In one view of the situation, however, it may be said that much has already been accomplished. In the conflict of theoretical discussion, and by means of the various and seemingly conflicting methods of operation, certain laws have been discovered which may serve as a basis for new experiments and new discoveries. It is the province of science to collate those laws and to classify the facts whereever found, and from them to try to reason up to the general principles involved. When this is done, fearlessly and conscientiously, a decided step in advance will have been made. Some new law may then be discovered, or at least some new method of operation may be developed, which shall add to the general stock of knowledge of the science, and enlarge its field of usefulness. It is the object of the writer to offer a few observations in this chapter, in a direction believed to be substantially new, and briefly to present some conclusions at which he has arrived from a careful examination of premises which seem to have been well established by the experiments of others. Before doing so it will be necessary first to state the premises upon which the conclusions are based; and in doing this, care will be taken not to travel outside of well-authenticated experiments. The first proposition is, that there is inherent in mankind the power to communicate thoughts to others independently of objective means of communication. The truth of this general proposition has been so thoroughly demonstrated by the experiments of members of the London Society for Psychical Research that time and space will not be wasted in its further elucidation. For a full treatment of the subject the reader is referred to "Phantasms of the Living," in which the results of the researches of that Society are ably set forth by Messrs. Edmund Gurney, F.W. H. Myers, and Frank Podmore. It is hardly necessary to remind the intelligent reader that the methods of investigation employed by these able and indefatigable laborers in the field of psychical research are purely scientific, and their works are singularly free from manifestations of prejudice or of unreasoning scepticism on the one hand, and of credulity on the other. It is confidently assumed, therefore, that the power of telepathic communication is as thoroughly established as any fact in nature.