The most significant fact right within the field of scientific materialism itself, and pointing definitely to the possibility or at least to the rationality of supposing the possibility of a future life, is the extent to which physical science admits the existence of a supersensible world of reality which had not been suspected or proved until within recent years. We may instance Roentgen rays, the various forms of radioactive energy whose whole gamut is not yet known, and the speculations about ions and electrons that take us far beyond the world of Lucretian atoms into the measureless universe of ether whose properties make it impossible to apply the term "matter" to it without removing the antagonism of matter to the spiritual. All these discoveries represent realities quite as supersensible as the Christian conception of the immaterial, and we escape calling them spiritual only because the development of human thought has come to confine the connotation of "spirit" to implications of consciousness as its necessary and only function. It is this and this alone that prevents us from claiming that the outcome of physical science is the proof of a spiritual world. We have so defined the nature and problem of spirit as implicative of personal consciousness that there can be no proof of its reality apart from the animal organism and its functions until we show that consciousness and personal identity can survive death. All that the discovery of supersensible forms of energy proves is that the limitations of reality are not confined to the material world as we directly know it, but that there may be vast regions of energy which can be inferred or known only by its effects in the physical cosmos. One theory makes matter itself a creation from vortex "atoms" of ether, an assumption which simply annihilates the older materialism and which sets up a form of reality that might be the fountain source of and basis for the persistence of consciousness apart from the physical.

These are the facts and conceptions that suggest the possibility of the survival of consciousness after death, and it only requires such evidence of personal identity as cannot be explained by fraud or illusion to establish that survival through communication with the discarnate. The phenomena of hyperesthesia which exhibit remarkably delicate sensibilities of the human organism, and the still more remarkable phenomena which suggest telepathy or the transcendental transmission of thought between incarnate minds, though very sporadic, are facts that make the evidence of com

munication with the discarnate quite possible, if they exist, and any evidence of personal identity, transcending explanation by fraud, illusion and telepathy, would prove that existence.

Now there is a large body of facts that claim this very character, and they are respectable enough to demand serious attention and investigation, even though they are insufficient to prove what they are alleged to support. They are more sporadic than the phenomena on which physical science relies for its investigations of residual realities, but they are less sporadic than experimental telepathy, and altogether make it a scandal to science that they are not financially provided for in the scheme of investigation. I have enumerated above the sources and records of the facts which allege at least a supernormal explanation and suggest the existence of discarnate spirits as the most natural explanation of some of them. But the complications and perplexities of the problem are so vast and baffling that assurance of any interpretation will be the reward of an investigation scarcely paralleled by any other efforts of science. The price of conviction on either side will be much patience and disappointment in the unlimited field of abnormal psychology, with only such glimpses of the transcendental as may filter through pathological media, and as would raise suspicion of their source were it not that all ordinary explanations are excluded, and that the difficulties and conditions of communication apologize for the character of the phenomena. The dignities and preconceptions of ordinary philosophy will have to be banished from consideration, just as the golden age of the past had to be contemned in the study of evolution, and with adequate protection against fraud and illusion we shall have to distinguish the residual phenomena that constitute beacon lights of another world or indicate little islands of promise in a Serbonian bog of pathology. But it will not matter for the result, and it may even conduce to its moral value, if, in the difficulties and limitations under which proof must come, we discover a world which conceals as much as it reveals, and if the same patient efforts that gave us argon and radium should obtain the evidence of another life, the belief in which, if shorn of the follies and abuses that have haunted its path in the past, may color with its own hues man's little islet of time, and offer that conception of his possibilities and duties which may regenerate his individual and his social life. JAMES H. HYSLOP,

GOVERNMENT RATE-MAKING IS UNNECESSARY

AND WOULD BE VERY DANGEROUS.

BY DAVID WILLCOX, PRESIDENT OF THE DELAWARE AND HUDSON COMPANY.

THE incessant, and at times imperious, demand of the Interstate Commerce Commission for large additional powers has been greatly reinforced and dignified by the President's last annual message. That part of the message which referred to interstate commerce legislation was entitled "Rebates"; but the only legislation suggested was that the Commission should have power to make future railway rates. This illustrated the not uncommon confusion of the two subjects. The matter of rebates has been used largely for the purpose of stimulating public feeling in favor of establishing governmental rate-making. But the power to make future rates would have no effect upon the matter of rebates. A rate made by the Commission would be subject to secret cutting, quite as much as one made by railway traffic officials. The power to prevent rebates and the power to fix future rates are, therefore, two subjects having not the least connection with each other.

