Dr. Wooldridge's New Book On The Missing Sense

The Missing Senté, and theHidden ThtDgswhieh it might Reveal. Spititnal Philosophy treated on a Rational Basis. By C. W. Wooldridge, B. S., M. D. New York: Funk & Wagna lis. 1887. It is very interesting to find an original line of thought struck out by an old acquaintance. Many of us in Ann Arbor knew Dr. Wooldridge and respected him, but probably no one of us suspected.that there was working out in him a line of thought and experience which would result in such a book as "The Missing Sense." The territory occupied by the book is a hard one to bound. It lies between materialism and mysticism. It touches but slightly on orthodoxy, has long boundary on rationalism, while, in the opinión of the writer, its exact boundary on the side of spiritualism is not yet wll defined. This territory is one that is but little known. Many good people believe that it is the special home of the devil and avoid it conscientiously. It used to be considered a shame for a scientiflc man to attempt to explore it ; his proper attitude was to ignore its existence. This however, is now changing, and while the physiologists make occasionai excursions into it, the society for Psychical Research is a body of explorers especially organized to investígate this región of superstition and darkness. It is worthy of remark that the psychologists ought by rights to have occupied the territory long ago, but that they, apparently, have not yet learned of its existence. By the missing sense, the author means that arrangement, whateverit is, by which we may, in exceptional cases, be cognizant of facts under circumstances when our ordinary senses would fail us. He thinks that there is a universe of life and intelligence with which our flve senses do not put us into relation. We do occasionally catch glimpses of this and when we do, it is by what the author calis metaphorically, the missing sense. Whether the author has demonstrated or not the existence of this insensible universe, each reader must judge for himself. The facts employed an extremely interesting, but not every one will draw the same conclnsions from them as Dr. Wooldridge does. Whether the reader comidera these facts as only subjective illusions, or whether they are the work of the evil one, or whether they are imperfect glimpses of new material energies, or the results of actual intercourse with intelligent beings in anotherstate of existence, will depend on his attitude of mind toward this región of thought, and no one, not even the author, has made the demonstration of his view so convincing that he is Hkely to convert persons of another school of thought. The physiologist, the orthodox, the esoteric Buddhist, and the spritualist,are likely to be of the same opinión after reading the book as before. But there is a large class of persons whose opinions on this subject are not fully formed, and to them this book will prove interesting and usef'ul. To them we can commend it as original and able.