It is an undoubted fact that science has broken away from the old theory regarding the distinction between mind and matter. Says Prof. Wm. Romaine Newbold, "In the scientific world it has fallen into such disfavor that in many circles it is almost as disgraceful to avow belief in it as in witchcraft or ghosts." We have to-day a school of "physiological-psychology," calling itself "psychology without a soul." This school is devoted to the laboratory method of studying mind. "The laboratory method," says Roark, in his "Psychology in Education," "is concerned mostly with _physiological_ psychology, which is, after all, only _physiology_, even though it be the physiology of the nervous system and the special organs of sense--the material tools of the mind. And after physiological psychology has had its rather prolix say, causal connection of the physical organs with psychic action is as obscure and impossible of explanation as ever. But the laboratory method can be of excellent service in determining the material conditions of mental action, in detecting special deficiencies and weaknesses, and in accumulating valuable statistics along these lines. "It has been asserted that no science can claim to be exact until it can be reduced to formulas of weights and measures. The assertion begs the question for the materialists. We shall probably never be able to weigh an idea or measure the cubic contents of the memory; but the rapidity with which ideas are formed or reproduced by memory has been measured in many particular instances, and the circumstances that retard or accelerate their formation or reproduction have been positively ascertained and classified." That it is possible to explain all mental phenomena in terms of physics is by no means the unanimous verdict of scientific men. A small group of students of late years have detached themselves from the purely materialistic school and broken ground in the region of the supernormal. Says Professor Newbold (_Popular Science Monthly_, January, 1897): "In the supernormal field, the facts already reported, should they be substantiated by further inquiry, would go far towards showing that consciousness is an entity governed by laws and possessed of powers incapable of expression in material conceptions. "I do not myself regard the theory of independence [of mind and body] as proved, but I think we have enough evidence for it to destroy in any candid mind that considers it that absolute credulity as to its possibility which at present characterizes the average man of science." PART SECOND. MADAME BLAVATSKY AND THE THEOSOPHISTS. 1. The Priestess.