Among the more tangible tendencies that in various ways lead to the occult there is distinguishable what may be termed the intensely personal temperament,--the mental attitude that absorbs knowledge only when dissolved in an all-pervading personal medium; the attitude that finds a paramount significance in the personal interpretation of experiences, and reacts to massive and extensive generalizations most vaguely and impotently; the attitude that offers a weak and verbal assent to scientific principles and to the realities of nature, but inwardly cherishes an intense belief in the personal purport of the order of events, and earnestly seeks for a precise explanation of individual happenings. "The chronic belief of mankind," says Professor James, "that events may happen for the sake of their personal significance is an abomination." It is this chronic mental habit that broods upon the problem of subjective experiences, and is ready to recognize in signs and omens the guiding principle of rationality; not that this is always done designedly and superstitiously, but the underlying bent obscures the consideration of experience in any other than a personal light, and obstructs that illumination of the concrete by the generic, which constitutes an indispensable factor in the growth of wholesome thought. The victim of this unfortunate habit will remain logically unfit to survive the struggle against the occult. Only in so far as he succeeds in getting away from his personal perspective will he be able to appreciate the true status of the problem which enlists his interest. Above all is it necessary to subordinate explicit individual explanations to the general illumination of well-established principles. It may be interesting to note that the partaking of mince-pie at evening induces bad dreams, but it is hardly profitable to speculate deeply why my dream took the form of a leering demon with the impolite habit of squatting on my chest. The stuff that dreams are made of is not susceptible of that type of analysis. The most generous allowance must be made for coincidences and irrelevancies, and it must be constantly remembered that the obscure phenomena of psychology, and, indeed, the phenomena of more thoroughly established and intrinsically more definite sciences, cannot be expected to pass the test of detailed and concrete combinations of circumstances. In other classes of knowledge the temptation to demand such explicit explanations of observations and experiences is not so strong, because of the absence of an equally strong personal interest; but clearly this does not affect the logical status of the problem.