It is probable that our brain at first suffered from the same lethargy, a condition, for that matter, from which many men have not yet emerged; and it is even more probable that, compared with other modes of existence, with other psychic phenomena, on another plane and in another sphere, the dense sleep in which we move is similar to that in which the lower animals have their being. It also is traversed, with increasing frequency, by psychic flashes of a different order and a different scope. Seeing, on the one side, the intellectual movement that seems to be spreading among our lesser brothers and, on the other, the ever more constantly repeated manifestations of our subconsciousness, we might even ask ourselves if we have not here, on two different planes, a tension, a parallel pressure, a new desire, a new attempt of the mysterious spiritual force which animates the universe and which seems to be incessantly seeking fresh outlets and fresh conducting rods. Be this as it may, when the flash has passed, we behave very much as the animals do: we promptly lapse into the indifferent sleep which suffices also for our miserable ways. We ask no more of it, we do not follow the luminous trail that summons us to an unknown world, we go on turning in our dismal circle, like contented sleep-walkers, while Isis' sistrum rattles without respite to rouse the faithful. 25 I repeat, the great miracle of Elberfeld is that of having been able to prolong and reproduce at will those isolated "psychic flashes." The horses, in comparison with the other animals, are here in the state of a man whose subliminal consciousness had gained the upper hand. That man would lead a higher existence, in an almost immaterial atmosphere, of which the phenomena of metaphysics, sparks falling from a region which we shall perhaps one day reach, sometimes give us an uncertain and fleeting glimpse. Our intelligence, which is really lethargy and which keeps us imprisoned in a little hollow of space and time, would there be replaced by intuition, or rather by a sort of imminent knowledge which would forthwith make us sharers in all that is known to a universe which perhaps knows all things. Unfortunately, we have not, or at least, unlike the horses, we are not acquainted with a superior being who interests himself in us and helps us to throw off our torpor. We have to become our own god, to rise above ourselves and to keep ourselves raised by our unaided strength. It is almost certain that the horse would never have come out of his nebulous sphere without man's assistance; but it is not forbidden to hope that man, with no other help than his own courage and high purpose, may yet succeed in breaking through the sleep that cramps him and blinds him. 26