to bring to your knowledge an event which I heard related by the very person to whom it happened,-a Danish physician, named Vogler, residing at Gudum, near Alborg, in Jutland.

Vogler is a man of robust health, both in mind and body. He has an upright and positive disposition, without the least tendency (but quite the contrary) to nervous excitability.

He related to me the following story, which I have often heard confirmed by others as the unadorned and exact truth.

When a young man, studying medicine, he travelled in Germany with Count Schimmuelmann, a noted name among the nobility of Holstein, who was about his own age. They hired a small house in a German university town where they proposed to stay for sometime. The Count lived in the apartments on the ground floor, while Vogler occupied the next story; and the street door, as well as the stairway, were used by themselves alone. One night, when Mr. Vogler was reading in bed, he suddenly heard the door at the foot of the stairs open and shut; but he did not pay any attention to it, believing the Count had just come in. A few moments later he heard slow and tired footsteps ascend the stairs, and stop at his chamber door. He saw the door open, but nobody appeared. The footsteps did not cease, however, for he heard them on the floor, advancing from the door to the bed. He could see absolutely nothing, although the light was continuously burning; and he could not understand the affair, not recognizing the footsteps. When the steps had drawn very near the bed, he heard a great sigh, which he at once recognized as that of his grandmother, whom he had left in good health at their home in Denmark. At the same instant he also recognized the step, which was, indeed, the halting and aged step of his grandmother. Looking at his watch, which he had placed under his pillow, Vogler noted the exact hour, and made a memorandum of it, for he at once surmised that his grandmother might be dying at the very instant. At a later day he received a letter from the paternal home, announcing the sudden death of his grandmother, who particularly cherished him above the other grandchildren. This established the fact that her death occurred at the very hour indicated. In this manner did the venerable woman take leave of her grandson, who did not even know of her illness.

Edward Hambro

Counselor-at-law, and Secretary of Public Works

in the City of Christiana.

Here, as may be seen, is a fact, observed as precisely as a scientific experiment; and it might be added to those I have published in Urania.

I will adduce one more fact, which was observed very long ago, in 1784, by my great-grandfather, on my mother’s side.

It occurred in Illand, a little village in the county of Bar, which to-day belongs to the Department of Haute-Marne, not far from the native place of both my maternal grandfather and myself. In childhood I spent all my vacations there among the vine-planted hills, face to face with gracious landscapes, amid forests alive with bird songs. The house yet stands in which the incident happened. It is at the entrance of the village, on the right, and is called the Chateau. One evening my great-grandmother, on returning from her work in the fields, perceived, by the huge chimney-corner (which can still be seen), her brother, who had been dead several months. He was seated, and seemed to be warming himself. “My God!” she exclaimed in affright, “it’s our dead Rolet!” and then she ran away. Her husband, entering in his turn, also saw his brother-in-law sitting by the fireplace. At that critical moment one of the farm hands uttered an oath, and the apparition vanished.

I give this narrative as it was related to me. No misgivings as to the reality of the vision existed in the minds of the personages in my grandmother’s household.

Allow me to mention another illustration. In February, 1889, I received from H. Van der Kerkhare the following communication, relating to an article I had published about this class of phenomena.

While in Texas, on August 25, 1874, towards sunset, I was smoking my after-dinner pipe in a room on the ground floor of the house I occupied. I was facing the wall, with a door on my right opening towards the northwest. Here is a diagram of the scene.

Suddenly I saw my old grandfather in the doorway. I was in that semi-conscious state of well-being and quietude natural to a man with a good appetite who has dined satisfactorily. I was not at all astonished to see my grandfather there. In fact, I was vegetating just then, thinking of nothing in particular. Nevertheless, I said to myself:—“It is droll that the rays of the setting sun should pour gold and purple through the least folds of my grandfather’s garments and face.” In fact, the setting sun was red, and threw its last horizontal rays diagonally athwart the doorway. Grandfather had a beneficent countenance. He smiled and seemed happy. All at once he disappeared along with the vanishing sun, and I roused myself as from a dream, but with the conviction that I had seen an apparition. Six weeks afterwards I was apprised by letter that my grandfather had died on the night of August 25 and 26 between one and two o’clock. Well, there is a difference of five and one-half hours between the longitude of Belgium, where my grandfather died, and the longitude of Texas where I was, and where the sun set at about seven o’clock.

