It seems, at least, that no real explanation of hypnotic vitalisation can, in fact, be given except upon the general theory supported in this work--the theory that a world of spiritual life exists, an environment profounder than those environments of matter and ether which in a sense we know. Let us look at this hypothesis a little more closely. When we say that an organism exists in a certain environment, we mean that its energy, or some part thereof, forms an element in a certain system of cosmic forces, which represents some special modification of the ultimate energy. The life of the organism consists in its power of interchanging energy with its environment,--of appropriating by its own action some fragment of that pre-existent and limitless Power. We human beings exist in the first place in a world of matter, whence we draw the obvious sustenance of our bodily functions. We exist also in a world of ether;--that is to say, we are constructed to respond to a system of laws,--ultimately continuous, no doubt, with the laws of matter, but affording a new, a generalised, a profounder conception of the Cosmos. So widely different, indeed, is this new aspect of things from the old, that it is common to speak of the ether as a newly-known environment. On this environment our organic existence depends as absolutely as on the material environment, although less obviously. In ways which we cannot fathom, the ether is at the foundation of our physical being. Perceiving heat, light, electricity, we do but recognise in certain conspicuous ways,--as in perceiving the "X rays" we recognise in a way less conspicuous,--the pervading influence of etherial vibrations which in range and variety far transcend our capacity of response. Within, beyond, the world of ether,--as a still profounder, still more generalised aspect of the Cosmos,--must lie, as I believe, the world of spiritual life. That the world of spiritual life does not depend upon the existence of the material world I hold as now proved by actual evidence. That it is in some way continuous with the world of ether I can well suppose. But for our minds there must needs be a "critical point" in any such imagined continuity; so that the world where life and thought are carried on apart from matter, must certainly rank again as a new, a _metetherial_ environment. In giving it this name I expressly imply only that from our human point of view it lies after or beyond the ether, as metaphysic lies after or beyond physics. I say only that what does not originate in matter or in ether originates _there_; but I well believe that beyond the ether there must be not one stage only, but countless stages in the infinity of things.