METAPHYSICS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22307, 22 January 1938, Page 16

METAPHYSICS

The Super-physical. By Arthur W. Osborn. Ivor Nicholson and Watson. 350 pp. (12/6 net.)

1 Books on this subject are nowadays by no means rare, and, it must be confessed, they are generally sadly uncritical. That is by no means the case with the book before us. The Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of Leeds c mmends it in a foreword. He describes it, very justly, as "a good book" because the author's facts "are collected with knowledge and discrimination, and are stated with accuracy and more than flavoured with interest." The first part of the book treats of normal phenomena, such as the case for materialism, the relation of body and mind, the problem of memory, and the search for purposes in nature. Part two is concerned with supernormal phenomena such as telepathy, knowledge of the future, phantasms, materialisation and ectoplasm, and the evidence for. reincarnation and survival after death. All these subjects are treated with accuracy, so far as the author's limited space permits. If fault is to be found, it is rather with the terminology than with Mr Osborn's knowledge and intention. To give examples of such terminology: "The pursuit of the higher consciousness" is not a phrase with a definite meaning; to say that "Time, Space, and Causality are subjective elements in our own consciousness" is a very unphilosophical way of speaking, and is not really what mystical authors mean when they speak of the ultimate unreality of the space-time order of things. Apart from occasional blemishes of this sort, Mr Osborn's book has a very considerable value as a fair-minded study of subjects which are usually mishandled by believers and non-believers in the superphysical.