It would be easy to cite a large number of similar cases. Let me end this section with the following conclusion of Ch. Richet, the learned editor of the Revue Scientifique:—

Unless we discredit the value of all human testimony, these stories are veritable and accurate. Whenever kindred incidents are reproduced by experiment, telepathy will no longer be disputed, but admitted as a natural phenomenon, as well proven as the rotation of the earth, or as the contagion of tuberculosis. To-day’s audacious theories will, in a few years, seem almost like infantile truisms.

We have now come to the closing section of this already long essay,—namely, to the explanation of such phenomena as table-tipping, spirit rapping and dictation, and distant transmission of thought. Let us confess that it is much easier to unfold and discuss such facts, than to determine their modus operandi. I will add that, even if in the present state of our knowledge, it is impossible to explain these facts, there is no shadow of a reason for rejecting them.

The theory with which we conclude has been anticipated by the preceding sections.

What is the universe? What is nature? What are beings? What are things?

From astronomy to physiology, everything constrains us to allow the existence of at least two elements—force and matter.

The order and laws of the universe, together with human thought and consciousness, lead us to admit (besides force and matter) a third element—intelligence; for speaking only of the constituency of our planet, no chemical combination whatever has ever been known to produce an idea.

Force directs. Matter obeys.

Force is invisible and so is matter.

All matter whatsoever is composed of atoms, too infinitesimal for our perception, and even invisible beneath the most powerful microscope but whose existence is demonstrated by chemistry, as well as by physics. The molecules of iron, gold, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, appear to be groups of atoms. Even if we deny the existence of atoms, and admit only the existence of molecules, they also are invisible.

Matter, therefore, in its very essence, is invisible. Our eyes behold only motion and transitory forms. Our hands touch only appearances. Hardness and softness, heat and cold, weight and lightness, are relative, not absolute conditions.

What we call matter is only an effect produced upon our senses by the motion of atoms,—that is to say, by our unceasing receptivity to sensations.

The universe is a dynamic conglomerate. Atoms are in perpetual motion, caused by forces. All is movement. Heat, light, electricity, terrestrial magnetism, do not exist as independent agents. They are but modes of motion. That which actually exists is force. It is force that sustains the universe. It is force that projects the earth into space. It is force that constitutes living creatures.

The human soul is a principle of force. Thought is a dynamic act. Psychical force acts upon the matter composing our bodies, and actuates all our members to fulfil their tasks. Like all forces, psychical force can transform itself, can become electricity, heat, light, motion; for these are all modes of motion. Psychical force is itself in motion.

It can act outside the limits of the human organism, and can temporarily animate a table. I place my hands on a round table, with a firm desire to see it obey my will. I communicate to it a certain heat, a certain electricity, a certain polarization, or a certain other something we have not yet discovered. The stand becomes, so to speak, an extension of my body, and submits to the influence of my will. I look at a person. I take his hand. I thus act upon him.

More than this. If the brain of another person vibrates in unison with mine, or has at one in harmony with the keynote of my own brain, I can act upon him, even from a distance.

If I emit a sound a few yards from a piano, those piano-strings which are in harmony with my utterance will vibrate, and themselves send forth a kindred sound, easily distinguishable.

A telegraph wire transmits a despatch: A neighboring wire is influenced by induction; and it has been possible, by the aid of this second and separate wire, to read messages sent over the first.

There is still more to be said. The principle of the transformation of force to-day opens to us new views which might well be called marvellous. We every day make use of the telephone, without thinking that it is, in itself, more astonishing than all the occult facts considered in this paper.

You speak. Your voice is transmitted ten or twenty thousand kilometers, from Paris to Marseilles, and even farther away. You think it is your own voice which is heard and recognized at the other end of the wire; but it is not; your voice has not made the journey. Sound of itself, in its ordinary state, is not transmitted with anything like the rapidity attending this flight over the copper wire. If it were otherwise, we should have to wait seven hours and twenty-four seconds for a response, whereas there is no appreciable delay in the telephonic passage of sound. The usual vocal velocity becomes electric velocity, and the interval between the terminal stations of the wire is traversed instantaneously. On reaching its destination, the current again transforms itself into sound through its encounter with a medial, an environment like that at its starting-point.

Is the conductive wire indispensable? By no means! Is there a connecting wire between the sun and the earth? Yet the spots on the sun occasion rebounds in the variations of terrestrial magnetism. In the photophone the conductive wire has already been dispensed with, and a ray of light is used in its place. You speak behind a mirror, and thus cause it to vibrate. These vibrations modify the reflection of light from the vibrating mirror, which thus bears along your voice, with which it becomes charged. Selenium, the chemical element used in the operation, transmits the sound to the telephone, and your spoken word is reproduced.

