Class 
 
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 Book 
 
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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
The Proofs of Life After Death 
 
"Joy, shipmate, joy! 
 (Pleased to my soul at death I cry,) 
 Our life is closed, our life begins, 
 The long, long anchorage we leave, 
 The ship is clear at last, she leaps! 
 She swiftly courses from the shore, 
 Joy, shipmate, joy!" 
 
 — Whitman. 
 
The Proofs of Life 
 After Death 
 
 A COLLATION OF OPINIONS AS TO A FUTURE 
 
 LIFE BY SOME OF THE WORLD'S MOST 
 
 EMINENT SCIENTIFIC MEN 
 
 AND THINKERS 
 
 Compiled and Edited by 
 
 ROBERT J. THOMPSON 
 
 IStflfi 
 HERBERT B. TURNER & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON 
 
Copyright, 1902 
 Sy ROBERT J. THOMPSON 
 
 Copyright, 1906 
 
 HERBERT B. TURNER & CO. \ £> 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 P ^ 
 
 
 LIBRARY »f CONGRESS 
 
 Twt CotiM RKtivM 
 
 SEf- 27 »«06 
 
 CLASS 
 
 Oa»y riff <tt Entry 
 
 
 Published September, 1906 
 
 COLONIAL PRESS 
 
 Printed by C. H. Simonds <&* Co. 
 
 Boston, U.S.A. 
 
/ dedicate 
 
 this book to my brother Flint, wfyo 
 
 as to this life is dead; 
 
 together he is conscious of my humble effozts 
 
 to thus tionoz his memory 
 
 I cannot say; 
 
 I t/?ink he is. 
 
"Meanwhile what are we to do? To inquire, to criti- 
 cise, to discover, but also to live, — to live this life here 
 and now: aided thereto, it may be, by a laboriously 
 acquired certainty that it is only an interlude to a more 
 splendid drama" 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, F. R. S., 
 
 Birmingham, England. 
 
 "Every institution connected with social, moral and 
 religious life must be profoundly affected, whether for 
 good or ill, by such an assurance as may be given by 
 psychical research of a future life, the doubt about 
 which has turned the aspirations of modern civilization 
 from the moral to the economic ideal." 
 
 Prof. J. H. Hyslop, 
 
 Columbia University. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 How The Symposium Came to be Written. 
 
 "Your brother is dead!" 
 
 Such was the midnight message I received a little 
 over a year ago. It was the first time Death had 
 struck so near to me since the days of my childhood 
 — the first time I had had occasion to marshal up 
 such hazy and chaotic reasons as I possessed for the 
 conviction and consolation that — "It is well — he is 
 gone — I also shall follow soon or late, and we shall 
 meet again." They seemed insufficient and trivial 
 in the presence of the great fact that he lay there 
 dead. 
 
 And then, the minister in the lonely little church, 
 himself almost a stranger in the community where 
 he worked, and altogether a stranger to the relatives 
 of the deceased, knew not what to say. So he 
 preached a sermon that might, at least, give some 
 hope to infidel, agnostic or Christian. He advanced, 
 in his simple way, from scientific analogy and phil- 
 osophy, such reasons for a belief in life after death as 
 he thought might appeal to those who could not 
 accept, nor even cared to accept, though in the pres- 
 ence of Death, the doctrine and faith of religion. 
 
12 Preface 
 
 Personally, my belief in a life after death was 
 more or less fixed, a permanent conviction, shad- 
 owed at times perhaps with puzzling questions and 
 negative thought, but strong and vigorous, never- 
 theless, and seeking always the sunlight of truth. 
 
 Endeavoring to console one even nearer to my 
 brother than myself, I realized how unprepared, how 
 barren is the average mind in the face of this seem- 
 ingly great catastrophe. In the absence of absolute 
 demonstration, at hand and ready at all times, the 
 reasons, principles and inferences for this belief can- 
 not be too numerous; for they must contend with 
 the evidence of the world of sense, a world to which 
 the greater part of mankind for the most part con- 
 fines its activities. 
 
 Hence this book — this Symposium. 
 
 Some time after returning to my home in Chi- 
 cago, and in accordance with a plan to bring into a 
 concise whole the strongest and best reasons 
 advanced by science, philosophy and common sense 
 as substantial evidence of a future life, I addressed 
 the following letter to a number of eminent men in 
 America, England, France, Germany, Italy and 
 Russia: — 
 
 Dear Sir.: 
 
 The Author of this letter, inspired by the untimely 
 decease of a dear friend, and in contemplation of the numer- 
 ous philosophical and logical theories leading to a belief in 
 the continued existence of the soul, or personal identity 
 
Preface 1 3 
 
 after death, begs of you the great favor of a letter, setting 
 out as briefly, or at such length as may be convenient, what 
 you consider to be the strongest reason, or argument, 
 advanced by science or philosophy, or by common sense, in 
 favor of an affirmative answer to this mighty question; or 
 preferably, a statement of your own deductions thereon. 
 
 It is our desire to obtain from thinkers and educators of 
 the world, an expression — a twentieth century bulletin, on 
 this subject. 
 
 Our request will impress you doubtless as an unusual 
 one, but none the less will you see the force of it, and its 
 possibilities. Who can measure the impetus such a compi- 
 lation may have upon the inquiring human mind? 
 
 May I not have your co-operation in this matter? 
 
 Thanking you now in advance for the courtesy of a 
 reply, I am Fraternally yours, 
 
 ROBERT J. THOMPSON. 
 
 Wellington A ve., Chicago, U.S. A 
 October, iqoi. 
 
 October, tqoi 
 
 From the answers to this letter and from refer- 
 ences I have received in connection with it from 
 various correspondents, some of them the most emi- 
 nent of our day, and some, like the author, unknown 
 to the world of scientific thought and research, I 
 have put together this book. There are some repe- 
 titions of thought in it, naturally, but they will be 
 found where most essential, that is, on the strongest 
 points. I have taken the liberty to introduce in dif- 
 ferent places throughout the matter, in parentheses, 
 definitions of some of the technical scientific terms, 
 that the ordinary reader may without difficulty com- 
 prehend the thought. 
 
14 Preface 
 
 Most persons, whether Christian, Jew or Gentile, 
 reading here the reasons and deductions given by 
 those whose thought make up this symposium, will, 
 it is my belief, close the book with satisfaction, and 
 with the conviction of knowledge, rather than faith, 
 or, if you prefer, as well as faith, that there is — a 
 LIFE AFTER DEATH. 
 
 ROBERT J. THOMPSON. 
 
 Chicago, Oct, is, 1902. 
 
Recrimination. 
 
 By Special Permission of Mrs. Wilcox. 
 I. 
 
 Said Life to Death, "Methinks if I were you 
 I would not carry such an awesome face 
 To terrify the helpless human race. 
 
 And if, indeed, those wondrous tales be true 
 
 Of happiness beyond, and if I knew 
 About the boasted blessings of that place, 
 I would not hide so miserly all trace 
 
 Of my vast knowledge, Death, if I were you. 
 
 But like a glorious angel I would lean 
 Above the pathway of each sorrowing soul, 
 Hope in my eyes and comfort in my breathy 
 
 And strong conviction in my radiant mien, 
 The while I whispered of that beauteous goal. 
 This would I do if I were you, O Death!" 
 
 II. 
 
 Said Death to Life, "If I were you, my friend, 
 I would not lure confiding souls each day 
 With fair, false smiles to enter on a way 
 
 So filled with pain and trouble to the end. 
 
 I would not tempt those whom I should defend, 
 Nor stand unmoved and see them go astray. 
 Nor would I force unwilling souls to stay 
 
 Who longed for freedom, were I you, my friend. 
 
 But like a tender mother I would take 
 
 The weary world upon my sheltering breast 
 And wipe away its tears and soothe its strife. 
 
 I would fulfill my promises, and make 
 My children bless me as they sank to rest, 
 
 Where now they curse — if I were you, O Life I" 
 
 III. 
 
 Life made no answer; and Death spoke again: 
 "I would not woo from God's sweet nothingness 
 A soul to being, if I could not bless 
 And crown it with all joy. If unto men 
 My face seems awesome, tell me, Life, why, then, 
 Do they pursue me, mad for my caress, 
 Believing in my silence lies redress 
 For your loud falsehoods? (So Death spoke again.), 
 Oh, it is well for you I am not fair, 
 Well that I hide behind a voiceless tomb 
 The mighty secrets of that other place. 
 Else loould you stand in impotent despair 
 
 While unfledged souls straight from the mother 
 womb 
 Rushed to my arms and spat upon your face" 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 
 
 (15) 
 
"The immortality of the soul is a matter that con- 
 cerns us so much, that affects us so deeply, that we 
 must have lost all sentiment if its investigation leaves 
 us indifferent. All our actions and thoughts follow 
 paths so different, varying according to the hope of 
 gaining eternal blessings or not, that it is impossible 
 to take any sensible or judicious step without regulat- 
 ing it from this standpoint, which must be our final 
 
 object" 
 
 ^-Pascal. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Idea of the Book. 
 
 The facts, statements and expressions of opinion 
 contained in this volume— THE PROOFS OF 
 LIFE AFTER DEATH— are grouped under the 
 several headings of Science, Psychical Research, 
 Philosophy, and Spiritualism. This classification 
 has been made in order to divide the work into 
 parts; and for the purpose, too, of placing the 
 various persons whose thought I have used under 
 the standards they would perhaps prefer to be found. 
 The grouping is not altogether correct; for all 
 knowledge eventually comes under the broad head 
 of Science. Psychical Research, for example, has 
 become during its twenty years of systematic organ- 
 ization quite as respectable a branch of science as 
 medicine or astronomy. Spiritualism, aside from its 
 phenomenal aspect, is the highest kind of philos- 
 ophy, and in its phenomenal aspect, according to 
 Professor Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir William 
 Crookes and other noted and conscientious scien- 
 tists, one of the most enticing and important fields 
 of scientific investigation. 
 
 If it were not for the fact that among the conserv- 
 
 (17) 
 
1 8 Introduction 
 
 ative, the materialist class of scientists, the theory is 
 accepted that thought is a product or function of the 
 pasty gray matter of the brain, it might well be said 
 that philosophy had already definitely proven the 
 immortality of the soul. This scientific doctrine that 
 thought is a function of the brain seems, how- 
 ever, to be rapidly falling into the limbo of mistaken 
 deductions, especially so, in the face of the introduc- 
 tion into our universities and colleges of the study 
 of experimental psychology, and the more or less 
 approved demonstrations furnished by the Psychic 
 Research Society that certain marked phases of 
 thought and intelligence exist independent of any 
 brain whatever. 
 
 The idea, of which this book is the result, has 
 been to bring together into a combined form and in 
 accordance, I may add, with the modern commer- 
 cial scheme of economy the various thoughts and 
 reasons men possess for a belief in the continued 
 conscious existence of the soul after death. In pre- 
 senting such a symposium to the world of books, it 
 has been the thought of the author, as well, to 
 awaken in the minds of those before whose eyes it 
 may pass, the hope, if not the conviction, that this 
 profound problem is not unanswerable; that it is a 
 practical question, open and demanding investiga- 
 tion and solution; that upon its issue rests the most 
 stupendous results in civilization and the relations of 
 man to man in all their varied aspects. 
 
Introduction 19 
 
 Full knowledge of the value of human life, its 
 necessity in the evolution of an individual soul, and 
 the essential worth to the whole of that spirit atom, 
 if such it be, such knowledge would doubtless con- 
 tribute more toward the relief of distress, the speedy 
 and certain upbuilding of the race, its evolution and 
 progress, than any or even all conceivable knowl- 
 edge, other than this, to which the mind of man 
 could aspire. 
 
 It might be, however, that an absolute, settled 
 solution of the question of future life, without a cor- 
 responding knowledge and appreciation of the pur- 
 pose of life, would mean, whatever the solution, the 
 quick destruction of mankind. For, as in the midst 
 of a journey when the voyager is hurried on with 
 increasing speed to a destination he knows not of, 
 there comes to him the knowledge, fixed, inexor- 
 able, implacable and unquestioned, of not only the 
 utter fruitlessness of his journey, but of appalling 
 annihilation at its end; would he bear the agonies, 
 the failures, the storms and wrecks bestrewing his 
 onward course? What conscious being does not live 
 in anticipation of the coming hour, of the morrow, 
 or in the hopes of fulfillment of the aspirations and 
 ambitions of to-day? If his train were bound to 
 destruction- —there were no uncertainty, no hope, no 
 future — the traveler, whether on life's journey or 
 the Twentieth Century Express, would, with all his 
 companions, leap, not for life, but for death, and 
 
20 Introduction 
 
 dying would leave no progeny to face the hideous 
 mockery they had escaped. 
 
 And yet — 
 
 On the other hand, the traveler, moving onward 
 to a goal, far away seemingly — lovely possibly, and 
 harmonious as the summer days of youth; the hours, 
 the days and years drag on with the same pains and 
 storms and despondent wrecks ; he travels on. Sud- 
 denly there comes to him the ultimate conviction, 
 the demonstration and certain knowledge, that 
 death is the doorway here and now not less open 
 than at the end of the journey, to the freedom, har- 
 mony, joy and greater life of man — the race might 
 live, but the individual would rush quickly, happily 
 and without hesitation into the arms of the Deliv- 
 erer. 
 
 The million years or centuries or ages, as the 
 case may be, of evolution of this wondrous animal 
 man might thus be defeated; for free will, reason, 
 justice, sentiment and love are qualities not belong- 
 ing to toys and playthings. And "a little learning is 
 a dangerous thing." 
 
 So a realization of the purport and value or neces- 
 sity of this life must come with the final demonstra- 
 tion that there is continued life after this. 
 
 Supposing we go back in thought some eighty 
 generations. Counting from father to son and then 
 to grandson as thirty and sixty years and so on, it 
 would take us back into the palmy days of Greece. 
 
Introduction 21 
 
 Whether we would find our eightieth progenitor a 
 savage denizen of the links of Scotland or a polished 
 philosopher of Greece, it would be difficult even to 
 make a guess. If we could forget for a moment the 
 affairs of to-day, it would not seem so very long ago; 
 yet the most learned men of those days accepted as 
 truth the idea that the Sun was harnessed to a team 
 of powerful horses that during the space of twenty- 
 four hours dragged that shining body around the 
 Earth. 
 
 Now while these eighty generations of our fathers 
 have lived and died on the planet Earth, man's 
 knowledge has so increased as to enable us with 
 perfect accuracy to ascertain the Sun's distance from 
 the Earth — ninety odd millions of miles, its size — 
 nearly a million and a half times greater than that of 
 the Earth, its weight — over two octillions of tons, 
 or three hundred and fifty thousand times that of the 
 Earth. We know its composition, the distance, and 
 the direction it travels. 
 
 Organized and concentrated research grows rap- 
 idly; it waters its own roots. We learn to-day as 
 much in ten years as we learned a century or two 
 ago in a hundred years. Where is it going to lead 
 us? How many more generations of Thompsons or 
 Smiths or Hohenzollerns are to come and go before 
 this persistently questioning human mind of ours 
 will have laid before us a complete and uncondi- 
 tional demonstration of this, the supreme problem of 
 
22 Introduction 
 
 existence? Can anyone doubt that the question will 
 be eventually solved? Can anyone imagine a time, 
 unless it be when once the question is solved and 
 that forever, when mankind will not demand an 
 answer to it? 
 
 Has it occurred to you, my friend, that "the coun- 
 try from whose bourne no traveler returns" has an 
 innumerable, stupendous population? Do you 
 know we are supplying it at the rate of one for 
 each second of time, sixty to the minute and three 
 thousand six hundred to the hour, a rate of depart- 
 ure which means eighty-six thousand four hundred 
 emigrants each twenty-four hours; or the nation 
 making population of thirty-one and a half millions 
 of individuals that take ship for that country each 
 year? 1 
 
 No, it has not occurred to you perhaps. Nor 
 has it often come to your mind that you, too, sooner 
 or later — at most after a few lightning revolutions of 
 the planet Earth around the Sun — shall also pass up 
 the gang-plank with your day's quota of emigrants 
 and take passage to* the new country. 
 
 Here we gaze upon the locked and forever aban- 
 doned dwellings left by our loved ones — father, 
 
 i The death rate throughout the world Is conservatively estima- 
 ted at two per cent of the population per annum. It ranges below, 
 and of course considerably above, that figure. But mortality experts 
 generally count on a rate of twenty deaths yearly to the one thou- 
 sand of individuals. The world's population is estimated at not less 
 than 1,500,000,000. Or one million five hundred thousand-thousand 
 souls. Twenty times this number gives the appalling total of thirty 
 millions, the average number of deaths occurring each year among 
 the peoples of the Earth. 
 
Introduction 23 
 
 mother, brother, sister, sweetheart, wife, son or 
 daughter — they have fled. The houses are tenant- 
 less and soon to fall into decay. We think: Why not 
 look into this matter, this voyage? True, we can- 
 not escape the journey and consequently have con- 
 cerned ourselves little regarding it. It might be, 
 however, that if we could learn something of this 
 new country, so populous, so evidently attractive, 
 could look beyond the horizon by aid of telescope 
 or higher altitude and see the course taken by the 
 travelers, whether into some dark vortex of noth- 
 ingness or into the sunny seas of persistent con- 
 sciousness and evolution; if we could do this, it 
 would be the part of wisdom, certainly. 
 
 Whither away? 
 
 So we begin to bestir ourselves^ We climb out 
 and upward, somewhat above, as we suppose, the 
 heads of our fellows; those engrossed solely in the 
 affairs of the old country, and not caring to widen 
 their horizon, especially that part embraced in the 
 sea-line. And as we reach higher altitudes the 
 atmosphere clears perceptibly, our first observation 
 being that above and below, and all about us, 
 from every point of vantage imaginable, fellow- 
 countrymen are stationed with telescope and various 
 inventions calculated to intensify the powers of the 
 senses, gazing into the distant haze with a single eye 
 — with an eye for signals from the emigrants. 
 
 Thirty-one and a half millions a year! Why it 
 
24 Introduction 
 
 requires less than three years for the world to fur- 
 nish this new country with a population equal to, 
 or greater, than that of the entire United States in 
 the year of Christ Nineteen Hundred. 
 
 Up the gang-plank they pass, to the tick of the 
 everlasting chronometer of Time — one per second. 
 
 Count them, you cannot! For if you live over the 
 common span of fourscore years the inconceivable 
 number of two billion four hundred million of fel- 
 low human creatures of the planet Earth will have 
 died, while you have lived. 
 
 To-day, after waiting some ages in the valleys, 
 expecting or hoping to hear from those travelers 
 outward bound, we stand — in the silence. But it 
 is a portentous silence, a whispering, breathing 
 silence, a catching of the breath and a trembling 
 before the song bursts forth. 
 
 The supreme appetite of man is for life, harmoni- 
 ous, immortal life. Nature provides for the fulfill- 
 ment, the complete fulfillment at some time or place 
 of all the appetites of man. What then of this, the 
 supreme, the eternal, the everlasting appetite — the 
 desire for immortality? 
 
 Who shall place a limitation here? 
 
 "Knowledge is the win^ wherewith we fly to 
 Heaven." All things are for its acquirement. How 
 vast it is looking backward; how infinitesimal look- 
 ing forward. Increasing knowledge demands more 
 knowledge, larger fields and vaster efforts. Man 
 
Introduction 25 
 
 will not travel forever toward an unknown goal. 
 And when the day arrives that he may look for- 
 ward to the end of his life's journey, when he may 
 look beyond the sea-line and view there, clear and 
 beyond peradventure of doubt the quickening clutch 
 of the dread maelstrom, the yawning maw of anni- 
 hilation, blank death — then would human nature 
 turn back upon itself in throes of revolt; evolution 
 would cease, and the human race, after a few reac- 
 tionary generations, obliterate itself completely from 
 the face of the Earth. 
 
 Such a conception of the finality of man's exist- 
 ence on the Earth is not impossible; yet it does such 
 violence to common sense, to all the schools of 
 learning, known, or conceivable to man, that we are 
 forced to the conclusion that the demonstration of 
 this question of life after death must be affirmative 
 and cannot be negative. 
 
 What is the value of a human soul? Is it noth- 
 ing, or is it everything, infinitesimal, or is it infinite? 
 Let that question be answered and the sociological 
 problem is solved forever. No man would know- 
 ingly grind jewels into the dust. And if the human 
 life is not an immortal soul in evolution the sooner 
 it is known the better, that the useless, unnecessary 
 struggle may cease. Would we consciously sow 
 germless seed? Do we plant in ashes? What rea- 
 sonable being, capable of justice, sympathy and 
 
26 Introduction 
 
 attachment, could breed a child for annihilation? 
 For, in the language of the good gray poet, 
 
 " If all came but to ashes of dung, 
 
 If maggots and rats ended us, then Alarum ! for we are be- 
 trayed, 
 
 Then indeed suspicion of death. 
 
 Do you suspect death f If I were to suspect death I should die 
 now 
 
 Do you think I could walk pleasantly and well-suited toward 
 annihilation ? " 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Pagb. 
 
 Preface — How the Symposium Came to 
 
 be Written, . . . .11 
 
 Introduction — The Idea of the Book, ■.. 17 
 
 Parts : 
 
 I. — The Scientists, . . : . ; . M „, 35 
 
 II. — The Psychical Researchers, m : ., 113 
 
 III. — The Philosophers, . . : .., : . 205 
 
 IV. — The Spiritualists, . . . . 277 
 
 V. — What the Editor Thinks About It, .313 
 
 VI. — Immortality From New Standpoints, . 323 
 
 VII. — Index to Contributors and Authorities, 361 
 
Philosophy of the Good Gray Poet. 
 
 When you read these, I that was visible am become invisible, 
 Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me, 
 Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you, and become 
 
 your comrade ; 
 Be as if I were with you. {Be not too certain but I am now with 
 
 you.) 
 
 What do you think has become of the young and old men f 
 
 And what do you think has become of the women and children f 
 
 They are alive and well somewhere, 
 
 The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, 
 
 And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the 
 
 end to arrest it. 
 And ceased the moment life appeared. 
 All goes onward, nothing collapses. 
 And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier. 
 
 I do not doubt that whatever can possibly happen anywhere at any 
 time, is provided for in the inherences of things. 
 
 Did you think Life was so well provided for, and Death, the pur- 
 port of all Life, is not well provided for? Life, life is the till- 
 age, and Death is the harvest according. 
 
 — Whitman. 
 
Tart I 
 
 TI?e Scientists 
 
Thus we may fairly conjecture that we may be on the 
 verge of something like a demonstration that the indi- 
 vidual consciousness does survive the death of the body 
 by which it was nurtured. 
 
 Prof. N. 8. Shaler, 
 
 Harvard University. 
 
 m m m * * 
 
 ''Still seems it strange, that thou should' st live forever? 
 Is it less strange, that thou should' st live at all? 
 This is a miracle, and that no more" 
 
 — Young. 
 
SCIENCE. 
 
 There are many men parading under the banner 
 of Science, that belong either on the house-tops or 
 in the cellars. Science walks upon the hard ground, 
 and if she looks down instead of up, it is that she 
 may mark well her course and stumble as seldom as 
 possible. She does not dash ahead, nor drive into 
 dark alleys. She keeps in the light of approved 
 facts. She does not discover things, but proves 
 them when they are discovered, if they are true; 
 and disproves them if they are false. She is the 
 salvation of man, as man, and she alone can give 
 him a true and final knowledge of immortality, as 
 she, only, can teach him the manner of planting his 
 field or baking his daily bread. 
 
 Science does not fall; but those enlisted in her 
 cause and marching under the folds of her standard 
 grow weary and lag behind and sometimes fall; or 
 now and then, even while Science is but an infant 
 and her eternal journey barely begun, they proclaim 
 with ass-like wisdom — the possible and the impos- 
 sible — the what's what; and the limits of human un- 
 derstanding. They halt, for they are weighted with 
 learning; they stumble, fall, and are forgotten; but 
 Science moves serenely on. It makes no difference 
 
 (31) 
 
32 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 to her whether her gauge is held aloft for the 
 moment by an Edison, or a Newton — a railroad 
 newsboy, or an organist; or by a Haeckel or a 
 Spencer — savant or synthetic philosopher. She has 
 neither hopes nor fears, and she seeks only the truth. 
 
 Not more than thirty years ago a certain distin- 
 guished member of the French Academy of Sci- 
 ences, an accomplished and highly-educated man — 
 for otherwise he could not have been a member of 
 that select and noted body — arose before his col- 
 leagues and pronounced the Edison phonograph, 
 which you can now hear on every street corner, as 
 nothing more than an acoustic illusion; that after 
 a close examination he could find nothing in the 
 invention but ventriloquism. It was impossible, 
 according to his idea, to admit that mere metal could 
 perform the function of the human voice. That 
 scientist is to-day either forgotten, or what is worse, 
 laughed at. 
 
 As a fine example of 'how a person of high intel- 
 lectuality, a man of great brilliancy and genius, and 
 living in the light of modern thought can forget 
 the infancy of Science and Knowledge, and say: 
 "This we cannot learn; in that direction we have 
 reached the end of the road; the wall can never be 
 scaled," and so on, we quote the following from the 
 London correspondent of the New York Tribune: 
 
 "London, Aug. 18. — The Rev. Dr. Gunsaulus, of Chi- 
 cago, has created a profound impression by his preach- 
 
Science 33 
 
 ing in Dr. Parker's pulpit in the City Temple. In the 
 course of a sermon in which was shown how vain was 
 man's effort to span the mighty distance between earth 
 and heaven and discover the secret of the Almighty 
 ■flame, the preacher for a moment descended from his 
 poetic plane and with dramatic outspokenness unfamil- 
 iar to frequenters of the City Temple actually excited 
 the listeners into a demonstration of applause." 
 
 If such men as Dr. Gunsaulus cannot look for- 
 ward, they might at least look backward, and from 
 what they see coming up the few initial centuries of 
 man's intellectual development, judge by these 
 observations of the possibilities of the future; or 
 judge not at all. Better yet would be the optimistic 
 and nobler thought of Professor Sidgwick, the first 
 President of the Society for Psychical Research, the 
 patriarch and pride of Trinity College: — 
 
 "I sometimes feel, with somewhat of a profound 
 hope and enthusiasm, that the function of the Eng- 
 lish mind, with its uncompromising matter-of-fact- 
 ness, will be to put the final question to the uni- 
 verse with a solid, passionate determination to be 
 answered which must come to something." 
 
 When railroads were first projected the idea was 
 pronounced ridiculous. Scientists brought forward 
 the reasons for their impracticability by speaking 
 of the inertia of matter, the tenacity of metals, and 
 of the resistance of the air. It was less than seventy 
 years ago that these noted men claimed the railway 
 
34 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 could furnish no advantages to travelers, excepting 
 possibly for short journeys. To-day the great 
 Oriental Express thunders out of Paris and over 
 their graves in its flight to Constantinople, at a 
 speed of sixty miles an hour. 
 
 And Science moves steadily forward. 
 
 It is the opinion of many thoughtful people — 
 among them some of the best known and most 
 eminent scientists — that the question of life after 
 death is a demonstrable proposition, that it is 
 already fairly proven, but that it awaits the amassed, 
 severely tested and systemized knowledge that is 
 first and always essential to effect a universal con- 
 viction. 
 
The Scientists. 
 
 DR. CESARE LOMBROSO 
 Excuse brevity, owing to my absence from my 
 
 country. The question you put to me is not one 
 that has, as yet, been solved with scientific certainty. 
 But there is a great probability now given us 
 through psychical and spiritistic researches, that 
 there is a continued existence of the soul after death, 
 preserving a weak identity, to which the persistent 
 soul can add new life and growth from the surround- 
 ing media. 
 
 DR. PAUL JOIRE 
 
 Excuse me for replying to your letter in French, 
 as I am not sufficiently familiar with English. 1 It is 
 with pleasure that I communicate to you the con- 
 clusion I have reached in my studies upon the exist- 
 ence of an after-life. 
 
 First. We have a foundation for admitting the 
 value of human reason. Man judges of all that sur- 
 rounds him by means of reason, that is to say he 
 admits a priori the correctness of his deductions; 
 for instance, the quality of bodies such as color, 
 shape, density, weight, is nothing more than the 
 deduction of our reason after the impression has 
 been received by our senses. 
 
 i The French translations In "The Proofs of Life After Death" 
 are by Mr. J. Delmotte. 
 
 (35) 
 
36 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Second. The theory of materialism does not 
 exist, or is rather a war of words, for otherwise it 
 would be an absurdity, for there is no effect with- 
 out cause. Go as far back of the origin of the 
 world and of nature as you please, reaching the cel- 
 lula or the single vibration, and you find that this 
 original entity has had a cause, which is the first 
 cause. This first cause is a force; it cannot even 
 be called a vibration, as a vibration implies a force 
 that produces it. This force must always have 
 existed, otherwise the force itself would recognize 
 the existence of another first cause. 
 
 Furthermore the first cause always exists, as the 
 movement that we more especially call in this world 
 life always exists, and all movement ceases when 
 the cause or force which produces it ceases to exist. 
 
 This cause or the initial force is intelligent, for a 
 force can only produce that which it contains within 
 itself. Apparent order can originate from a regular, 
 but not from an intelligent, force; for instance: — a 
 regular current can produce regular crystallization 
 and petrifications, but identical reproductions are 
 always its limit. 
 
 Going to a higher degree, the vegetable kingdom 
 shows us more complex organization, but the re- 
 productions, although of a more delicate character, 
 are of the same kind or identical. The animal king- 
 dom presents a more perfect organization; in it we 
 
The Scientists 37 
 
 already find instinct, but instinct is always the same 
 for the same species. 
 
 In man one finds intelligence which even in the 
 smallest degree is above what we find in the most 
 perfect animal. The purity of intelligence is only 
 accessible to man (geometrical reasoning). The 
 variety of its productions, such as invention of things 
 differing from all those which have now existed — 
 intelligent deduction made through observations 
 and reasoning — works of art with infinite variations, 
 all pointing to an ideal, although in different chan- 
 nels. Ideal exists only in man. 
 
 Two things result from such reasoning: — first, 
 that the force which created man is an intelligent 
 force; second, that man is distinguished from all 
 other beings in nature by intelligence. 
 
 The force which has created man, being intelli- 
 gent, must follow its work of order and organization 
 beyond the narrow limits of nature which are known 
 to us by means of the senses we now possess, viz: 
 reason of order and justice, which must repair the 
 inequalities of life. It must not be objected here 
 that all men have not got equally delicate senti- 
 ments, equally fine senses, and consequently that 
 they do not feel equally as much the privations and 
 pains of life nor enjoy its joys and pleasures in the 
 same fashion. Physiologically and anatomically all 
 men are the same; they are organized for the same 
 aspiration, the same happiness, although all of them 
 
38 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 do not find it here; they must perfect themselves 
 later and become able to attain them, otherwise 
 the aspirations for an ideal, for happiness, for the 
 infinite which exists in man, and which cannot be 
 satisfied in this life, would have no reason to exist. 
 
 It can be demonstrated experimentally that there 
 is in man a principle which differs from that in a 
 material body. 
 
 Telepathic phenomena show us the direct influ- 
 ence of one spirit on another without any physical 
 or material communication from the outside. 
 
 Mental suggestion, the indisputable reality of 
 which was demonstrated by my own experiments 
 a few years ago, proves that it is possible to com- 
 municate amongst men without having recourse to 
 the senses or to any other physical process. 
 
 The spirit of man progresses every day as his 
 bodily forces decline, and far from growing old, it 
 broadens, develops and fortifies itself day by day. 
 Medical observation shows that when, at a given 
 time, the organ whose use is to bring in evidence 
 this intelligence is no longer apt to fulfill its func- 
 tions, it is not intelligence that disappears, but the 
 link that connected it in its relations with the out- 
 side world; the phenomenon that takes place is anal- 
 ogous to that of sleep. 
 
 The conclusions to be arrived at from these philo- 
 sophical, scientific and experimental considerations 
 are: — 
 
The Scientists 39 
 
 First. That the intelligent principle which out- 
 lives corporeal nature exists in man. 
 
 Second. That in his future life the principle 
 commonly called the soul preserves to a great meas- 
 ure the qualities and dispositions which dominated it 
 in its terrestrial life. 
 
 Third. That this supra-terrestrial life is under 
 the influence of the life in this world, which prepares 
 it for the after-life. The soul ought always to reach 
 a certain development, and by elevating itself on this 
 earth above everything that lowers it and brings it 
 close to matter it will be much easier attaining per- 
 fection. 
 
 These, dear sir, are considerations briefly quoted 
 from my studies and experiments. 
 
 BISHOP H. C. POTTER 
 
 Apart from Revelation, I do not know any argu- 
 ment likely to be of more service to you than that 
 of Professor N. S. Shaler, of Harvard University, in 
 his volume "The Individual; A Study of Life and 
 Death." 1 
 
 PROF. N. S. SHALER 
 
 The naturalist, using this term to designate all 
 those who are intimately concerned with scientific 
 inquiry, differs from his fellows of the more ancient 
 employments in no other regard save that he has 
 
 1 D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
 
40 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 learned, or at least should have learned, certain rules 
 based on experience, which serve somewhat to 
 diminish the risk of error in the judgment and some- 
 thing of technical skill in the application of his 
 resources. Thus he should know how to verify his 
 data and to criticise his conclusions somewhat better 
 than the mechanic or merchant ordinarily learns to 
 do. As a matter of fact, however, there is not much 
 difference in the measure of the verifying and crit- 
 icising skill among the abler men of any of the walks 
 of life. Except for the craft knowledge, the better 
 men in the economic field are as truly men of sci- 
 ence as their brethren to whom that term is com- 
 monly limited. 
 
 The results of the last hundred years of active 
 inquiry have been again and again to double the 
 mass of information which has been gathered in the 
 centuries since men began to question Nature. But 
 all those who see beyond the surface are forced to 
 recognize the truth that the proportion of what is 
 known to that which is knowable, but undiscov- 
 ered, is in nowise diminished for all the researches 
 that have been made. 
 
 The most admirable result of natural inquiry has 
 been the conception that all the occurrences of the 
 visible universe are related in the manner of ante- 
 cedent and consequent, or, as we say, as cause and 
 effect; that nothing lies without the enchainment of 
 actions. Along with this has come the conviction, 
 
The Scientists 4 1 
 
 eminently well founded, that the energy involved in 
 action is never lost, but only changes its form of 
 activity; so that when a given amount of water rises 
 into the air by virtue of the heat which the sun has 
 applied to it, it returns the same amount of energy 
 to the air or the earth in its condensation, in the 
 friction it receives in falling or in striking upon the 
 surface. 
 
 The concept of causation by application of energy 
 passing onward from event to event appears to be 
 so implicit that it leads the mind to assume a knowl- 
 edge as to the nature of the actions involved, which 
 it does not really possess. Thus we almost instinct- 
 ively assume that, because we perceive the continu- 
 ity of the events, we take account of what really 
 occurs in these actions. * * * 
 
 As I look across my room, my sight ranges 
 through the air. This air is instinctively postulated 
 (assumed) as simple in its nature, for the reason that 
 I see through it and behold nothing therein. My 
 knowledge tells me that it is in fact a plexus (center) 
 of actions and qualities so vast and complicated that 
 if I saw it with complete understanding I should 
 surely know more than all that has yet been learned 
 of matter. For the moment this critical view makes 
 a strong impression on my mind, one so great that it 
 seems likely to endure; but, when after a moment of 
 this thinking I look again, there is the same appar- 
 ent emptiness, and with it the same suggestion of 
 
42 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 simplicity. * * * In its scientific aspect this 
 conception of the infinite order about us is not only 
 very modern, but has been attained by few, and held 
 only in rare moments, when the constructive imag- 
 ination dealing with the data of science enables us 
 to see dimly, yet effectively, how false is the impres- 
 sion which the commonplace view gives of the 
 truths of Nature, and how a truer understanding, 
 such as we now obtain only in glimpses, is to be the 
 heritage of our successors of the larger time. * * * 
 
 To those who hold to the illogical idea that we 
 can observe all that happens in even the simplest 
 natural fact, the process of death may, in the ordi- 
 nary form, appear as a sufficient basis for denying 
 the possibility of immortality. 
 
