Turning in another
direction, we are able to see that psychical phenomena are very
evenly distributed over the whole surface of the globe. At all
events, there does not appear to be any race that is absolutely
or peculiarly refractory to them. One would be inclined to say,
however, that they manifest themselves by preference among the
most civilized nations--perhaps because that is where they are
most carefully sought after--and among the most primitive. In
short, it cannot be denied that we are in the presence of
faculties or senses, more or less latent but at the same time
universally distributed, which form part of the general and
unvarying inheritance of mankind. But have these faculties or
senses undergone evolution, like most of the others? And, if they
have not done so on our earth, do they show traces of an
extraplanetary evolution? Is there progress or reaction? Are they
withered and useless branches, or buds swollen with sap and
promise? Are they retreating before the march of intelligence or
invading its domain?
11
M. Ernest Bozzano, one of the most learned, most daring and most
subtle exponents of the new science that is in process of
formation, in the course of a remarkable essay in the Annales des
sciences psychiques,[1] gives it as his opinion that they have
remained stationary and unchanged.
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