(I) There are certain moods into which minds, very much tired or very much concentrated, occasionally fall, in which the most trifling things take on them an appearance of great significance.

A man in great anxiety, for example, will regard as omens or warnings such things as the ringing of a bell or the flight of a bird.

I have heard this process deliberately defended by people who should know better.

I have heard it said that those moods of intense concentration are, as a matter of fact states of soul in which the intuitive or mystical faculties work with great facility, and that at such times connections and correlations are perceived which at other times pass unnoticed.

The events of the world then are, by such people, regarded as forming links in a chain of purpose--events even which are obviously to the practical man merely the effects of chance and accident.