essay on Shelley contributed in 1880 to Ward's 'English Poets,' where Myers adopts the happy device of stating the case against Shelley of the average intelligent but unimaginative critic. Myers's defence is all the more effective, because he so well understands the feelings of the assailants. In the same year in which Myers's 'Essays' first appeared (1883) he issued a new edition of his father's book, 'Catholic Thoughts,' with a preface by himself.
While residing as lecturer in Trinity College he was brought into close relations with Professor Henry Sidgwick [q. v. Suppl.], who became one of his most valued friends. It was largely due to their friendship that Myers was led to take a great interest in the higher education of women, of which, from 1870 onwards, Sidgwick was an active promoter. About the same time, or even earlier, Myers had begun to give much attention to the phenomena of mesmerism and spiritualism, and he speaks (1871) of 'the sympathetic and cautious guidance' which his friend was able to give him in such matters. The poem called 'The Implicit Promise of Immortality' (1870) suggests that another reason, strongly drawing him to such studies, was a deep modification of his early religious beliefs. To the 'intensely personal emotion' which underlay (as he records) the early poems of 'St. Paul' and 'John the Baptist' (1867-8) had succeeded for the time 'disillusion caused by wider knowledge;' and for fresh light, it would seem, he began to look to the scientific study of imperfectly explored phenomena. However this may be, he was one of the small band of men who in 1882, after several years of inquiry and experiment, founded the Society for Psychical Research, of which the purpose was to collect evidence, and to carry on systematic experiments in the obscure region of hypnotism, thought transference, clairvoyance, spiritualism, apparition, and other alleged occurrences, in regard to which the common attitude has been well described as being mainly either a priori disbelief or undiscerning credulity. The chief workers, besides Myers and Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, were at first Professors Balfour Stewart and Barrett, Mr. Hodgson, Edmund Gurney [q. v.], and Mr. F. Podmore.
By 1886, when the first considerable result of these labours was published in the two large volumes entitled 'Phantasms of the Living,' the society numbered nearly seven hundred members and associates, including many distinguished men of science in England, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, and America. The 'Phantasms of the Living' was the joint work of Messrs. Myers, Podmore, and Gurney, the heaviest part of the labour being borne by Gurney. The introduction was contributed by Myers, and he there formulates the central theses of the book, of which the gist is contained in the two claims (1) 'that telepathy, or the transference of thought and feeling from one mind to another by other than the recognised sense channels, is a proved fact of nature;' and (2) 'that phantasms (or impressions) of persons undergoing a crisis, especially death, are perceived with a frequency inexplicable by chance, and are probably telepathic.' The other considerable work of Myers in the same field, which has already appeared, is the long series of papers on the 'Subliminal Self,' which are printed in the society's 'Proceedings.' This work is briefly described by Professor William James (Essays in Popular Philosophy, 1897) as 'the first attempt to consider the phenomena of hallucination, hypnotism, automatism, double personality, and mediumship, as connected parts of one whole subject.' Of the permanent value of this work it is impossible to speak yet with confidence; it must be it is recognised by himself as being largely provisional. His own labours in this field were continued through the years since 1882 with the same devoted strenuousness, and the definite study which latterly he had in hand was practically completed before his death. The results will appear in a book, already (March 1901) announced, entitled 'Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death.' The last work published in his lifetime was a small collection of essays called 'Science and a Future Life' (1893), in which are included the two papers 'Tennyson as Prophet' and 'Modern Poets and Cosmic Law.' These are the maturest and most eloquent expression of his views on poetry, especially in relation to the great questions that engrossed the interest of his later years.
In the striking essay on 'George Eliot,' written shortly after her death in December 1880, he speaks with unreserved admiration of the noble and unselfish spirit in which she faced the consequences of her belief that death was the end. But he adds: 'There were some to whom … this resignation seemed premature; some whose impulsion to a personal life beyond the grave was so preoccupying and dominant, that they could not readily acquiesce in her negations, nor range themselves unreservedly as the fellow-workers of her brave despair.' No reader can fail to see that he is here speaking of himself.
His health failed rather suddenly in the autumn of 1900, and he went abroad for