 If the discreet naturalist were asked how he could 
 conceive the survival of the intelligence to be 
 effected after the machinery by which it had appar- 
 ently been engendered had disappeared, his answer 
 might be somewhat as follows: He would first call 
 attention to the fact that in the process of repro- 
 duction all the experience of the antecedent life is 
 passed on from generation to generation, over what 
 we may term a molecular bridge. Thus, in the case 
 of man, a tiny mass of protoplasm, imponderably 
 small, carries on from parent to child the body, the 
 mind, all indeed that the predecessors in tens of 
 thousands of specific forms and unimaginable mil- 
 lions of individuals have won of enduring profit 
 from their experience, 
 
The Scientists 43 
 
 Therefore, even within the narrow limits of the 
 known there is evidence that the seed from which an 
 individual intelligence may be evolved can be effect- 
 ively guarded and nurtured in the keeping of an 
 exceedingly small body of matter. In a word, the 
 facts of generation show us that under certain con- 
 ditions life, as complicated potentially (possibly) as 
 that which passes away from the body at death, may 
 reside and be cradled in states of matter which are, 
 as compared with the mature body, very simple. It 
 is difficult to resist the conviction that it is in 
 the process of generation, in the keeping of atoms, 
 molecules, or whatever else be the ultimate form of 
 the transmitting agents. 
 
 Be it understood that this is not an argument to 
 show that the spirit of man goes forth in some part 
 of the dust of the body. The point is, that the 
 known properties of matter are so complex and our 
 ignorance as to the range of these properties so 
 great, that the facts of death cannot be made a safe 
 basis for a conclusion as to the survival of the intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 To the argument that all we know of intelligence 
 is limited to what we find incarnate in animals of 
 various degrees, and that all the supposed evidence 
 going to show, either the survival of definite indi- 
 vidualities after death or the existence of intellectual 
 powers in Nature, has fallen before the assaults of 
 science, the careful naturalist has still to object that 
 Ihe proof of these propositions is lacking. * * * 
 
44 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 It is a fact, that in the organic life of this world 
 but one series, that which leads to man, has attained 
 to a high measure of true intellect. * * * It is 
 also evident that the possibility of man's develop- 
 ment has rested on the successive institution of 
 species in linked order, reaching down at least to 
 the level of the lower vertebrate life, and back to a 
 time at least as remote as the Devonian period. If, 
 in this succession of tens of thousands of species, 
 living through a series of millions of years, any of 
 these links of the human chain had been broken, if 
 any one of the species had failed to give birth to its 
 successor, the chance of the development of man 
 would have been lost. 
 
 So, when we consider what the struggle for exist- 
 ence means and has meant through all the ages, we 
 are forced by this evidence to believe that there has 
 most likely been a control of an intellectual nature 
 over the events. It may be that the result is merely 
 fortuitous (chance); but, if so, it must have been 
 almost as one to infinity against the chance that the 
 summit should have been attained in man. * * * 
 
 If we fancy a being of an appropriate intelligence 
 beholding the outset of the organic series on its long 
 journey through the ages, foreseeing the intellectual 
 goal, and on the way to it the innumerable chances 
 of accident, which would leave it short of the 
 supreme success, we may well imagine that this 
 success would have appeared to be practically unat- 
 
The Scientists 45 
 
 tainable without the guidance of a controlling 
 power, intent on the end. It is true that any one of 
 the steps toward man, say the first, may conceivably 
 have been won by chance, and that the probability 
 of the second fit advance occurring would not be 
 lessened by the first success, and so on to the end of 
 the series; but the chance that the happy casts 
 should have been continued without a fatally 
 destructive break would have appeared to our sup- 
 posed observer as essentially impossible. 
 
 To put the matter in simpler form, let us compare 
 the construction of the series which led up to man 
 to the process of throwing dice. The chance of 
 throwing the bits so that double sixes appear is rel- 
 atively small, as trial will show. Yet it is certainty 
 itself compared to the chance that any group would 
 by hazard develop toward man. Now if on a second 
 throwing of the dice double sixes again appeared, 
 any critical mind would begin to suspect that they 
 were loaded; and if on hundreds of casts a like 
 result invariably appeared, he would have the most 
 absolute proof that can possibly be had to show 
 that chance did not determine the occurrences, or, 
 in other words, he would be compelled to support 
 the existence of some kind of control leading to the 
 particular result. This is, in effect, what we find in 
 the development of the series of animals which leads 
 to man. If we are to judge that work by our intelli- 
 gence, we are led to the conclusion that the succes- 
 
46 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 sion was determined in substantially the same way 
 that we determine the results of our own contriv- 
 ances. * * * 
 
 The facts connected with the organic approach 
 to man afford what is perhaps the strongest argu- 
 ment, or at least the most condensed, in favor of the 
 opinion that there is an intelligent principle in con- 
 trol of the universe. To those who have devoted 
 themselves to natural inquiry, at the same time 
 keeping their minds open to the larger impressions 
 which that field affords, there generally comes a 
 conviction as to the essential rationality of the oper- 
 ations. They have to consider facts which cannot 
 be otherwise explained, except on the supposition 
 that a mighty kinsman of man is at work behind it 
 all. Again and again the naturalist feels that this or 
 that feature of the order exactly satisfies him, just as 
 he feels that the turn of a phrase or the shape of a 
 thought in an author is after his own mind. In fact, 
 to the inquirer this recognition of himself, of his 
 own intellectual quality in the events he is consider- 
 ing, gives the sense of the highest pleasure which 
 his occupation affords. By no means all those who 
 successfully make researches perceive this quality of 
 their work, yet I believe it is present with them all. 
 Nor is it limited to the naturalist. Much the same 
 state of mind is afforded by the contemplative state 
 of mind with which one views the beauty of the 
 landscape, of the flower, in fact any of the many 
 
The Scientists 47 
 
 expressions of the realm. The joy we have in those 
 exercises of the intelligence arises in large measure 
 from the fact that we feel the kinsman in the thing 
 we behold. 
 
 The foregoing reasons * • * * show at least 
 the general method by which the naturalist may be 
 led to the conclusion that the universe is in control 
 of power, in ways like unto the mind of man. The 
 judgment does not lead to the assumption that the 
 likeness is complete. At most it gives little save 
 hints as to the measure of the kinship. But, 
 imperfect as is the hypothesis, it is the only solution 
 of the facts which in any measure satisfies them. It 
 is more rational than any supposition which excludes 
 intelligence from a pervading and controlling posi- 
 tion in the universe. Such, then, are the points con- 
 cerning the matter of fact as to the immortality of 
 the soul. * * * 
 
 The only direct evidence that can claim scientific 
 inquiry, which goes to show the persistence of the 
 individual after the body dies, is that afforded by the 
 so-called occult phenomena; by the alleged appear- 
 ance of spirits, or the communication with what 
 appear to some inquirers to be the minds of the 
 departed. 
 
 Notwithstanding their urgent disinclination to 
 meddle with or be muddled by the problems of spir- 
 itualism, the men of science have a natural interest 
 in the inquiries of the few true observers who are 
 
48 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 dredging in that turbid sea. Trusting to the evident 
 scientific faithfulness of these hardy explorers, it 
 appears evident that they have brought up from that 
 deep sea certain facts which, though shadowed by 
 doubt, indicate the persistence of the individual con- 
 sciousness after death. It has, moreover, to be con- 
 fessed that these few, and as yet imperfect, observa- 
 tions are fortified by the fact that through all the 
 ages of his contact with Nature man has firmly held 
 to the notion that the world was peopled with dis- 
 embodied individualities which could appeal to his 
 own intelligence. Such a conviction is itself worth 
 something, though it be little; supported by any 
 critical evidence it becomes of much value. Thus 
 we may fairly conjecture that we may be on the 
 verge of something like a demonstration that the 
 individual consciousness does survive the death of 
 the body by which it was nurtured. 
 
 E. DUCLAUX 
 
 Excuse me for not being able to help you in your 
 investigation. I have no scientific opinion regard- 
 ing the questions you put. I mean, no opinion that 
 rests on anything but personal beliefs. Besides, I 
 think that everybody is in about the same position 
 and that any reasons that may be brought forth in 
 favor of one's opinion are only good for the person 
 that brings them forth, and that they cannot impress 
 the listener; they are therefore not scientific reasons. 
 
The Scientists 49 
 
 L BACLE 
 
 I am very glad to give you the opinion you ask 
 of me. 
 
 In my eyes, the survival of the human soul must 
 be considered like data resulting necessarily from 
 general scientific laws which we know now. 
 
 We know that matter is indestructible and that it 
 cannot be created, that it transforms itself only by 
 passing through various combinations, and that it is 
 equally true so for the physical forces known to us, 
 such as heat, light and electricity. 
 
 Life forces, and in particular the human soul, 
 should be considered as analogous forces; they con- 
 sequently participate in the permanency of these 
 forces; and are capable perhaps of transformation 
 after death, but are not destructible. Should it be 
 said that the transformation might affect the con- 
 sciousness, I, would answer that consciousness is 
 necessarily recovered as all the doings and acts of 
 our life are registered in the Universe; the luminous 
 or dark rays which have been the witnesses of these 
 doings and acts carry them away to the celestial 
 space, where one can find again the image of deeds 
 accomplished many years ago. 
 
 Nothing is lost in nature, and less than all other 
 forces the soul, which is the author of deeds and acts 
 thus preserved; it seems therefore that at a certain 
 moment of its evolution the soul ought to be able 
 to recall memories of the present life, should they 
 
§0 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 have been effaced, and in this lies the principal ele- 
 ment of reward or punishment in the ultra-terrestrial 
 life. 
 
 Besides, I have already expressed these ideas in a 
 pamphlet: La Vie Future Devant la Science (The 
 Hereafter and Science), which has been favorably- 
 received, and I take the liberty of asking you to 
 kindly accept a copy of the same, which I address to 
 you under registered cover. 
 
 DR. JAMES R. NICHOLS 
 
 We are unmistakably involved in much mystery 
 regarding what is to be; and to many the impression 
 of mystery is so overpowering that it engenders 
 doubt — doubt as to the possibilities of a future life. 
 The mind insensibly gravitates towards agnosticism 
 unless upheld by religious faith and a close study of 
 the nature and needs of the soul. Wehave import- 
 ant lessons taught in what has been accomplished by 
 scientific research. The faithless and the doubting 
 may with profit turn to the records of science; they 
 will there learn that wonders and mysteries great 
 almost as those possible to be realized in an 
 exchange of worlds, have been brought within the 
 comprehension and control of mind. 
 
 Do we not every day converse with unseen friends 
 long distances away; do we not recognize their 
 familiar voices, in homes separated from us by rivers, 
 woods, and mountains? These voices come out of 
 
The Scientists 5 1 
 
 the darkness, guided by a frail wire which science 
 provides as a pathway. Even when the curtain of 
 night is drawn about us the voices are heard, and we 
 have not the shadow of a doubt as to their integrity 
 and identity. 
 
 And further, have we not wonders of sight which 
 startle us by their significance? Is it not true that 
 when abroad we are open to the view of unseen 
 observers long distances from us, and our every act 
 and movement known? The excellence of optical 
 instruments is such that I have seen the motion of 
 the lips of persons in conversation, while sitting on a 
 house balcony three miles distant, the observed, of 
 course, wholly unconscious of being seen by anyone. 
 
 If our friends in this life, dead to us (hidden as 
 they are by the shroud of space), can be seen, and we 
 can hear their voices, their shouts of laughter, the 
 words of the hymns they sing, the cries of the little 
 ones in the mother's arms, is it very absurd to antici- 
 pate a time when those dead to us by the dissolution 
 of the body may, by some unknown telephony, send 
 to us voices from a realm close at hand, but hidden 
 from mortal vision? 
 
 PROF. H. L HARTZOG 
 
 I believe in the continuation of the existence of 
 the soul for the reason that science teaches and 
 proves that nothing can be annihilated. 
 
52 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 DR. W. D. BAYLEY 
 
 Your inquiry recalls a nocturnal experience in the 
 country sorne years ago, where I took part in a 
 search for a lost child. Stumbling about in a dark 
 woods with only the little patch of illumination 
 afforded by a small lamp, each one of us threaded 
 our several ways through the tangled underbrush. 
 Presently someone would come along, flash his lan- 
 tern in your face, ask "Any signs yet?" and then dis- 
 appear in the darkness. 
 
 You are holding up your lamp. I see your face, 
 earnest and anxious; you are asking the great ques- 
 tion! 
 
 And how I wish I could answer it in some positive 
 way. I too am looking at vacant chairs! Yet is 
 not the search being made more earnestly than ever 
 before; and methodically for the first time? True 
 we have not found the lost child, but is there not a 
 little footprint in the soft earth here and there? Is 
 there not a bit of ribbon or fluttering fragment of 
 torn dress to encourage us to redouble our efforts in 
 this great inquiry? 
 
 On that juvenile shelf in my mental playroom I 
 have long since placed, alongside of boyhood's toys 
 and fables, the pleasant and curious fictions of ortho- 
 doxy. Respectfully, too, for sometimes I look them 
 over wonderingly. Is there nothing left that I may 
 take down and find room for it in the library of mod- 
 ern thought? Can I not rescue that bred-in-the- 
 bone longing for the continuity of individual life? 
 
The Scientists 53 
 
 So far as I am concerned, the endeavor to solve 
 this latter question has occupied, as a hobby, the 
 spare moments of a very busy life. At the present I 
 am inclined to answer the question in the affirma- 
 tive; and for three reasons, two of which you will 
 claim and I will grant, are presumptive only, and the 
 third perhaps immature. However they may be 
 criticised, let them be stated for what they are 
 worth. (1) Life as we know it has maintained a 
 steady progressive development from the less to the 
 more complex; the whole process being jealously 
 guarded (by something) without regard to cost or 
 sacrifice. Twentieth century man is the result 
 (apparently) of determined, progressive, uncompro- 
 mising, relentless beginnings, the ends of which 
 could not have been foretold or in any way preun- 
 derstood. 
 
 Was all this labor, through unestimated periods of 
 time, expended simply to produce a poor, weak, 
 vacillating creature, living a life of cramped aspira- 
 tions and unsatisfied yearnings through what the 
 clock empirically counts as a few miserable years? 
 I have raised my cry in the wilderness; is there no 
 cultivated country? 
 
 (2) Such reflections naturally lead us to inquire 
 as to what is known of man's mental constitution, 
 and its relationship with his physical being. Such 
 knowledge as is furnished by anatomy, physiology, 
 pathologj, introspective psychology, neuro-physiol- 
 
54 Proofs of /Life After Death 
 
 ogy (the so-called "New psychology") and the the- 
 ory of psycho-physical relationship (philosophy). 
 Here the ultimate dictum of science is, that there 
 occurs in the brain complicated metitive (changing) 
 activity of waste and repair, molecular disturbances 
 which may be inferred, news-currents which may be 
 measured; and that these are in some way associ- 
 ated (not conceivably as causes) with thinking, feel- 
 ing and volition. By no process of reasoning can we 
 think of these as effects, but rather we view them as 
 concomitants. Thought and feeling are not to be 
 expressed in terms of matter or modes of motion; 
 and the assumption that mind is a productive func- 
 tion of the brain falls to pieces in the presence of the 
 facts! 
 
 If, then, our inner consciousness expresses the 
 intuitive craving for life beyond death, if life is 
 meaningless and morality madness, without immor- 
 tality, if the facts of physical and mental science as 
 far as known to-day are at least non-committal with 
 reference to the possibility of a spiritual existence, 
 are we not justified in our hope that something will 
 be added to our knowledge by that only remaining 
 resource — psychical research? 
 
 When Franklin hung his key on the kitestring 
 here in our city, the wise folk smiled and asked, 
 "What's the use?" No need for an answer to this 
 question in our day; and if we study carefully and 
 impartially the accumulating records of the S. P. R. 
 
The Scientists 55 
 
 I believe we will find there a key which already will 
 unlock more than did that of our only Benjamin! If 
 there is not clear light, at least there are pathways 
 through the darkness; and some of us believe that it 
 is only another step when the vanguard of our 
 patient explorers will hand to us the illumined proofs 
 of immortality. 
 DR. VISANI SCOZZI 
 
 I have been for twenty years a physician, and my 
 scientific knowledge has been formed by the mate- 
 rialistic doctrines towards which I have always been 
 attracted, from the analytical and objective inclina- 
 tion of my nature. 
 
 By the study of hypnotism I have been obliged to 
 recognize that the human individuality may be sep- 
 arated by degrees in its essential prerogatives; and 
 that fact is to be referred to a functional stratifica- 
 tion of the gray substance of the brain. This 
 hypothesis could contain also the faculty of the pro- 
 jecting, jutting out, of the nerve force from the 
 organism. 
 
 But the exteriorization of the sensibility, of the 
 motricity and of the plasticity, which occur during 
 the hypnotic trance, have shown that those preroga- 
 tives do not belong, as intimate origin, to the physi- 
 cal body; but they manifest themselves in a way to 
 seem that they have as substratum another element, 
 which is called the fluidical body. 
 
 We can add, that this fluidical body makes itself 
 
56 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 visible to the subject himself, who exteriorizes it 
 from his own organism; and it is also seen by a few 
 sensitive persons, or those where sensitiveness is 
 induced, to come out from the organism of others. 
 This fluidical body may also be sensitive in different 
 ways to everyone, when it manifests itself as a 
 motricity and plasticity power. It has also been 
 photographed. 
 
 At any rate, belong to it all the functions of life of 
 relation, or psychical functions, while to the organic 
 body belongs the vegetative power. It shows the 
 fact that intelligence superintends at every phenom- 
 enon produced out of the body during the time it is 
 in lethargy, that is, in the most complete inertia of 
 movement, of sensibility and of consciousness. 
 
 To have been obliged to admit these facts of 
 unquestionable objectivity, has brought doubt to 
 every conscientious and impartial observer of the 
 sufficiency and breadth of our present science. In 
 fact, our physiology is obliged to remain at the 
 function of thought; and the psychology, so-called 
 positive, takes up again and, with more courage, but 
 with not greater profit, the work that physiology 
 does not know or does not dare to attack. 
 
 The fluidical body, instead, presents a new sub- 
 stratum of functionality, more adequate, because 
 thinner and more homogeneous, by which physiol- 
 ogy will find itself provided with a sure foundation to 
 analyze more intimately the functions of thought. 
 
The Scientists 57 
 
 By virtue of this honest repentance, the investiga- 
 tor finds himself obliged to leave the old clogs, that 
 seemed already the last word of science, and to go 
 on with courage, but caution, to a dominion of new 
 observations and of new doctrines. 
 
 There he finds then, that the medianity reveals to 
 us, the intelligence which superintends the phenom- 
 ena of the trance is not that of the subject ? or of the 
 medium, nor that of the persons at the sitting. From 
 this observation he has a new proof that the intelli- 
 gent fluidical body, or the soul, is sufficiently inde- 
 pendent of the organism to be able to continue its 
 existence and identity after the dissolution of the 
 body. 
 
 At this point the objective observation leaves us; 
 and there begins the speculative deduction. These 
 animic entities represent an indestructible unity, or 
 they represent a temporary residue of synthetic life, 
 which has to dissolve in its turn; or do they repre- 
 sent intelligence allied to humanity, without having 
 belonged to humanity? 
 
 Scientifically, the question cannot be resolved on 
 all sides; but the conception of evolution obliges us 
 to admit that the individuality is not destructible, it 
 being the product of evolution. Evolution is, 
 according to Spencer, but differentiation for spe- 
 cialization and for individualization; to destroy the 
 result of this differentiation is to destroy evolution. 
 
 About the conviction of the identity of a spirit, it 
 
58 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 cannot be, for the present, but personal, by direct 
 proofs which one has obtained here and there. At 
 any rate, this identity is very rare, and it is often of 
 illusion and deception. 
 
 All this I have developed extensively in my book 
 "Medianita." 
 
 C. C. MASSEY 
 
 Death, as such, does not release us from time, but 
 it brings to inward consciousness all the relation we 
 have outwardly gained in our earthly incarnation. 
 Death is the in-breathing moment of respiration. 
 Birth is the out-breathing. 
 
 The idea of radical unity being that of essential 
 solidarity, it is easy to see that long prior to the 
 developed consciousness of that truth, it must occa- 
 sionally announce itself in sensible or emotional 
 experience. Such an experience is telepathy. The 
 explanation of telepathy as transmission of ethereal 
 vibrations from point to point, presupposes the 
 direction of the waves, their "address" to the per- 
 cipient subject in particular (or at least the select 
 reaction of that subject on the diffused impact), and 
 therefore the pre-existing special rapport. And it is 
 that tie thus evidenced as real and objective which is 
 the significant fact. As a rule, while we are in the 
 body, these real connections are known either not 
 at all, or only ideally. The physical body is a sep- 
 arator, insisting as far as it can that all communica- 
 tion shall be the external which itself mediates. But 
 
The Scientists 59 
 
 psychical excitement at a certain pitch finds the 
 vital community where that has been already 
 mediated in an intimate consciousness, and even 
 sometimes where it has not, as in the case of great 
 collective agitations, which reach deeper. There- 
 fore, I think, telepathy testifies to the condition of 
 our survival, because to a societary consciousness a 
 little below the surface. 
 
 DR. DUREN J. WARD 
 
 My opinion as to the future existence of man is 
 based on two main lines of investigation — one phys- 
 ical, the results of modern science on the subject of 
 matter and force — that "matter is a mode of motion 
 of energy," that it is therefore not a thing, but a 
 condition, that it is varying modes of motion of the 
 real ether or spirit substratum of being, that the 
 elements are various types and speeds of ethereal 
 activity, that life is a newer and later element, that 
 soul is a still later and consciously differentiated one, 
 that it partakes in far higher degree of the ultimate 
 and eternal nature of Being, and is therefore in its 
 image. 
 
 The other is along the lines of psychology. The 
 larger portion of it is based on the somewhat fruitful 
 investigations of the Society for Psychical Research. 
 The first monistic and spiritual result of modern 
 thought forms a basis for such a thought as that of a 
 spiritual and continued existence of man. The sec- 
 ond takes up all the alleged manifestations of con- 
 
60 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 tinued life after death. From these investigations 
 there is a considerable residuum of phenomena that 
 have no other explanation. 
 
 Other lines of so-called proof have comparatively 
 little weight beside these. Dr. John Fisk's exten- 
 sion of the "Moral Argument" into biological realms 
 has greatly strengthened it. Some one should 
 undertake to work it out much more fully. 
 
 DR. THOMSON J. HUDSON 
 
 I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter 
 asking me to state what I "consider to be the 
 strongest reason, or argument, advanced by science 
 or philosophy, or by common sense," affirmative of 
 "the continued existence of the soul, or personal 
 identity after death;" and in reply I have to say that 
 I have elsewhere 1 set out at some length my views 
 on that question, and the most I can now do will be 
 to summarize the leading argument then advanced. 
 
 The fundamental postulate is that — There can 
 exist no faculty without a function. Or, stated 
 more at length — There can exist no faculty of the 
 human mind without a normal function to perform 
 somewhere, at some time, — in some state of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 This postulate will be denied by no one, for its 
 opposite is inconceivable — unthinkable. 
 
 If, therefore, it can be shown that man is endowed 
 
 l See "A Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life. 
 
The Scientists 61 
 
 with faculties that perform no normal function in 
 this life, it follows that they must be destined for use 
 in a future life; a fortiori (for the stronger reason) 
 if they are specially adapted to a disembodied exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The facts relied upon to prove that man is 
 endowed with such faculties have been developed in 
 recent years by Experimental Psychology — largely 
 by the Society for Psychical Research. They are, 
 first, that man is endowed with a dual mind — or two 
 minds 2 — or two states of consciousness. 3 The latter 
 are differentiated by the S. P. R. and designated, 
 respectively, as the "subliminal" and the "supralim- 
 inal" consciousness. Partly for the sake of a con- 
 venient phraseology, but principally because every- 
 thing happens as if it were true, I have assumed that 
 man is endowed with two minds, and I have desig- 
 nated them, respectively, as the "objective" and the 
 "subjective," the former being the mind of ordinary 
 waking consciousness, and the latter being that 
 intelligence which is in evidence when the objective 
 mind is in abeyance, as in sleep, or in hypnotism, 
 trance, etc. They are so designated because the 
 former takes cognizance of the objective world 
 solely by means of the five objective or physical 
 senses; and the latter because it is the mind which is 
 the source of all subjective phenomena. It is evi- 
 
 2 See "The Law of Psychic Phenomena." 
 
 3 See Proceedings S. P. R. 
 
62 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 dently the ultimate Ego — the soul. It is certain 
 that it represents the primal intelligence of organic 
 life, and hence it antedates the objective mind by 
 untold millions of years, the latter being the function 
 of the brain, and hence the product of organic evo- 
 lution. 4 In a word; the subjective mind is the mind 
 of instinct in the lower animals, and the mind of intu- 
 ition in man, the difference being one of degree and 
 dependent upon the stage of development. 
 
 Each of the two minds is endowed with distinct- 
 ive powers not possessed by the other; and each is 
 circumscribed by limitations distinctively its own. 
 Other faculties are shared by both minds, differing 
 only in degree of efficiency and power. The various 
 faculties may be classified as follows: 
 
 i. The one faculty or power belonging exclu- 
 sively to the objective mind is that of inductive rea- 
 soning. That power is wholly wanting in the sub- 
 jective mind because it is constantly amenable to 
 control by the power of suggestion. In other words, 
 it must take its premises from an extraneous source, 
 and cannot, therefore, institute an independent 
 inquiry by the inductive process of gathering facts 
 and estimating their relative values and significance. 
 
 2. The powers shared by the two minds are mem- 
 ory and deductive reasoning. But the difference in 
 degree is distinctive. Thus, the memory of the sub- 
 jective mind is absolute, and potentially (possibly) 
 
 4 Bee "The Divine Pedigree of Man," 
 
The Scientists 63 
 
 perfect; while objective memory is limited, depend- 
 ing largely upon association of ideas and constant 
 refimctioning of brain cells. Deduction is a neces- 
 sary concomitant of induction, and hence is pos- 
 sessed by the objective mind. Its power is, 
 however, limited, whereas the power of deduction 
 of the subjective mind is potentially inerrant. 
 
 3. The faculties possessed exclusively by the sub- 
 jective mind are the following: (a) Instinct or intui- 
 tion, (b) Telepathic powers. (c) Telekinetic 
 energy. 5 (d) It is the seat of the emotions. 
 
 Not one of the above powers is shared by the 
 objective mind in the slightest degree. That which 
 is sometimes mistaken for intuition in the objective 
 mind is merely rapid induction. But it possesses 
 neither telepathic power, telekinetic energy, nor 
 emotion. That which is commonly mistaken for 
 emotion in the objective mind is objective memory 
 reacting upon the subjective mind. The seat of the 
 emotions is, nevertheless, in the subjective mind, 
 where it existed untold aeons before an objective 
 mind was evolved in the process of organic evolu- 
 tion. 
 
 It will now be seen that two out of the four above 
 enumerated powers perform no normal function in 
 this life, namely, telepathy and telekinesis. Neither 
 can be exercised in anything like perfection except 
 
 5 Illustrated by the movement of physical objects by mind power 
 without physical contact. 
 
64 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 under the most intensely abnormal conditions of the 
 body. Nor can they ever be made of any practical 
 use in this life. Telepathy — which is the most prom- 
 ising — has never served any practical purpose. Nor 
 can it be made practically useful as a means of con- 
 veying messages, for the reason that, owing to the 
 limitations of subjective powers, under the law of 
 suggestion, such messages can never be relied upon. 
 Besides, it is a very crude and unsatisfactory means 
 of communicating intelligence at the best. It is, 
 however, a means of conveying intelligence obvi- 
 ously adapted to the uses of disembodied souls. To 
 what uses telekinesis may be adapted in a disem- 
 bodied existence it is impossible to say. But we 
 know that it is a purely spiritual power (whether of 
 the living or of the dead), and that it is useless on 
 this plane of existence. 
 
 Here, then, are two faculties of mind that per- 
 form no normal function in this life, one of which is 
 obviously adapted to the future life, and the other 
 presumably so. 
 
 Again, the perfect memory of the subjective mind 
 is absolutely useless here; first, for the reason that 
 objective memory is amply sufficient for all our 
 earthly needs; and, secondly, because subjective 
 memory is not available except under intensely 
 abnormal conditions. Its existence, however, is 
 indubitable evidence that we shall retain our per- 
 sonal identity in the future life, since memory and 
 
The Scientists 65 
 
 consciousness are the essential requisites to the 
 retention of identity. 
 
 Instinct, of course, performs a normal function in 
 this life of the highest possible importance; and so 
 may intuition. But the history of mankind shows 
 that its highest manifestations pertain to religion 
 and the future life. Witness Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 Intuition being the immediate perception of fun- 
 damental and essential truth — first principles or 
 laws — antecedent to and independent of reason, 
 education or experience, it follows that the utter- 
 ances of Jesus on the subject of religion and the 
 future life possess great evidential value even from 
 the most rigidly scientific standpoint, especially 
 since modern science has demonstrated the iner- 
 rancy of His intuitions regarding other laws of the 
 human soul. 6 
 
 Again, taking the future life for granted, it is 
 obvious that intuition must supply the place of 
 induction, since the soul is destitute of the latter 
 power. Induction, in fact, is but a slow and labori- 
 ous method of reaching that knowledge of Nature's 
 laws which intuition grasps by immediate apprehen- 
 sion. It is especially adapted to a physical environ- 
 ment, where doubt and uncertainty seem to be 
 inherent in the nature of things. In other words, it 
 is essential in a stage of existence where everything 
 is in a formative condition. Intuition, on the other 
 
 * See "The Law of Psychic Phenomena." 
 
66 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 hand, seems to be adapted to the intellectual wants 
 of a higher realm, a more perfect environment — a 
 world of truth and righteousness. 
 
 Recurring now to the fundamental postulate — 
 "there can exist no faculty without a function" — I 
 submit that I have shown that man possesses facul- 
 ties that perform no normal function in this life. 
 The inevitable conclusion is that those faculties must 
 perform their functions in a future life — in a higher 
 plane of existence. And I have vastly reinforced the 
 argument by showing that the subjective faculties 
 are especially adapted to a disembodied existence. 
 Not one faculty is lacking to constitute a perfect 
 manhood — an entity essentially God-like in its every 
 attribute. Thus, intuition, inerrant deductive pow- 
 ers and a potentially perfect memory, constitute a 
 mental equipment that is literally God-like, for that 
 by infinite extension of its powers it would become 
 omniscient. An infinite extension of the power of 
 telekinesis would constitute omnipotence — the 
 dynamic spiritual energy that assembles matter and 
 builds the material universe. Telepathic powers, by 
 infinite extension, would constitute omnipresence. 
 And the affectional emotions, purified, legitimated, 
 and infinitely extended, would be infinite and uni- 
 versal love. 
 
 It will thus be seen that every attribute of the 
 Deity exists, potentially or in embryo, in the sub- 
 jective mind of man. But in this life that mind is 
 
The Scientists 67 
 
 submerged below the threshold of normal conscious- 
 ness, so that its very existence is discoverable only 
 by means of pathological conditions of the body. 
 But experimental psychology has at length revealed 
 its presence, and, to some extent, defined its powers 
 and limitations; so that we may now study the prob- 
 lems of the human soul by the process of induction. 
 A psychic fact is as much a fact as is a granite 
 mountain; and it has been by careful study and 
 scientific experiment that the facts herein set forth 
 have been revealed and made a part of the inductive 
 equipment of the science of the twentieth century. 
 
 The facts are well known to every intelligent stu- 
 dent of psychic science. The conclusions are my 
 own. But I submit that I am justified, upon a careful 
 analysis of man's subjective faculties thus revealed, 
 in holding that they proclaim his Divine origin, and 
 enable us to declare that if Nature is constant there 
 cannot have been created such a manhood without 
 a mission, such powers without a purpose, such fac- 
 ulties without a function, other than those in evi- 
 dence in our earthly environment. 
 
 What the nature of the future life may be no one 
 this side of the grave can know with certainty. But, 
 since there can be no faculty without a function, the 
 same analysis of our subjective faculties reveals the 
 fact that we shall enter the future life well equipped 
 for a highly intellectual and social existence. 
 
68 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 PROF. A. BRUNOT 
 
 Your question honors me by placing me in the 
 ranks of thinkers and educators whose opinion may 
 carry some weight. But I must tell you in all frank- 
 ness that, brought face to face with death through a 
 cruel loss, the crudest, I think, that one can have, 
 that of an adored young wife, I have never found 
 even the shadow of a reason that would lead me to 
 believe I would find her again, preserving in any 
 manner or form her personality. 
 
 Of all arguments that philosophy has amassed 
 since Plato for the purpose of reaching the affirma- 
 tive positively, criticism has long since destroyed 
 them until nothing, absolutely nothing, is left. As 
 regards science, experimental psychical researches 
 are so little advanced that one cannot yet reach any 
 conclusion, and thus far it looks to me extremely 
 difficult to separate positive result and various 
 experiments from the charlatanism of exploiters of 
 public credulity. 
 
 Less ambitious than yourself, I believe that the 
 immortality that awaits us is simply the living token 
 or souvenir and often deep set of our acts and 
 thoughts which we leave to our children, to our 
 families, to our countrymen, or, as befalls to some 
 more fortunate, to the whole world. If instead of 
 living only for ourselves we have given ourselves 
 up in some form or other to the common interest of 
 progress, we survive through our example, some- 
 
The Scientists 69 
 
 times through our works. Our virtues leave a seed 
 which brings forth others, and thus if not our per- 
 sonality, at least everything which must survive for 
 the good of humanity is perpetuated. The rest, 
 which is the childish desire of prolonging one's per- 
 son through a privilege which is not granted to any 
 living being, is in my eyes only a dream worthy of 
 the times of primitive religions inspired, if properly 
 analyzed, with ideas of an inferior morality, still 
 bearing the imprints of egotism. 
 
 EDMOND PERRIER 
 
 I reply very willingly to your query relating to the 
 survival of the soul. In the latter part of my book, 
 "Les Colonies Animals et la Formation des Organ- 
 isms," 1 which was published some years ago, I 
 showed how it was possible to harmonize the 
 hypothesis of the survival of the soul and of the per- 
 sistency of its personality with the scientific concep- 
 tions of to-day; learned men cannot longer avoid 
 reverting to philosophy. The work contains a the- 
 ory of the genesis of personality and it is from this 
 theory that I was led to investigate the question of 
 the persistency of our Ego after death. 
 
 SIMON NEWCOMB 
 
 In answer to your request, I am sorry to say that 
 I have never been able to think out any satisfactory 
 theory on the subject of the continuance of the con- 
 scious soul of man after death. 
 
 1 Brentano's, Paris. 
 
I 
 
 70 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 PROF. D. R. DUNGAN 
 
 I. Science does not recognize annihilation. If 
 eternity can be predicated of matter it certainly can 
 be of mind, or spirit. 
 
