* * * * * In the case of one undertaking, which was much too troublesome to be reckoned as a diversion, he let himself be drawn away from his metaphysical work. He had taken no active part in the work of the Society for Psychical Research since 1896. In December, 1905, Richard Hodgson, the secretary of the American Branch, had died suddenly, and almost immediately thereafter Mrs. Piper, the medium whose trances Hodgson had spent years in studying, had purported to give communications from Hodgson's departed spirit. In 1909 James made a report to the S. P. R. on "Mrs. Piper's Hodgson control." The full report will be found in its Proceedings for 19O9,[79] and the concluding pages, in which James stated, more analytically than elsewhere, the hypotheses which the phenomena suggested to him, have been reprinted in the volume of "Collected Essays and Reviews." At the same time he wrote out a more popular statement, in a paper which will be found in "Memories and Studies." As to his final opinion of the spirit-theory, the following letter, given somewhat out of its chronological place, states what was still James's opinion in 1910. _To Charles Lewis Slattery._ Cambridge, _Apr. 21, 1907_. DEAR MR. SLATTERY,--My state of mind is this: Mrs. Piper has supernormal knowledge in her trances; but whether it comes from "tapping the minds" of living people, or from some common cosmic reservoir of memories, or from surviving "spirits" of the departed, is a question impossible for _me_ to answer just now to my own satisfaction. The spirit-theory is undoubtedly not only the most natural, but the simplest, and I have great respect for Hodgson's and Hyslop's arguments when they adopt it. At the same time the electric current called _belief_ has not yet closed in my mind. Whatever the explanation be, trance-mediumship is an excessively complex phenomenon, in which many concurrent factors are engaged. That is why interpretation is so hard. Make any use, public or private, that you like of this. In great haste, yours, Wm. James. The next letter should be understood as referring to the abandonment of an excursion to Lake Champlain with Henry L. Higginson. The celebration alluded to in the last part of the letter had been arranged by the Cambridge Historical Society in honor of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Louis Agassiz. _To Henry L. Higginson._ CHOCORUA, N. H., _circa, June 1, 1907_. DEAR HENRY,--On getting your resignation by telephone, I came straight up here instead, without having time to write you my acceptance as I meant to; and now comes your note of the fourth, before I have done so.