‘The essential point of spiritism is indeed, we believe, the disaggregation of psychological phenomena, and the formation beyond the personal perception of a second series of thoughts detached from the first. As for the means which the second personality employs to manifest itself unknown to the first—movements of tables, automatic writing or speaking, etc....—this is a secondary question (_sic_). Where do those sounds come from which are heard on tables and walls in answer to questions? Is it from a movement of the toes, of that contraction of the tendon supposed by Jobert de Lamballe...? Is it from a contraction of the stomach and from a veritable ventriloquism as Gros. Jean supposes, or from some other physical action yet unknown? Are they produced by the automatic movements of the medium himself, or, indeed, as appears to me most likely in some cases, _in the obscurity demanded by the spirits_(!) by the subconscious actions of one of the assistants, who deceives others and himself at the same time, and who becomes an accomplice without knowing it? It does not matter very much.’ That is not my opinion. I think, on the contrary, it matters a great deal. I am positive that every sincere and patient experimenter will observe, as I have done, in broad daylight, and not in obscurity, sounds and movements which will not appear to be explicable by any known cause. Those who, like myself, have verified these facts, will not dream of attributing them to unconscious or involuntary movements, to the cracking of a tendon, to ventriloquism. The cases observed by me will not admit of this explanation. Things happen as though some force or other were produced by the medium and the assistants, and could act beyond the limits of the body. If this fact be correct, can we consider it as secondary and without importance? On the contrary, does it not open to the psychology of the future the road of direct observation and experimentation, if, as I have tried to show, this force preserves certain relations with our general consciousness? Does this not make one think of those words of Proclus when speaking of souls:— Τρίτη δὲ αὐταῖς πάρεστιν ἡ κατὰ τὴν ἰδίαν ὕπαρξιν ἐνέργεια, κινητικὴ μὲν ὕπάρχουσα τῶν φύσει ἑτεροκινήτων. Souls have a third force inherent to their essence, that of moving things which by their very nature are put into movement by an energy foreign to themselves. Has not Janet a singular way of reasoning? He makes a reserve on the existence of another ‘physical action yet unknown,’ but quickly forgets it, and reasons as though that action were perfectly well known. ‘That action, whatever it may be, is _always_ an involuntary and unconscious action of some one or other: the involuntary word from the intestines(!) is not more miraculous than is the involuntary word from the mouth; it is the psychological side of the problem which is the most interesting, and which ought to be the most studied.’