The principal of the transformation of forces is undoubtedly one of the most prolific in modern physics. Heat can be transformed into mechanical motion; mechanical motion may be transformed into heat. Electricity is transformable into magnetism; and, reciprocally, magnetism may change into electricity, into light. The motion of the mill-wheel serves to illuminate your house. From Paris you can light a lamp in Brussels. When you act from afar upon another mind, it is not your thought which travels, as a mental condition; but your thought traverses the intervening ether through a series of vibrations as yet unknown to us, and only becomes thought again when brought into contact with another brain, because the last transference brings the impulse into a medium akin to that from which it started. It is therefore necessary that this second brain should be in sympathy with yours; that is to say, using one of Doctor Ochorowiez’s expressions, that “the dynamic tone” of the receiver should be in accord with your own. It is, moreover, noticeable that there are periods when veritable thought-currents affect thousands of brains at the same moment. At the bottom of all this there is but one principle, and that is identical with the relation existing between the magnet and the iron, between the sun and the earth,—namely, the transmission and transformation of motion. Herbert Spencer has said:—

The discovery that matter, so simple in appearance, is wonderfully complicated in its vital structure,—and that other discovery, that its molecules, oscillating with a rapidity almost infinite, convey their impressions to the surrounding ether, which, in turn, transmits them over inconceivable distances, in an inconceivably short space of time,—these discoveries lead us to the even more marvellous discovery, that any kind of molecules are affected in a special manner by molecules of the same kind, though situated in the most distant regions of space.

It requires but one step more for the admission that psychical communications may be established between an inhabitant of Mars and an inhabitant of the earth.

We are often asked what all these studies amount to. That is still unknown. If they should end in a scientific proof of the existence and immortality of the soul, these investigations would forthwith surpass in value all other human sciences put together, without a single exception.

It must be acknowledged that this reason is a sufficient authorization for us not to despise this class of researches. But this argument is needless. These investigations relate to the unknown, and that reason is all-sufficient.

Did Galvani in examining the convulsions of his frogs, have any idea of the immense, the prodigious, the universal part which electric science was to perform in less than a century? Denis Papin and Robert Fulton, Benjamin Franklin and James Watts, Jouffroy and Daguerre,—all the inventors, all the searchers after truth,—were they wrong in losing themselves in their pursuit of the unknown? It is such men who cause the advance of humanity. It is to them mankind owes its progress.

If it were proved, we say, that there exists outside of us, and even within us, an immaterial and spiritual force, which eludes the known processes of nature, and the acknowledged laws of life,—and which reveals itself by other processes and other laws, which do not supplant the first, but take an equal place beside them, this new knowledge might enlighten somewhat the shadows which now conceal the great secret of the origin and destiny of such poor beings as ourselves.

First of all, let us seek the truth. To be sure, Taine has written very wittily: “I never thought that a truth could be of any practical use!” but we may not be of the same mind, and may think, on the contrary, that the search for truth is the prime object of men’s intellectual existence.

THE SWISS AND AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONS,

BY W. D. McCRACKAN

The study of federalism, as a system of government, has in recent times become a favorite subject for constitutional writers. At present the United States and the Dominion of Canada on this continent, the newly constituted Australian Commonwealth at the Antipodes, and in Europe the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Swiss Confederation are all examples of the application of the federal principle in its various phases. What makes all researches into this branch of political learning particularly difficult, and perhaps for that reason also exceptionally fascinating, is the fact that federated states seem forever oscillating between the two extremes of complete centralization and decentralization. The two forces, centripetal and centrifugal, seem to be always pulling against each other, and producing a new resultant which varies according to their proportionate intensity. One is almost tempted to say that there must be an ideal state somewhere between these two extremes, some point of perfect balance, from which no nation can ever depart very far without either falling apart into anarchy or being consolidated into despotism. Whatever, therefore, can throw light upon these obscure forces is certainly entitled to our deepest interest.