 II. Many cases are reported in which men have 
 gone down into death, and have returned to con- 
 sciousness and life and have lived for many years. 
 They report their consciousness during the time, 
 thus indicating that the changes of the body did not 
 blot out the mind. 
 
 III. A man standing on the bow of a boat watch- 
 ing a wave in its approach, remains till it has passed, 
 and he sees it no longer. But you cannot convince 
 him that the wave ceased as soon as it passed 
 from his view. The same causes or occasions which 
 brought the wave he believes will continue to carry 
 it on. 
 
 IV. All nature announces the existence of God, 
 who is the author of our being. It is unreasonable 
 to suppose that He planted longings for immortality 
 and then failed to provide the immortality. 
 
 V. My confidence in an immortality is founded in 
 the Scriptures. I believe that it can be reduced to 
 a demonstration that Christ rose from the dead, and 
 showed us the fact that there is another state, that 
 He brought life and immortality to light in that way. 
 
 VI. The Scriptures everywhere teach the immor- 
 tality or eternity of the soul, with all its power to 
 think, and feel, and resolve. 
 
I 
 
 The Scientists yi 
 
 I dare say that these reasons will be furnished by- 
 many others, and that many other reasons will be 
 given for faith in the future. I shall be glad to see 
 a publication of all these, and suppose that you have 
 such a work in contemplation. 
 
 DR. OCHOROWICZ 
 
 Latter-day science is slightly at fault for lack of 
 imagination. She has become "routinized," has 
 shut herself up in a bleak and arid region, has put- 
 tered with petty details, petty measures, and petty 
 formulas, all highly useful and necessary; but they 
 never can constitute a science. A science is not 
 complete without a general conception, that is, a 
 philosophical conception. In the past the philo- 
 sophical imagination was so misused,, we think it 
 our duty to do entirely without it. Men think that 
 the scientific positivism that debars the study of 
 "efficient" causes and "final" causes as in fact 
 beyond our ken in our present stage of evolution, 
 must debar such study forever, and not only that, 
 but the study of every alleged phenomenon that 
 seems visibly to lie beyond the boundary of our 
 knowledge. 
 
 Such prejudice is to be condemned. The old 
 unscientific systems are dead, and that is well; but it 
 is not well that no better system has come to take 
 their place. We must advance with all caution, but 
 we must advance, not ,only with regard to minor 
 observations, but also with regard to a philosophic 
 
72 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 conception that shall steadily become broader, 
 bolder and more profound. 
 
 Now, we shall never attain a view of the sum of 
 phenomena unless we free ourselves from the routine 
 of the schools, and unless we attack manfully the 
 problems of occultism and magic. 
 
 For, take note, the sensist doctrine itself holds that 
 man does not invent problems, but derives them 
 from his experience. Magic is only an experimental 
 science set on a wrong basis, distorted, incom- 
 plete, degenerated — what you will: yet a science in 
 its beginnings experimental. Let us take up anew 
 these studies with the improved instrumentalities 
 that we possess with the precise methods we are so 
 proud of, and we shall see a progress we look not for 
 take its start from this alliance between the past and 
 the present — we shall see a new Renaissance. I am 
 mistaken or it is already begun. 
 
 DR. H. F. JAMES 
 
 In answer to your inquiry as briefly as possible: 
 The work of Podmore, Gurney, and other pioneers 
 in scientific psychical research has forced me to the 
 conclusion that post-mortem persistence of con- 
 sciousness is a fact in Nature. 
 
 A very small percentage of spiritistic phenomena 
 (so called) are undoubtedly genuine, and deserving 
 of scientific investigation. While persistence of 
 individual consciousness after death is almost scien- 
 tifically demonstrated, nothing confirming the exist- 
 
The Scientists 73 
 
 ence of a pantheon of deities, or bearing out the 
 claims of any existing great religion, has been 
 brought to the surface up to date. 
 
 As to the fullness of consciousness, and the nature 
 of the environment in which it operates, we are as 
 yet without data. 
 
 PROF. SIR WILLIAM CROOKES 
 
 I consider it the duty of scientific men who have 
 learned exact modes of working to examine phe- 
 nomena which attract the attention of the public, in 
 order to confirm their genuineness, or to explain, if 
 possible, the delusions of the honest and to expose 
 the tricks of the deceivers. 
 
 That certain physical phenomena, such as the 
 movement of material substances and the produc- 
 tion of- sounds resembling electric discharges, occur 
 under circumstances in which they cannot be 
 explained by any physical law at present known, is 
 a fact of which I am as certain as I am of the most 
 elementary fact in chemistry. My whole scientific 
 education has been one long lesson in exactness of 
 observation, and I wish to be distinctly understood 
 that this firm conviction is the result of most care- 
 ful investigation. 
 
 In investigations which so completely baffle the 
 ordinary observer, the thorough scientific man has a 
 great advantage. He has followed science from the 
 beginning through a long line of learning, and he 
 knows, therefore, in what direction it is leading; he 
 
74 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 knows that there are dangers on one side, uncer- 
 tainties on another, and almost absolute certainty 
 on a third: he sees, to a certain extent, in advance. 
 But, where every step is towards the marvelous and 
 unexpected, precautions and tests should be multi- 
 plied rather than diminished. Investigators must 
 work, although their work may be very small in 
 quantity, if only compensation be made by its intrin- 
 sic excellence. But, even in this realm of marvels — 
 this wonderland towards which scientific inquiry is 
 sending out its pioneers — can anything be more 
 astonishing than the delicacy of the instrumental 
 aids which the workers bring with them to supple- 
 ment the observations of their natural senses? * * * 
 
 The persons in whose presence these phenomena 
 take place are few in number, and opportunity for 
 experimenting with previously arranged apparatus 
 are rarer still. That the subject has to do with 
 strange physiological conditions is clear, and these 
 in a sense may be called "spiritual" when they pro- 
 duce certain results in our minds. At present the 
 phenomena I have observed baffle explanation; so 
 do the phenomena of thought, which are also spir- 
 itual, and which no philosopher has understood. No 
 man, however, denies them. * * * 
 
 In the presence of strange phenomena, as yet 
 unexplored and unexplained, following each other 
 in rapid succession, I confess it is difficult to avoid 
 clothing their record in language of a sensational 
 
The Scientists 75 
 
 character. But, to be successful, an inquiry must be 
 undertaken by the philosopher without prejudice 
 and without sentiment. Romantic and superstitious 
 ideas should be entirely banished, and the steps of 
 his investigation should be guided by intellect as 
 cold and passionless as the instruments he uses. 
 Having once satisfied himself that he is on the right 
 track, the single object should animate him to pur- 
 sue it, without regarding whether the facts which 
 occur before his eyes are "naturally possible or im- 
 possible." 
 
 Like a traveler exploring some distant country, 
 the wonders of which have hitherto been known 
 only through reports and rumors of a vague or dis- 
 torted character, so for four years have I been occu- 
 pied in pushing an inquiry into a territory of natural 
 knowledge which offers almost virgin soil to a scien- 
 tific man. (Investigations made by Professor 
 Crookes in years 1870 to 1874, his attitude toward 
 them to-day being- the same as twenty-five years 
 ago.) 
 
 The phenomena, I am prepared to attest, are so 
 extraordinary, and so directly oppose the most firm- 
 ly rooted articles of scientific belief — amongst oth- 
 ers, the ubiquity (general) and invariable action of 
 the force of gravitation — that, even now, on recall- 
 ing the details of what I witnessed, there is an an- 
 tagonism in my mind between reason, which pro- 
 nounces it to be scientifically impossible, and the 
 
j6 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 consciousness, both of sense and sight, — and these 
 corroborated, as they were, by the senses of all who 
 were present, — are not lying witnesses when they 
 testify against my preconceptions. 
 
 But the supposition that there is a sort of mania 
 or delusion which suddenly attacks a whole roomful 
 of intelligent persons who are quite sane elsewhere, 
 and that they all concur to the minutest particulars 
 in the details of the occurrences of which they sup- 
 pose themselves to be the witnesses, seems to my 
 mind more incredible than the facts they attest. 
 
 Spiritualism amongst its more devout followers is 
 a religion. The mediums, in many cases young 
 members of the family, are guarded with a seclusion 
 and jealousy which an outsider can penetrate with 
 difficulty. Being earnest and conscientious believ- 
 ers in the truth of certain doctrines, which they hold 
 to be substantiated by what appear to them to be 
 miraculous occurrences, they seem to hold the pres- 
 ence of scientific investigation a profanation of the 
 shrine. As a personal favor I have more than once 
 been allowed to be present at meetings that pre- 
 sented more the form of a religious ceremony than a 
 spiritualistic seance. * * * 
 
 The many hundreds of facts of psychical phenom- 
 ena, I am prepared to attest, — facts which to imitate 
 by known mechanical or physical means would baf- 
 fle the skill of the greatest professional "conjurer" 
 or "wizard" backed with all the resources of elabo- 
 
The Scientists 77 
 
 rate machinery, and the practice of years, — have 
 with few exceptions, all taken place in my own 
 house, at times appointed by myself, and under cir- 
 cumstances which absolutely precluded the employ- 
 ment of the very simplest instrumental aids. The 
 occurrences have taken place in the light, and with 
 only private friends present besides the medium. 
 
 In classifying some of the phenomena which have 
 come under my notice, I proceed from the simple 
 to the more complex, mentioning briefly the char- 
 acter of the facts as I have investigated them : — The 
 movement of heavy bodies without contact, but 
 without mechanical exertion. .* * The phenom- 
 ena of percussive and other allied sounds. * * 
 The alteration of weight of bodies. * * Move- 
 ment of heavy substances when at a distance from 
 the medium. * * The rising of tables and chairs 
 off the ground, without contact with any person. 
 
 * * The levitation of human bodies. * * Move- 
 ment of various small articles without contact with 
 any person. * * Luminous appearances. * * 
 The appearance of hands, either self-luminous or 
 visible by ordinary light. * * Direct writing. 
 
 * * Phantom forms and faces. * * 
 
 The phenomena are governed by an intelligence. 
 It becomes a question of importance as to the source 
 of that intelligence. Is it the intelligence of the 
 medium, of any of the other persons in the room, or 
 is it an exterior intelligence? I have observed some 
 
78 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 circumstances which seem conclusively to point to 
 the agency of an outside intelligence, not belong- 
 ing to any human being in the room. 
 
 (Prof. Crookes gives a large number of instances 
 of occurrences under the various headings above 
 enumerated, many of them seeming to prove beyond 
 question the interference of intelligent. human forces 
 other than those of persons in the presence of the 
 medium, or of the medium. It will be sufficient to 
 produce here one of the most remarkable, if not the 
 most remarkable, in the history of spiritualistic phe- 
 nomena. It comes under the head of: Spirit Forms. 
 Prof. Crookes had on many occasions taken to his 
 house a medium by the name of Florence Cook. 
 Miss Cook was an exceptional medium. Her 
 "guide" went by the name of "Katie King," and 
 while in trance the spirit form under this name was 
 materialized. I give Prof. Crookes' own account of 
 the last appearance of Katie King. — Editor): 
 
 During the week before Katie King took her 
 departure she gave seances at my house almost' 
 nightly, to enable me to photograph her by artificial 
 light. Five complete sets of photographic apparatus 
 were accordingly fitted up for the purpose, consist- 
 ing of fiYe cameras, one of the whole plate size, one 
 quarter plate, and two binocular stereoscopic cam- 
 eras, which were all brought to bear upon Katie at 
 the same time on each occasion on which she stood 
 for her portrait. Five sensitizing and fixing baths 
 were used, and plenty of plates were cleaned ready 
 for use in advance, so there might be no hitch or 
 delay during the photographing operations, which 
 were performed by myself, aided by two assistants. 
 
The Scientists 79 
 
 My library was used as a dark cabinet. It has 
 folding doors opening into the laboratory; one of 
 these doors was taken off its hinges, and a curtain 
 suspended in its place, to enable Katie to pass in 
 and out easily. Those of our friends who were pres- 
 ent were seated in the laboratory facing the curtain, 
 and the cameras were placed a little behind them, 
 ready to photograph Katie when she came outside, 
 and to photograph anything also inside the cabinet, 
 whenever the curtain was withdrawn for the pur- 
 pose. Each evening there were three or four ex- 
 posures of plates in the five cameras,, giving at least 
 fifteen separate pictures at each seance; some of 
 these were spoilt in the developing, and some in 
 regulating the amount of light. Altogether, I have 
 forty-four negatives, some inferior, some indifferent, 
 and some excellent. 
 
 Katie instructed all the sitters but myself to keep 
 their seats and to keep conditions, but for some time 
 past she had given me permission to do what I 
 liked — to touch her, and to enter and leave the cab- 
 inet almost whenever I pleased. I have frequently 
 followed her into the cabinet, and have sometimes 
 seen her and her medium together, but most gener- 
 ally I have found nobody but the entranced medium 
 lying on the floor, Katie and her white robes having 
 instantaneously disappeared. 
 
 During the last six months Miss Cook has been 
 a frequent visitor at my house, remaining sometimes 
 
80 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 a week at a time. She brings nothing with her but 
 a little hand-bag, not locked; during the day she is 
 constantly in the presence of Mrs. Crookes, myself, 
 or some other member of my family, and not sleep- 
 ing by herself, there is absolutely no opportunity for 
 any preparation even of a less elaborate character 
 than would be required for enacting Katie King. I 
 prepare and arrange my library myself as the dark 
 cabinet and usually after Miss Cook has been dining 
 and conversing with us, and scarcely out of our 
 sight for a minute, she walks direct into the cabinet, 
 and I, at her request, lock its second door and keep 
 possession of the key all through the seance; the 
 gas is then turned out, and Miss Cook is left in 
 darkness. 
 
 On entering the cabinet Miss Cook lies down 
 upon the floor, with her head on a pillow, and is 
 soon entranced. During the photographic seance, 
 Katie muffled her medium's head up in a shawl to 
 prevent the light falling upon her face. I frequently 
 drew the curtain one side when Katie was standing 
 near, and it was a common thing for seven or eight 
 of us in the laboratory to see Miss Cook and Katie 
 at the same time, under the full blaze of the electric 
 light. We did not on these occasions actually see 
 the face of the medium, because of the shawl, but we 
 saw her hands and feet; we saw her move uneasily 
 under the intense light, we heard her moan occa- 
 sionally. I have one photograph of the two 
 
The Scientists 81 
 
 together, but Katie is seated in front of Miss Cook's 
 head. 
 
 During the time I have taken an active part in 
 these seances Katie's confidence in me gradually 
 grew until she refused to give a seance unless I took 
 charge of the arrangements. She said she always 
 wanted me to keep close to her, and near the cab- 
 inet, and I found that after this confidence was estab- 
 lished, and she was satisfied that I would not break 
 any promise I might make her, the phenomena 
 increased greatly in power, and tests were freely 
 given that would have been unobtainable had I 
 approached the subject in another manner. She 
 often consulted me about persons present at the 
 seances, and where they should be placed, for of late 
 she had become very nervous, in consequence of 
 certain ill-advised suggestions that force should be 
 employed as an adjunct to more scientific modes of 
 research. 
 
 One of the most interesting of the pictures is one 
 in which I am standing by the side of Katie ; she has 
 her bare feet upon a particular part of the floor. 
 Afterwards I dressed Miss Cook like Katie, placed 
 her and myself in exactly the same position, and we 
 were photographed by the same cameras, placed 
 exactly as in the other experiment, and illuminated 
 by the same light. When those two pictures are 
 placed over each other, the two photographs of 
 myself coincide exactly as regards stature, but Katie 
 
82 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 is half a head taller than Miss Cook, and looks a 
 big woman in comparison with her. In the breadth 
 of her face, in many of the pictures, she differs essen- 
 tially in size from her medium, and the photographs 
 show several other points of difference. But pho- 
 tography is as inadequate to depict the perfect 
 beauty of Katie's face, as words are powerless to 
 describe her charms of manner. Photography may, 
 indeed, give a map of her countenance; how can it 
 produce the brilliant purity of her complexion, or 
 the ever-varying expression of her most mobile fea- 
 tures, now overshadowed with sadness when relat- 
 ing some of the bitter experiences of her past life, 
 now smiling with all the innocence of happy girl- 
 hood when she had collected my children round her, 
 and was amusing them by recounting anecdotes of 
 her adventures in India? 
 
 "Round her she made an atmosphere of life; 
 
 The very air seemed lighter from her eyes, 
 
 They were so soft and beautiful, and rife 
 
 With all we can imagine of the skies; 
 
 Her overpowering presence made you feel 
 
 It would not be idolatry to kneel." 
 
 Having seen so much of Katie lately, when she 
 had been illuminated by the electric light, I am able 
 to add to the points of difference between her and 
 her medium, which I have mentioned formerly. I 
 have the absolute certainty that Miss Cook and 
 Katie are two separate individuals, so- far as their 
 bodies are concerned. Several little marks on Miss 
 
The Scientists 83 
 
 Cook's face are absent on Katie's. Miss Cook's 
 hair is so dark a brown as to almost appear black; 
 a lock of Katie's which is now before me, and which 
 she allowed me to cut from her luxuriant tresses, 
 having first traced it to the scalp and satisfied myself 
 that it actually grew there, is a rich golden auburn. 
 
 One evening I timed Katie's pulse. It beat stead- 
 ily at 75, whilst Miss Cook's pulse, a little time after, 
 was going at its usual rate of 90. On applying my 
 ear to Katie's chest I could hear a heart beating 
 rhythmically inside, and pulsating even more stead- 
 ily than did Miss Cook's heart when she allowed me 
 to try a similar experiment after the seance. Tested 
 in the same way, Katie's lungs were found to be 
 sounder than her medium's, for at the time I tried 
 my experiment Miss Cook was under medical treat- 
 ment for a severe cough. 
 
 When the time came for Katie to take her fare- 
 well, I asked that she would let me see the last. of 
 her. Accordingly, when she had called each of the 
 company up to her and spoken to them a few words 
 in private, she gave some general directions for the 
 future guidance and protection of Miss Cook. From 
 these, which were taken down in shorthand, I quote 
 the following: "Mr. Crookes has done very well 
 throughout, and I leave Florrie with the greatest 
 confidence in his hands, feeling perfectly sure he will 
 not abuse the trust I place in him. He can act in 
 any emergency better than I can myself, for he has 
 
84 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 more strength." Having concluded her directions, 
 Katie invited me into the cabinet with her, and 
 allowed me to remain there to the end. 
 
 After closing the curtain she conversed with me 
 for some time, and then walked across the room 
 where Miss Cook was lying senseless on the floor. 
 Stooping over her, Katie touched her, and said, 
 "Wake up, Florrie, wake up! I must leave you 
 now." Miss Cook then woke and tearfully entreated 
 Katie to stay a little longer. "My dear, I can't; my 
 work is done. God bless you," Katie replied, and 
 then continued speaking to Miss Cook. For several 
 minutes the two were conversing with each other, 
 till at last Miss Cook's tears prevented her speaking. 
 Following Katie's instructions I then came forward 
 to support Miss Cook, who was falling on the floor 
 sobbing hysterically. I looked round, but the white- 
 robed Katie had gone. As soon as Miss Cook was 
 sufficiently calmed, a light was procured and I led 
 her out of the cabinet. 
 
 Every test that I proposed to Miss Cook she at 
 once agreed to submit to with the utmost willing- 
 ness; she was open and straightforward, and I have 
 never seen anything approaching the slightest symp- 
 tom of a wish to deceive. Indeed, I do not believe 
 she could carry on a deception if she were to try, 
 and if she did she would certainly be found out very 
 quickly, for such a line of action is altogether foreign 
 to her nature. And to imagine that an innocent 
 
The Scientists 85 
 
 school-girl of fifteen should be able to conceive and 
 then successfully carry out for three years so gigan- 
 tic an imposture as this, and in that time should 
 submit to any test which might be imposed upon 
 her, should bear the strictest scrutiny, should be 
 willing to be searched at any time, either before or 
 after a seance, and should meet with even better 
 success in my own house than at that of her parents, 
 knowing that she visited me with the express object 
 of submitting to strict scientific tests, — to imagine, 
 I say, the Katie King of the last three years to be 
 the result of imposture does more violence to one's 
 reason and common sense than to believe her to be 
 what she herself affirms. 
 
 (Professor Crookes, perhaps the greatest living 
 chemist, Fellow of the Royal Society, is now promi- 
 nently identified with the Society for Psychical 
 Research. It is from his classification of the phe- 
 nomena as "Psychic Force" that the name Psychical 
 Research has arisen. — Editor.) 
 
 DR. HERICOURT 
 
 Like everybody, and in particular like those who 
 have lost dear ones, I would feel happy could I find 
 arguments in favor of the survival of human person- 
 ality. 
 
 Alas! I have found none that are capable of over- 
 coming scientific criticism. When the lamp goes 
 out, where goes the flame? To all appearances this 
 flame had a real existence, but was nothing but a 
 
86 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 series of vibrations constantly renewed and dissi- 
 pated constantly. 
 
 Thus it is with our soul and its personality; it is a 
 flame of physiological conditions, resulting from 
 vibrations no sooner produced than dissipated, and 
 which has no more real existence than the flame of a 
 lamp. 
 
 What is immortal is the matter composing the 
 lamp, the matter composing our body, for matter is 
 part of the great whole which is indestructible. Mat- 
 ter, however, does not interest us; what does, is 
 light, our personality; and this very thing is noth- 
 ing; for from each successive generation of souls 
 nothing more remains than what is left of the lights 
 of the last fete. 
 
 A. VAN DER NAILLEN 
 
 I have had thousands of tests in psychic research 
 satisfactory to myself, carrying with them absolute 
 proof of the continuation of life; but you know, 
 others who have never participated in such experi- 
 ments, or who are not sufficiently developed to be 
 gifted with the same illumination at least, cannot 
 be convinced. I can only say that during forty 
 years of investigation, always holding science in one 
 hand as a counterweight, and running through all 
 the phases of psychic science, and in Europe as well 
 as America, interviewing and experimenting with 
 the highest authorities everywhere, I am absolutely 
 certain of the continuation of life after terrestrial 
 
The Scientists 87 
 
 death. Immortality? As a believer, I would fain 
 say: It is a fact; as a man of science, I must say: 
 I do not know; for between continuation of life after 
 death, and immortality, there is an immeasurable 
 space. 
 
 DR. A. EULENBERG 
 
 Desirous of responding to your wishes, at least as 
 far as my limited intelligence and imperfect English 
 will allow — especially to such an important question 
 — I dare say that we cannot sharply enough distin- 
 guish between the general results of scientific con- 
 viction and our subjective ideas and sentiments, or 
 what we may call our Credo. 
 
 As for the first, I think we hitherto are not aware 
 of a single fact or argument, objectively and scien- 
 tifically proving or even favoring individual immor- 
 tality; whilst, on the contrary, there exists no fact 
 or argument absolutely refuting and excluding that 
 hypothesis. "Ignoramus" and (as we may say with 
 Du Bois-Reymond) "ignoratimus". 
 
 Of course there remains free space enough for all 
 kinds of feeling, for fears and hopes; and all people 
 for which the thought of personality appeals as a 
 relief and an indispensable consolation in the bitter- 
 ness of life's struggles, are fully justified in retaining 
 and maintaining against whatever assaults that sat- 
 isfying belief. I cannot agree with Haeckel when 
 he suggests that a definite resignation of that belief 
 would not signify a painful loss, but on the contrary 
 
88 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 would be an invaluable gain for mankind. I wish 
 to oppose to his thought a word of Goethe, that, 
 as I suppose, better defines the subjective side of 
 the question: "I would not be deprived of the hap- 
 piness of believing in a future existence; I even dare 
 say that all those are dead for this life who by no 
 means hope in another life/' 
 
 PROF. D. I. MENDELIEFF 
 
 The question as to the continuance of the exist- 
 ence of the soul or personal identity after death, 
 mentioned in your letter of August, 1901, I, as a 
 natural philosopher, consider to be an hypothesis 
 which cannot be proved by evidence of real facts. 
 But as a man educated in a religious sense, I prefer 
 to remain in the belief of the immortality of the soul. 
 It is my opinion that the philosophical side of the 
 question consists in the relation between the soul, 
 the natural forces, and matter; and if it were possible 
 to clear up to some extent this feature of the prob- 
 lem — the relation between force and matter — then 
 also the relation between the soul and natural forces 
 would be forwarded to a great extent. 
 
 The unquestionable existence of reason, will and 
 consciousness compels us to acknowledge the exist- 
 ence of a special world of relations of this kind, and 
 any rational conclusion in relation to this special 
 world cannot be accepted as proved quite in the 
 same manner. Knowledge of physics and mechan- 
 
The Scientists 89 
 
 ics does not give anything in relation to chemistry or 
 in relation to the existence of celestial bodies. 
 
 We must simply confess that it is impossible to 
 comprehend this question in a general way, but it 
 would also be sheer nonsense to ignore the physical 
 world; and as matter and natural forces must be 
 acknowledged as eternal, it is also probable that the 
 soul is eternal. 
 
 PROF. TH. FLOURNOY 
 
 One may almost say that if telepathy did not exist 
 one would have to invent it. I mean by this that a 
 direct action between living beings, independent of 
 the organs of the senses, is a matter of such con- 
 formity to all that we know of nature that it would 
 be hard not to suppose a priori, even if we had no 
 perceptible indication of it. How is it possible to 
 believe that the foci of chemical phenomena, as com- 
 plex as the nervous centres, can be in activity with- 
 out giving forth diverse undulations, x, y, or z rays, 
 traversing the cranium as the sun traverses a pane 
 of glass, and acting at a distance on their homo- 
 logues in other craniums? It is a simple matter of 
 intensity. 
 
 The gallop of a horse or the leap of a flea in Aus- 
 tralia causes the terrestrial globe to rebound on its 
 opposite side to an extent proportional to the weight 
 of these animals compared to that of our planet. 
 This is little, even without taking into account the 
 fact that this infinitesimal displacement runs the risk 
 
90 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 at every moment of being neutralized by the leaps of 
 horses and fleas on the other hemisphere, so that, 
 on the whole, the shocks to our terrestrial globe 
 resulting from all the moves on its surface are too 
 feeble to prevent our sleeping. Perhaps it is the 
 same with the innumerable waves which coming 
 from all other living beings, shock at every moment 
 a given brain: their efforts are counterbalanced, or 
 their resultant too slight to be perceived. But they 
 exist none the less in reality, and I confess I do not 
 understand those who reproach telepathy with be- 
 ing strange, mystical, occult, supernormal, etc. 
 
 (Professor Flournoy in his recent book — From 
 India to the Planet Mars — gives a remarkable his- 
 tory of his experiments with a young lady medium 
 of his acquaintance in Geneva, Mdlle. Smith. His 
 conclusions are not favorable to spirit communica- 
 tions. He advances the foregoing ideas respecting 
 telepathy. — Editor.) 
 
 PROF. A. FOUILLEE 
 
 Sir:— Time fails me to answer the serious ques- 
 tion you put to me, but which however I intend to 
 investigate some day for my own satisfaction. Mean- 
 while I refer you to the masterpiece of Guyau, on 
 the Irreligion de l'Avenir, translated into English 
 under the title of "The Non-Religion of the 
 Future." 1 It is in this book, in my opinion, that 
 you will find the most complete and eloquent dem- 
 
 i Brentanos, Paris. 
 
The Scientists 91 
 
 onstration of scientific and philosophical facts rel- 
 ative to the problem of the immortality of the soul, 
 and which would suppose the perfect knowledge 
 
 First, Of what is the being. 
 
 Second, Of what is thought. 
 
 Third, Relation of the being to thought and con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 PROF. WILLIAM JAMES 
 
 When the physiologist who thinks that his science 
 cuts off all hopes of immortality pronounces the 
 phrase "Thought is a function of the brain," he 
 thinks of the matter just as he thinks when he says, 
 "Steam is a function of the tea-kettle. ,, "Light is a 
 function of the electric circuit." "Power is the func- 
 tion of the moving waterfall." In these latter cases 
 the several material objects have the function of 
 inwardly creating or engendering their effects, and 
 their function must be called productive function. 
 Just so, he thinks, it must be with the brain. 
 
 But in the world of physical nature productive 
 function of this sort is not the only kind of function 
 with which we are familiar. We have also permis- 
 sive or releasing function; and we have transmissive 
 function. * * * The keys of an organ have only 
 a transmissive function. They open successively the 
 various pipes and let the wind in the air-chest escape 
 in various ways. The voices of the various pipes 
 are constituted by the columns trembling as they 
 emerge. But the air is not engendered in the organ. 
 
92 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 My thesis now is this: That when we think of the 
 law that thought is a function of the brain, we are 
 not required to think of productive function only; 
 we are entitled also to consider permissive or trans- 
 missive function. And, the ordinary psycho-physi- 
 ologist leaves this out of his account. 
 
 (The "permissive or releasing function" and the 
 "transmissive function" referred to by Professor 
 James, whom we may state here is recognized as one 
 of the greatest living psychologists, means the 
 power to choose, the power to act, the fact of intel- 
 lectual freedom; in other words the human will. The 
 greatest brain activity is obtained by the use of stim- 
 ulants, such as alcohol, opium, and so forth. They 
 exalt the automatic activity of the mind, as is said 
 by one of our great scientists, but simultaneously 
 with this exaltation of the mind there is a corre- 
 sponding decrease in the power of the will, until 
 finally there is a complete suspension of its control. 
 —Editor.) 
 
 CAMILLE FLAMMARION 
 
 The universal and constant aspirations of all think- 
 ing human beings, the reverence and affectionate 
 remembrance in which we hold the memory of our 
 dead, the innate idea of a day of Judgment, the feel- 
 ings inherent in our consciousness and in our intel- 
 lect, the miserable incoherence between the des- 
 tinies of men on earth compared with the mathe- 
 matical order which regulates the universe, the 
 bewildering impression we receive of the infinite and 
 the eternal as we gaze into the starry heavens, and 
 
The Scientists 93 
 
 beneath all this our certainty of the permanent iden- 
 tity of our I (our individual existence) notwithstand- 
 ing perpetual changes in our bodies and our brains — 
 all conspire to create in us a conviction of the exist- 
 ence of the soul as an individual entity, which will 
 survive the destruction of our corporeal organism, 
 and which must be immortal. 
 
 However this may be, scientific demonstration of 
 all this has not as yet been made, and physiologists 
 teach us, on the contrary, that thought is a function 
 of the brain, that without brain there is no thought, 
 and that all dies when we die. In this there is dis- 
 agreement between the ideal aspirations of human 
 nature and what we call positive science. 
 
 On the other side we do not know, we cannot 
 affirm anything but what we have learned, and we 
 cannot know anything until we have learned it. 
 Science alone makes steady progress in the history 
 of mankind. It is science which has transformed the 
 world, though we rarely render her the justice and 
 gratitude that are her due. It is through her that 
 we live intellectually, and even materially, at the 
 present day. She alone can guide us and enlighten 
 us. 
 
 Perhaps the most singular thing of all is that a 
 free inquiry into truth seems disagreeable to every- 
 one; for each brain has its little secrets, which it 
 does not wish to have disturbed. If, for example, I 
 say that the immortality of the soul, already demon- 
 
94 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 strated by philosophy, will be speedily proved by 
 psychic sciences, more than one skeptic will smile at 
 my assertion. New facts or new ideas bewilder 
 and horrify them. They wish to see no changes in 
 the steady march of events to which they are accus- 
 tomed. The history of the progress of human 
 knowledge is a dead-letter to them. The boldness 
 of investigators, of inventors, of all who try to effect 
 any kind of revolution, seems criminal to them. In 
 their eyes the human race has always been what it 
 is at the present moment. They overlook the 
 stone age, the discovery of fire, the first construc- 
 tion of houses, the building of carts, carriages, and 
 railroads — in short, all the difficulties that the intel- 
 ligence of man has overcome, and all the discoveries 
 of science. 
 
 Great men have apparently striven to trace out for 
 science its "positive" way. They tell us we are only 
 to admit what we can see, or touch, or what we have 
 heard; we are to receive nothing except on the clear 
 evidence of our own senses, and not to endeavor to 
 know what is unknowable. For half a century these 
 have been the rules which have regulated science in 
 the world. 
 
 But see now. In analyzing the testimony of our 
 senses we find that they can deceive us absolutely. 
 We see the sun, the moon, the stars revolving, as 
 it seems to us, round us. That is false. We feel 
 that the earth is motionless. That is false, too. We 
 
The Scientists 95 
 
 see the sun rise above the horizon. It is beneath us. 
 We touch what we think is a solid body. There is 
 no such thing. We hear harmonious sounds; but 
 the air has only brought us silently undulations that 
 are silent themselves. We admire the effects of 
 light, and the colors that bring vividly before our 
 eyes the splendid scenes of nature; but in fact there 
 is no light, there are no colors. It is the movement 
 of colorless ether striking on our optic nerve which 
 gives us the impression of light and color. We 
 burn our foot in the fire; it is not the foot that pains 
 us; it is in our brain only that the feeling of being 
 burned resides. We speak of heat and cold; there 
 is neither heat nor cold in the universe, only motion. 
 Thus our senses mislead us as to the reality of ob- 
 jects around us. Sensation and reality are two dif- 
 ferent things. 
 
 We are told of five doors to human knowledge, 
 sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. These five 
 doors open for us but a little way to any knowledge 
 of the world around us, especially the last three, 
 smell, taste, and touch. The eye and ear can do a 
 good deal, but it is light alone that really puts us in 
 communication with the universe ; and light is a sen- 
 sation caused by a kind of excessively rapid vibration 
 of the air. 
 
 All our human knowledge might be symbolically 
 represented by a tiny island surrounded by a limit- 
 less ocean. There are still a vast number of things 
 
96 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 not yet explained, which belong to the domain of 
 the unknown. 1 
 
 Positive observation proves the existence of a 
 psychic world, as real as the world known to our 
 physical senses. And now, because the soul acts at 
 a distance by some power that belongs to it, are we 
 authorized to conclude that it exists as something 
 real, and that it is not the result of functions of that 
 part of the body called the brain. 
 
 Of what is the human body composed? An aver- 
 age adult man weighs 140 lbs. Of this amount 
 there are nearly 104 lbs. of water in the blood and 
 flesh. Analyze the substance of our body, you find 
 albumen, fibrine, caseine, and gelatine; that is, 
 organic substances composed originally of the four 
 essential gases, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, and 
 carbonic acid. You will also find gum, sugar, 
 starch, etc., substances which are exhaled during 
 respiration under the form of carbonic acid and 
 water. 
 
 Water is a combination of two gases, oxygen and 
 hydrogen ; the air is a mixture of two gases, oxygen 
 and nitrogen, to which is added, in lesser propor- 
 tions, water in the form of vapor, which, however, is 
 but condensed oxygen. 
 
 Thus our body is composed only of transformed 
 gases. 
 
 In a few months (not in seven years, as was for- 
 
 1 See Flammarion's book, The Unknown, Harper Bros. 
 
The Scientists 97 
 
 merly thought) our body is entirely renewed. None 
 of the flesh of our body existed three months ago; 
 the shoulders, face, eyes, mouth, the arms, the hair 
 — all of our organism is but a current of molecules, 
 a ceaselessly renewed flame, a river which we may 
 look upon all of our lives but never see the same 
 water again. It is all nothing but assimilated gas, 
 condensed and modified, and more than anything 
 else, it is air. Our whole body is composed of invis- 
 ible molecules which (when taken separately) do not 
 touch each other, and which are continually 
 renewed. 
 
