One might in fact believe that a shudder which we have not yet experienced is passing over everything that breathes; that a new activity, a new restlessness is permeating the spiritual atmosphere which surrounds our globe; and that the very animals have felt its thrill. One might say that, by the side of the niggardly private spring which would only supply our intelligence, other streams are spreading and rising to the same level in every form of existence. A sort of word of command is being passed from rank to rank; and the same phenomena are bursting forth in every quarter of the globe in order to attract our attention, as though the obstinately dumb genius that lay hidden in the pregnant silence of the universe, from that of the stones, the flowers and the insects to the mighty silence of the stars, were at last trying to tell us some secret whereby it would be better known to us or to itself. It is possible that this is but an illusion. Perhaps we are simply more attentive and better informed than of old. We learn at the very instant what happens in every part of our earth and we have acquired the habit of more minutely observing and examining the things that happen. But the illusion would in this case have all the force, all the value and all the meaning of the reality and would enjoin the same hopes and the same obligation. CHAPTER V. THE UNKNOWN GUEST 1 We have now studied certain manifestations of that which we have called in turn and more or less indiscriminately the subconscious mind, the subliminal consciousness and the unknown guest, names to which we might add that of the superior subconsciousness or superior psychism invented by Dr. Geley. Granting that these manifestations are really proved, it is no longer possible to explain them or rather to classify them without having recourse to fresh theories. Now we can entertain doubts on many points, we can cavil and argue; but I defy anyone approaching these facts in a serious and honest spirit to reject them all. It is permissible to neglect the most extraordinary; but there are a multitude of others which have become or, to speak more accurately, are acknowledged to be as frequent and habitual as any fact whatever in normal, everyday life. It is not difficult to reproduce them at will, provided we place ourselves in the condition demanded by their very nature; and, this being so, there remains no valid reason for excluding them from the domain of science in the strict sense of the word.