But not all the different states mentioned above as representatives of federalism, possess an equal value for us in our search after improvements in the art of self-government. The study of the constitutions of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires can only be of secondary importance to us Americans, because these states are founded upon monarchical principles, quite foreign to our body politic. To a limited extent, the same objection may be made to the Canadian and Australian constitutions, since the connection of those countries with the monarchical mother country has not been constitutionally severed. But there is another federated state in existence, until lately almost ignored by writers on political subjects, whose example can in reality be of the utmost use to us, for its general organization more nearly resembles our own in miniature than any other. This country is Switzerland. In her quiet fashion the unobtrusive little Confederation is working out some of the great modern problems, and her citizens, with their natural aptitude for self-government, are presenting object lessons which we especially in America cannot afford to overlook. It is true that political analogies are sometimes a little perilous, for identical situations can never be reproduced in different countries, but if there be any virtue at all in the study of comparative politics, a comparison between the Federal constitutions of Switzerland and the United States ought to throw into relief some features which can be of service to us.

To be perfectly frank, the Swiss constitution, when placed side by side with our own, at first shows certain decided short-comings. The Constitution of the United States is an eminently logical, well-balanced document, in which a masterly distinction is made between the executive, legislative, and judicial functions of government, and between matters which belong by nature to organic law, and those which may safely be left to the statute law. In the Swiss constitution, however, the line which separates these departments is not as clearly drawn, so that, in fact, a certain amount of confusion in their treatment becomes apparent. In the primitive leagues which were concluded between the early Confederates no attempt was made to draw up regular constitutions, and the one now in force dates only from 1848, with amendments made in 1874, 1879, and 1885, an instrument still somewhat imperfect, perhaps, but none the less suggestive to the student.

There are two institutions in the Swiss state which bear a very strong likeness to corresponding ones in our own. Both countries have a legislative system consisting of two houses, one representing the people numerically, and the other the Cantons or States of which the Union is composed, and both possess a Supreme Court, which in Switzerland goes by the name of the Federal Tribunal. It is generally conceded that the Swiss consciously imitated these American institutions, but in doing so they certainly took care to adapt them to their own particular needs, so that the two sets of institutions are by no means identical. The Swiss National Council and Council of States, forming together the Federal Assembly, are equal, co-ordinate bodies, performing the same functions, whereas our House of Representatives and Senate have particular duties assigned to each, and the former occupies in a measure a subordinate position to the latter. The Swiss Houses meet twice a year in regular sessions, on the first Monday in June and the first Monday in December, and for extra sessions if there is special unfinished business to transact. The National Council is composed at present of 147 members, one representative to every 20,000 inhabitants. Every citizen of twenty-one is a voter; and every voter not a clergyman is eligible to this National Council—the exclusion of the clergy is due to dread of religious quarrels, with which the pages of Swiss history have been only too frequently stained. A general election takes place every three years. The salary of the representatives is four dollars a day, which is forfeited by non-attendance, and about five cents a mile for travelling expenses. On the other hand, the Council of States is composed of forty-four members, two for each of the twenty-two Cantons. The length of their terms of office is left entirely to the discretion of the Cantons which elect them, and in the same manner their salaries are paid out of the Cantonal treasuries. There are certain special occasions when the two houses meet together and act in concert: first, for the election of the Federal Council, which corresponds in a general way to our President and his Cabinet; secondly, for the election of the Federal Tribunal; thirdly, for that of the Chancellor of the Confederation, an official whose duties seem to be those of a secretary to the Federal Council and Federal Assembly, and fourthly, for that of the Commander-in-Chief in case of war. The attributes of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, though closely resembling those of our Supreme Court, are not identical with them, for the Swiss conception of the sovereignty of the people is quite different from our own. Their Federal Assembly is the repository of the national sovereignty, and, therefore, no other body can override its decisions. The Supreme Court of the United States tests the constitutionality of laws passed by Congress which may be submitted to it for examination, thus placing itself as arbiter over the representatives of the people; but the Federal Tribunal must accept as final all laws which have passed through the usual channels, so that its duty consists merely in applying them to particular cases without questioning their constitutionality.

If there is a certain resemblance between the Federal Assembly and our Congress, and between the Federal Tribunal and our Supreme Court, there is on the other hand a striking difference between the Federal Council and our presidential office.