 Finally, our table is spread; if we are vegetarians 
 we absorb substances almost entirely drawn from 
 the air. This peach is air and water; this pear, this 
 grape, this nut are also made of air and water, a few 
 gaseous elements drawn to them by the sap, by solar 
 heat, by rain. Asparagus or salad, peas, beans or 
 lettuce, all these live in the air and on the air — the 
 very same gases, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, car- 
 bon, etc. 
 
 If it is a question of meat, the difference is not 
 great. This substance, apparently so different, is 
 only transformed vegetable matter, which itself is 
 but a grouping of molecules taken from the gases. 
 
 Thus, whatever may be our kind of nourishment, 
 our body, kept repaired, developed by the absorp- 
 tion of molecules acquired by respiration and alimen- 
 tation, is really but a current incessantly renewed 
 
98 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 by means of this assimilation, — directed, governed, 
 and organized by the immaterial force which ani- 
 mates us. To this force we may assuredly give the 
 name of soul. It groups the atoms which suit it, 
 eliminates those which are useless to it, and, starting 
 with an imperceptible speck, an indiscernible germ, 
 ends by building up a perfect human body. 
 
 But this force is immaterial, invisible, intangible, 
 imponderable, like the attraction which lulls the 
 worlds in the universal melody; and the body, how- 
 ever material it may seem to us, is in itself only a 
 harmonious grouping, formed by the attraction of 
 this interior force. 
 
 From the origin of humanity down to within a 
 century or two it has been believed that sensation 
 was perceived at the very point where it was felt. A 
 pain in the finger was considered as having its seat 
 in the finger itself. Children and many people 
 believe so still. Physiology has demonstrated that 
 the impression is transmitted from the finger-tip to 
 the brain by means of the nervous system. If the 
 nerve is cut, the finger may be burned with impu- 
 nity; the paralysis is complete. We have been able 
 to determine the time taken by the impression in 
 transmitting itself from any part of the body to the 
 brain, and it is known that the rapidity of this trans- 
 mission is about twenty-eight metres per second. 
 Since then we have referred sensation to the brain. 
 But we have stopped half way. 
 
The Scientists 99 
 
 The brain is matter, like the finger, and by no 
 means fixed and stable matter. It is essentially 
 changing matter, rapidly variable, and forming no 
 identity. A single lobe, a single cell, a single mole- 
 cule which does not change, does not and could not 
 exist in the whole mass of brain matter. A stop- 
 page of motion, of circulation, or of transformation 
 would be a death warrant. The brain subsists and 
 feels only on condition of submitting, like all the 
 rest of the body, to the incessant transformation of 
 organic matter which constitutes the vital circuit. 
 
 So it cannot be that our personality, our identity, 
 lies in a certain grouping of brain matter, — our indi- 
 vidual me, our ego which acquires and preserves a 
 personal scientific moral value, increasing with 
 study; our ego which feels itself responsible for its 
 acts performed a month, a year, ten, twenty, fifty 
 years ago, during which the composition of the 
 body, the molecular grouping, has been changed fre- 
 quently. 
 
 Physiologists who affirm that the soul does not 
 exist, are like their ancestors who affirmed that they 
 felt pain in their finger or their foot. They are little 
 less far from the truth, but they stop on the way 
 when they stop at the brain, and make the human 
 being consist only of brain impressions. This theory 
 is all the less excusable because these same physiolo- 
 gists know perfectly well that personal sensation is 
 always accompanied by a modification of substance. 
 
 LOFC 
 
ioo Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 In other words, the ego of the individual only con- 
 tinues when the identity of its matter ceases to con- 
 tinue. * * * 
 
 Here are the inductions which appear to me to be 
 founded on the study of Nature, that is to say, by 
 science: 
 
 The visible, tangible, ponderable, and constantly 
 moving universe is composed of invisible, intangible, 
 imponderable, and inert atoms. 
 
 These atoms are governed by force, to constitute 
 bodies and to organize beings. 
 
 Force is essential entity (being). 
 
 Visibility, tangibility, solidity, and weight are rela- 
 tive properties, and not absolute realities. 
 
 The intangible, invisible atom, scarcely conceiv- 
 able to our mind accustomed to superficial judg- 
 ments, constitutes the only true matter; and what 
 we call matter is but an effect produced on our 
 senses by the motion of atoms, — that is to say, an 
 incessant possibility of sensations. 
 
 The visible universe is composed of invisible bod- 
 ies. What we see is made up of things which are not 
 seen. Different bodies, iron, gold, oxygen, hydro- 
 gen, etc., are composed of the same primal atoms; 
 their difference lies only in the number, grouping 
 and motion of the atoms. 
 
 What we call "matter," vanishes when scientific 
 analysis thinks to grasp it. But we find as the sup- 
 port of the universe and the origin of all form, 
 Force, — the dynamic element. 
 
The Scientists 101 
 
 The human being has for essential principle the 
 soul. The body is visible and transitory. 
 
 Atoms are indestructible. The energy which 
 moves atoms and governs the universe is indestruct- 
 ible. The human soul is indestructible. 
 
 The individuality of the soul is recent in the 
 world's history. Our planet was nebula, then sun, 
 after that chaos. No terrestrial human being was 
 then in existence. Life began with the most rudi- 
 mentary organism; it has progressed century by 
 century to attain its present state, which is not the 
 last. What we call the faculties of the soul, — intelli- 
 gence, reason, conscience, — are modern. The mind 
 has gradually freed itself from matter; as — if the 
 comparison were not awkward — gas frees itself from 
 coal, perfume from the flower, flame from fire. 1 
 
 Psychic force has been beginning to exert itself 
 in the higher spheres of terrestrial humanity for the 
 past thirty or forty centuries; its action is but in its 
 dawn. Souls conscious of their individuality, or still 
 unconscious of it, are by their very nature beyond 
 the conditions of time and space. After the death 
 of the body, as during life, they occupy no place; 
 perhaps some of them go to dwell in other worlds. 
 Those only who are freed from material bonds can 
 be conscious of their extra-corporeal existence and 
 immortality. 
 
 i See Expressions, by Minot J. Savage. 
 
[02 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 The earth is but a province of the eternal father- 
 land; it forms a part of heaven. Heaven is infinite; 
 all worlds are a part of heaven. 
 
 The planetary and sidereal systems which consti- 
 tute the universe are at different degrees of organi- 
 zation and advancement. The extent of their diver- 
 sity is infinite; there are beings everywhere appro- 
 priate to their worlds. 
 
 All worlds are not lived upon. The present era is 
 of no more importance than those which preceded 
 or those which will follow it. Some worlds have 
 been inhabited in the past, others will be in the 
 future. Some day nothing will remain of the earth; 
 even its ruins will have perished. 
 
 Terrestrial life is not the type of other lives. An 
 unlimited diversity reigns in the universe. There 
 are dwelling-places where the weight is intense, 
 where light is unknown, where touch, smell, and 
 hearing are the only senses, where, the optic nerve 
 not being formed, all beings are blind. There are 
 other dwelling-places where the beings are so light 
 and so slight that they would be invisible to earthly 
 eyes, where senses of exquisite delicacy reveal to 
 privileged beings sensations forbidden to terrestrial 
 humanity. 
 
 The space existing between the worlds distrib- 
 uted over the immense universe does not separate 
 them from each other. They are all in perpetual 
 communication, from the attraction which makes it- 
 
The Scientists 103 
 
 self felt through all distance, and establishes an indis- 
 soluble link between worlds. 
 
 The universe forms a single unity. 
 
 The system of the physical world is the material 
 basis, the habitat of the moral or spiritual world. 
 Every thinking being bears within himself the con- 
 sciousness, but uncertainty, of immortality. This 
 is because we are the microscopic wheels of an 
 unknown mechanism. 
 
 Man makes his own destiny. He rises or falls in 
 accordance with his own works. But a primordial 
 and absolute law governs creation, — the law of 
 progress. Everything rises in the infinite. 
 
 In the ascension of souls, the moral qualities have 
 no less value than the intellectual qualities. 
 
 Universal creation is an immense harmony, of 
 which the earth is but an insignificant, rather unin- 
 teresting, and unfinished fragment. 
 
 The eternity of the soul would not be long enough 
 to visit the infinite and learn all there is to know. 
 
 The soul's destiny is to free itself more and more 
 from the material world, and to belong to the lofty 
 Uranian life, whence it can look down upon matter 
 and suffer no more. It then enters upon the spir- 
 itual life, eternally pure. The supreme aim of all 
 beings is the perpetual approach to absolute perfec- 
 tion and divine happiness. 
 
104 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 DR. IRA VAN GIESEN 
 
 Please let me congratulate you on the importance 
 of your endeavor, and express the hope that the lit- 
 erature you father will continually grow and stimu- 
 late continual inquiry in this field. * * * 
 
 Clifford, it seems to me, has written one of the 
 greatest essays on this question, and I feel that his 
 view is logical and acceptable. * * * 
 
Tart 1 1 
 
 Tfye ^Psychical Researchers 
 
"Psychical Research is the most important work 
 which is being done in the world — by far the most 
 important" 
 
 — Wm. E. Gladstone. 
 
"If anyone cares to hear what sort of conviction has 
 been born in upon my own mind, as a scientific man, 
 by twenty years familiarity with these questions which 
 concern us {Psychical Research), I am very willing 
 to reply as frankly as I can. I am, for all personal 
 purposes, convinced of the persistence of human exist- 
 ence beyond bodily death; and though I am unable to 
 justify that belief in a full and complete manner, yet it 
 is a belief which has been produced by scientific evi- 
 dence that is based upon facts and experience" 
 
 Sir Oliver Lodge, F. R. S. 
 Mathematician, President of 
 the Society for Psychical 
 Research. 
 
 "When I look over the whole Held of the phenomena, 
 and consider the suppositions that must be made to 
 escape spiritism, which not only one aspect of the case, 
 but every incidental feature of it strengthens, * * 
 / see no reason except the suspicions of my neighbors 
 for withholding assent" 
 
 I. H. Hyslop, Professor of 
 Logic and Ethics, Columbia 
 University. 
 
 (107) 
 
From Intimations of Immortality. 
 
 Woidsxoortli. 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And cometh from afar; 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 
 
 The idea expressed in the axiom: "A rose by 
 any other name would smell as sweet," strangely 
 enough does not apply in science. Magic, mesmer- 
 ism, physical magnetism and supernaturalism, are 
 terms that frighten the careful investigator, the 
 orthodox scientist; so also, the word spiritualism. 
 
 "It is obvious," says Professor Crookes, "that 
 under certain circumstances, phenomena, inexplic- 
 able by any known natural laws do occur; and these 
 phenomena appear conclusively to establish the 
 existence of a new force, in some unknown manner 
 connected with the human organism, and which for 
 convenience may be called Psychic Force." 
 
 Thus we take the Pillar of Hercules and give it 
 the name of Gibraltar. And the simile is good; for 
 Gibraltar was once called by our fathers the Pillar 
 of Hercules, the end of the world, beyond which no 
 man could pass and live. As Gibraltar it has become 
 a famous place, walled and mined and fortified; and 
 instead of having been the end of the world, it 
 became, in a sense, the beginning. Through its 
 dark straits came Columbus and sailed to a new 
 world; came also Amerigo Vespucci and made a 
 map of that world. 
 
 (109) 
 
no Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 From the Pillar of Hercules to Gibraltar, from 
 mesmerism to hypnotism, from spiritualism to 
 "Psychic Force. , ' Yet psychic force must, like Gib- 
 raltar, be analyzed, mined, walled, and if like all true 
 knowledge it is found available for the protection of 
 mankind, be fortified and made invulnerable; be 
 made a starting point from which the horizon of 
 knowledge may be extended, new worlds discovered 
 and, as by Columbus and his innumerable followers 
 during the past four hundred years, from this door- 
 way the dark and unknown sea of psychic phenom- 
 ena must be navigated, and perchance the still 
 greater freedom of man effected. 
 
 The Society for Psychical Research was founded 
 twenty years ago — in 1882. It is a scientific body 
 organized on a broad basis. We could fill a dozen 
 pages of this book with the names of members of 
 this society, some of them the best known and dis- 
 tinguished for accomplishment in the world. But 
 in the words of the late F. W. H. Myers, "Psychical 
 Research is no longer felt to need the recommenda- 
 tion of names independently eminent in other 
 branches of study." The undertaking of the society 
 may best be summarized by the following, taken 
 from the officially announced objects of the society: 
 
 An examination of the nature and extent of any 
 influence which may be exerted by one mind upon 
 another, otherwise than through the recognized sen- 
 sory channels, 
 
Psychical Research in 
 
 The study of hypnotism and mesmerism; and an 
 inquiry into the alleged phenomena of clairvoyance. 
 
 A careful investigation of any reports, resting on 
 testimony sufficiently strong and not too remote, of 
 apparitions coinciding with some external event (as 
 for instance a death), or giving information previ- 
 ously unknown to the percipient (the one perceiv- 
 ing), or being seen by two or more persons 
 independently of each other. 
 
 An inquiry into various alleged phenomena appar- 
 ently inexplicable by known laws of nature, and 
 commonly referred by Spiritualists to the agency of 
 extra-human intelligences. 
 
 The collection and collation of existing materials 
 bearing on the history of these subjects. 
 
 The aim of the society is to approach these vari- 
 ous problems without prejudice or prepossession of 
 amy kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unim- 
 passioned inquiry which has enabled science to solve 
 so many problems, once not less obscure nor less 
 hotly debated. The founders of the society have 
 always fully recognized the exceptional difficulties 
 which surround this branch of research; but they 
 nevertheless believe that by patient and systematic 
 effort some results of permanent value may be 
 attained. 
 
 No man can be a truly scientific student unless he 
 considers truth of priceless importance, and is pre- 
 pared to sacrifice all preconceived notions and care- 
 
H2 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 fully elaborated opinions whenever he discovers 
 them to be erroneous. Life itself is considered well 
 spent if it contribute, in a scientific way, to the dis- 
 covery of fresh truth. Therefore, truly scientific 
 men, while ready and anxious to make any sacrifice 
 in the cause of their pursuits, are equally and prop- 
 erly stubborn and cautious against making false 
 steps or unjustifiable conclusions. When they 
 announce here, as they do, that they are convinced 
 by evidence obtained by Psychical Research that 
 the soul of man lives after death, and that this prop- 
 osition is proven by the fact that under certain cir- 
 cumstances undeniable evidence of its truth has 
 come under their observation — observation cold 
 and dispassionate, if not disinterested — we are 
 bound to accept their statements and say: God- 
 speed to their mining and tunneling and fortification 
 of "Gibraltar." 
 
 (For men or women of wealth to endow the Soci- 
 ety for Psychical Research would seem to me to be a 
 high privilege and one unique and exceptional in the 
 history of education or the advancement of the sci- 
 ences. — Editor.) 
 
The Psychical Researchers. 
 
 FREDERIC W. H. MYERS 
 
 "Seeker after truth and helper of his comrades." 
 The death of Frederic W. H. Myers, one of the 
 most eminent and serious students of the present 
 time, a monumental figure and pioneer in "the most 
 important work of the world" — that of Psychical 
 Research — is described by the eminent Italian physi- 
 cian who attended him at the time as "a spectacle 
 for the gods; it was most edifying to see how a gen- 
 uine conviction of immortality can make a man 
 indifferent to what to ordinary people is so hor- 
 rible." 
 
 In his last hours, in the intervals of painfully dif- 
 ficult breathing, he quoted from one of his own 
 poems : — 
 
 Ah, welcome then that hour which bids thee lie 
 In anguish of thy last infirmity! 
 Welcome the toss for ease, the gasp for air, 
 The visage drawn, the hippocratic stare; 
 Welcome the darkening dream, the lost control, 
 The sleep, the swoon, the arousal of the soul. 
 
 "Frederic Myers' faith was the outcome entirely 
 of his scientific researches. The years of struggle 
 and effort and systematic thought had begotten in 
 
 (113) 
 
114 Proofs of Life 'After Death 
 
 him a confidence, absolute and supreme," writes 
 Dr. Oliver Lodge, the President of the society to 
 which Frederic Myers so faithfully devoted his 
 splendid abilities. "To Myers this faith did not come 
 by religion. He would have described himself as 
 one who walked by sight and knowledge rather than 
 by faith, and his eager, life-long struggle for knowl- 
 edge was in order that he might by no chance be 
 mistaken. I never knew a man so hopeful concern- 
 ing his ultimate destiny. He once asked me 
 whether I would barter, if it were possible, my 
 unknown destiny, whatever it might be, for as many 
 aeons of unmitigated and wise terrestrial happiness 
 as might last till the fading of the sun, and then 
 an end. 
 
 "He would not! For to him not the whole of 
 each personality is incarnate in this mortal flesh ; the 
 subliminal self still keeps watch and ward beyond 
 the threshold, and is in touch always with another 
 life." 
 
 In one of his last public utterances, Frederic 
 Myers expressed himself as follows, respecting the 
 work of the Society for Psychical Research: 
 
 Starting from various standpoints, we endeavor to 
 carry the newer, the intellectual virtues into regions 
 where dispassionate tranquillity has seldom yet been 
 known. * * * First, we adopt the ancient 
 belief — implied in all monotheistic (one God) relig- 
 ion, and conspicuously confirmed by the progress of 
 
The Psychical Researchers 11$ 
 
 modern science — that the world as a whole, spiritual 
 and material together, has in some way a systematic 
 unity: and on this we base the novel presumption 
 that there should be a unity of method in the inves- 
 tigation of all fact. We hold, therefore, that the atti- 
 tude, the habits of mind, the methods by which 
 physical science has grown deep and wide, should be 
 applied also to the spiritual world. We endeavor to 
 approach the problems of that world by careful col- 
 lection, scrutiny, testing of particular facts; and we 
 account no unexplained fact too trivial for our atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The faith to which science is sworn, is a faith in 
 the uniformity, the coherence, the intelligibility of, 
 at any rate, the material universe. Science herself is 
 but the practical development of this mighty pos- 
 tulate (proposition). And if any phenomena on 
 which she chances on her onward way seem arbi- 
 trary, or incoherent, or unintelligible, she does not 
 therefore suppose that she has come upon an unrav- 
 eled end in the texture of things; but rather takes for 
 granted that a rational answer to the new problem 
 must somewhere exist — an answer which will be all 
 the more instructive because it will involve facts of 
 which that first question must have failed to take 
 due account. 
 
 This faith in the uniformity of material Nature 
 formulates itself in two great dogmas — for such they 
 are; — the dogma of the conservation of matter and 
 
u6 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 the dogma of the conservation of energy. Of the 
 conservation of matter, within earthly limits, we are 
 fairly well assured; but of the conservation of energy 
 the proof is far less complete, simply because energy 
 is a conception which does not belong to the mate- 
 rial world alone. Life is to us the most important of 
 all forms of activity — of energy, I would say — 
 except that we cannot transform other energies into 
 life, nor measure in foot-pounds that directive force 
 which has changed the face of the world. Life 
 comes, we know not whence; it vanishes, we know 
 not whither; it is interlocked with a moving system 
 vaster than that we know. To grasp the whole of its 
 manifestations, we should have to follow it into an 
 unseen world. Yet scientific faith bids us believe 
 that there, too, there is continuity; and that the past 
 and the future of that force which we discern for a 
 moment are still subject to universal law. 
 
 Out of the long Stone Age our race is awakening 
 into consciousness of itself. We stand in the dawn 
 of history. Behind us lies a vast and unrecorded 
 waste — the mighty struggle humanam condere gen- 
 tem. Since the times of that ignorance we have not 
 yet gone far; a few thousand years, a few hundred 
 thinkers, have barely started the human mind upon 
 the great aeons of its onward way. It is not yet the 
 hour to sit down in our studies and try to eke out 
 tradition with intuition — as one might be forced to 
 do in a planet's senility, by the glimmer of a fading 
 sun. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 117 
 
 The traditions, the intuitions of our race are them- 
 selves in their infancy; and before we abandon our- 
 selves to brooding over them let us at least first 
 try the upshot of a systematic search for actual facts. 
 For what should hinder? If our inquiry first lead us 
 through a jungle of fraud and folly, need that alarm 
 us? As well might Columbus have yielded to the 
 sailors' panic when he was entangled in the Sara- 
 gossa Sea. If our first clear facts about the unseen 
 world seem small and trivial, should that deter us 
 from the quest? As well might Columbus have 
 sailed home again, with America in the offing, on 
 the ground that it was not worth while to discover 
 a continent which manifested itself only by dead 
 logs. * * * 
 
 Unless some insight is gained into the psychical 
 side of things, some communications realized with 
 intelligences outside our own, some light thrown 
 upon a more than corporeal descent and destiny of 
 man, it would seem that the shells to be picked up 
 on the shore of the ocean of truth will ever become 
 scantier, and the agnostics of the future will gaze 
 forth ever more hopelessly on that gloomy and 
 unvoyageable sea. For vast as is the visible uni- 
 verse, infinite as may have been the intelligence that 
 went to its evolution, yet while viewed in the exter- 
 nal way in which we alone can view it — while seen 
 as a product and not as a plan — it cannot possibly 
 suggest to us an indefinite number of universal laws. 
 
Ii8 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Such cosmic generalizations as gravitation, evolu- 
 tion, correlation of forces, conservation of energy, 
 though assuredly as yet unexhausted, cannot, in the 
 nature of things, be even approximately inexhaust- 
 ible. 
 
 (In regard to the chief mental phenomena — that 
 of trance mediumship — now under investigation by 
 the Society for Psychical Research, Mr. Myers 
 expressed the following convictions, the result of 
 great experimentation and close observation. — 
 Editor): 
 
 Trance is a name applied to a form of automa- 
 tism, whether healthy or morbid, in which the 
 automatist appears to be in some way altered, or 
 even asleep, but in which he may speak or write 
 certain matter of which his normal personality is 
 ignorant at the time, and which it rarely remembers 
 on his return to waking life. If there appears to be 
 not merely a modification but a substitution of per- 
 sonality in the trance, it is called possession. Trance 
 occurs spontaneously in so-called somnambulism, as 
 a result of disease in hysteria, and as a result of sug- 
 gestion, etc., in hypnotic states. A fuller analysis 
 shows classes which slide into each other in various 
 ways. 
 
 The trance may be simulated and the utterances 
 fraudulent; the facts which they contain having 
 been previously learnt, or being acquired at the time 
 by a "fishing" process. This is usually the case with 
 professional clairvoyants. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 119 
 
 The trance may be genuine, but morbid; and the 
 utterances incoherent or in other ways degenera- 
 tive, even when showing memory or accuracy 
 greater than normal. This is the case in hysteria, 
 so-called demoniacal possession, etc. 
 
 The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
 utterances coherent, but containing no actual fact 
 unknown to the automatist. This is sometimes the 
 case in hypnotic trance; and the "inspirations of 
 genius" may approach this type. 
 
 The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
 utterances may contain facts not known to the 
 automatist, but known to other persons present, and 
 thus possibly reached by telepathy; or existent else- 
 where, and thus possibly reached by telsesthesia. 
 
 The trance may be genuine and healthy, and the 
 utterances may contain facts not previously known 
 to the subject nor always known to the observers, 
 but verifiable, and such as might probably be 
 included in the memory of certain definite deceased 
 persons, from whom they profess to come. This 
 form of trance may suggest a temporary substitution 
 of personality. 
 
 During the past twenty-five years I have seen 
 many specimens of the three former of these classes, 
 and a few of the two latter and more interesting 
 types. I claim that this substitution of personality, 
 or spirit-control, or possession, or pneumaturgy, is a 
 normal forward step in the evolution of our race. I 
 
120 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 claim that a spirit exists in man, and that it is healthy 
 and desirable that this spirit should be thus capable 
 of partial and temporary dissociation from the organ- 
 ism; — itself then enjoying an increased freedom and 
 vision, and also thereby allowing some departed 
 spirit to make use of the partially vacated organism 
 for the sake of communication with other spirits still 
 incarnate on earth. I claim that much knowledge 
 has already thus been acquired, while much more is 
 likely to follow. 
 
 DR. DAVID W. WELLS 
 
 Experiments like those published by Hyslop are 
 the only evidence which appeals to me as at all con- 
 vincing. 
 
 Browning's "demand for a future," and Fisk's 
 refusal to believe the opposite, and Ingersoll's 
 "hope" seem to me no stronger reasons for future 
 existence than the Christian's faith. 
 
 For the mass of material the Society for Psychical 
 Research has accumulated there are but two expla- 
 nations: 
 
 First. They are all phenomena of the sub-con- 
 scious, perhaps supernormal, living mind; or 
 
 Second. There is evidence of the presence of dis- 
 embodied, previously living minds. 
 
 I am inclined to accept this latter conclusion as 
 the more probable, but I cannot as yet exclude the 
 first as a possible explanation. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 121 
 
 It devolves upon one who has discarded the older 
 arguments as inconclusive to exercise great care 
 lest he accept as evidence phenomena which further 
 investigation shall refute. 
 
 DR. RICHARD HODGSON 
 
 During a period of twelve years I have had, 
 through the mediumship of Mrs. Piper, communi- 
 cations with the "spirits" of those who have been for 
 some time dead. During the first few years I abso- 
 lutely disbelieved in her power. I had but one 
 object, to discover fraud and trickery, and I had had 
 plenty of experience with these. Frankly, I went to 
 Mrs. Piper, with Professor James, about twelve 
 years ago, with the object of unmasking her. 
 To-day I am prepared to say that I believe in the 
 possibility of receiving messages from what is called 
 the world of spirits. I entered the house profoundly 
 materialistic, not believing in the continuance of life 
 after death, and to-day I simply say, I believe. The 
 proof has been given to me in such a way as to 
 remove from me the possibility of a doubt. 
 
 The influence which guides Mrs. Piper announced 
 that in the future its action would be exercised in 
 such a way as to diminish the distance which sep- 
 arates the two states — the state before death and the 
 state subsequent to death. The change took place 
 in June, 1897. The earlier guides, Phinuit, Pelham, 
 and others, quitted in effect the circle of Mrs. Piper's 
 
122 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 influence, and their places were taken by two indi- 
 viduals in particular, who actually direct the com- 
 munications which she receives. We recognize the 
 first, who communicates by the voice, under the 
 name of Imperator, and the second, who writes, is 
 known as Rector. I have received from the first 
 innumerable communications, especially on the rela- 
 tions which exist between man and the infinite. 
 
 What my future beliefs may be I do not know. 
 Rontgen suggested that certain special effects pro- 
 duced in his famous experiments were due to rays 
 whose vibrations were longitudinal to the path of 
 propagation, but later experiments have tended to 
 show that they are due to vibrations of the same 
 general character as those with which we were 
 familiar, but of a higher order of frequency. And it 
 may be that further experiment in the lines of inves- 
 tigation before us may lead me to change my view; 
 but at the present time I cannot profess to have any 
 doubt but that the chief "communicators" to whom 
 I have referred in the pages of my report to the Soci- 
 ety for Psychical Research, part XXXIII, vol. 
 XIII, on the trance-phenomena of Mrs. Piper, are 
 veritably the personalities that they claim to be, that 
 they have survived the change we call death, and 
 that they have directly communicated with us whom 
 we call living, through Mrs. Piper's entranced 
 organism. * * * 
 
 The superficial observer, especially if he has not 
 
The Psychical Researchers 123 
 
 revised his conceptions of what he should expect 
 from the "returning dead," and does not constantly 
 keep before his mind the conditions involved in their 
 returning through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism, 
 — the fragmentary and obscure utterances of which 
 he will find so many examples in the report referred 
 to, might not unnaturally be regarded, in the incipi- 
 ent stages of a "spirit's" effort to communicate, as 
 the incoherent output of a disordered and disrupting 
 intelligence; but a closer analysis reveals that in 
 many of these the want of coherence lies not pri- 
 marily in the source of the information, but in the 
 new untried methods of its distribution. Behind 
 them is manifest, and grows more and more mani- 
 fest, the suggestion of some larger knowledge, the 
 presence of some persistent personality that knew 
 and knows us well. * * * 
 
 If, indeed, each one of us is a "spirit" that sur- 
 vives the death of the fleshly organism, there are 
 certain suppositions that I think we may not unrea- 
 sonably make concerning the ability of the dis- 
 carnate "spirit" to communicate with those yet 
 incarnate. Even under the best of conditions for 
 communication — which I am supposing for the 
 nonce. to be possible — it may well be that the apti- 
 tude for communicating clearly may be as rare as 
 the gifts that make a great artist, or a great mathe- 
 matician, or a great philosopher. It may be a com- 
 pletely erroneous assumption that all persons, young 
 
124 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 or old, good or evil, vigorous or sickly, and what- 
 ever their lives or deaths may have been, are at all 
 comparable with one another in their capacity to 
 convey clear statements from the "other world" to 
 this. 
 
 Again, it may well be that, owing to the change 
 connected with death itself, the "spirit" may at first 
 be much confused, and such confusion may last for 
 a long time; and even after the "spirit" has become 
 accustomed to its new environment, it is not an 
 unreasonable supposition that if it came into some 
 such relation to another living human organism as 
 it once maintained with its own former organism it 
 would find itself confused by that relation. The 
 state might be like that of awakening from a pro- 
 longed period of unconsciousness into strange sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 If my own ordinary body could be preserved in its 
 present state, and I could absent myself from it for 
 days or months or years, and continue my existence 
 under another set of conditions altogether, and if I 
 could then return to my own body, it might well be 
 that I should be very confused and incoherent at 
 first in my manifestations by means of it. How 
 much more would this be the case were I to return 
 to another human body. I might be troubled with 
 various forms of aphasia and agraphia (loss of words 
 and ability to express thought by signs, etc.), might 
 be particularly liable to failures of inhibition 
 
The Psychical Researchers 125 
 
 (restraint), might find the conditions oppressive and 
 exhausting, and my state of mind would probably 
 be of an automatic and dreamlike character. 
 
 Now the communicators through Mrs. Piper's 
 trance exhibit precisely the kind of confusion and 
 incoherence which it seems to me we have some 
 reason a priori (from the nature of the case) to 
 expect if they are actually what they claim to be. 
 
 But this is not all. And here I must again state 
 my conclusion as a result of practical experience, 
 which will, however, I have no doubt, be confirmed 
 by all those who have had much to do with Mrs. 
 Piper's trance or similar manifestations. If the 
 hypothesis of telepathy from the living is acted upon 
 in anything like the ordinary experimental way, the 
 supernormal results will be lessened. If the investi- 
 gator persistently refuses to regard the communica- 
 tions as coming from the sources claimed, he will 
 not get the best results. If, on the other hand, he 
 acts on the hypothesis that the communicators are 
 "spirits," acting under adverse conditions, and if he 
 treats them as he would a living person in a similar 
 state, he will find an improvement in the communi- 
 cations. 
 
 I have several times got better results alone from 
 communicators who were strangers to me, than 
 the intimate friends or relatives were able to get, 
 and including information unknown to me. To 
 describe it as it appears, the "spirit" in the attempt 
 
126 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 to communicate seemed like a living friend wander- 
 ing in his mind owing to an accident. To clear such 
 a person's mind we should soothe him, not bother 
 him with questions, but let him unburden his mind 
 of whatever his dominant ideas were, remind him of 
 strong associations that were dear to him, express 
 sympathy, etc^ etc.; but to ask him one question 
 after another, to put him through a cross-examina- 
 tion and expect him to have all the answers ready at 
 once, would obviously not be conducive to anything 
 but a worse confusion. And having tried the 
 hypothesis of telepathy from the living for several 
 years, and the "spirit" hypothesis also for several 
 years, I have no hesitation in affirming with the 
 most absolute assurance that the "spirit" hypothesis 
 is justified by its fruits, and the other hypothesis is 
 not. 
 
 (In another brief expression of his sentiments and 
 conclusions respecting the result up to the present 
 time of the great work being carried on by the Soci- 
 ety for Psychical Research, and also his personal 
 opinion of their meaning and value, Dr. Hodgson 
 speaks as follows:) 
 
 If I might put briefly my own opinion as to the 
 chief constructive lines of our work, I should say, 
 telepathy has been established; that there is much 
 evidence of clairvoyance, premonitions and similar 
 phenomena; that there is yet other evidence depend- 
 ing on spontaneous experiences that seem to point 
 towards the action of deceased persons; that in the 
 
The Psychical Researchers 127 
 
 articles of Mr. F. W. H. Myers (contained in the 
 published proceedings of the society and much yet 
 to be published) there is an overwhelming' evidence 
 drawn from various sources that human personality 
 is much wider and deeper than most persons have 
 been in the habit of supposing; and that all these 
 related phenomena are pointing more and more to 
 the conclusion that man survives death. I believe 
 myself that some general relation between the vari- 
 ous groups of phenomena as Mr. Myers has exhib- 
 ited will be proven true, and that eventually there 
 will be completely satisfactory evidence, drawn from 
 empirical sources, and based on strictly scientific 
 grounds, entirely independent of what might be 
 called theological and philosophical considerations, 
 that man indeed does not die with the death of his 
 body. 
 
 I have myself been led to this conviction as a 
 result of many years of investigation with Mrs. 
 Piper. I need not point out of what momentous 
 importance it would be to the human race to reach a 
 well assured affirmative scientific conclusion con- 
 cerning the question of a future life. 
 
 DR. FREDERICK VAN EEDEN 
 
 Passive in observation, patient in action, prudent 
 in advance, we must refrain from seeking to unveil 
 with over-hasty hands the secrets yet hidden from 
 us by the eternal God. * * * Eagerness, in com- 
 
128 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 parison with which patience is often considered 
 phlegmatic, is a general weakness of the Anglo- 
 Saxon. It accounts for his wonderful achievements, 
 but also for his mistakes. And this is true also in 
 the difficult domain of psychical investigation. 
 
 Among the serious men of science who have 
 taken the matter of pyschical phenomena in hand 
 patiently and without prejudice, complete disbe- 
 lievers are becoming scarce. But the believers in 
 the genuineness of the phenomena are still divided 
 into two well-defined parties. 
 
 The first group accepts almost completely the 
 view of the spiritists and believes in the influence of 
 spirits, of impalpable and, in the ordinary way, 
 imperceptible beings, upon the mind and body of a 
 living human being. 
 
 The second group acknowledges the facts as 
 extraordinary and inexplicable by ordinary causes, 
 but does not admit that as yet anything has been 
 discovered which forces us inevitably to believe in 
 the existence of spirits. Everything may perhaps be 
 explained, according to them, by faculties personal 
 to the medium, such as telepathy and clairvoyance. 
 
 To the first group belong, as we all know, very 
 distinguished men of science, such as Alfred Russel 
 Wallace and Sir William Crookes, and also the man 
 whose loss we so deeply deplore, Frederic Myers. 
 
 The first theory is much the simpler as an expla- 
 nation. Once given the possibility of the action 
 
The Psychical Researchers 129 
 
 upon our existence of beings whose material condi- 
 tions of existence are quite imperceptible and even 
 inconceivable for us, all the rest is easily explained. 
 As a philosophical conception this view has nothing 
 in it absurd or improbable. On the contrary, as a 
 matter of probability, we must agree that it is far 
 more likely that there exists an infinity of imper- 
 ceptible beings, even in our immediate proximity, 
 than that we should be the ultimate form of life, or 
 that we should have reached an exhaustive power of 
 perception of other living beings. 
 
