wn mind is
simply a part of a large and immortal life, which for a time is fenced
by a little barrier of identity, just as a tiny pool of sea-water on a
sea-beach is for a few hours separated from the great tide to which it
belongs. All our regrets, remorses, anxieties, troubles arise from our
not realising that we are but a part of this greater and wider life,
from our delusion that we are alone and apart instead of, as is the
case, one with the great ocean of life and joy.

Sometimes, I know not why and how, we are for a moment or two in touch
with the larger life--to some it comes in religion, to some in love,
to some in art. Perhaps a wave of the onward sweeping tide beats for
an instant into the little pool we call our own, stirring the fringing
weed, bubbling sharply and freshly upon the sleeping sand.

The sad mistake we make is, when such a moment comes, to feel as though
it were only the stirring of our own feeble imagination. What we ought
rather to do is by every effort we can make to welcome and comprehend
this dawning of the larger life upon us; not to sink back peevishly into
our own limits and timidly to deplore them, but resolutely to open the
door again and again--for the door can be opened--to the light of the
great sun that lies so broadly about us. Every now and then we have some
startling experience which reveals to us our essential union with other
individuals. We have many of us had experiences which seem to indicate
that there is at times a direct communication with other minds,
independent of speech or writing; and even if we have not had such
experiences, it has been scientifically demonstrated that such things
can occur. Telepathy, as it is clumsily called, which is nothing more
than this direct communication of mind, is a thing which has been
demonstrated in a way which no reasonable person can reject. We may call
it abnormal if we like, and it is true that we do not as yet know
under what conditions it exists; but it is as much there as electrical
communication, and just as the electrician does not create the viewless
ripples which his delicate instruments can catch and record, but merely
makes it a matter of mechanics to detect them, so the ripple of human
intercommunication is undoubtedly there; and when we have discovered
what its laws are, we shall probably find that it underlies many things,
such as enthusiasms, movements, the spirit of a community, patriotism,
martial ardour, which no