once established, would tend to weaken the old primitive power, as an improvement on which it had arisen. Thus if thought-transference exist in man, it may, perhaps, represent a reversion to a more primitive and generalised means of mental intercommunion, or the older power may exist, and still occasionally act, or even do so habitually to some extent; in fact, it may not yet have entirely died out. Possibly, also, it might tend to survive, and even to some extent increase, as being, in certain ways and directions, superior to the more precise medium. But if so, it would become—unless specially cultivated—more and more limited to these directions. Certain it is that people seem often to approach each other mentally much more by feeling than by words, and in a wonderfully short space of time. We call this insight, intuitive perception, affinity, etc.,—but such words do not explain the process.
Is it not possible that birds living habitually together, as part of a crowd, may have acquired the faculty of thinking and acting all together, or in masses, each one's mind being a part of the general mind of the whole band, but each possessing, also, its individual mind and will, by virtue of which it is enabled to suspend its general crowd-acting, and act individually? Perhaps a careful observation of gregarious animals in a wild state, or even (if a more special definition be wanted) of large crowds or masses of men, might throw some light upon this subject, and it would, at any rate, be approaching it upon a broader basis, and by methods less tainted with our silly prejudices, than has hitherto been done.
But when I speak of gregarious animals in a wild