 We know that our sensory perception is limited to 
 five modes, or channels, each of them embracing 
 only a small part of an infinite scale of vibratory 
 motions. It is, philosophically speaking, quite as 
 absurd to believe that every form of life and exist- 
 ence must fall under our power of observation, as 
 that there are no other celestial bodies but those 
 which our eyes can see. As expressed by Spinoza, 
 "there is not only infinity in sequence of time, or 
 extension of space, but also in diversity of being at 
 the same place and the same time." * * * 
 
 I think I may make a definite and clear statement 
 of my present opinion, which has been wavering 
 between the two sides for a long time. I should not 
 give any definite statement if I did not feel pre- 
 pared to do so, however eagerly it might be desired, 
 for I think it the first duty of a scientist and philos- 
 opher to abstain from definite statements in uncer- 
 
130 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 tain matters. And in observations like these we 
 must reckon with a very general inclination to deny- 
 on second thoughts what seemed absolutely con- 
 vincing on the spot and at the moment. Every 
 phenomenon or occurrence of a very extraordinary 
 character is only believed after repeated observation. 
 After the first experience one's mind refuses to stay 
 in the unaccustomed channel of thought, and next 
 morning we say: "I must have been mistaken, I 
 must have overlooked this or that, there must be 
 some ordinary explanation." 
 
 But at this present moment, when I read the notes 
 of my sittings with Mrs. Thompson held in London 
 and Paris, it is impossible for me to abstain from the 
 conviction that I have really been the witness, were 
 it only for a few minutes, of the voluntary mani- 
 festations of a deceased person. 
 
 Let me give an instance from my experience 
 with Mrs. Thompson. We had taken every precau- 
 tion at my first sitting that the medium should hear 
 nothing about my coming, my name, or my nation- 
 ality. I came unexpectedly, and remained an almost 
 silent witness. And yet, at the first sitting, the name 
 Frederick — my Christian name and that of my 
 father — was given; an apparent attempt was made to 
 pronounce my surname ("Fon," "Fondalin"), and 
 an allusion was made to my medical profession. 
 
 At my second sitting, though I had not seen Mrs. 
 Thompson in the interval, the name "van Eeden" 
 
The Psychical Researchers 131 
 
 was given in full, pronounced as if it were read by an 
 Englishman (Eden), also the name of my country 
 ("Netherlands"), and the Christian names of my 
 wife ("Martha") and of one of my children were 
 given, and at the beginning of the third sitting the 
 name of the place where I live ("Bussum"). 
 
 These different names were given more or less at 
 random, not always in their proper relation, but 
 nevertheless in such a way that simple guessing was 
 out of the question. She began (e. g : at the third 
 sitting) to call me "Mr. Bostim," "Bussom," or 
 "Bussum," mistaking the name of my place for my 
 own name; then she asked what "Netherlands" 
 meant; she said at the first sitting that I had a rela- 
 tion called Frederik; at the third, that it was my own 
 name, and that I was a "gardener of Eden," and 
 so on. At each following sitting this confusion 
 became a little clearer in her mind. 
 
 To explain this, coincidence will not do. The 
 possibility of fraud seems untenable. I got infor- 
 mation about objects whose origin was known 
 only to myself. I brought a lock of hair of 
 a man who had lived and died at Utrecht, and 
 the hair was immediately connected with that name, 
 and on subsequent occasions referred to as the 
 "Utrecht hair". I brought a piece of clothing that 
 had belonged to a young man who had com- 
 mitted suicide. Nobody in the world knew that 
 I had kept it, nor that I had taken it to England 
 
132 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 with me for this purpose, and yet I got an exact 
 description of the young man and the manner of his 
 suicide, and even his Christian name was given. 
 
 For me this excluded all fraud or coincidence. 
 
 The young man mentioned had recovered from 
 his first attempt at suicide (though the control, 
 "Nelly," did not find out this particular), but the 
 wound in his throat left his voice hoarse and gave 
 him a peculiar little cough. As soon as I came near 
 Mrs. Thompson with the piece of clothing, her voice 
 became more or less hoarse, and bye and bye the 
 same peculiar little cough appeared, and grew more 
 accentuated at each subsequent sitting. After three 
 sittings it kept on even in the intervals between the 
 sittings, and in the end did not leave her altogether 
 until I had left England, taking with me the piece of 
 clothing — a flannel vest. 
 
 We are obliged in this difficult matter to rely a 
 good deal on our own personal impressions, to judge 
 by probability, and to form more or less intuitive 
 conceptions. This may not appear very exact, but it 
 is unavoidable, and we shall find a similar course 
 pursued in many other branches of science. Astron- 
 omy, for instance, is based principally on personal 
 impressions — but impressions which are verified by 
 many persons, and on intuitive ideas of probability 
 — but ideas which are confirmed by repeated obser- 
 vation. 
 
 My personal impression has varied. A number of 
 
The Psychical Researchers 133 
 
 small particulars, which will be found in my notes 
 (published in the Proceedings of the Society for 
 Psychical Research, June, 1902), produced on me 
 when taken en bloc the effect of perfect evidence. 
 To regard these all as guesses made at random 
 seemed absurd; to explain them by telepathy forced 
 and insufficient. 
 
 REV. JOHN W. QUIMBY 
 
 I would say in answer to your inquiry that to me 
 personally one of the strongest arguments for the 
 continuance of personal identity after death has 
 been found in the great mass of phenomena inves- 
 tigated by the Society for Psychical Research, 
 London, and especially in the inferences drawn 
 therefrom by a considerable number of eminent sci- 
 entific men, some of them among the greatest of 
 modern times. 
 
 DR. WILFRID LAY 
 
 For proof to persuade myself of the continued 
 existence of my personality after death I have never 
 felt the need. Present life would lose meaning for 
 me without this belief. If I ever attempted to per- 
 suade another, by logical argument, I should point 
 to the work of Professor J. H. Hyslop with Mrs. 
 Piper as the strongest scientific evidence, yet pro- 
 duced, of the life hereafter. 
 
134 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 PROF. SIR OLIVER LODGE 
 
 If anyone cares to hear what sort of conviction 
 has been born in upon my own mind, as a sci- 
 entific man, by some twenty years' familiarity 
 with these questions which concern us (Psychical 
 Research), I am very willing to reply as frankly as 
 I can. 
 
 First, then, I am, for all personal purposes, con- 
 vinced of the persistence of human existence beyond 
 bodily death ; and though I am unable to justify that 
 belief in a full and complete manner, yet it is a belief 
 which has been produced by scientific evidence; that 
 is, it is based upon facts and experience, though I 
 might find it impossible to explain categorically how 
 the facts have produced that conviction. Suffice it 
 to say for the present that it is not in a simple and 
 obvious way, nor one that can be grasped in an hour 
 or two, except by those who have seriously studied 
 the subject, and are consequently equally entitled to 
 an opinion of their own. 
 
 If pressed, I must confess that I do not see how 
 the hypothesis of the continued existence of human 
 personalities, so long as they are disconnected with 
 bodies and muscles, is any real help in explaining 
 ultra-normal physical movements; except that since 
 the movements show traces of what we ordinarily 
 speak of as will and intelligence, they do suggest the 
 agency of live things of some kind. 
 
 But then I see no reason for limiting the possibili- 
 
The Psychical Researchers 135 
 
 ties of existence — it may be of inter-planetary or of 
 extra-spacial existence — to those friends of ours who 
 have recently inhabited this planet. 
 
 Eliminating physical phenomena therefore for the 
 present, suppose that I am asked further: Do you 
 consider that trance utterances are ever due to the 
 agency of departed persons? I am bound to say that, 
 as regards the content or intelligence of the mes- 
 sage, I have known cases which do very strongly 
 indicate some form of access to a persistent por- 
 tion of the departed personality; and occasionally, 
 though rarely, the actual psychical agency of a 
 deceased person is indicated. 
 
 The medium when awakened does not usually 
 remember, is not really conscious of, the communi- 
 cation which has been spoken or written: not until 
 he or she returns to the state of trance. Nor should 
 I expect the ostensible communicator, so long as he 
 is anything like ourselves, to remember or to be 
 properly conscious of what has been, as it were, 
 drawn from his memory, until he too returns once 
 more into the same dream-like or semi-conscious 
 or sub-conscious condition. There may be all grades 
 of recollection, however, analogous to the various 
 grades of reminiscence of ordinary dreams, as and 
 after we wake. 
 
 One hypothesis concerning the agency of unem- 
 bodied spirits is that they themselves temporarily 
 occupy and animate some portion of the body of the 
 
136 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 medium, and thereby control a sufficient part of the 
 physiological mechanism to convey the message 
 they desire. The impression which such an hypothe- 
 sis as this makes upon us depends upon the view 
 that we take of our own normal powers: it derives 
 any prima facie reasonableness which it may possess 
 from the theory that we ourselves are mental enti- 
 ties, to which the names soul, spirit, etc., have been 
 popularly applied, who may be said to form or 
 accrete, to inhabit and to control a certain assem- 
 blage of terrestrial atoms, which we call our bodies; 
 by means of which we, as psychological agents, can 
 manage to convey more or less intelligible messages 
 to other similarly clothed or incarnate intelligences: 
 employing for that purpose such physical processes 
 as the production of aerial vibrations, or the record 
 left by ink traces upon paper. 
 
 Given that we are such mental entities or psycho- 
 logical intelligences, with the power of accreting and 
 shaping matter by the act of feeding, we must note 
 in passing the important fact that the manufacture 
 of our bodies, just spoken of, is a feat accomplished 
 by life without mind, or at least with only sub-con- 
 scious mind: it is wholly beyond the power of our 
 conscious mind to perform. Feed a child, and in 
 due course unconsciously he becomes a man — a pro- 
 cess beyond our control or understanding and 
 wholly transcending our utmost executive skill. 
 Note further that it is the same unconscious life, or 
 
The Psychical Researchers 137 
 
 part of the body, or whatever is the proper term, 
 which manages nearly all the ordinary vital pro- 
 cesses, and disposes of our food or gives us indiges- 
 tion as it sees fit. This may seem a frivolous 
 interlude, but it is important in connection with 
 what follows. It is perhaps obviously important in 
 connection with the whole business of tr|e inter- 
 action between mind and matter. 
 
 The hypothesis which seeks to explain the control 
 of a medium's body in trance by the agency of dis- 
 carnate spirits, presumes that an elaborate machine 
 like our bodies is capable of being occasionally used, 
 not only by the mind or intelligence which manu- 
 factured it, so to speak, but temporarily and with 
 difficulty by other minds or intelligences permitted 
 to make use of it. 
 
 There are many difficulties here, and one of them 
 is the assumption that such other intelligences exist. 
 But that, I confess, is to me not a very improbable 
 assumption; for knowing what we already certainly 
 know of the material universe, of its immense scope, 
 and the number of habitable worlds it contains (I 
 do not say inhabited, for that the evidence does not 
 yet reveal, but habitable worlds), realizing also the 
 absurdity of the idea that our few senses have 
 instructed us concerning all the possibilities of exist- 
 ence which can be associated in our minds with the 
 generalized idea of "habitable"; perceiving also the 
 immense variety of life which luxuriates everywhere 
 
138 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 on this planet wherever the conditions permit: I find 
 it impossible to deny the probability that there may 
 be in space an immense range of life and intelligence 
 of which at present we know nothing. 
 
 Indeed, we ourselves are here on this planet and 
 in this body for only a few score revolutions of the 
 earth round the sun: a thousand months exceeds 
 what we call the "lifetime" of most of us. Where or 
 what we were before, and where or what we shall be 
 after, are questions — intimately and necessarily con- 
 nected with each other. 
 
 But granting the possibility of a far greater and 
 more widespread prevalence of life or mind than 
 we have been accustomed to contemplate — a prev- 
 alence as extensive, perhaps, as that of matter — 
 what is the probability that the different classes of 
 life and mind interfere or inter-operate with each 
 other? It is purely a question for experience and 
 observation. 
 
 Now, by far the greater number of the physical 
 phenomena which are asserted to take place in the 
 presence of a medium involve nothing in themselves 
 extraordinary: the production of scent, for instance, 
 the introduction of flowers and other objects, move- 
 ments of furniture, the impress on photographic 
 plates, are all of a nature that can easily be managed 
 by normal means, given time and opportunity; and 
 the only thing requiring explanation is how they are 
 managed under the given conditions, more or less 
 
The Psychical Researchers 139 
 
 stringently devised to prevent their normal occur- 
 rence. 
 
 But there is a residue of traditional physical phe- 
 nomena which involve an effect beyond ordinary 
 human power to accomplish. For instance, the 
 asserted resistance of the human skin and nerves to 
 fire, usually though not always when under religious 
 emotion or in some trance state ; or the extraction of 
 a solid object from a permanently closed box; or, 
 what is much more commonly asserted than the 
 other two, the materialization or appearance of tem- 
 porary human forms. 
 
 I confess that I myself have never seen any of 
 these things achieved under satisfactory conditions, 
 but the evidence of Sir William Crookes and others 
 for certain of them is very detailed ; and it is almost 
 as difficult to resist the testimony as it is to accept 
 the things testified. 
 
 Imagination in science is permissible, provided 
 one's imaginings are not treated as facts, nor even 
 theories, but only as working hypotheses — a kind 
 of hypothesis which, properly treated, is essential to 
 the progress of every scientific worker. Let us 
 imagine, then, as a working hypothesis, that our 
 subliminal self— the other, and greater part of us — 
 is in touch with another order of existence, and that 
 it is occasionally able to communicate, or somehow, 
 perhaps unconsciously, transmit to the fragment in 
 the body something of the information accessible to 
 
140 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 it. This guess, if permissible, would contain a clue 
 to a possible explanation of clairvoyance. We should 
 then be like icebergs floating in an ocean, with only 
 a fraction exposed to sun and air and observation: 
 the rest — by far the greater bulk, eleven-twelfths — 
 submerged in a connecting medium, submerged and 
 occasionally in subliminal or sub-aqueous contact 
 with others, while still the peaks, the visible bergs, 
 are far separate. 
 
 One cannot but sympathize to some extent with 
 those philosophers who urge that the progress of 
 humanity has been achieved by attention to a devel- 
 opment of our full consciousness, and that reversion 
 to the sub-conscious or to dream states "is a step 
 back. It must be noted, however, that the adjective 
 "subliminal,'' as we understand it, is not suggestive 
 of subordinate or subsidiary, but is far more nearly 
 related to "sublime;" a statement which, considered 
 objectively, the philosophers in question would 
 probably disallow. If they mean that for the active 
 and practical concerns of life consciousness must be 
 our guide and our adviser, I am with them; but if 
 they mean (as I am sure they do not, when pressed) 
 that inspiration is attained through consciousness, or 
 that it is unlawful and unfruitful to investigate the 
 sub-conscious, where (I suggest) lie the roots of the 
 connection between mind and matter, then I must 
 join issue with them. So might an iceberg, glorying 
 in its crisp solidity and sparkling pinnacles, resent 
 
The Psychical Researchers 141 
 
 attention paid to its submerged subliminal support- 
 ing region, or to the saline liquid out of which it 
 arose, and into which in due course it will some day- 
 return. 
 "We feel that we are greater than we know!' 
 Or, reversing the metaphor, we might liken our 
 present state to that of the hulls of ships submerged 
 in a dim ocean among many strange beasts, pro- 
 pelled in a blind manner through space; proud, per- 
 haps, of accumulating many barnacles as decoration; 
 only recognizing our destination by bumping 
 against the dock wall; and with no cognizance of the 
 deck and the cabins, the spars and the sails, no 
 thought of the sextant and the compass and the 
 captain, no perception of the lookout on the mast, 
 of the distant horizon, no vision of objects far ahead, 
 dangers to be avoided, destinations to be reached, 
 other ships to be spoken with by other means than 
 bodily contact — a region of sunshine and cloud, of 
 space, of perception, and of intelligence, utterly 
 inaccessible to the parts below the water line. 
 
 To suppose that we know it all: to suppose that 
 we have grasped its main outlines, that we realize 
 pretty completely not only what is in it, but the still 
 more stupendous problem of what is not and cannot 
 be in it — is a presumptuous exercise of limited intel- 
 ligence, only possible to a certain very practical and 
 useful order of brain, which has good solid work of 
 a commonplace kind to do in the world, and has 
 
142 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 been restricted in its outlook, let us say by Provi- 
 dence, in order that it may do that one thing and do 
 it well. Some of these gnostic persons have been 
 men of science, others have been men of letters, 
 some of them again politicians and men of business; 
 some few of them have called themselves philoso- 
 phers, but the world has not thought them its 
 greatest philosophers. 
 
 The instinct of the world in the long run, though 
 only in the long run, is to be trusted; and the great 
 men whom it has picked out as philosophers of the 
 very first magnitude' — the philosopher Plato, of the 
 older time, and the philosopher Kant, of the more 
 modern era — did, not so limit their conception of the 
 possible; nor have the greatest poets, those whom 
 humanity has canonized among its greatest poets — 
 Virgil, let us say, and Wordsworth and Tennyson — 
 neither have they looked with dim beclouded eyes 
 on the present of the universe, or on the past and 
 the future of man. 
 
 Hear Tennyson on the origin of life and the ante- 
 cedents of human existence: — 
 
 Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, 
 From that true world within the world we see, 
 Whereof our world is but the bounding shore. 
 
 Meanwhile what are we to do? To inquire, to 
 criticise, to discover, but also to live — to live this 
 life here and now: aided thereto, it may be by a labo- 
 
The Psychical Researchers 143 
 
 riously acquired certainty that it is only an interlude 
 in a more splendid drama. With some people, belief 
 has preceded and frustrated inquiry: others there are 
 with whom investigation has resulted in belief: and 
 yet again others to whom belief continues unattain- 
 able in spite of conscientious effort and research. 
 
 Those who feel assured of a future existence may 
 be thankful; but those who cannot feel so assured 
 with them also it is well, if they apply their energies 
 to service on this earthly plane, and reap the whole- 
 some and natural joys accessible to us in our present 
 state. 
 
 Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 
 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 ANDREW LANG 
 
 I do not think that the question of a future life can 
 be investigated except by the ordinary methods of 
 psychological inquiry. At present I think there is 
 a fair presumption that in time, data for the forma- 
 tion of an opinion may be collected. 
 
 DR. MINOT J. SAVAGE 
 
 If you will get my book — "Life Beyond Death" 1 
 — you will find it will answer your question. I treat 
 in it both the argument side, and I also give facts 
 which I think have a bearing on the subject. 
 
 1 Published by Putnams, New York. 
 
144 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 I have been accustomed to say and think for many 
 years that "the scientific method" is the only 
 method of knowledge. What does this mean? It 
 means that whatever one may feel or think or believe 
 or regard as probable, he does not know unless it is 
 capable of demonstration in accordance with the sci- 
 entific method. 
 
 Let us note the steps of progress in the scientific 
 method, so that this matter may be made clear to 
 any intelligent reader, whether scientific or not. 
 
 i. The first step is observation. I open my eyes 
 (whether outer or inner) and see a fact. This proves 
 nothing beyond my own personal impression. If I 
 am color-blind or ignorant or prejudiced, my seeing 
 may be incorrect and so not correspond to any 
 reality. 
 
 2. So there must be repeated observation and 
 corroborative observation on the part of others. 
 
 3. Then, after a number of facts appear to be sat- 
 isfactorily determined, a tentative theory may be 
 formed in accordance with these facts. But this 
 theory is always open to revision, provided other 
 facts are discovered which are not in accord with the 
 theory. The "law of parsimony" demands also that 
 the nearest and easiest theory which will explain the 
 facts shall have the preference. That is, a strained 
 or far-fetched theory must not be dragged in where 
 the facts can be explained by an easier or more "nat- 
 ural" method. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 145 
 
 4. When a large number of facts are satisfactorily 
 established and all or most of them can be most 
 easily explained in the light of some particular the- 
 ory, that theory is regarded as scientifically estab- 
 lished. * * * 
 
 Now I submit this, the scientific method, can be 
 followed in observing and proving anything which 
 is real and which touches us, and so comes into the 
 field of observation. But while a man can com- 
 mand the action of certain forces and order the con- 
 duct of his observations in his laboratory; or while 
 he may count on the absolute uniformity of the 
 motions of the heavenly bodies, there are other facts, 
 and those of far greater importance, which he can- 
 not treat in this way, although he may still be true 
 to the scientific method. You cannot order people 
 round, as a chemist may his elements, and yet fact 
 concerning people may be scientifically demon- 
 strated. The same thing is true of the people in the 
 other life — provided there are any. It is conceivable 
 that "a spirit" may be present and communicate in 
 certain circumstances. Identity even may be con- 
 ceivably established. And yet the precise experi- 
 ment one may not be able to repeat at will, for the 
 simple but satisfactory reason that, ex hypothesi, 
 another will is concerned; the person may not be 
 present the next time; he is not under orders; and 
 the conditions may not be capable of duplication by 
 anybody who happens to come along. 
 
146 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 The Society for Psychical Research is engaged in 
 investigating a large body of facts, whatever may 
 ultimately be regarded as the explanation of them. 
 Several different explanations have been offered. 
 The principal ones are these: 
 
 First. Fraud. 
 
 Second. Auto-suggestion; that is, that the sitter 
 unintentionally "gives himself away" — as the phrase 
 goes. He unconsciously imparts the information 
 which so astonishes him when he gets it back again. 
 
 Third. That the facts are the work of the sub- 
 conscious mind of either of the sitters, the psychic, 
 or all together. 
 
 Fourth. Mind reading or telepathy. 
 
 Fifth. The "spirit" theory. This means, of course, 
 that persons who have "died" and are now in the 
 life which is ordinarily regarded as the abode of 
 silence and invisibility, can and do (at least occa- 
 sionally) manifest their presence and communicate 
 their thoughts. 
 
 Now, in the first place, it can be settled whether 
 any of these claimed facts are facts. Then, in the 
 second place, it can be determined as to whether 
 any one of these theories can explain the facts. If 
 it can, then it would be provisionally established as 
 a scientific hypothesis, in precisely the same sense 
 that the theory of the universe is established, and 
 with as scientific a validity. * * * 
 
 I submit then to all competent thinkers that the 
 
The Psychical Researchers 147 
 
 psychical problems can be scientifically investigated, 
 and that a true scientific theory concerning them 
 can be framed and verified. 
 
 Would it not be worth the study of years to know, 
 if it be possible, that we shall see our friends again, 
 and shall know them, and that we shall resume the 
 companionships that have been dearer to us than 
 life here? Why, if this could be once known, the 
 earth would never again be draped in black, the 
 skies could never weep with rain; every wind would 
 be an anthem and every morning the dawn of an 
 eternal day. 
 
 The number of persons in the civilized world 
 to-day who have more or less questioning about con- 
 tinued personal conscious existence after death, is 
 unspeakably greater than it was a century ago, and 
 beyond any dispute the number is increasing just in 
 the most important part of this human life of ours. 
 It is increasing among the thinkers, the readers, 
 those who are becoming of such a state of mind that 
 they must have proof before they can quite accept 
 any proposition. * * * 
 
 Half the human race, nearly, believes to-day that 
 mind is everything and matter is illusion; and yet, at 
 the same time, it universally denies the conscious 
 personal existence of the soul. So that the two do 
 not necessarily go together, and believing one is 
 not quite enough to prove the other. 
 
 Let us go back, for a moment, so many million 
 
148 Proofs of Life 'After Death 
 
 years that there is no use of trying to count them, to 
 a time when the whole of space that is now occupied 
 by any part of the universe that we can investigate 
 with our largest telescopes was fire-mist, chaos, con- 
 taining neither planet nor sun, nor satellite of any 
 kind. * * * Millions of years roll away, the fire- 
 mist moves and starts up centers of rotation; and bye 
 and bye you have somewhere in the midst of it a 
 nebula, or nebulae, only a thicker condensation of 
 fire-mist, but with perhaps a center a little more 
 dense than the outermost parts. The motion goes 
 on; bye and bye the center separates itself from the 
 outermost parts by its greater rapidity of motion, 
 and so flings off a ring — such a ring as you may 
 discover around Saturn to-day. This ring cools, 
 breaks, its parts tumble together, and by their rota- 
 tion assume the form of a sphere and begin their 
 motion around the central mass. This central mass 
 flings off another ring, and that falls into fragments 
 and coheres into another sphere, and the central 
 mass throws off another ring. This is the process, 
 they tell us, that has been going on in the formation 
 of our little solar system, the outer ones flung off 
 first, and then another and another, until we get 
 down to our little earth, which, in the process of 
 cooling threw off a ring which condensed and made 
 our moon. 
 
 Now, after thousands of years had gone by, 
 this little earth of ours became cool enough so 
 
The Psychical Researchers 149 
 
 that certain kinds of life could live upon it in 
 the ooze of the water's edge. * * * We have 
 the fishes, the reptiles, and the birds, then the 
 mammals, all the gigantic animals, and then at 
 last a feeble sort of being that did not know 
 it was man, that we now call by that name — 
 feebler than almost all the other animals of its 
 size. There had been a marvelous development of 
 the brain; and though it was weaker than almost all 
 its enemies, it began to have the power to outwit 
 its enemies, out-know, out-think them. Under the 
 form of cunning it developed an ability to master the 
 rest of the world. Then this cunning developed 
 into a higher form, the intellect, which ruled man- 
 kind. Then this animal developed something higher 
 than intellect — the power to love, and out of love 
 came conscience; and this strange creature became a 
 moral being. And then out of the moral being, and 
 beyond it, began to appear a spiritual nature. 
 
 There was a time when the mightiest power on 
 the face of the earth was muscle; then there came a 
 time when the mightiest power was cunning that 
 could outwit muscle; then a time of higher form of 
 intellect, which was superior to muscle or cunning; 
 then love and a conscience which was mightier than 
 they, until to-day, in spite of all the evil there is in 
 the world, the mightiest power on the face of the 
 earth is the moral ideal. * * * 
 
 So we are to-day in regard to scientific study. 
 
150 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 The four thousand years of the world that we can 
 clearly claim to be historical, when compared with 
 the time of the human race on this planet is not an 
 hour in a day; it is rather one hour perhaps in a 
 week. Is it not perfectly natural, then, that, begin- 
 ning with the first we know of our human history, 
 there should have been spasmodic, sporadic mani- 
 festations of what we call the spiritual nature of 
 man, breaking through the guise of flesh; that there 
 should now and then, if we are whelmed and sur- 
 rounded in a spirit world, appear a face, as in a 
 glimpse, a voice be heard, a hand felt by someone 
 more than usually psychically sensitive? Is not 
 this just what, on that theory, you would have 
 expected? * * * 
 
 I believe that we are to-day beginning to have 
 manifestations of a new and higher, a more spiritual 
 type of man that ought to be precisely what we 
 should be looking for. The world is getting ripe for 
 it. We are on the edge of it; and I believe with my 
 whole soul that it will not be long before immor- 
 tality will be as much discovered as America was 
 discovered by Columbus. These spasmodic mani- 
 festations that have been seen and heard and felt in 
 all religions, in all races, for the last three or four 
 thousand years, are just the first little blossoms of 
 spring, frost-nipped, trodden under foot, and for- 
 gotten; but they have been prophecy, and the 
 prophecy of that which I believe is to come. * * * 
 
The Psychical Researchers 151 
 
 It seems to me, indeed, most striking, that from 
 the beginning of the world until the last decade or 
 two there has never been on the part of humanity 
 anything like a serious investigation of a series of 
 claimed facts, which, if true, or only partly true, are 
 the most important facts in the world. Think of it! 
 Until the year 1882, to be specific, whatever particu- 
 lar individuals may have done, humanity had never 
 made a combined, serious, scientific attempt to find 
 the truth in this great matter. 
 
 So, with me, it has come to this: That, after years 
 of investigation, a large number of the leading think- 
 ers, students, authors, scientists, psychical scientists, 
 chemists, mathematicians — great minds — have come 
 to believe that there is no possible way of explaining 
 that which has been over and over again proved to 
 be fact, without supposing that they had been in 
 communication with some invisible intelligence. 
 
 That, at present, is my belief. 
 
 Now I wish to mark very distinctly one point that 
 appears to me to be of great importance. We may 
 be able, clearly, scientifically, beyond any question, 
 to establish the fact of another life beyond this; and 
 yet we may never be able to know much about it in 
 detail until we get there. I speak of this, and wish 
 to speak of it with emphasis, because a thousand 
 times the question is asked me, why, if anybody has 
 reported from the other side, have they not told us 
 all about it? 
 
152 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Will you note carefully with me one fact? All our 
 knowledge here is limited of necessity by our past 
 experience, the experience of the race. If I were to 
 attempt to describe to you any new thing or any 
 new place, I could do it only by comparing it with 
 something with which you are already familiar; and, 
 just in so far as it was unlike anything with which 
 you were familiar, just in so far it would be simply 
 impossible for me to describe it to you so that you 
 could have an intelligible idea of it. 
 
 Do you know that I can see, only after the 
 ethereal vibrations reach a certain number in a sec- 
 ond, and that the moment these vibrations pass 
 beyond another certain number, I cease to see? In 
 other words, I can see a narrow space while these 
 vibrations are kept within certain limits; while on 
 either hand the universe stretches off into infinity, 
 invisible to our present sense. So I can hear within 
 certain limits of ethereal vibrations; up to a certain 
 point I hear nothing. There is not produced on the 
 drum of the ear the effect capable of being trans- 
 lated — in the mysterious fashion of which we know 
 nothing— as sound to the brain. After a certain 
 number of vibrations have been reached, all is again 
 quiet to our senses. Huxley tells us that, if our 
 ears were adapted to take in all the vibrations, the 
 noises of the growing of flowers in the night would 
 be as loud as a thunder-storm. 
 
 In other words — and this is what I wish you to 
 
The Psychical Researchers 153 
 
 get from what I am saying — there may be millions 
 of spiritual creatures walking the earth, pervading 
 the atmosphere all around us, real, thrilling, and 
 throbbing with life, a life more intense than any we 
 know anything about or can dream of, and our pres- 
 ent senses take no cognizance of them whatsoever. 
 Do not imagine, then, that a person or a thing can- 
 not exist because you cannot see or hear or feel 
 that person or thing. 
 
 DR. A. D. HUSTED 
 
 In reply to your inquiry, I most certainly believe 
 in the continued existence of the soul. My belief is 
 based upon experience and in the stucfy of psychol- 
 ogy for the past fifteen years. I wish to be under- 
 stood as taking no part in Spiritualism of to-day, 
 which I regard as fraudulent commercialism, and in 
 my opinion souls cannot be communicated with at 
 will, or for a stipulated sum. I believe they exer- 
 cise their own pleasure in manifesting themselves, 
 and "Angels' visits are few and far between." I will 
 cite you a case in point along the same lines of 
 Flournoy in his work, From India to the Planet 
 Mars. I have a lady patient whose deceased sister 
 has communicated with her on various occasions in 
 my ofiice, after I had put her in a receptive state. A 
 gentleman patient who did not know the lady or 
 her deceased sister, visited me and I proposed send- 
 ing him to the planet Mars, to which he assented; 
 
154 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 his talk was something wonderful and was written 
 down. He told why Tesla failed in his experiments, 
 as told him by the Martians (he normally did not 
 know there was such a man as Tesla), and many 
 other wonderful statements by them; he came in 
 contact with the soul of the lady's sister and the con- 
 versation was corroborative. Now please exclude 
 hysteria or telepathy, etc., from these cases, as I 
 assure you they were not factors. I have many other 
 experiences on these lines, also photographs of the 
 lady mentioned while in that state. 
 
 PROF. J. H. HYSLOP 
 
 (It was reported in the press shortly before the 
 appearance of Professor Hyslop's recent report to 
 the Society for Psychical Research, on his observa- 
 tions of certain trance phenomena of Mrs. Piper, 
 that he claimed he would scientifically demonstrate 
 within a year's time the immortality of the soul. 
 Concerning this report, Professor Hyslop says): 
 
 I make no claims to "scientifically demonstrating" 
 anything, not even my facts. I have given a pref- 
 erence for the spiritistic theory in explanation of my 
 alleged facts, in order to force the issue on an 
 important investigation and in order to devolve 
 upon those who have not accepted any supernormal 
 phenomena at all the duty of rescuing me from my 
 illusion. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 155 
 
 (However, Professor Hyslop, after the most 
 exhaustive study, the most cold and careful analysis 
 of the facts, adopts for the present the theory of 
 spiritism as the only sane and reasonable solution of 
 the phenomena. He states that this is the least he 
 can do. Referring to the conditions under which his 
 experiments were performed, and his deductions 
 from the results, Professor Hyslop writes): 
 
 The arrangements for my sittings were made only 
 through Dr. Hodgson, and with special care regard- 
 ing secrecy. No one except Dr. Hodgson and my 
 wife were to know that I was to have sittings, and 
 only Dr. Hodgson was to know of the arrange- 
 ments. This plan was carried out in entire secrecy. 
 The arrangements for the sittings were not made 
 with Mrs. Piper in her normal state, but with the 
 trance personalities in her trance state. The arrange- 
 ments for my sittings were not made in my name, 
 but in the pseudonym of "Four times friend," so 
 that neither the supraliminal (conscious, objective) 
 nor the subliminal (unconscious, subjective) of Mrs. 
 Piper could have any clue to my identity. 
 
 When I went to conduct the experiments and 
 before reaching the house of Mrs. Piper, about two 
 hundred feet from the house and while in a closed 
 coach, I put on a mask covering the whole of my 
 face, and entered the house wearing the mask, met 
 Mrs. Piper, and went on with the sitting in this con- 
 dition. When introduced to Mrs. Piper it was under 
 the name of Mr. Smith, which is the usual name by 
 
156 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 which Dr. Hodgson introduces strangers. I bowed 
 to her without uttering a sound, the object being to 
 conceal my voice equally as well as my face. 
 
 In the whole series of my sittings Mrs. Piper 
 never heard my voice in her normal state, except 
 twice when I changed it into an unnatural tone. In 
 the whole course of the sittings, also, I was careful 
 not to touch Mrs. Piper, and I never came into any 
 contact with her to render any muscular suggestion 
 possible, except perhaps half a dozen times when I 
 seized the hand while writing to place it on the 
 writing-pad which it was escaping. Once I held 
 her head while she was straightened in the chair in 
 which she was sitting. But at all other times I 
 avoided every form of contact that could even make 
 muscular suggestion conceivable. 
 
 The facts obtained were either without any ques- 
 tions at all, or without questions calculated to sug- 
 gest the answers given. I was extremely careful to 
 avoid verbal suggestion. 
 
 During the writing I stood behind and to the 
 right of Mrs. Piper, in a position which concealed 
 any view of me and my movements absolutely from 
 any visual knowledge of Mrs. Piper, whether supra- 
 liminal or subliminal, even had her eyes been open 
 instead of closed in the trance. It was necessary to 
 take this position in order to be able to read the 
 writing as it went on. 
 
 Mrs. Piper goes into the trance in the following 
 
The Psychical Researchers 157 
 
 manner: She seats herself in a chair in front of a 
 table, upon which are placed two pillows for a head- 
 rest when the trance comes on. She may or may not 
 engage in conversation while the trance approaches. 
 In my case she generally talked to Dr. Hodgson 
 about various domestic matters, the weather, etc. 
 
 The approach of the trance is characterized by 
 various indications. When the head falls upon the 
 pillows, it is arranged by Dr. Hodgson, or other 
 sitter, so that the right side of the head lies on the 
 palm of the left hand and looking off and away from 
 the table upon which the writing is done. This sec- 
 ond table is at the right hand, and upon it is placed 
 the writing-pad. In a few minutes after the trance 
 occurs, the right hand shows signs of animation and 
 slowly moves toward this table for the writing, when 
 a pencil is placed between the two fore-fingers and 
 the writing begins. 
 
