ours. It teaches us also that we must first direct and exhaust
our enquiries here below, among ourselves, before passing to the
other side; for our first care should be to simplify the
interpretations and explanations and not to seek elsewhere, in
opposition, what probably lies hidden within us in reality.
Afterwards, if the unknown overwhelm us utterly, if the darkness
engulf us beyond all hope, there will still be time to go, none
can tell where, to question the deities or the dead.


CHAPTER III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE

1

Premonition or precognition leads us to still more mysterious
regions, where stands, half merging from an intolerable darkness,
the gravest problem that can thrill mankind, the knowledge of the
future. The latest, the best and the most complete study devoted
to it is, I believe, that recently published by M. Ernest
Bozzano, under the title Des Phenomenes Premonitoires. Availing
himself of excellent earlier work, notably that of Mrs. Sidgwick
and Myers[1] and adding the result of his own researches, the
author collects some thousand cases of precognition, of which he
discusses one hundred and sixty, leaving the great majority of
the others on one side. Not because they are negligible, but
because he does not wish to exceed too flagrantly the normal
limits of a monograph.

[1] Proceedings, Vols. V. and XI.