The legislative branch of the Government has already acted upon the matter of rebates. The Interstate Commerce Act absolutely prohibits such practices and prescribes heavy penalties therefor; and the Elkins law passed in 1903, without opposition from any interest, provides the further remedy of proceedings by injunction to enforce this prohibition. Accordingly, the Interstate Commerce Commission said in its annual report for 1893 (p. 7):

"The power of the statute in this direction was practically exhausted in creating the offence. When that was done, when certain acts were declared misdemeanors, the subsequent perpetrators of those acts be

came at once liable to criminal prosecution in like manner and by the same agencies as other offenders. Nor can Congress provide any summary or exceptional methods for preventing or punishing that class of transgressions. . . . Theoretically, at least, the existing system of laws applicable to the wrong-doing now referred to is complete and ample. It is not lacking in strength or certainty."

Again in its annual report for 1903 (pp. 10, 11), the Commission said, in discussing the effect of the Elkins law above mentioned:

"No one familiar with railway conditions can expect that rate-cutting and other secret devices will immediately and wholly disappear, but there is basis for a confident belief that such offences are no longer characteristic of railway operations. That they have greatly diminished is beyond doubt, and their recurrence to the extent formerly known is altogether unlikely. Indeed, it is believed that never before in the railroad history of this country have tariff rates been so well or so generally observed as at the present time. . . . In its present form the law appears to be about all that can be provided in the way of prohibitive and punitive legislation; unless further experience discloses defects not now perceived, we do not anticipate the need of further amendments of the same character and designed to accomplish the same purpose."

Similar views have just been expressed in the Commission's annual report for 1904.

Secret rebates and preferences to individuals have, therefore, been fully dealt with so far as concerns the lawmaking power. "The words of the statutes have no potency in preventing offences, and their multiplication and reiteration will not add to their effect." None of the bills pending in the present Congress has any provisions bearing upon the subject of rebates, and if they should all be passed the position of that matter would not be affected in the slightest degree. It would still be controlled by the statutes now in force which, as the Interstate Commerce Commission has repeatedly said, fully prohibit such practices and establish ample procedure for their prevention. If they continue to exist, it can be due only to failure by the executive branch of the government to enforce the existing statutes.

The only question involved in the proposed legislation is, therefore, whether the power of making the rates from which the income of railroad property arises shall be taken away from its owners and vested in the Government.

The policy of the country has been very distinctly to the con

trary. There is no indication in the preliminary debates that Congress sought by the Interstate Commerce Act to establish governmental rate-making. No such purpose is expressed by the terms of the statute, which are absolutely controlling as to the legislative intent (3 How., 224).

The Commission, therefore, decided in 1887 that "its power in respect to rates was to determine whether those which the roads impose are for any reason in conflict with the statute," (1 I. C. R., 357), and this language was later cited by the Supreme Court (167 U. S., 570) as showing that the Commission at first did not deem itself to be possessed of rate-making power. Subsequently, the Commission, however, made various attempts to regulate future rates. It has been said that the Commission exercised this power for ten years without substantial objection or suggestion that its course was unauthorized by law. (Annual Report for 1897, p. 11). This statement is erroneous. As early as 1889 and 1890, the Circuit Court held, in substance, that the Commission had no power to make future rates (37 Fed. Rep., 567; 43 Fed. Rep., 37), and the latter case was affirmed by the Supreme Court in 1892 (145 U. S., 263).

The Commission was not, however, satisfied with these rulings and continued its efforts, with the result that its authority was immediately challenged in the courts. The consequence was that upon March 30, 1896 (162 U. S., 184), and again upon May 24, 1897 (167 U. S., 479), the Supreme Court held with great positiveness that the terms of the statute granted no such power expressly and that it could not be implied therefrom, saying, "The vice of this latter argument is that it is building up indirectly and by implication a power which is not in terms granted." There was, therefore, no period of time during which the existence of such power was conceded by the parties affected, and as soon as the question reached the courts the power assumed was held not to exist.

The grotesque and empty claim has been made that these decisions in some way changed the act. Thus it has frequently been said that the court "emasculated" the statute; the Commission speaks of the courts having made "discoveries" contrary to the general understanding, by which sections of the statute were "eliminated" and "stricken from the act," and refers to the effect of these adjudications in "defeating the purposes" of the