 Mrs. Piper's normal consciousness, as the past 
 evidence goes to show, knows nothing of what she 
 has done or communicated in the trance. She also 
 remains ignorant of the communications until they 
 are published in some form, except, of course, when 
 a sitter chooses to tell her something, which I need 
 hardly say in my case was nothing. There is no 
 mechanical apparatus whatsoever in the experi- 
 ments, except the writing-pad and pencil which you 
 furnish yourself. Hence there is no excuse for 
 comparing the case to slate-writing and cabinet 
 
158 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 performances generally. Absolutely nothing of this 
 sort is connected with the sittings and experiments. 
 They are conducted in open daylight, in a room 
 without any special arrangements for them, except 
 the tables as indicated, and this room, in so far as 
 living persons are concerned, might be any one that 
 the skeptical inquirer might wish to choose in any 
 locality whatsoever, and not confined to Mrs. Piper's 
 home. 
 
 In Mrs. Piper's case, in addition to the daylight 
 and absence of mechanical apparatus like slates or 
 cabinets, the writing is done visibly with her own 
 hand, and on paper and with a pencil of your own 
 furnishing. That is to say, we can actually see as 
 much of the modus operandi of the "communica- 
 tions" as we can see of any normal human act. 
 Nothing is concealed from our view, except the 
 physiological processes that are equally concealed 
 from us in our own writing as well as all other 
 human affairs. The whole scientific and evidential 
 importance of the results thus gets its credentials 
 and value solely from the content of the "communi- 
 cations," and not in any special way from the man- 
 ner of obtaining them, except as detective frauds 
 are excluded from the matter. I should also indi- 
 cate briefly the manner of making the record. Dr. 
 Hodgson sat near the table on my right where he 
 could see the writing as it proceeded. This he 
 copied, reading it in a low voice as an indication to 
 
The Psychical Researchers 159 
 
 the trance personality that it was intelligible, or 
 sometimes with a tone of interrogation and doubt 
 which would be followed either by the word "Yes" 
 sometimes written out, or assent by the hand, or 
 by the repetition of a word or phrase not rightly 
 read at first. 
 
 Enumerating the communicators by name that 
 figure in my series of sittings, there is my father, 
 Robert Hyslop, who is the chief communicator 
 throughout and who died on the 29th of August in 
 1896. Frequent communicators were my brother 
 Charles, who died a young boy at four and a half 
 years in 1864, and my sister Anna, who died at three 
 years of age, twelve days later. Also in several 
 sittings apparently my uncle, James B. Carruthers, 
 communicated or made unsuccessful attempts at 
 times. He died on December 2d, 1898, from an 
 accident on the railway. In the five sittings held 
 for me by Dr. Hodgson while I remained in New 
 York my father was the only communicator, with 
 the exception that my sister Anna seemed to be 
 present once. In the next eight sittings, at which I 
 was present myself, my father was the chief com- 
 municator; but in the course of them, in addition 
 to all that have been mentioned, my mother, twice 
 by name, Martha Ann Hyslop, who died in October, 
 1869, my cousin, Robert H. McClellan, who died 
 in 1897, and his father, my uncle, James McClellan, 
 who died about the beginning of 1876, were com- 
 municators. 
 
160 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 In the series of seventeen sittings, twelve held by 
 myself and five held by Dr. Hodgson for me, it will 
 aid in a clear conception of the facts in the com- 
 munications if we give such a statistical summary 
 of them as is possible. This cannot be done in the 
 same manner that facts and events of the same kind 
 usually can be classified, but they can be grouped 
 in a way suitable to a rough comparison, that will 
 supply the relative number of true and false inci- 
 dents with which we have to reckon in making up 
 our conclusions in the case. 
 
 The basis of classification that has been adopted 
 rests upon the distinction between the true, the 
 false, the indeterminate, and the mixed incidents. 
 An incident in the classification does not mean 
 merely some name or isolated fact, but may include 
 a number of facts capable of being independent of 
 each other in the course of events. Hence I have 
 distinguished between an incident and the number 
 of factors that may constitute it. 
 
 (There were 1132 incidents and factors brought 
 out according to Professor Hyslop's Statistical 
 Table. Of these, 152 were true incidents, 37 were 
 indeterminate, and 16 were false. Of the factors, 
 717 were true, 167 indeterminate, and 43 were false. 
 —Editor.) 
 
 Many of the more important features of the 
 record cannot be expressed at all in tabular account. 
 They are statements which show the proper appre- 
 ciation of questions, remarks, or other aspects of a 
 
The Psychical Researchers 161 
 
 situation, and also incidents of emotional tone. All 
 that the figures apply to are the number of objective 
 facts stated as such, chiefly, of course, concerning 
 the earthly experiences of the communicator. 
 
 (In taking up the attempts to explain the trance 
 phenomena of Mrs. Piper, Prof. Hyslop says that 
 the first, naturally, to come under review for all 
 psychical researchers is the hypothesis of telepathy, 
 (see Flournoy on telepathy, page 89) that is, a 
 process between living persons only. After dealing 
 with this in such a way as to show how far short it 
 falls in meeting the facts of the case, how strained 
 and infinitely complex the theory is when applied to 
 all the circumstances of the case, he writes:) 
 
 I assume the following: First, that the discarnate 
 spirit is in a state of active secondary personality 
 when communicating, possibly at times resembling 
 our hypnotic condition in some of its incidents at 
 least, and exhibiting various degrees of clearness 
 and confusion, merging now and then into delirium, 
 automatism, or complete syncope. This supposition 
 explains both the triviality and the fragmentary 
 character of the messages, together with the rapid 
 movement of thought so evident in them. It also 
 explains easily the occurrence of automatisms. 
 
 Telepathy between the living cannot plead any 
 excuse for its limitations in this way, because the 
 powers that have to be assumed for it would give it 
 access to any and all incidents of the sitter's memo- 
 ries, important and trivial alike. Second, that Mrs. 
 
162 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Piper is in a state of passive secondary personality, 
 a subliminal condition which reflects or expresses 
 automatically the thoughts communicated to it. The 
 evidence that this is her condition is almost over- 
 whelming. The supposition, then, explains easily 
 the limitations of the whole case, and also the fact 
 that the dramatic play of personality is more con- 
 sistent with the spiritistic theory than with that of 
 her secondary personality. Mrs. Piper can hardly 
 be in an active and a passive state of secondary 
 personality at the same time. Third, that there is 
 some process of communication between these two 
 conditions of secondary personality, whose modus 
 operandi is not yet known. 
 
 There is a difficulty to be considered that appears 
 to have some weight in respectable quarters. It is 
 closely connected with the problem of mistakes and 
 confusions, and is comprehended in the same gen- 
 eral causes. It is usually raised by the same class 
 that takes offence at confusion. When some alleged 
 communication is presented as coming from a dis- 
 carnate spirit the usual questions are: "Why can- 
 not a spirit be more explicit and definite? Why 
 cannot it name certain specific dates or events at 
 once that will immediately identify it? Why so 
 much confusion and loss of memory? Why so much 
 trouble about their names? A spirit ought to be 
 able to announce its name at once and to know that 
 it is imperative to do this at first." To many this 
 
The Psychical Researchers 163 
 
 represented disintegration of memory makes the 
 whole affair appear very suspicious and creates a 
 presumption for telepathy which we can easily con- 
 ceive as capricious, and which experience seems to 
 show is so. 
 
 It is the tendency of certain presumably intelli- 
 gent people to a priori decide what a given spirit 
 ought to say to identify itself. They argue from 
 what they imagine they would do in the same situa- 
 tion, without really knowing what such a situation 
 is. Unless the alleged spirit tells a coherent story 
 and indulges in lofty sentiments in clear language or 
 exhibits some superhuman flights of inspiration, 
 great truths, etc., they turn up their noses and sub- 
 stitute sneers for science. It is an objection that 
 reflects more suspicion on the intelligence of the 
 man who makes it than upon that of the alleged 
 spirit. 
 
 It is strange that an agnostic who has abandoned 
 orthodox dogma on the one hand, and who has 
 seen the terrible lesson in humility which the doc- 
 trine of evolution has taught man in regard to his 
 origin against all the poetry and mythology of the 
 past, should cling to the theological assumption of 
 some idyllic existence and perfection for spirits in 
 case they exist at all, and this without one iota of 
 evidence! 
 
 The fact is, that scientifically or otherwise there is 
 no reason to suppose the existence of spirits of any 
 
164 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 kind, much less that they represent anything much 
 better than man is now. Every sane and intelligent 
 man will take the evidence, good or bad, that he can 
 get, and affirm or deny the existence of spirits 
 before saying what they ought to do as communi- 
 cators or what estate they shall possess before believ- 
 ing in them. The chasm which is usually supposed 
 to exist between an embodied and a disembodied 
 spirit has no excuse for its existence except the 
 imagination of unscientific men. After the doctrine 
 of evolution it is absurd to take any cross section of 
 this process and assume that the next stage of it will 
 mark an immeasurable distance and degree of prog- 
 ress. It is flatly against all the laws and analogies 
 of nature to do this, and absolutely inexcusable in 
 the minds of men who make the slightest profession 
 of science. 
 
 Evolution has destroyed the golden age of the 
 past, and spiritism, with a similar lesson of humility, 
 may destroy the illusory golden age of the future. 
 
 From what we know of the influence of hypnosis 
 upon the consciousness of personal identity and of 
 physiological disturbances in the brain affecting the 
 integrity of memory, so far from expecting any 
 traces whatever of personal identity, even if the soul 
 survived as an "energy," we should rather wonder 
 that any intelligible message should come in the 
 attempt to communicate. Both from our knowl- 
 edge of physiology and from the necessity of inter- 
 
The Psychical Researchers 165 
 
 vening obstacles between incarnate and discarnate 
 existence, all the material conditions of our present 
 mental states and modes of communication being 
 removed, we should rather expect spirits, even when 
 they retained the consciousness of personal identity 
 and possessed perfectly clear thought in their own 
 natural medium, only to squeak and gibber like poor 
 Polly in their effort to speak to us through such 
 media as must be employed. 
 
 The amazing thing is that there should be either 
 any survival at all, or any traces of it possible. Hence 
 there is nothing to do but to handle without mercy 
 every man who is so ignorant of the postulates of 
 scientific method and of the immense difficulties 
 that must of necessity be encountered in real com- 
 munications from a transcendental world as to ask 
 that spirits should speak the language or exhibit the 
 intelligence of Plato, of Paul, or of Shakespeare. 
 
 When I look over the whole field of the phenom- 
 ena, and consider the suppositions that must be 
 made to escape spiritism, which not only one aspect 
 of the case, but every incidental feature of it 
 strengthens, such as the dramatic interplay of differ- 
 ent personalities, the personal traits of the communi- 
 cator, the emotional tone that was natural to the 
 same, the proper appreciation of a situation or a 
 question, and the unity of consciousness displayed 
 throughout, I see no reason except the suspicions 
 of my neighbors for withholding assent. But when 
 
1 66 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 I am asked to admit the telepathy required to meet 
 the case, the amazing feats of memory involved in 
 the medium's subliminal, the staggering amount of 
 deception demanded, and the perfect play of per- 
 sonality presented, as capable of explaining the phe- 
 nomena without spirits, I may say, yes, if you choose 
 to believe this against all scientific precedents. 
 
 But I am not ready to accept any such appeals to 
 the infinite, especially when we have only to extend 
 the known laws of consciousness to account for the 
 facts (by spiritism) instead of making such enormous 
 suppositions for fear of losing our social respectabil- 
 ity. Science is bankrupt when it has to appeal to 
 the infinite. 
 
 PROF. CHARLES RICHET 
 
 All of us are recalcitrant in accepting facts which 
 do not seem concordant with the facts of every day. 
 We are incredulous of the extraordinary; and how 
 incredulous I could hardly illustrate better than by 
 my own prolonged and almost invincible opposition 
 to the facts called occult. 
 
 And now, to begin with, we must get rid alto- 
 gether of this word occult ; — or rather we must give 
 it the only sense which it ought to bear. Occult 
 means unknown. Alchemy, before it became chem- 
 istry, astrology, before it became astronomy, medi- 
 cine, before it became bacteriology, were nothing 
 more than occult sciences. Nor, indeed, would it be 
 
The Psychical Researchers 167 
 
 very hard to show that the classic sciences, of which 
 we are so proud, are not yet far removed from the 
 occult stage. 
 
 We may know certain phenomena, and even the 
 laws which govern their appearance; but we do not 
 adequately understand a single one of them. To 
 say of the stone which falls to earth that it obeys an 
 attraction which varies directly as the mass and 
 inversely as the square of the distance, is not to 
 understand the stone's fall. Familiar though that 
 phenomenon is, it is not a phenomenon which is 
 understood in all its elements. Not one phenome- 
 non, I repeat, is fully understood. All are linked 
 together, and if we really understood one, we should 
 understand all. 
 
 When I first began to occupy myself with the 
 sciences called occult it was to make experiments in 
 somnambulism. At that time — it was in 1873, very 
 long ago! — somnambulism was still a mysterious, 
 magical science; and in the account which I gave of 
 my experiments I began by saying: "It needs a 
 certain courage to pronounce the word somnam- 
 bulism." I was right, I think, to have this courage; 
 for a few years later — and possibly my own efforts 
 helped towards this change — somnambulism had 
 taken its place among facts which no one denied. 
 As you know, the hypnotic trance is now a matter of 
 common knowledge; it forms a theme of ordinary 
 medical instruction, and is no more a subject of 
 
1 68 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 doubt than is small-pox or cholera. Thus may an 
 occult science become a classic science in twenty 
 years. 
 
 In the course of these studies I had here and there 
 observed certain facts of lucidity, of premonition, of 
 telepathy; but since these facts were denied and ridi- 
 culed on every side, I had not pushed independence 
 of mind so far as to believe them. I deliberately 
 shut my eyes to phenomena which lay plain before 
 me, and rather than discuss them I chose the easier 
 course of denying them altogether. Or, I should 
 rather say, instead of pondering on these inexpli- 
 cable facts I simply put them aside, and set them 
 down to some illusion, or some error of observation. 
 
 Nay, in my servile respect for the classic tradition 
 I mocked at what was called spiritism; and after 
 reading the astounding statements which Mr. 
 Crookes had published, I allowed myself — and here 
 do I publicly beg his pardon for it! — to laugh at 
 them as heartily as almost everyone else was doing. 
 But now I say just what my friend Ochorowicz says 
 in the same matter — I beat my breast and I cry 
 Pater, peccavi! How could I suppose that the 
 savant (Crookes) who has discovered thallium and 
 the radiometer, and foreshadowed the Rontgen rays, 
 could commit gross and inexplicable blunders, and 
 allow himself to be duped for years by tricks which 
 a child could have exposed? 
 
 A certain experiment in spiritism (I keep the 
 
The Psychical Researchers 169 
 
 word, although it corresponds to no theoretical idea 
 at all) came to shake my disbelief. One of my 
 friends discovered that he possessed the curious 
 faculty of causing a table to go through certain 
 movements — for him involuntary and unconscious 
 — but which were nevertheless intelligent. That is 
 to say, one could put questions and get answers of 
 which he had no knowledge, although he remained 
 fully awake, and his own personal consciousness 
 seemed quite intact. Unwilling to look for any 
 cause outside the causes of familiar phenomena, I 
 invented as an explanation of these strange facts a 
 theory which has not survived, and did not deserve 
 to survive — the theory of hemi-somnambulism. 
 This was in 1883. 
 
 Several years before this date, one of my relations 
 had experienced in my presence a telepathic hal- 
 lucination, under circumstances of the most striking 
 kind. But of this I had taken no serious thought. 
 Little by little, however, as we have gone on in the 
 accumulation of facts of just the same order, this 
 veridical hallucination of which I had been cog- 
 nizant returned more strongly to my memory, and 
 a kind of suspense and floating uncertainty took 
 possession of my spirit. 
 
 It must be remembered, too, in my excuse, that 
 as a professional physiologist I moved habitually 
 along a road quite other than mystical. I had been 
 taught a scrupulous respect for fact, a habit of exact 
 
170 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 and prosaic observation, controlled by rigorous tests 
 — by the balance, the myograph, the chemical reac- 
 tion. I began to feel myself dragged in two direc- 
 tions by contrary currents. 
 
 It would have been something if psychical experi- 
 ments had been susceptible of exact measurements! 
 But you know too well that this is not so. In the 
 best experiments with sensitives there is always a 
 caput mortuum which escapes analysis — something 
 loose and approximate which fails to satisfy men 
 who have taken as their motto these words of the 
 Preacher which govern science: "Omnia in numero 
 et pond ere." 
 
 But on the other hand the history of science 
 showed me into what strange mistakes men fall by 
 ignoring facts plain to see. The wisest of our fore- 
 runners was blind to many a conspicuous phenome- 
 non, simply because it was a phenomenon which he 
 could not understand. "And may it not be thus," 
 I said to myself, "with these psychical phenomena? 
 The unlearned deny them; the learned exclude them 
 from their text-books; but they may exist for all 
 that." 
 
 Then, as my next step, I imagined that certain 
 psychological facts of lucidity, of telepathy, perhaps 
 of premonition, were true; but that no occult facts 
 actually affected the material universe. Our human 
 intelligence, I said to myself, is perhaps endowed at 
 certain moments with extraordinary powers, with 
 
The Psychical Researchers 171 
 
 faculties which remain latent in the mass of men; 
 but that is all; it cannot act directly upon matter. 
 
 This novel power of insight — I thought — will in 
 no wise alter our fundamental conception of the 
 world; the only truth in spiritism is just this lucid- 
 ity. Nay, the lucidity itself, although it seems pos- 
 sible, even probable, is not as yet established by 
 vigorous proof. 
 
 I was at this point when M. Aksakoff came to see 
 me in Paris, and reproached me for not interesting 
 myself more keenly in experiments with mediums. 
 "Well," said I, "if I were sure that a single true 
 medium existed, I would willingly go to the end of 
 the world to see him!" 
 
 Two years later, M. Aksakoff wrote to me: "You 
 need not come to the end of the world; if you come 
 to Milan it will do." Milan! that was not far to go to 
 find the key of the mystery. 
 
 I took part, then, in those celebrated Milan seances 
 with Eusapia Paladino; and while those seances were 
 going on I was fully convinced of the reality of the 
 phenomena. Numerous precautions were taken; 
 the incessant repetition of tests and experiments sat- 
 isfied the most scrupulous mind. When I left Milan 
 I was fully convinced that all was true — as also were 
 the eminent savants who took part in the sittings — 
 Brofferio, Gerosa, Finzi, and the great astronomer 
 Schiaparelli. 
 
 But at this point a remarkable psychological phe- 
 
172 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 nomenon made itself felt — a phenomenon deserving 
 of attention. Observe that we are now dealing with 
 observed facts which are nevertheless absurd; which 
 are in contradiction with facts of daily observa- 
 tion; which are denied not by science only, but 
 by the whole of humanity — facts which are rapid 
 and fugitive, which take place in semi-darkness, and 
 almost by surprise; with no proof except the testi- 
 mony of our senses, which we know to be often 
 fallible. After we have witnessed such facts, every- 
 thing concurs to make us doubt them. 
 
 Now, at the moment when these facts take place 
 they seem to us certain, and we are willing to pro- 
 claim them openly, but when we return to ourselves, 
 when we feel the irresistible influence of our envi- 
 ronment, when our friends all laugh at our credulity 
 — then we are almost disarmed, and we begin to 
 doubt. May it not all have been an illusion? May 
 I not have been grossly deceived? I saw, no doubt; 
 but did I see aright? who can prove to me that I 
 did so? 
 
 And then, as the moment of the experiment 
 becomes more remote, that experiment which once 
 seemed so conclusive gets to seem more and more 
 uncertain, and we end by letting ourselves be per- 
 suaded that we have been the victims of a trick. 
 
 Our own conviction — the conviction of men who 
 have seen — ought properly to convince other peo- 
 ple — but, by a curious inversion of roles, it is their 
 
The Psychical Researchers 173 
 
 conviction, the negative conviction of people who 
 have not seen, and who ought not, one would think, 
 to speak on the matter, which weakens and ulti- 
 mately destroys our own conviction. This phenom- 
 enon occurred in my case with such intensity that 
 scarcely a fortnight after witnessing the experiments 
 with Eusapia Paladino, at Milan, I had persuaded 
 myself that there had been nothing beyond fraud 
 and illusion. 
 
 Nevertheless, I wished to repeat those experi- 
 ments; and at Rome, in company with an eminent 
 savant, Schrenk-Notzing, and a celebrated painter, 
 H. Siemiradzki, I again made experiments of a most 
 decisive kind. But a second time I found that doubt 
 seized me after a short interval. I was not yet sat- 
 isfied; and I invited Eusapia to my house for three 
 months. Alone with her and my excellent friend, 
 Ochorowicz, a man of penetrating perspicacity, I 
 renewed the experiments in the best possible condi- 
 tions of solitude and quiet reflection. We thus 
 acquired a positive proof of the reality of the facts 
 announced at Milan. 
 
 Other friends belonging to the Society for Psy- 
 chical Research, Messrs. Myers and Lodge especi- 
 ally, came and shared our conviction. It has since 
 undergone serious oscillation — partly from that psy- 
 chological process of recurrence to habitual modes 
 of thought already described, partly through the 
 fault of the medium herself; but my own fourth 
 
174 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 series of experiments in Paris brought with it for 
 me, as also for Mr. Myers, a conviction of reality 
 even stronger than before. Nevertheless, before dis- 
 cussing experiments in detail, a yet further series 
 should be held under the most careful conditions. 
 
 In the meantime it is quite possible that my 
 friends and I may lose that vigour of conviction 
 which recent experience gives. We may return to 
 that curious state of mind of which I have already 
 spoken. 
 
 The real world which surrounds us, with its preju- 
 dices, well or ill-founded, its scheme of habitual 
 opinions, holds us in so strong a grasp that we can 
 scarcely free ourselves completely. Certainty does 
 not follow on demonstration, it follows on habit. 
 
 But the duty of the savant is precisely not to 
 allow himself to follow the routine of unreasoning 
 respect for what Bacon termed idols. His mission 
 is to seek truth, without caring for the opinion of the 
 vulgar. What should he care for popularity? Sar- 
 casm or indifference ought to leave him equally 
 unmoved. 
 
 If we have been credulous, our credulity has not 
 been spontaneous and easy; we have made, as you 
 have seen, an obstinate defense. It took me twenty 
 years of patient researches to arrive at my present 
 conviction. Nay — to make one last confession — I 
 am not even yet absolutely and irremediably con- 
 vinced! In spite of the astounding phenomena 
 
The Psychical Researchers 175 
 
 which I have witnessed during my sixty experi- 
 ments with Eusapia, I have still a trace of doubt; 
 doubt which is weak, indeed, to-day, but which may 
 perchance be stronger to-morrow. Yet such doubts, 
 if they come, will not be due so much to any defect 
 in the actual experiment, as to the inexorable 
 strength of prepossession which holds me back from 
 adopting a conclusion which contravenes the habit- 
 ual and almost unanimous opinion of mankind. 
 
 DR. HAMILTON A. BEESON 
 
 What do I consider the strongest evidence of the 
 existence of the human soul in personal identity 
 after death? This is indeed a "mighty question," 
 but I must confess that I have no sure and satisfying 
 knowledge affirmative of that so much desired 
 existence. 
 
 I have learned much in the study of the reports of 
 the Society for Psychical Research on the phenom- 
 ena of trance and other supranormal mental and 
 physical conditions, such as those of D. D. Home, 
 Stainton Moses and Mrs. Piper. Especially in the 
 case of the latter; if one can accept the spiritistic 
 theory of her phenomena the evidence ought to be 
 satisfactory. 
 
 But there are so many features of weakness and 
 waning rather than of increasing strength of char- 
 acter in the personalities manifested, and so much 
 seems to depend upon the physical and mental con- 
 dition of the "machine" for the manifestation of 
 
176 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 these alleged spirits, that one is held in a state of 
 constant doubt. At least such is my own case. 
 I cannot yet accept them as sure and satisfactory. 
 
 There is a common-sense argument, or reason in 
 favor of a future life (heaven) with personal iden- 
 tity maintained in perpetuity that I accept as satis- 
 fying, viz., that if it were not so the universal desire 
 would not have been implanted in the heart and 
 mind of man. In the Caucasic race, especially, this 
 desire is undoubtedly virtually unanimous. The 
 Creative Power would do violence to justice and 
 truth towards the created if this great, continuous, 
 composite desire and prayer of the generations of 
 peoples should be ignored. The known quantity of 
 the great Equation is the Universal and Continu- 
 ous Desire — the x, y and z; the unknown are the 
 Spiritual World, the Personal Identity therein, and 
 Eternity. 
 
 DR. PAUL GIBIER 
 
 The strongest illusion is that which we call reality. 
 
 Under the cover of scientific conservatism, it is 
 the general tendency of men who have attained a 
 certain position in universities and scientific socie- 
 ties to bar the way to any matters too strikingly 
 diverging — according to their views — from the 
 ordinary trend of observation. This is especially 
 true of psychic phenomena. Although the latter 
 may safely be placed at the head of the most inter- 
 esting subjects soliciting man's attention, yet they 
 
The Psychical Researchers 177 
 
 do not appear to have attained the required respect- 
 ability for their introduction to the scientific socie- 
 ties and journals where the gentlemen alluded to 
 exercise their pontifical functions. * * * 
 
 It is my opinion that this is a matter with which, 
 through force of circumstances, everyone will be 
 familiar before the twentieth century attains its 
 period of advanced youth. A great many scien- 
 tists, however, are cognizant of the question; the 
 clergy becomes more interested in it, and many have 
 held dissertations on it from the pulpit. Now it 
 must be stated that psychical matters are of such a 
 nature that they may be compared to a set of pow- 
 erful cog-wheels in motion; once the fingers are 
 caught in the teeth, the whole body is drawn in. 
 The movement cannot be stopped at present, and 
 scientists, clergymen, and philosophers of all schools 
 will soon be bound to come, whether they will or 
 not, to an understanding with regard to psychic 
 phenomena. It is true that the question would be 
 advanced some twenty-five years or more if it had 
 not been for the numerous frauds which have kept 
 many experimenters from investigating and pub- 
 lishing the results of their researches. But it 
 behooves us to sift the grain from the chaff — the 
 genuine from the spurious, in order to bring truth 
 from its hidden recesses. 
 
 Philosophers of all ages have observed, that no 
 sooner do men discuss subjects beyond their limita- 
 
178 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 tions than each one judges them according to the 
 bent or tendency of his mind, or as we say, with the 
 inclination of his sentiment; on the other hand, they 
 agree upon such subjects as fall under their senses. 
 But science has advanced; marvelous discoveries 
 have been made. The certainty of modern experi- 
 mental science, with the aid of sensitive and accurate 
 instruments now permits us to undertake studies 
 and make investigations which our forefathers, 
 excepting in a few rare initiatory cases, could 
 scarcely approach. * * * 
 
 Man endeavors to clear two mysteries: The mys- 
 tery of the World and the mystery that he is to him- 
 self. He gazes at the celestial vault and the stars, 
 he anxiously scans the universe, where he, a mere 
 atom, is lost. 
 
 A first fact impresses him: Something exists; 
 this he calls Matter. 
 
 A second fact attracts him nearly as soon: This 
 matter moves. * * * An examination tells him 
 that the movement, its consequences and transfor- 
 mations, are manifestations of Energy. * * * 
 The existence of Energy may explain to him the 
 origin of Matter, but what of Energy? Whence 
 does it arise? What becomes of it? 
 
 In his own person he sees a body, borrowed from 
 surrounding matter. Then he finds still within 
 himself, Energy, whose effects he sees in the objects 
 that surround him. Through what medium has he 
 
The Psychical Researchers 179 
 
 understood these things? Is it through his matter 
 or his energy, or through both? But, in either case, 
 it presupposes matter and energy to be intelligent. 
 
 When he sees the effect of death and the inertia of 
 a dead body, he deducts therefrom the knowledge 
 that matter in itself is unintelligent. 
 
 And when he analyzes within himself the varieties 
 of energy, and notes that their only office is to per- 
 form the functions of his body, and to execute the 
 orders of his conscious and intelligent will, he is 
 then made aware that he has attained that which he 
 has striven for; he understands by means of some- 
 thing which is neither his matter nor his energy, 
 and to this something he gives the name of Intelli- 
 gence. At last he has discovered the third element 
 of the universe. He has seen and understood that, 
 co-existent with Matter and Energy, there is Intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 Neither materialists nor spiritualists have been 
 able to convince each other, and always for the same 
 reason: The world agrees only upon those things 
 which fall, and remain, so to say, under the obser- 
 vations of the senses. 
 
 How, then, will philosophers some day agree 
 upon this point — the first question among all — the 
 existence of the soul? Our answer goes direct to 
 the point: 
 
 We can have material proofs of the existence of 
 the soul. 
 
i8o Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 The truth is this: Intelligence exists outside of 
 matter — matter as modern science commonly con- 
 ceives it — and without heeding the theory of "mod- 
 ern Spiritualism," I affirm that all phenomena 
 claimed by Spiritualism are true, which, however, 
 does not mean that they cannot, in a measure, be 
 simulated by fraud and trickery. 
 
 It will remain to the shame of a number of our 
 scientists that have so persistently refused to look 
 into facts of such importance, especially as these 
 facts have challenged observation for over half a 
 century. 
 
 It is within the realm of phenomenal psychology 
 that we are to search for the principal basis of 
 Future Science. It is this that is to teach to man 
 his true nature, at the same time that it will bring 
 him in close relationship with the intimate knowl- 
 edge of things. 
 
 The objective phenomena of external psychology 
 may be studied by means of subjects, gifted with 
 special and usually passive faculties, known in mod- 
 ern language under the name of mediums. The 
 name is given to a certain category of individuals 
 who are supposed to be able to act as intermedi- 
 aries — as mediums — between the living and the 
 dead. Indeed, it is perfectly true that some indi- 
 viduals, predisposed through constitution, and devel- 
 oped through training, may serve as intermediaries 
 between the living and the commonly invisible intel- 
 
The Psychical Researchers 181 
 
 Hgences, which sometimes pretend, though not 
 always, that they are the spirits of individuals who 
 formerly lived the same life as ours. 
 
 To the question, how is it that these things are 
 not better known and better studied, we reply: Sci- 
 entists have studied and known them for a long 
 time, but fear of having their scientific reputations 
 besmirched and honor questioned, has made them 
 trepid of exposing their theories and experiments to 
 the criticism of the world. And so, for his own 
 benefit solely, the scientist, either alone or with a 
 few friends, has studied these great and all-import- 
 ant questions, and kept for himself the results of his 
 investigations. 
 
 In a great majority of cases men hope, or rather 
 desire, to live after death, under one form or 
 another, and notwithstanding these instinctive 
 desires for immortality, the most of us show our- 
 selves rebellious when it comes to the admission and 
 study of these phenomena which are best adapted to 
 show the possibility, I dare not say of this immor- 
 tality, but of at least a survival of the consciousness 
 of man after death. A rather curious, and at the 
 same time contradictory fact is, that this same 
 repugnance is found among a fair number of spirit- 
 ualist philosophers. It is no less a settled fact, for 
 those scientists who have observed the psychic phe- 
 nomena determined by the presence of mediums and 
 fakirs (the Hindoo mediums) that they constitute 
 
1 82 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 the most certain proof we have of the existence of 
 the spirit, or intelligence, as a conscious principle 
 persisting after death. * * * 
 
 Thus, does man find himself after death, in what 
 we call the after-life, in a state which doubtless is 
 normal; the one in which we now live being transi- 
 tory, although its purpose be a useful one. Experi- 
 ments which serve to prove this great truth are 
 unending. In the work entitled "Phantasms of the 
 Living", 1 a book written by distinguished scientists, 
 we find innumerable accounts of those who at the 
 time of death have appeared to friends and relatives 
 at a distance. It is impossible to believe that these 
 events have to do with a series of accidental occur- 
 rences. 
 
 Science is higher than the scope of vision of any 
 man in particular, and we hold the profoundest con- 
 viction that humanity will feel an increase of thank- 
 fulness towards her the day on which, speaking with 
 full knowledge, she shall be able to say to man: 
 
 "Dying Hermes was right, when with eyes already 
 dazed by the sight of an eternity whose veil was fall- 
 ing before him, he spoke these words: 'Until this 
 day I have lived an exile from my true country; I 
 am returning to it; do not weep for me; I am about 
 to reach the celestial dwelling where each one of you 
 will go in turn; there is God. This life is but a 
 death.' " 
 
 i Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 183 
 
 DR. O. O. BURGESS 
 
 Just an introductory word as to conditions under 
 which the following conclusions have been reached. 
 
 The writer has been engaged in the practice of 
 medicine since his graduation in 1857. An early 
 effect of his professional studies and experience was 
 to give him a decided leaning toward materialism — 
 somewhat restrained by the influence of moderate 
 religious training in childhood. What seemed requi- 
 site in his mind, after his doubt began, was a cer- 
 tainty of the "future life" which should outweigh 
 the apparent physiological certainty that the exist- 
 ence of mind (soul) is wholly dependent upon brain 
 function. 
 
 Human immortality, endless continuity of per- 
 sonal identity, stands, in my judgment, as scientific 
 fact, and not as a matter of belief, except as to the 
 truth of what has seemed to demonstrate it as a fact. 
 
 First among such demonstrations, I place the res- 
 urrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Second, the demonstrative proofs furnished by 
 numberless well authenticated acts and apparitions 
 of ghosts, or living spirits of the dead. 
 
 Third, the logical deduction that personal identity 
 which shall have survived "death" for however short 
 a time, is absolutely imperishable. 
 
 These conclusions require some explanation to 
 give them apparent raison d'etre. It is only within 
 the last two or three years that any one of them has 
 
184 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 been definitely reached in my mind, and the first 
 has held no place whatever among them until very 
 recently. This came about through a radical 
 change in my views of miracle — namely, a change 
 from alternating disbelief and blind credulity to a 
 theory of scientific possibility. 
 
 In a communication of this kind I can do no more 
 than to outline my present position. To begin with, 
 let us define Miracle as an arbitrary intensification 
 of natural operations by unknown means, to pro- 
 duce extraordinary results. 
 
 This definition excludes the irreflective notion of 
 operations which are supernatural (impossible), 
 while it includes a conception of the arbitrary, and, 
 therefore, intelligent, employment of intensified nat- 
 ural processes to accomplish definite results which 
 shall be wonderful, miraculous in character. Such 
 action would of necessity involve the controlling 
 power of knowledge which, at least for the time 
 being, was superhuman. 
 
 To converse with a friend fifty miles away in rec- 
 ognized tones of voice would have been miracle 
 less than fifty years ago. 
 
 1. Turning now to a consideration of the first of 
 these demonstrations, it must be admitted that, 
 without a rapid, and final, disintegration of the dead 
 body of Jesus, the miracle of the ascension was 
 simply impossible. 
 
 It is related by eye-witnesses that the body was 
 
The Psychical Researchers 185 
 
 found to have mysteriously disappeared, while the 
 clothing remained behind in the tomb; that the liv- 
 ing Jesus afterwards reappeared among His disciples 
 and finally ascended to heaven in, apparently, His 
 natural body. Now the testimony of these wit- 
 nesses must be regarded as unimpeachable because, 
 if for no other reason, the essential features of such 
 striking, unheard-of, awe-inspiring events must have 
 impressed themselves too profoundly to admit of 
 radical error in observation or description, or in the 
 course of transmission, whether by tradition or rec- 
 ord. This means that the witnesses actually saw the 
 ascension take place; therefore rapid disintegration, 
 which they did not see, also took place. Otherwise 
 the living Jesus would have been carried upward by 
 unknown forces only to meet a second death by 
 congelation or a return fall to earth. 
 