The Swiss Constitution does not intrust the executive power to one man, as our own does, but to a Federal Council of seven members, acting as a sort of Board of Administration. These seven men are elected for a fixed term of three years, out of the ranks of the whole body of voters throughout the country, by the two Houses, united in joint session. Every year they also designate, from the seven members of the Federal Council, the two persons who shall act as President and Vice-President of the Swiss Confederation. The Swiss President is, therefore, only the chairman of an executive board, and presents a complete contrast to the President of the United States, who is virtually a monarch, elected for a short reign. Sir Henry Maine says in his book on “Popular Government,” that somewhat exasperating but always instructive arraignment of democracy: “On the face of the Constitution of the United States, the resemblance of the President of the United States to the European king, and especially to the King of Great Britain, is too obvious to mistake. The President has, in various degrees, a number of powers which those who know something of kingship in its general history recognize at once as peculiarly associated with it and with no other institution.” In truth he is vested with all the attributes of sovereignty during his term of office. He holds in his hand the whole executive power of the government; he is Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy; possesses a suspensory veto upon legislation and the privilege of pardoning offences against Federal law, and finally is intrusted with an appointing power unparalleled in any free country. With all this authority he is still a partisan by reason of the manner of his election, so that he cannot possibly administer his office impartially, and must, from the necessity of the case, forward the interests of one political party at the expense of the rest. It is certainly worthy of consideration whether the Swiss Federal Council does not contain valuable suggestions for reformers who desire to hasten the triumph of absolute democracy in the United States.

The institution of the Referendum has no counterpart in our own country, unless we except the somewhat unwieldy provisions in various States for the revisions of their constitutions by popular vote. It is undoubtedly the most successful experiment in applying the principles of direct government which has been made in modern times. Having already written more fully upon this subject in the March number of The Arena, the writer will here confine himself to reminding the readers of this review that the referendum is an institution by means of which laws framed by the representatives are submitted to the people for rejection or approval. It is significant of the interest which the referendum is already exciting in this country that a committee of gentlemen recently presented themselves at the State House to urge the adoption of this principle in local matters.

There are, besides, a host of minor differences between the Swiss and American Constitutions, of more or less interest to students of politics and economics.

The central government in Switzerland maintains a university, the Polytechnic at Zürich, and by virtue of the constitution also exerts an influence over education throughout the Confederation. Article 27 prescribes that the Cantons shall provide compulsory primary instruction to be placed in charge of the civil authorities and to be gratuitous in all public schools. In practice these provisions have been found difficult to enforce where the spirit of the population was opposed to them, as in Uri, the most illiterate of the Cantons, where the writer found educational matters entirely in the hands of the priesthood. Fortunately, however, the Swiss people at large have a very keen appreciation of the value of education, so that illiteracy, as we have it in this country, among the negroes and the poor whites of the South, as well as amongst certain classes of our immigrants, is really unknown in Switzerland. Someone has jestingly said that there “the primary business of the state is to keep school,” and really, in travelling through the country which gave birth to Pestalozzi, one is continually impressed with the size and comparative splendor of the schoolhouses; in every village and hamlet they have the appearance of being the very best which the community by scrimping and saving can possibly put up. On the subject of import duties, the Constitution lays down in Article 29 as general rules to guide the conduct of legislators, that “materials which are necessary to the industries and agriculture of the country shall be taxed as low as possible; the same rule shall be observed in regard to the necessaries of life. Articles of luxury shall be subjected to the highest taxes.” From this set of principles it will be seen that Switzerland levies her duties for revenue only, as the phrase is, although it must be confessed that there is a perceptible tendency now manifested to raise the duties in consequence of the high protectionist wave which is sweeping over the continent of Europe at the present moment. When the statistics of Switzerland’s general trade, including all goods in transit, which, of course, make a considerable portion of the whole, are compared with those of other European states, it is found that she possesses a greater amount of general trade per head of population than any other country, more even than England. The telegraph and telephone systems are managed by the central government, as well as the post office, with excellent results. Not only are these departments conducted in an exemplary manner upon cheap terms, but a respectable revenue is also derived from them which makes a good showing in the annual budget. Everything which is connected with the army, from the selection of the recruits to the election of the Commander-in-Chief, also possesses exceptional interest, because Switzerland is the only country in the world which has so far succeeded in maintaining an efficient militia without the vestige of a standing army. An attempt was made in 1885 to deal with the evils of intemperance, by establishing a state monopoly of the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors, the Revenue thus derived being apportioned amongst the Cantons according to population, with the proviso that ten per cent. of it be used by them to combat the causes and effects of alcoholism in their midst. It is too early to speak of the final results of this legislation, but for the moment there seems to be a decided falling off in the consumption of the cruder and more injurious qualities. Amongst other matters which the Federal authorities have brought under their supervision, are the forests, river improvements, ordinary roads, and railroads, and bridges, etc., not managing them all directly, but reserving the right to regulate them at will. Even hunting and fishing come within the jurisdiction of the central government, this constitutional power having been used to preserve the chamois in certain mountain ranges where they were threatening to disappear completely, but where, thanks to timely interference, they are now actually on the increase.