By means of this subconscious part of our being we are, he held, brought into touch with one another and are capable of attaining a knowledge which may greatly transcend that which comes to us through our ordinary channels of communication. In the case of genius we watch the emergence of exceptional {92} potentialities, which may serve as the promise and pledge of what the future has in store for us all. One day like some winged insect we shall pass to a condition beyond that of the life we now know, and then we may hope that what we "can regard as larval characters of special service in the present stage of existence," will prove to have been "destined to be discarded, or modified almost out of recognition, in proportion as a higher state is attained."[8] This recognition of the existence within human nature of such capacities and powers, however imperfectly developed and understood, would greatly help us to deal with many mysteries of experience that have hitherto seemed completely beyond the purview of a strict scientific research. The American psychologist, William James, has done good service to this highest department of critical inquiry in his well-known work on "Varieties of Religious Experience." A single extract may suffice to illustrate his position, and to shew what may yet lie before those who are prepared to press on in the direction in which he was able to point. "The further limits of our being plunge ... into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely 'understandable' {93} world.... So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region (and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in a way for which we cannot articulately account) we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world... When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men... I call this higher part of the universe by the name of God."[9] [1] _Man and the Universe_, p. 78. [2] P. 91. [3] _Life and Matter_, p. 107. [4] _Man and the Universe_, p. 93. [5] Lecture at University College, October, 1911. [6] Birmingham Lecture, May, 1911. [7] Bergson. Presidential Address to Society for Psychical Research, May, 1913. [8] _Op. cit._, I., p. 97. [9] Pp. 515, f. {94} NOTE Since the preceding chapters were written, the meeting of the British Association has been held at Birmingham (September, 1913). Its interest was unusually great inasmuch as the President's address and the principal discussions were occupied with the most critical and debatable scientific questions of the present moment. The following extracts will give a general idea of the line taken at the outset by the President, Sir Oliver Lodge.