 The well known ways in which the natural pro- 
 cesses of disintegration may be expedited to a most 
 wonderful degree brings it quite within the range of 
 scientific possibility that, under the control of what 
 was then (and would be now) inspired or super- 
 human knowledge, such disintegration did occur 
 either in the tomb, as seems most probable, or else 
 at the time of the ascension. Be this as it may, we 
 have here presented to us a singularly effective and 
 probably intentional demonstration of a continued 
 existence of the personality of a human soul after 
 death of the body. For, if what reappeared was but 
 
1 86 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 a ghostly simulacrum of the natural body, so per- 
 fect as to deceive the senses of the onlookers, it was 
 none the less within the range of possible occur- 
 rences. 
 
 2. Demonstrations referred to under the second 
 head need only to be touched upon to awaken 
 attention to their great importance. 
 
 You are well acquainted, of course, with the con- 
 clusions of the Society for Psychical Research, 
 carefully and judiciously drawn from the vast accu- 
 mulation of evidence which has come before it, to 
 the effect that ghosts, or living spirits of the dead, 
 do actually reappear; and that, in the present state 
 of our knowledge, some of the spiritualistic phe- 
 nomena, so called, must be accepted as genuine 
 demonstrations of human immortality in all the 
 fullness of personal identity. 
 
 These conclusions have been reached only after 
 use of the most critical and exhaustive methods of 
 investigation by men who stand among the fore- 
 most in the world with respect to all the qualifica- 
 tions which should best fit them for such a difficult 
 and responsible task. It is a matter of much less 
 importance, except to the writer himself, but he has 
 also reached a similar conclusion as to spiritistic 
 phenomena, after something more than two years of 
 systematic investigation, undertaken with skeptical 
 prejudice and extended to 191 carefully and fully 
 recorded interviews with the only medium whose 
 
The Psychical Researchers 187 
 
 methods and messages (slatewritten) inspired him 
 with confidence enough to carry him back — a sec- 
 ond time — with the single exception of one whom 
 he saw four times. 
 
 Demonstrations of the kind we have been dis- 
 cussing all appeal to the senses for recognition. Yet 
 it by no means follows that a ghost must possess a 
 form so substantial that it may impress itself upon 
 the organs of sense. On the contrary, it falls within 
 the experience of any of us to know that the brain 
 (mind) sometimes sees, hears, or feels, things which 
 in reality have no substantial existence whatever. 
 The idea has been created without sensual interven- 
 tion, but the mind cognizes it only by comparison 
 with previous physical experiences. 
 
 Herein is involved the reality of existence of spir- 
 itual form without any relation to substance, which 
 has been so ably elucidated by Dr. Paul Carus. 
 
 Death is essential to the life of substance, and 
 every form of substance must inevitably perish in 
 metamorphosis. 
 
 But the soul is not a form of substance. Ele- 
 ments, or rather individual features which go to 
 make up its identity may be handed on to an 
 infinitude of others, as is seen in the diffusion of 
 knowledge, and yet remain forever in their original 
 relations to individual spiritual form. 
 
 Form without substance is not only necessary to 
 any tenable conception of immortality of the human 
 
1 88 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 soul, but also to a conception of that ultimate some- 
 thing in which such a soul is individuated at the 
 beginning of its physical career. Let us term that 
 something the Allness of form without substance, 
 which with its never-ending life of creational activ- 
 ity, forms the individual human soul as a permanent 
 feature of its own identity, to expand with its own 
 expansion forever and ever. 
 
 For this Allness of everything that is knows no 
 finality of completion. 
 
 And a shorter name for it is God. 
 
 LILIAN WHITING 
 
 All study of the spiritual nature of man is inex- 
 tricably united with the study of the universe. The 
 powers and possibilities of the soul are conditioned 
 by its successive environments, which become finer 
 and more ethereal in proportion to the development 
 of spiritual energy, which is life. Science, that is 
 continually penetrating the laws of the universe and 
 revealing its mysteries, offers an increasing illumina- 
 tion on the nature and destiny of human life. 
 
 There is no limit to the quest of knowledge; the 
 far horizon line of yesterday is in the middle dis- 
 tance of to-day. The telescope reached its limits of 
 discovery, and, behold, the spectroscope was 
 invented as an attachment which so extended the 
 power of the telescope as to enable the observer to 
 determine whether a heavenly body was moving 
 toward, or away from, our solar system, and to even 
 
The Psychical Researchers 189 
 
 approximate to its rate of motion. The spectroscope 
 has even revealed, under the scientific skill of Pro- 
 fessor Keeler of Lick observatory, that the rings of 
 Saturn are rotating at different rates. 
 
 Professor Dolbear's discoveries regarding the 
 nature and possibilities of the ether are recognized 
 as those of the highest authority in this special line. 
 Now, it is very interesting to trace the analogy 
 between these — which we must accept as scientific 
 facts — and the theories which present themselves in 
 psychic research. There is a line of correspondences 
 which is presumptive evidence. For instance: Psy- 
 chic research comes to accept the belief that those 
 in the unseen world move with a swiftness that is 
 almost instantaneous. 
 
 Now, Professor Dolbear discovers and announces 
 that in the ether there is no friction and conse- 
 quently that a body in the ether (not being 
 impeded by friction) moves faster than light, whose 
 velocity, as we know, is that of 186,000,000 miles a 
 second. 
 
 "The proof of this," says Professor Dolbear, "is 
 that the movements of the planets would be differ- 
 ent from what they are observed to be if gravitative 
 action was less than that figure. And the move- 
 ments of double and triple stars show that gravita- 
 tion controls them as it does the moon and planets. 
 Such a velocity is not comparable with any velocity 
 exhibited by any kind of matter with which we are 
 
i go Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 acquainted. Now, if gravitation in the ether has a 
 velocity more than a million times greater than that 
 of light, does not this suggest the scientific explana- 
 tion of the swift movement of the inhabitants of the 
 ethereal world?" 
 
 Professor Dolbear offers these proofs supporting 
 the theory of this velocity in the ether. "Shooting 
 stars," he says, "come into our atmosphere with a 
 velocity of about twenty-five miles a second. Some 
 comets have moved about the sun with a velocity 
 of nearly 400 miles a second, yet have not had their 
 speed reduced by friction as they would have had if 
 the medium they moved in was like a gas, even if it 
 were very rare. 
 
 "It is concluded, therefore, that the ether is fric- 
 tionless, and, as light comes to us from such distant 
 bodies, that the ether must fill all the space within 
 the visible universe, and that it cannot be made up 
 of particles like ordinary matter. Phenomena would 
 be entirely different from what they are observed to 
 be were the ether otherwise constituted." 
 
 "Attempt has been made with the spectroscope," 
 says Professor Dolbear, "to discover whether or not 
 the earth, in its astronomic movements of rotation 
 on its axis and revolution about the sun, makes any 
 disturbance in the ether — whether it drags the ether 
 with it, as a moving railroad train drags the air, or 
 not; but all the evidence so far seems to show that 
 the ether is not disturbed in the slightest degree. 
 
The Psychical Researchers 191 
 
 It appears as if the earth moved through it as a 
 coarse mesh sieve will go through water, not dis- 
 placing it in any appreciable degree." 
 
 This fact suggests to us, by analogy, the relation 
 between the physical and the ethereal worlds. If 
 the earth moves through the ether, not displacing it 
 in any appreciable degree, is it not conclusive that 
 all the phenomena of our physical life are moving 
 among the phenomena of ethereal life — not displac- 
 ing or interfering with it, and that thus all about us 
 is this finer universe unperceived except where some 
 development of the spiritual powers perceives it, by 
 means of that finer sight and hearing of the psychic 
 senses? 
 
 The discovery by Rontgen of the X rays; Mar- 
 coni's discovery of the possibility of wireless teleg- 
 raphy; Tesla's discovery of atmospheric currents — 
 all these constitute a group of new insights into 
 nature which are of the utmost importance — not 
 only in revealing potent resources hitherto undis- 
 cerned, but as indicative of the progress of humanity 
 in conquering new territory in the unseen. 
 
 What is the nature of the spiritual world? we are 
 always questioning; and the answer seems to be 
 that it is a world corresponding to this, only of 
 higher potencies. All the present life of humanity 
 is twofold, and is lived partly in both worlds — the 
 seen and the unseen. 
 
 Telepathy, that is now scientifically recognized 
 
192 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 as a mode of communication as real as is telegraphy, 
 is a method of the unseen universe. Wireless teleg- 
 graphy belongs to that realm. Just as rapidly as 
 the power of the spiritual man develops and 
 demands methods of life pertaining to the spiritual 
 world, these methods are evolved. It is a part of the 
 divine inheritance of humanity. "Natural things 
 and spiritual," — these are interrelated in a manner 
 that nothing can separate. But when the recogni- 
 tion of this becomes a conscious and intelligent one, 
 then all the basis of action is enlarged and ennobled, 
 and life has a new center. 
 
 To come into a clear comprehension of these laws 
 of life, of the manner in which man is an inhabitant 
 of two worlds and has to do with the realm of causes 
 as well as with the realm of results, is to enter on a 
 more intelligent conception of moral responsibility 
 and spiritual potentialities. 
 
 Theology has invested death with a dark mystery. 
 There is still a nebulous impression prevailing that 
 death is a sleep, and that sometime and somehow a 
 "last trump" shall sound, and some incomprehens- 
 ible miracle occur to the incomprehensible beings 
 into which we shall all have become transformed. 
 Or, in a somewhat higher light, though little less 
 remote from demonstrated truth, there is a vague 
 belief that those who die enter on a conscious life, 
 somehow and somewhere; that "the soul" lives in 
 some way undreamed of and totally incomprehens- 
 
The Psychical Researchers 193 
 
 ible to us here; but that this life is on a plane of 
 consciousness so entirely removed from our own 
 that the separation is utterly complete, and that 
 until we, too, pass through the change called death, 
 the removal is absolute, and the mystery of the life 
 beyond insoluble. 
 
 "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual 
 body." Here is the basis of the true explanation. 
 This spiritual body is the real, the permanent being. 
 We are all, here and now, spiritual beings in the 
 spiritual body, and in touch with spiritual forces. 
 But — this spiritual body is temporarily clothed 
 with a physical covering, in order that the individual 
 may temporarily enter into relations with the phys- 
 ical world. 
 
 We need to transpose our standard. The real 
 world, the real life, is the spiritual; the temporal 
 world, the temporal life, is the physical. We are 
 here to learn to live; but the living itself comes on 
 the higher plane. This higher plane is one with 
 which we are in touch just in proportion to our own 
 development of spiritual energy. 
 
 The law of evolution is as constant on all planes 
 as are the laws of gravitation and attraction that 
 hold the stars in their courses. The change of form 
 produces no violent or mysterious alteration. The 
 man who died last night is the sams in all essentials 
 to-day that he was yesterday, except that he has 
 withdrawn from the visible form. 
 
194 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 In a recent volume entitled "The Spiritual Sig- 
 nificance," it has been my privilege to record Pro- 
 fessor Dolbear's discoveries in the ether and to trace 
 the extraordinary range of spiritual correspond- 
 ences. One remarkable test of psychic communica- 
 tion, stated by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, came to 
 me in time to be embodied there; but recently there 
 is another which has never been published. 
 
 On Nov. 2j I had a seance with Mrs. Piper. Kate 
 Field was writing, and finally I inquired if she could 
 call Dr. Livermore, that he might send a message 
 by me to Mrs. Livermore. He came and messages 
 were given that seemed perfectly natural, but were 
 not evidential at all, so I asked him for a test. 
 
 "Will you," I said, "tell me something known 
 only to Mrs. Livermore and yourself that will be a 
 test to her that it is her husband who speaks?" He 
 replied: "Ask her if she remembers the Browning I 
 gave her before I came here?" 
 
 Now, I confess that, whatever my convictions 
 regarding the possibilities of communication 
 between the seen and the unseen, this did not 
 impress me. There are such multifold editions of 
 the Brownings, of both the husband and the wife, 
 and book-loving people like the Livermores would 
 be apt to have a great many of these. So it ran on 
 some days before I even wrote of this to Mrs. Liver- 
 more, as I was wholly disappointed in the alleged 
 
The Psychical Researchers 195 
 
 test offered. But when I did write it to her I 
 received the following reply: 
 
 "MELROSE, Dec. 11, 1900.— You say that Mr. 
 Livermore asked me, through Mrs. Piper, 'if I 
 remembered the Browning he gave me?' Two days 
 after our marriage, that is on May 8, 1845, he gave 
 me two volumes of Mrs. Browning's poems, 
 entitled, 'A Drama of Exile, and Other Poems/ 
 This is not a mere matter of memory. I have copied 
 the date from the fly-leaf of the volumes where my 
 name is written. For I own the books, which are 
 much worn by reading, and so marked by my hus- 
 band and myself, as we read, with marginal notes, 
 etc., that I could not loan them to any one. Robert 
 Browning had no recognition in this country at that 
 time. 
 
 "The 'Drama of Exile,' by Mrs. Browning, was 
 the only Browning Mr. Livermore ever gave me, 
 and the only Browning he ever read. He tried to 
 read Robert Browning, but found him too obscure. 
 I regard this as a good test. You need to know it 
 all. You see we were young, just married, and poor. 
 We could only muster $800 in money between us, 
 and his salary was but $600. I earned $150 or $200 
 more, by teaching special classes at our rooms, and 
 by writing stories, and little books for children. We 
 wanted to go to housekeeping immediately, to have 
 a home of our own, a pretty one, but simple, and 
 had agreed to economize in all ways, and especially 
 not to buy new books, except such as were abso- 
 lutely necessary in his profession. And yet in 
 two days he came home with an armful for me, two 
 of which were Mrs. Browning's poems, and was as 
 gleeful over it as a boy. 
 
 "I kept a sort of watch over him after that, and 
 he did not buy more books immediately. He would 
 
196 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 say: 'It is four weeks, or six, or more/ as it might 
 be, 'since I brought home Mrs. Browning's poems; 
 can't we afford another new book now?' You see, 
 there was occasion for his remembering* Mrs. 
 Browning's poems, and I feel confident that was the 
 book referred to. 
 
 "MARY A. LIVERMORE." 
 
 ELLEN RICE ROBBINS 
 
 I believe most earnestly in the continued exist- 
 ence of the individual personality after death. To 
 my satisfaction, I know it, and I also believe the 
 time is not far distant when through the maze and 
 rubbish of charlatanism and fraud, the flashes and 
 gleams that reach us from the unknown world will 
 brighten into the light of the spirit world. Spiritu- 
 alism, as usually practiced to-day by professional 
 mediums, is the most cruel fraud of the ages. It 
 feeds on the bleeding hearts of the bereft; and per- 
 verts the very facts that will some day solve the 
 awful problem. 
 
 The only definite evidence that I have personally 
 is the look from a loved one's eyes — just as he left 
 his body. His eyes had been set and half-closed 
 for hours, but instantly after the last breath, he 
 turned them to where I had just moved, with the 
 brightest — lovingest — appealing look, which lasted 
 for as much as six seconds. All in the room noticed 
 it and were awed. I exclaimed: "Thank God, he 
 told me so plainly that he had entered another and a 
 brighter life!" 
 
The Psychical Researchers 197 
 
 Whittier's "Eternal Goodness" 1 will explain to 
 you my belief, and what I believe beyond the shadow 
 of a doubt — a faith that known and felt, is worth all 
 the sorrows of life. Punishment after death, which 
 was drilled into my childish mind from infancy, out- 
 raged my sense of justice and sympathy from the 
 beginning. That such a horrible belief ever found 
 utterance in a world of human beings is well nigh 
 incredible. It is going fast and God speed the day 
 when no minister or priest will be inhuman enough 
 to utter it. 
 
 1 And so beside the Silent Sea 
 I wait the muffled oar, 
 No harm from Him can come to me 
 On ocean or on shore. 
 
 I know not where His islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air ; 
 I only know I cannot drift 
 
 Beyond His love and care. 
 
Crossing the Bar. 
 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 
 When I put out to sea, 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full for sound and foam, 
 When that which drew from out the endless deep 
 
 Turns again home. 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
 
 When I embark; 
 
 For though from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 
 The Hood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crost the bar. 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 (198) 
 
Part Iff 
 
 Tfye Philosophers 
 
"Philosophy can bake no bread; but she can procure 
 for us God, Freedom and Immortality/' 
 
 Novalis. {Fredrick Von Hardenberg.) 
 
 "What can frighten you? If the suns come down, 
 
 the moons crumble into dust, systems after systems are 
 
 hurled into annihilation, what is that to you? Stand 
 
 as a rock, you are indestructible" 
 
 —Vivekananda. 
 
 "The soul cannot fully interpret the meaning of the 
 inner voices that whisper their immortal messages until 
 it hath questioned earth's greatest spirits as to their 
 thoughts and hopes of the life beyond death.'' 
 
 — Newell Dwight Hillis. 
 
PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 All men are philosophers. 
 
 The fact that — I think, is evidence that I exist. 
 These words and this idea form the basis of philoso- 
 phy. "Cogito, ergo sum," Descartes announced in 
 memorable words, as his starting point in the quest 
 of knowledge. From here the mind has a thousand 
 pathways to traverse ; and from it man reaches, over 
 various routes or methods of reasoning, called 
 induction, deduction, or common sense, a concep- 
 tion of things — he reaches a belief, which belief 
 becomes a theory or an hypothesis. Here philoso- 
 phy broadens out and the theory or hypothesis 
 becomes a system, a plan by which effects are 
 explained. 
 
 Philosophy has for its basis, facts; to harmonize 
 these facts and show them in their right relations 
 is its true aim. It concerns itself at the present time 
 however, chiefly with sociology, morals, metaphys- 
 ics, and the human mind generally. The commonly 
 accepted distinction between it and science is, that 
 philosophy is reasoned truth and the latter, science, 
 is demonstrated truth. 
 
 Philosophy is the first and simplest way of learn- 
 ing things; the truth of the things learned resting 
 
 (201) 
 
202 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 invariably upon a clear and unmistaken understand- 
 ing of the premise or thing from which we start. 
 Our conception of the application of philosophy for 
 the purpose of extending knowledge might be illus- 
 trated by the following example: 
 
 The branches of a maple tree are whipped vigor- 
 ously by a gust of autumn wind. Flying off on the 
 bosom of the breeze, there finally alights in the soft 
 ground at our feet a little winged thing. We pick 
 it up and examine it. It seems to be formed for 
 the purpose of being carried by the wind. It 
 requires the action of a disturbed atmosphere to 
 pull it from the branch where it hung; and the same 
 wind that tears it off carries it away. Now why 
 should it be carried away? Why the wing? Why 
 the wind? Science would teach us by demonstra- 
 tion that the seed could not live at the base of the 
 tree, because the ground is occupied by the roots 
 of the mother tree and shaded from the sun by her 
 leaves. Therefore, in order to live and become a 
 tree this maple seed must find soil where the rain 
 and sunshine can reach it; and hence the seed devel- 
 ops the wing. 
 
 Philosophy would say, there is intelligence here; 
 either in the seed or the wind. Why? Because the 
 seed grows with a wing; it holds on to the tree until 
 a breeze comes along that is sufficiently strong to 
 pull it off and carry it away. The intelligence must 
 be in the seed, because there are other breezes than 
 
Philosophy 203 
 
 the one that pulls it off, and the seed does not let 
 go until it is ripe. So the philosopher, reasoning 
 from analogy, would find intelligence; he would find 
 in the case of this little seed an expression of 
 thought and thought quite independent of a brain. 
 It would seem to him to be thought, because had 
 he been the seed, he could have acted, intelligently, 
 only as the seed acted. 
 
 Philosophy, then, asks a question that science is 
 at present unable to answer; and through the exer- 
 cise of reason suggests what the answer is, or may 
 be. It advances from cause to effect, or from effect 
 to cause. Having an effect in hand it judges from 
 this what the cause should be, or having the cause it 
 judges what the effect should be. 
 
Cato's Soliloquy. 
 
 By Addison. 
 
 It must be so; — Plato, thou reason' st well, 
 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 
 This longing after immortality? 
 
 Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 
 
 Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 
 
 — 'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us, 
 
 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 
 And intimates Eternity to man. 
 
 Eternity! — thou pleasing — dreadful thought! 
 
 Through what variety of untried being — 
 
 Through what new scenes and changes must we pass! 
 
 The wide, th' unbounded prospect lies before me; 
 
 But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. 
 
 Here will I hold: — If there's a Power above us 
 
 {And that there is all Nature cries aloud 
 
 Through all her works), He must delight in Virtue; 
 
 And that which He delights in must be happy : 
 
 But — when? — or where? — This world was made for Caesar. 
 
 Vm weary of conjectures: This must end them. 
 
 (Laying his hand upon his sword.) 
 Thus am I doubly armed; my death and life, 
 My bane and antidote are both before me. 
 This in a moment brings me to an end, 
 But this informs me I shall never die. 
 The soul, secure in her existence, smiles 
 At the drawn dagger, and defies its point. 
 The stars shall fade away, the sun himself 
 Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years, 
 But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth, 
 Unhurt amid the war of elements, 
 The wrack of matter, and the crush of worlds. 
 
 (204) 
 
The Philosophers. 
 
 REV. R. HEBER NEWTON 
 
 In answer to your inquiry I would say that it 
 seems to me there are so many and such strong 
 arguments for a life hereafter that it is difficult to 
 select from them. If I were to say in a word what 
 impresses me most habitually and strongly, it is the 
 impossibility of conceiving of the universe as a cos- 
 mos, a beautiful order, a sane and rational system, 
 without immortality. 
 
 PROF. ED. GASC-DES FOSSES 
 
 I am very happy to send you with my greatest 
 sincerity, the result of my own deductions on the 
 question of the continuation of the existence of the 
 soul after death. 1 
 
 To begin with, and for the purpose of putting the 
 question from the start in the clearest way, it does 
 not appear to me as if the answer to be made can 
 ever be scientific, — if by science we mean a "knowl- 
 edge such as the given demonstration of which inev- 
 itably and necessarily imposes itself upon every 
 intelligence." I am thoroughly persuaded that the 
 solution must be a belief, a moral certainty, in 
 which sentiment and will have a share and a large 
 
 l Translation by J. Delmotte. 
 
 (205) 
 
206 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 share at that. In order therefore to avoid the strict 
 and precise meaning of the word proof, which is not 
 in place here, I will say that there are four main rea- 
 sons for believing in personal immortality, and these 
 reasons will of course be of unequal value, varying 
 according to the moral value of the human being 
 to which they apply. 
 
 First: A reason to which a certain number of 
 philosophers only accord a very limited credit, but 
 which in my opinion is very important, is the argu- 
 ment furnished by moral anthropology, which may 
 be termed an ethnographic (race) argument. 
 Amongst all people, at all epochs of history, (even 
 at prehistoric times) from the rudest and least civil- 
 ized tribes to those of the highest intellectual devel- 
 opment, the belief in an after existence is every- 
 where; often this belief is clothed in the most 
 primitive forms, the most materialistic, if we may 
 so express it. But after allowing for the special 
 guidance which philosophical or religious system, 
 whatever they may be, can give to these beliefs, I 
 think one can say, that it is an indication of the 
 existence of an instinct of a high order which is one 
 of the characteristics of humanity. 
 
 This is what the old traditional philosopher called 
 "the proof of universal consent." If the name of 
 science is given especially to all research based on 
 facts, it can be said that this argument in favor of 
 the immortality of the soul has a scientific value, as 
 
The Philosophers 207 
 
 all its strength lies in establishing a fact which is 
 universally human. 
 
 Second: Next comes the psychological argu- 
 ment. We find, at the very bottom of our being, 
 aspirations which are, according to the nature and 
 character of each one, more or less active, whose aim 
 is the possession or realization of an ideal, inacces- 
 sible under the conditions of this life: ideal of beauty, 
 of truth, or of moral goodness, but it is always an 
 ideal. Hence, would it not be a strange contradic- 
 tion, capable of scandalizing, putting to shame, of 
 misleading, in a most cruel and lamentable way, all 
 those who try to analyze our souls and to pierce the 
 mystery of our destiny, if after having carefully 
 searched, after having anxiously scrutinized our 
 mental nature, we had to resign ourselves to this 
 deceiving conclusion: "Our aspirations towards an 
 ideal, our need of perfection, are nothing but a sec- 
 ular illusion, a kind of transcending hallucination, 
 untiring in itself, it is true, but, nevertheless, without 
 a real terminus; an original and incurable mental 
 malformation; the human race, during its life on this 
 planet, is condemned without respite and unceas- 
 ingly to this lamentable odyssey of the Wandering 
 Jew, in pursuit of a chimera, this absurd trade of 
 Tantalus or of Sisyphes beginning over and over 
 again a work that never ends." 
 
 Can we reasonably adhere to this opinion, when 
 we hear the greatest, noblest and most admirable 
 
208 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 thinkers, call with their most ardent entreaties, a 
 light, a beauty, when we see them tortured and tor- 
 mented by an ardent and unquenchable thirst for the 
 infinite? 
 
 "It appears to me," says Newton, "that I have 
 been nothing but a child playing on the seashore 
 and finding now a pebble a little more polished, then 
 a shell a little more brilliant, while the great ocean 
 of Truth, before me, was unexplored.'' If everything 
 has its reason for existing, if every being is capable 
 of realizing its end, of accomplishing, in accordance 
 with its own nature, its "own acts," as says Aristotle, 
 how then, alone amongst all beings in nature, could 
 man, who is the highest in dignity, be a frightful 
 blunder, "an incomprehensible monster," as dra- 
 matically and so energetically expressed by Pascal? 
 If our soul has infinite aspirations, we have the right 
 to think that its wishes have a tendency towards an 
 infinite Being, and that only this union with 
 Supreme Reality in another life, can satisfy its sub- 
 lime impatience. 
 
 Third: It may appear, at first sight, that the 
 metaphysical argument could not be more convinc- 
 ing than the psychological one, the main ideas of 
 which we have summed up. In fact, by distinguish- 
 ing the body, composite and corruptible, from the 
 soul, simple and hence not decomposable, we are 
 told: "This difference proves most certainly that 
 our soul, after the terrestrial life is terminated, must 
 
The Philosophers 209 
 
 continue to live, as nothing is lost or destroyed," as 
 science teaches. If we only had this reason for 
 hoping in a prolongation of life, after our ephemer- 
 ous appearance on this planet will have terminated, 
 I loudly declare that we have no cause for rejoic- 
 ing at this perspective, nor to feel encouraged and 
 comforted in the midst of the trials and struggles of 
 this life. 
 
 In fact, it may be, as we are taught by the doc- 
 trines of monists (called until yesterday, panthe- 
 ists), that each soul is but a part, a fragment of the 
 unique, the impersonal and in fact indestructible 
 substance, and consequently, as soon as this passing 
 union of my soul with my body is terminated (irre- 
 spective of its inward essence), it could re-enter into 
 the Grand Whole, the same as each atom, after the 
 dissolution of a body, subsists and is liable to become 
 part of another composite body; but if I do not sub- 
 sist, I, who have lived in this life, and if the soul that 
 survives after death is not the same as the soul that 
 has loved, thought, made efforts and struggled dur- 
 ing the years of my mortal peregrination, what care 
 I if it survives or if it is destroyed? Will it not be 
 the same for the concrete being, the only real one 
 that I am after all, and the only one that is of inter- 
 est to me? Besides, it may still be said, that the soul, 
 whose nature is simple, could not perish by decom- 
 position. This may be; its definition makes it nearly 
 evident: but if God has created our souls, cannot 
 
210 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 He, when He wants, withdraw from them the being 
 that He, so to speak, gratuitously and benevolently 
 lent them? Consequently, our souls could return to 
 naught, whence they were taken, for a time. 
 
 From an exclusively metaphysical standpoint, it 
 appears that this argument cannot be answered: it 
 will be done by the following argument: 
 
 Fourth: Therefore, the metaphysical argument 
 would not be, by itself, conclusive. Then, here is 
 the moral argument which, in my opinion, is the last 
 and supreme reason of the belief in the personal sur- 
 vival. It is indispensably just that the virtuous man 
 should be recompensed for his struggles, for his 
 efforts, and that the guilty man should be punished ; 
 but this is far from being observed in actual life; the 
 feeling of justice, the thirst for a rigorous and abso- 
 lute equity, would not be satisfied if the agreement 
 made in this life, but invariably broken, was not 
 re-established in the supplement or complement of 
 this life. And it is the main reason why we cannot, 
 nor must not, admit that our soul is destroyed 
 together with our ephemerous remains at the time 
 of death. It would be denying all morality, courting 
 merit and demerit for nothing, and reducing sanc- 
 tion to naught. It is a rigorous obligation for us to 
 have confidence in the final triumph of justice, 
 whose immutable law overlooks everything, and 
 whose rights are imprescriptible (inalienable). In 
 this, poets, it seems to me, express well and better 
 
The Philosophers 211 
 
 than philosophers, this need of absolute justice. 
 These admirable verses of Lamartine say more, in 
 my opinion, about the problem of immortality than 
 theories carefully prepared: 2 
 
 ,,Pourmoi, quand je verrais dans les celestes plaines 
 Les astres, s'ecartant de leurs routes certaines, 
 Dans les champs de Tether l'un par l'autre heurt6s 
 Parcourir au hazard les cieux epouvantes; 
 Quand j'entendrais gemir et se briser la terre; 
 Quand je verrais son globe, errant et solitaire, 
 Flottant loin des soleils pleurant l'homme detruit, 
 Se perdre dans les champs de Peternelle nuit; 
 Et quand, dernier temoin de ces scenes funebres, 
 Entoure du chaos, de la mort, des tenebres, 
 Seul je serais debout: seul malgre mon effroi, 
 Etre infaillible et bon, j 1 espererais en toi, 
 Et, certain du retour de Peternelle aurore, 
 Sur les mondes detruits je t'attendrais encore." 
 
 There would be thus, all the difference between 
 the metaphysical argument and the argument (this 
 being only an analogy) that separates a negative 
 from a positive demonstration. "The soul must not 
 perish," says the first; "the soul must continue to 
 live," says the second, and it is for this reason that 
 its meaning is more complete and more instructive 
 than that of the first. 
 
 2 English translation, see p. 
 
212 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 We saw in beginning these reflections, that senti- 
 ment plays quite a part in the belief in immortality, 
 and it seems difficult to doubt that such is the case. 
 What a terrible shattering of all our being we would 
 sustain, and what protestations would we utter if at 
 the moment of supreme parting we did not have the 
 consoling thought that we would say to those who 
 leave us, "Au revoir" instead of "Adieu". 
 
 What despair would be that of a mother, a brother, 
 a son, a sister, who, seeing death strike a dear one, 
 accomplishing its work of destruction slowly but 
 surely, could only say: "As soon as the parting 
 takes place, everything is finished, irrevocably fin- 
 ished, forever, and we will never see each other 
 again, we will never be re-united; silence, night, 
 nothingness, frightful eternal nothingness, this is 
 where ends so strong and ardent an affection, whose 
 aspiration it was to endure forever." This cannot be. 
 But sages and cold philosophers — those who reason 
 about everything, and so well at that — will say it is 
 only "a sentiment," and therefore only a thing of no 
 value, a phantasmagoria, a deceiving dream. Well, 
 no; when a sentiment is so intimately in harmony 
 with ideas which appear to be its indispensable and 
 imperious commentary, it cannot be deceiving. 
 Consider it poetry and dreams if you wish, but 
 poetry has here more penetrating intuitions, and 
 truer than the conclusions reached by cold reason- 
 ing; flights more luminous, from the heights of 
 
The Philosophers 213 
 
 which the meaning of life appears in its true light. 
 
 You were therefore perfectly right when saying 
 "that this subject of personal identity after death 
 is an eternal and mighty question," and its solution 
 is the hinge of the whole of human life. I recall here 
 those so eminent thoughts of Pascal: 
 
 "The immortality of the soul is a matter that con- 
 cerns us so much, that affects us so deeply, that we 
 must have lost all sentiment, if its investigation 
 leaves us indifferent. All our actions and thoughts 
 follow paths so different, varying according to the 
 hope of gaining eternal blessings or not, that it is 
 impossible to take any sensible or judicious step, 
 without regulating it from this standpoint, which 
 must be our final object." 
 
 Our wonderful poet, Lamartine, excellently says 
 in his beautiful verses in addressing Death: 3 
 
 ,,Quand mon oeil fatigue se ferme a la lumiere, 
 Tu viens d'un jour plus pur inonder ma paupiere; 
 Se perdre dans les champs de l'eternelle nuit; 
 Appuye sur ma foi, m'ouvre un monde plus beau, 
 Viens done, vien detacher mes chaines corporelles, 
 Viens, ouvre ma prison, viens, pr§te moi tes ailes, 
 Que tardes-tu? Parais; que je m'elance enfin 
 Vers cet etre, inconnu, mon principe et ma fin." 
 
 I am very happy, dear sir, to send you these 
 
 3 English translation, see p. 268 
 
214 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 thoughts and expressions of my feelings on this 
 question. 
 
 DR. RICHARD J. NUNN 
 
 I thank you for. the opportunity you afford me of 
 corresponding with you upon the subject to which 
 you allude; but while I would be glad to speak with 
 you upon these matters, I would not have the temer- 
 ity of associating my name with those of the celebri- 
 ties you name. In my obscurity and with but little 
 association with the great world of thinkers, I have 
 formed my own views, but they are only tentative, 
 liable to be changed at any time when facts of which 
 I am now profoundly ignorant may be brought to 
 my attention. Moreover, I am now too unwell to 
 write fully on this subject of subjects, on this dom- 
 inating idea of the mind of thinking man. While I 
 cannot go lengthily into the subject, I will, how- 
 ever, with your permission, lay down some proposi- 
 tions for your consideration. 
 
 The capacity of the mind of man differs in each 
 race and in each individual. The Negro, the Mon- 
 gol, the Caucasian differ from each other in mental 
 caliber, and the philosophy which suffices for one 
 may be unsatisfactory or incomprehensible to the 
 other, and this is equally true of individuals within 
 the same race. It follows that a conclusion which 
 seems to one perfectly logical and satisfying, may to 
 another appear stupid, or irreverent. Of necessity, 
 
The Philosophers 215 
 
 then, it becomes to me a folly to imagine that the 
 human mind can ever be forced into one mold. 
 
 PROF. J. GRASSET 
 
 I am spiritualist in my philosophy and a Cath- 
 olic in my religion, which implies, that I believe in 
 the immortality of the soul and in future life. 
 
 PROF. JAMES LINFORD 
 
 I submit the following as being the principal rea- 
 sons I have for a belief in the existence of man's soul 
 after death: 
 
 The revelation of God's will to man in ancient 
 and in modern times. 
 
 The universal or almost universal idea in the mind 
 of man in all stages of civilization of a God, and the 
 existence of the soul after death. 
 
 In addition to the above, the following has con- 
 siderable weight with me: Under normal condi- 
 tions the "eternal progression" noted in the intel- 
 lectual life of man is very significant. There is not 
 observed a rise, culmination and decline in the mind 
 of those living an intellectual and spiritual life, the 
 ideal life, in my opinion, of man; but a gradual devel- 
 opment to the end. If this life is to end all, why this 
 loss of energy? why not the usual law, "rise, cul- 
 mination and decline," noted in earthly experiences? 
 So far as the body of man is concerned this law holds 
 good; but the soul, the intellect, does not show, to 
 
216 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 any marked extent, this deterioration; but on the 
 contrary, a development to the last. The soul under 
 the new conditions following death will continue to 
 develop. Eternal progression is the watchword God 
 has set for the soul — onward and upward — no inac- 
 tivity, no stagnation. In my opinion, God Himself 
 is an illustration of this law. To-day the idea of 
 stagnation is inconsistent with the teachings of sci- 
 ence and philosophy. The future state of man is 
 more or less a principle of_continuous progression 
 marked out in this life. The belief of the Latter-day 
 Saints that "As man is, God once was; and as God 
 is, man may be/' is the most philosophical of all 
 ideas concerning our Divine Father. 
 
 FRANK A. PUTNAM 
 
 No one has ever offered positive proof that there 
 is not an individual life after this one. We are, there- 
 fore, free to believe in the fact of a future life. The 
 solution of the problem rests on individual tempera- 
 ment. Either we wish for a future life and so expect 
 it, or we do not wish for it and so do not expect it. 
 My own belief is that we live invisibly in the influ- 
 ences which we communicate to mankind; visibly, 
 in the persons of our posterity. 
 
 PROF. J. W. OSBORNE 
 
 I have your letter relating to the continuance of 
 life and to personal identity after death. 
 
The Philosophers 217 
 
 It is true that I have worked at and given much 
 consideration to this subject, but very bad health 
 for a long time, and age, have interfered with results. 
 It interests me to find you working in the same field 
 and I shall be glad to learn of the success that has 
 attended your efforts now or at any other time. 
 
 My personal views on this subject it would be 
 unwise for me to give, because, as a collector of 
 many opinions, I came in contact with a great vari- 
 ety of persons, and it is important that I not only 
 am, but appear to be impartial, or rather neutral. 
 
 But my opinion as to the strongest argument "in 
 favor" of a future state of existence, I may be able 
 to give you in some sort as follows: 
 
 A very large number of persons wish to believe in 
 a life after death; such persons very generally pos- 
 tulate two things, namely, the existence of a God 
 and of their own souls. So fortified, they look for- 
 ward with trust to an hereafter, and their reason is 
 the strongest from the spiritual as well as from the 
 common-sense point of view that I know of. They 
 conceive that the Almighty being good, would act 
 rightly, which in most cases means, as they would 
 act or think they would act themselves. They 
 would not create beings of their own importance for 
 a short existence only, eternal life for such would 
 suggest itself at once. A finite existence would not 
 give time for the adjustment of wrongs and errors; 
 and therefore, God, who had the power and the wis- 
 
218 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 dom, too, would surely provide by some natural 
 blessing for His creatures by giving them eternal 
 life. That God, after having made man and placed 
 him in this beautiful world, should there undo that 
 great work for each particular man, and thereby add 
 annihilation as one of his benefits, is hardly conceiv- 
 able, at least to make it so would require a profound 
 readjustment of most persons' ideas of God and of 
 goodness. 
 
 Thus, for the very large class of persons I speak 
 of, it is a belief in God that supports faith in 
 Immortality, and, reciprocally, it is the desire for 
 Immortality that sustains the belief in God most 
 substantially, for to live forever without a God, in 
 the universe, would tax one's imagination and one's 
 faith. 
 
 You will understand I am trying to answer your 
 specialized question, not stating my own views on 
 the general subject. 
 
 DR. GEORGE C. PITZER 
 
 The desire is the best evidence I have that we 
 shall live again and be conscious of it. 
 
 DR. J. M. WHITON 
 
 The best philosophical ground for believing in 
 the survival of death by self-conscious persons was 
 stated by Thomas Hill Green (Oxford) thus: That 
 it is impossible to conclude without the sense of 
 
The Philosophers 219 
 
 intellectual absurdity, that an order of things which 
 has for its visible end the construction of self-con- 
 scious personality, should ultimate in the extinction 
 of the same. 
 
 The best psychological argument that I am aware 
 of may be embodied (after the fashion of the cele- 
 brated reply made by his chaplain to Frederick the 
 Great) in one word: The "Martyrs." That is: A con- 
 stant phenomenon of human nature is the sacrifice 
 of physical life to preserve certain qualities of moral 
 life; as truth, purity, integrity. Unless these quali- 
 ties subsist in a life that endures beyond the physical 
 existence, the dictate of the moral nature that 
 enjoins their preservation by the sacrifice of the 
 physical is deceptive. We cannot without intellect- 
 ual confusion attribute irrationality of the instinct- 
 ive action of the noblest element in our nature. 
 
 DR. H. E. BUTLER 
 
 In reply to your request for a statement of our 
 deductions on the subject of the continuation of the 
 existence of the soul, I would say: First, that to 
 the blind man who wants tangible evidence of the 
 existence of lights, shadows and colors, no satis- 
 factory evidence can be given; to the skeptical deaf 
 man musical harmony is a myth; a superstition. Out 
 of the millions of inhabitants of this planet there are 
 about two-thirds who believe in the immortality of 
 the soul and continued individuality of the person 
 
220 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 after the decease of the body. At least two-thirds of 
 this number have had tangible evidence of the ability 
 of the departed to return and communicate with 
 those in the body. Therefore my testimonial, which 
 would be that I have absolute knowledge of this 
 being a fact, would be as a drop in the ocean com- 
 pared with the testimonials of millions now living 
 and thousands who have passed over. The testi- 
 monials of these is undoubtedly the strongest evi- 
 dence to those who are blind and deaf to spiritual 
 things. No scientific fact has any stronger evidence 
 than this. 
 
 Second, though not second in importance, is the 
 fact that any person, no matter how skeptical or 
 materialistic in his tendencies, who will live the life 
 of a celibate; overcoming all waste of the vital fluids 
 and keeping active the desire to know something of 
 the cause world, will, within one year after all invol- 
 untary losses have been overcome, have evidences 
 in sight, hearing and touch of the continued exist- 
 ence of the soul of man. He will also realize that 
 there are greater realities and more tangible facts 
 relative to that existence than there are to the exist- 
 ence of the external and physical senses. It must be 
 remembered, however, that belief or attention has a 
 great deal to do with the consciousness of a person. 
 For instance, a mechanic may be working at his 
 bench; his mind busy; he wants a tool; he searches 
 for that tool, but cannot find it, while all the time it 
 
The Philosophers 221 
 
 is lying before his eyes; he may even handle the tool 
 and lay it aside, but does not find it. This illustrates 
 the necessity of a person's giving thought and atten- 
 tion to that for which he is seeking. The effect of 
 this belief and attention to the thought has been 
 illustrated in the case of the Buddhist priests in 
 China and India. It has been authenticated by 
 reliable Western skeptics that Buddhist priests 
 firmly believe that when the body dies the soul will 
 return, reincarnate and take charge of the same 
 temple; consequently the soul holds its memories to 
 the extent that when it is reincarnated as a babe, 
 before the time that ordinary children are able to 
 speak, the child informs its parents that it is the 
 incarnation of such a priest, who had charge of such 
 a temple, and that it wishes to return to that temple. 
 The priests of the temple are informed of the fact 
 and they go to see the child, carrying with them the 
 vessels and articles that were used by that priest, 
 along with many like articles. The babe then selects 
 the articles that belonged to him whilst in his former 
 body and answers certain questions, which are suf- 
 ficient to convince the most skeptical that he is the 
 identical priest. He is then taken to the temple and 
 assumes his position as high priest. These facts 
 have been corroborated by the most skeptical inves- 
 tigators of Oriental religion. 
 
 There is a great deal that passes as evidence of the 
 immortality of the soul among over-credulous spir- 
 
222 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 itualists, which is the cause of much of the skep- 
 ticism now existing among men. Among all the 
 so-called spirit manifestations through the ordinary 
 medium there is very little that is genuine, and that 
 which is genuine is the work of nature spirits as a 
 rule, who are simply playing with the medium and 
 sitter. Therefore, among spiritualists is not the 
 place to look for genuine spirit manifestation, but in 
 one's own personal experience. 
 
 DR. H. W. THOMAS 
 
 To science chaos means cosmos, cosmos means 
 life, life means man. Life is the final cause, God is 
 life. Life is not only a property of protoplasm, as 
 Huxley said — we must go deeper, — it is a property 
 of nature. Life as life never dies. Reason, truth, 
 justice, love — as principles and qualities are neces- 
 sarily eternal. The essential man is immortal man. 
 This is eternity. Soon the night will be gone and 
 with the morn the angels' faces smile. 
 
 CARDINAL JAMES GIBBONS 
 
 The soul is the principle by which we live and 
 move and have our being. It is that which forms 
 and perpetuates our identity; for it makes us to be 
 the same yesterday, to-day and forever. The soul 
 has intellectual conceptions and operations of reason 
 and judgment independent of material organs. Our 
 own experience clearly teaches us this important 
 point. Our minds grasp what the senses cannot 
 
The Philosophers 223 
 
 reach. * * * Such a principle being independent 
 of matter in its operations, must needs be inde- 
 pendent of matter also in its being. It is, therefore, 
 of its nature, subject to no corruption resulting from 
 matter. Its life, which is its being, is not extin- 
 guished and cannot be extinguished with that of the 
 body. 
 
 It is well known that there is a constant waste 
 going on in every part of the human body which 
 has to be renovated by daily nutriment. So steady 
 is this exhaustion that, in the judgment of medical 
 science, an entire transformation of the physical sys- 
 tem occurs every six or eight years. New flesh and 
 bones and tissues are substituted for those you had 
 before. The hand with which you write, the brain 
 which you exercise in thinking are composed of 
 entirely different materials. And yet you compre- 
 hend to-day what you learned ten years ago, you 
 remember and love those with whom you were then 
 associated. How is this? You no longer use the 
 identical organic substance you then possessed. 
 Does it not prove that the faculty, called the soul, 
 by which you think, remember and love, is distinct 
 from organic matter; that while the body is con- 
 stantly changing, the soul remains the same; that it 
 does not share in the process of decomposition and 
 renewal through which the human frame is passing, 
 and therefore that it is a spiritual substance? 
 
 All nations, moreover, have believed in the 
 
224 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 immortality of the soul. Such was the faith of the 
 people of ancient Greece and Rome, as we learn from 
 the writings of Virgil and Ovid. Nor was this belief 
 in a future life confined to the uncultivated masses; 
 it was taught by the most eminent writers and phil- 
 osophers of those polished nations. Socrates, Plato, 
 Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, and other sages 
 of Pagan antiquity, guided only by the light of rea- 
 son, proclaimed their belief in the soul's immortality. 
 
 The same views were held by the ancient Egyp- 
 tians, the Chaldeans, and Persians, indeed by all the 
 nations of Asia whose history has come down to us, 
 and by the Germans, Gauls, Britons, and other 
 ancient tribes of Europe. If we question the Indian 
 of North or South America on this point, he will tell 
 us of the happy hunting-grounds reserved in after- 
 life for the brave. 
 
 We may find nations without cities, without the 
 arts and sciences, without mechanical inventions, or 
 any of the refinements of civilized life; but a nation 
 without some presentiment of the existence of a 
 future state, we shall search for in vain. 
 
 Now whence comes this universal belief in man's 
 immortality? Not from prejudice arising from edu- 
 cation; for we shall find this conviction prevailing 
 among rude people who have no education what- 
 ever, among hostile tribes, and among nations at the 
 opposite poles of the earth and who have never had 
 intercourse with one another. 
 
The Philosophers 225 
 
 We must, therefore, conclude that a sentiment so 
 general and deep-rooted must have been planted in 
 the human breast by Almighty God, just as He has 
 implanted in us an instinctive love for truth and jus- 
 tice, and an inveterate abhorrence of falsehood and 
 injustice. 
 
 Not only has mankind a firm belief in the immor- 
 tality of the soul, but there is inborn in every human 
 breast a desire for perfect felicity. This desire is so 
 strong in man that it is the mainspring of all his 
 actions, the engine that keeps in motion the machin- 
 ery of society. 
 
 Now God would never have planted in the human 
 heart this craving after perfect felicity, unless He 
 had intended that the desire should be fully grati- 
 fied; for He never designed that man should be the 
 sport of vain and barren hopes. He never creates 
 anything in vain; but He would have created some- 
 thing to no purpose if He had given us the thirst for 
 perfect bliss without imparting to us the means of 
 assuaging it. 
 
 It is true that this desire never can be fully real- 
 ized in the present life. Can earthly goods ade- 
 quately satisfy the cravings of the human heart and 
 fill up the measure of its desires? Experience proves 
 the contrary. 
 
 Can honors fully gratify the aspirations of the 
 soul? No. The more brilliant and precious the 
 
226 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 crown, the more heavily it presses upon the brow 
 that wears it. 
 
 I have seen and contemplated two of the greatest 
 rulers on the face of the earth — the civil ruler of 
 seventy-five millions, and the spiritual ruler of two 
 hundred and fifty millions of people. I have con- 
 versed with the President and the Pope in their pri- 
 vate apartments; and I am convinced that their 
 exalted position, far from satisfying the aspirations 
 of their soul, did but fill them with a profound sense 
 of their grave responsibility. 
 
 Can earthly pleasures make one so happy as to 
 leave nothing to be desired? Assuredly not. The 
 keen edge of delight soon becomes blunted. 
 
 We find great comfort in this life in the society of 
 loving friends and relatives. But how frail is the 
 thread that binds friends and kindred together! 
 
 Another source of exquisite delight is found in 
 the pursuit of knowledge. The higher we ascend 
 the mount of knowledge, the broader becomes our 
 view of the vast fields of science that still remain 
 uncultivated by us. 
 
 But the greatest consolation attainable in this life 
 is found in the pursuit and practice of virtue. But 
 this consolation arises from the well-founded hope of 
 future bliss rather than from the fulfillment of our 
 desires. The virtuous are happy because they have 
 "a promise to pay," and not because they have 
 
The Philosophers 227 
 
 received the actual payment of the debt of Divine 
 justice. 
 
 Thus we see that neither riches, nor honors, nor 
 pleasures, nor knowledge, nor the endearments of 
 social and family ties, nor the pursuit of virtue, can 
 fully satisfy our aspirations after happiness. Com- 
 bine all these pleasures as far as they are susceptible 
 of combination. Let each of their sources be aug- 
 mented a thousand-fold. Let these intensified 
 gratifications be concentrated on one man, let him 
 have the undoubted assurance of enjoying them for 
 a thousand years, yet will he be forced to exclaim: 
 "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity." The more 
 delicious the cup, the more bitter the thought that 
 death will dash it to pieces. 
 
 Now, if God has given us a desire for perfect felic- 
 ity, which He intends to be one day fully gratified; 
 and if this felicity, as we have seen, cannot be found 
 in the present life, it must be reserved for the life to 
 come. And as no intelligent being can be con- 
 tented with any happiness that is finite in duration, 
 we must conclude that it will be eternal, and that, 
 consequently, the soul is immortal. Life that is not 
 to be crowned with immortality is not worth living. 
 "If a life of happiness," says Cicero, "is to end, it 
 cannot be called a happy life. * * * Take away 
 eternity, and Jupiter is not better off than Epi- 
 curus." 
 
 Without the hope of immortality, the condition of 
 
228 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 man is less desirable than that of the beasts of the 
 field. 
 
 "Through ev'ry scene of sense superior far: 
 
 They graze the turf untilVd; they drink the stream 
 
 Unbrewed and ever full, and unembittered- 
 
 With doubts, fears, fruitless hopes, regrets, despairs." 
 
 PROF. PRINCE TARKHANE-MOURAWOFF 
 
 The question which you kindly ask me is one of 
 the most mysterious ones of human existence. It 
 overflows the limits and competence of physical and 
 biological science and pertains to the series of final 
 causes with regard to which experimental sciences 
 have had to admit their complete powerlessness. 
 
 It is therefore natural that as a physiologist and 
 biologist I can neither deny nor affirm the continua- 
 tion of the life of the soul after death. This is more 
 a question of faith or belief than of human knowl- 
 edge and being considered as such it ought to be 
 rather upheld than denied, in the interest of the great 
 majority of humanity, by lofty minds. 
 
 The following are the reasons why I am of such an 
 opinion: 
 
 First: The belief in the continuation of the life 
 of the soul after death contributes towards the study 
 of this grave question and may lead to positive 
 proofs, if they can ever be had. It is not by nega- 
 tions a priori and in advance that human knowledge 
 develops itself, and it is only from believers that we 
 
The Philosophers 229 
 
 can hope to secure proofs, more or less conclusive, of 
 the immortality of the soul. 
 
 Second: This principle of the immortality of the 
 soul is closely allied to the religious sentiment of 
 man, the practical and moral importance of which is 
 appreciated by the majority of humanity. 
 
 Third: The belief in the future life of the soul, 
 this belief in the "Beyond," helps to ease life in this 
 "World," a life which for the majority is replete 
 with suffering and worries. It promises the contin- 
 uance of one's conscious "Self" in other spheres of 
 existence after the days spent on this earth, instead 
 of an ill-omened nothingness. 
 
 Humanity being thus inspired can bear death 
 with greater ease. 
 
 DR. EDWARD R. KNOWLES 
 
 Caroline C. Leighton writes: "Do we fear lest 
 our human consciousness and identity should be lost 
 in the overwhelming vicissitude of death?" 
 
 "The qualities of matter," says Du Bois-Reymond, 
 "are eternal and inalienable." Can this be true of 
 matter, and be questioned in regard to spirit? Who 
 can believe that the individuality so toilsomely 
 evolved in all our varied experiences will ever be 
 merged in one great sea of being by One to whom 
 individuality is so precious that He never makes 
 even two grass-blades or two leaves on a tree pre- 
 cisely alike? She also says, that to the material 
 
230 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 world's conception "just when everything appears 
 to have come to a final disastrous issue, may be the 
 moment of our triumph." The result of my reflec- 
 tions has been to convince me that, considering the 
 character we attribute to our Maker and the interest 
 we believe Him to take in the work of His hands, it 
 must be that each one dies just at the moment when 
 his welfare will be best promoted by dying; that we 
 can never speak of an untimely death, nor one 
 sphere to another as a waste of life. 
 
 PROF. ANDERSON W. ANDERSON 
 
 I think I can give the substance of my own atti- 
 tude in a very few words. 
 
 First: I do not attach much importance to the 
 so-called arguments from science and philosophy 
 either one way or the other; that is to say, I think 
 in the present state of our knowledge, neither an 
 affirmative or a negative answer has any decided 
 preponderance over the other in probability. What 
 advantage there is either way, I would not under- 
 take to say. 
 
 Second: I think the recent investigations of 
 Professor Hyslop, Dr. Hodgson and others are not 
 yet complete enough to be convincing. There has 
 not been time enough for consideration and a thor- 
 ough, co-operative, critical working of the field. 
 
 Third: I believe in personal immortality (at 
 least for some). I do so, perhaps, for several rea- 
 
The Philosophers 231 
 
 sons which have force with myself, but which I 
 might find it difficult to persuade others by: Tem- 
 perament, habit and training have much to do with 
 my belief; a deliberate choice of a Christian point of 
 view as being the most hopeful and stimulating pos- 
 sible to me after making due allowance for the evil in 
 the world; a belief in the teachings of Jesus of Naz- 
 areth as giving us truth with an assurance of cer- 
 tainty, a clearness, and a satisfactoriness which 
 indicate more than human knowledge and foresight. 
 
 STANLEY WATERLOO 
 
 My reasons for believing in the existence of a soul 
 and of a continuation of its identity I can explain but 
 clumsily, though they are to me sufficient. 
 
 Through our senses we recognize that the uni- 
 verse is conducted on a plan which, of course, 
 involves a Power behind all, an intelligent Power. 
 We are in the hands of that Power and its general 
 course is beneficence, for death may be but an inci- 
 dent in progress. There is a change to> something 
 beyond our power to understand, and we can but 
 reason by our weak human deductions. We may as 
 well give it up. 
 
 As to continued identity, supposing there be a 
 soul, we know that in all nature the death, or change 
 phenomenon, produces like. The plant dies in the 
 autumn, but when its seed awakens in the spring it 
 
232 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 produces that same plant. No pink comes from the 
 seed or soul of a rose. 
 
 There is another thing which appeals most 
 strongly to me as evidence of another life with the 
 same identity. It is the fact that we all want it. 
 Now, Nature, or the Power, does nothing without 
 intent. If the life we want were not to come to us 
 we would not have the longing, it seems to me. A 
 thought is as much a real product of the Power as 
 is a plant. 
 
 These are the ideas that aid and strengthen me. 
 
 DR. H. A. REID 
 
 First: The existence of God is simply an eternal 
 fact ; men's ideas about God are various and change- 
 ful. 
 
 Second: Volition or Will is, in the last analysis, 
 the only unconditioned or inscrutable universal 
 power — the absolute primary potential of creative- 
 ness in all the universe. 
 
 Third: Man is a result of creational (or evolu- 
 tional) processes — an evolved product; and he is an 
 intelligent volitional being, on a finite scale. 
 
 Fourth: Therefore, the power or cause which 
 produced man must be volitional and intelligent on 
 an infinite scale. It could not produce in man 
 rational and psychic endowments which it did not 
 have potentially in itself antecedent to any incept or 
 primal atomic vortex in the infinite past which ulti- 
 
The Philosophers 233 
 
 mated in the production of the phenomenal cosmos 
 and of man as a dweller in it. 
 
 Fifth: Man as an animal or carnate being is a 
 product by evolutional processes through the entire 
 zoic succedaneum of our earth. 
 
 Sixth: The so-called "senses" by which animal 
 life can take cognizance of its physical environment 
 have been gradually evolved from one up to five, as 
 now possessed by all warm-blooded animals. 
 
 Seventh: Man through his whole history has 
 been and still is in the process of evolving a sixth 
 sense, whereby he takes cognizance of his spiritual 
 environment, becomes self-conscious of himself as a 
 spiritual being, self-conscious of God as a spiritual 
 being, and conscious of other spiritual or discarnate 
 finite beings not discerned by any one or all of his 
 five physical senses. 
 
 Eighth: The quickened or awakened conscious- 
 ness of this sixth sense is the psychic fact or phe- 
 nomenon which Jesus Christ spoke of as being 
 "born again" — "born of the spirit" — and, when 
 fully unfolded, its possessor is just as distinctly con- 
 scious of the reality of the spiritual realm as he is of 
 the physical realm of life on our planet. 
 
 Ninth: Evidences of the partial unfoldment of 
 this spiritual or sixth sense are abundant in all 
 human history, both sacred and profane. Its uncor- 
 rected and misinterpreted data have given rise to 
 the superstitions, vagaries, idolatries, and false or 
 
234 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 imperfect religions, which bestrew the pages of his- 
 tory as thickly as extinct animal fossils bestrew the 
 rocks. 
 
 Tenth: The spiritual or sixth sense reached its 
 perfect unfoldment in Jesus Christ, in harmonious 
 correlation with the other senses, and thus made 
 Him historically the "first born" of a new type of 
 sentient life on the earth — daily cognizant of both 
 the spiritual and physical habitat of both incarnate 
 and discarnate intelligent beings. 
 
 Eleventh: Within recent years psychical research 
 has demonstrated the objective reality of discarnate 
 beings as a part of the divine economy or order of 
 nature in our world; so that no longer is the belief 
 in discarnate or angelic intrusions into the affairs of 
 mankind contingent on a traditional acceptance of 
 Bible narratives, nor on church authority, nor on 
 credence given to professional "mediums." It is 
 now an acquired fact of science and cannot be gain- 
 said. 
 
 Twelfth: Nevertheless, the mere intellectual 
 acceptance of this fact will not satisfy the soul. 
 Nothing short of a living self-consciousness of the 
 fact within itself will be soul-satisfying and restful. 
 
 Thirteenth: Sir William Crookes' experiments 
 with spirit mediums, as reported in the "British 
 Quarterly Journal of Science," 1871 to 1874 (pub- 
 lished in a volume of 112 pages, by James Burns, 
 London), and my own work — "Unseen Faces Pho- 
 
The Philosophers 235 
 
 tographed" — are, I think, the most crucial proofs of 
 discarnate beings as objective realities yet brought 
 to public attention. I have proved and settled it 
 beyond a peradventure that spirit photography has 
 occurred as a veritable phenomenon, independent of 
 any trick or skill or volition or knowledge of the 
 "medium." 
 
 DR. EDWARD W. MERCER 
 
 I know of no strong reason or argument in favor 
 of the continued existence of the soul or personal 
 identity after death. It seems to me that such a 
 belief is founded rather upon faith than reason. It 
 will be very interesting to know the results of your 
 investigations and I hope I may be able to obtain 
 them. 
 
 HENRY E. HEIGHTON 
 
 So far as the special occasion for your inquiry is 
 concerned, my entire answer is comprised in Ten- 
 nyson's poem, "In Memoriam," which reveals the 
 truest sources of the consolation that would be arid, 
 if individualized immortality were denied. 
 
 On the main question, however, I am enabled to 
 say that, for more than fifty years, I have had no 
 doubt whatever of the fact that what we call death is 
 but the transition to a higher or lower life, in other 
 words, "the continued existence of the soul or per- 
 sonal identity." 
 
236 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 "The strongest reason or argument' ' for this con- 
 clusion, in my mind, has always been the impossi- 
 bility of conceiving my own individual annihilation. 
 I cannot think at all, except upon the assumption of 
 my own existence, which, as a necessary premise to 
 every act of reasoning, is a fact that I at least cannot 
 obliterate. 
 
 This, however, does not prevent my acceptance 
 of other and numerous lines of argument, all con- 
 verging upon an identical conclusion. 
 
 I believe the authenticity of the Bible, and especi- 
 ally the New Testament, to have been established by 
 more exemplary proofs than I have ever known to be 
 adduced upon any proposition in a court of justice. 
 To me it is sustained by all the canons of evidence, 
 rigidly applied. Therefore, I believe in the resur- 
 rection of Christ, which has been more constantly 
 and emphatically attested than any single fact, of 
 which I have any knowledge, recorded in history. 
 When any fact is demonstrated, its mere character, 
 its apparent antagonism to natural laws, has no 
 effect whatever upon me. I am prepared to accept 
 everything that is proved. There are many things 
 in daily experience now that, if I had existed cen- 
 turies ago, would have been as remarkable to me as 
 the raising of the dead, of which there are so many 
 instances recorded by biblical writers. 
 
 The whole course of ancient and modern history, 
 the literature, the philosophy, the poetry of the 
 
The Philosophers 237 
 
 world, the mental constitution of man, his aspira- 
 tions, and indeed his necessities, the inequalities and 
 the imperfections of social and individual life, the 
 temporary injustice and failures which disfigure 
 human progress, the authority of accumulated opin- 
 ions and beliefs — these and many other considera- 
 tions, which it would take a volume to express, all 
 converge in my reasoning upon the central truth, of 
 which I am personally conscious. 
 
 Therefore, with me, the question to which you 
 refer has passed beyond the reign of debate. 
 
 PROF. NATHANIEL BUTLER 
 
 Aside from the assurances that appeal directly to 
 Christian faith, the consideration that seems to me 
 most powerfully to suggest an affirmative answer to 
 the question of existence — personal identity — after 
 death, is the fact that men have always believed, and 
 do now as much as ever believe, in the genuineness 
 of this affirmation without asking why or on what 
 grounds. It is set in us to believe it. The instinct 
 carries with it implication of its essential verity. 
 
 DR. W. T. HARRIS 
 
 I have been very much interested in the question 
 of individual immortality throughout my life and 
 have formerly written on the subject on many occa- 
 sions. One of my essays on the subject, published 
 in my "Journal of Speculative Philosophy," I sent 
 you by mail the other day. Personally, I have felt 
 
238 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 as certain about the immortality of the individual as 
 I have about the truths of mathematics, being sure 
 that any theory that anyone may form of the world 
 will logically involve the immortality of the indi- 
 vidual. Only by misunderstanding the logical 
 sequence can one arrive at any conclusion which 
 denies immortality. I have discussed the psycholog- 
 ical bearings of the question in chapter XXVI of 
 my "Psychological Foundations of Education." 
 
 The proofs on which most men rely for their con- 
 viction that they will continue their individual exist- 
 ence after death are: The return to life of those 
 who have died — a resurrection in the body — notably 
 the example which the Christian church teaches as 
 the basis of its faith and as the symbol of the resur- 
 rection of the individual man. 
 
 The physical manifestation of individuality after 
 death by the exertion of power to control matter, or 
 to materialize in temporary bodies, as in cases of 
 reported modern and ancient Spiritualism. 
 
 General belief in the existence of the soul after 
 death, and the probability that such general beliefs 
 of mankind are well founded. 
 
 General desire of man to live forever, and his hor- 
 ror at annihilation; probability that a desire imparted 
 to his nature has a reality correspondent to it. 
 
 The infinite perfectibility of the human mind; its 
 full capacity never realized in this life; each new 
 growth in knowledge or insight, or power of will, or 
 
The Philosophers 239 
 
 love for the race, being always a means of greater 
 growth in the same and other directions ; contrary to 
 the course of nature, or to the divine character to 
 endow a. being with capacities never to be devel- 
 oped. 
 
 Besides these, there is the proof from the stand- 
 point of evolution. The world is so made that the 
 principle of the survival of the fittest causes intel- 
 lectual and moral beings to come to the top. Spir- 
 itual beings gain the mastery inevitably and 
 subordinate all others — reverse, in fact, the laws of 
 survival in the lower orders. Preserve delicate plants 
 and delicate animals and eradicate noxious ones. 
 Such trend of the universe toward spiritual being 
 points out, unmistakably, that being as the highest 
 and best and most persistent. The spiritual prin- 
 ciple alone is loved by the universe, and this points 
 to its origin in a spiritual principle which thus loves 
 its own. A God of Reason who creates the world in 
 order to bring into being independent realizations of 
 Himself is thus presupposed by the doctrine of evo- 
 lution as propounded by its most consistent advo- 
 cate (Mr. John Fiske). 
 
 DR. HALTON I. JESSUP 
 
 I can only say, that I base my hope of a life 
 beyond the grave on the fact that I feel man to be 
 so immensely superior to all other living animals, 
 that there should be something better for him than 
 death of the soul as well as the body. 
 
240 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 W. J. COLVILLE 
 
 Are we Spirit, or are we Matter? Does matter 
 produce mind, or does mind create matter? These 
 are questions we must answer; half-way answers will 
 not do. Physics or Metaphysics; Materialism or 
 Spiritualism, which? We cannot have both; one 
 must stand, the other must fall; both cannot stand 
 together, as they affirm diametrically opposing pos- 
 tulates. Spiritualism, so-called, is often only a sys- 
 tem of Materialism with a fragment of Spiritualism 
 tacked on by way of ornament; in other cases, it is a 
 mass of erroneous theological dogma, with an illogi- 
 cal belief in spirit communion added by way of sup- 
 plement. We do not wonder that this is so, as we 
 cannot forget the previous training the majority of 
 persons have had before embracing the fact of spirit 
 communion; but an endeavor to support, promul- 
 gate and perpetuate so unsatisfying a creed, must of 
 necessity result in the utmost mental confusion. 
 
 Longfellow stated the truth in two lines of his sub- 
 lime poem, "The Psalm of Life," "Dust thou art, to 
 dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul." The 
 point of emphasis needs to be laid on the third word 
 of the first line in this quotation, "Dust thou art" 
 was not spoken of the soul, it cannot be truly 
 affirmed of the soul; therefore, as an inevitable con- 
 sequence, "to dust returnest," cannot be spoken of 
 the soul. Everything goes back to its original ele- 
 
The Philosophers 241 
 
 ments; a stream cannot rise higher than its source; 
 an effect cannot be geater than its cause. Now the 
 materialistic supposition, a palpable error even on its 
 surface, is, that matter is everything; that the basis 
 of all life is crude, unconscious matter; that the uni- 
 verse is governed by some incomprehensible, blind 
 force which, without possessing any intelligence 
 whatsoever, is capable of evolving consciousness out 
 of unconsciousness; life out of death; spirit out of 
 matter. 
 
 Our reason rebels against all such absurdity; no 
 scientist worthy of the name ever propagates such 
 trash. Huxley, Spencer, Tyndall and a host of other 
 noted men, who, by the way, are only specialists 
 after all, and excel only in their own peculiar depart- 
 ments of research, disclaim Materialism as much as 
 Spiritualism. They call themselves Agnostics; that 
 is, they confess they do not know what the basis of 
 existence really is ; on primal causation they are con- 
 fessedly ignorant, and thus leave the coast clear and 
 the road open for all who can delve deeper than they 
 into the mysteries of man's spiritual anatomy. 
 
 The first great affirmation of true Spiritualism or 
 genuine metaphysical science is, I am spirit, I am 
 not matter; spirit is substance, matter is shadow; 
 spirit is eternal, matter temporal; mind is immortal, 
 the body, mortal. Science in its physical researches 
 may find a primordial cell, common to all organ- 
 isms, and pronounce this the basis of all organic life. 
 
242 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 But protoplasm is an effect, it is not a cause, of life. 
 Lamark in France, Darwin in England, and others 
 who have come after them, may have gone very far 
 to demonstrate the truth of the evolutionary hypoth- 
 esis, and indeed the germination of the human foetus 
 in the maternal womb goes far to substantiate this 
 conclusion, as the embryo itself assumes a variety of 
 forms resembling those of lower animals before the 
 human shape is perfected; but all such facts utterly 
 fail to do more than enable the student of material 
 sense to trace the genealogy of form; the underlying 
 principle of being is as much, a mystery as ever; so 
 we are confounded in our scientific colleges with 
 great, mysterious, unsolved problems of causation, 
 fully as much as when, in the divinity class, where 
 old-fashioned theology is expounded, we are told 
 that "nothing" was the element out of which God 
 made everything. 
 
 Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, all the great minds 
 of Greece with which we are familiar through the 
 classics, have asserted that the soul itself, the indi- 
 vidual ego± called by the Hindoos the atma, or sev- 
 enth and highest principle, in man, has always 
 existed and forever will. We hear much of atoms, 
 units, and primaries, in scientific parlance; but they 
 have eluded every physical research, and what is 
 more, they always will; for they exist only in the 
 realm of mind; they are living ideas; spiritual enti- 
 ties, immortal thoughts of Deity. 
 
The Philosophers 243 
 
 As soon as we cease to think of ourselves as mat- 
 ter, and regard ourselves as pure spirit, we shall have 
 demonstrated our immortality to our own conscious- 
 ness and found the only key which will unlock the 
 chambers of perfect health, rest and happiness in our 
 own natures. 
 
 DR. PAUL QARUS 
 
 I take pleasure in sending you a booklet of mine, 
 entitled " Whence and Whither?" which contains 
 my answer to the question as to the nature and 
 immortality of the soul. Allow me to add, however, 
 that I do not deem the condition when a man is 
 under the "stress 01 bereavement" the right time to 
 study the question. We ought to familiarize our- 
 selves with the nature of our own existence, and also 
 the nature of immortality, when we are strong and 
 in mental health, not when our sentiments are sore 
 and demand special treatment. 
 
 I know that my position is not one which will be 
 satisfactory to those who seek comfort in extraor- 
 dinary revelations or spiritual manifestations, for I 
 exclude every argument that would not be tenable 
 before the tribunal of science. That, however, may 
 in your eyes be rather an advantage than a disad- 
 vantage. * * * 
 
 Immortality being the corollary (inference) to the 
 truth that we are the continuance of prior life, must 
 be regarded as the natural state, and is so much a 
 
244 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 matter of course that not it, but its counterpart, 
 death, is the real problem that demands a solution. 
 Life is in its evolution so much a continuity that 
 death seems to contradict the laws of existence. 
 Death does not exist in the realm of the lowly organ- 
 ized beings. Amoebas and moners grow and divide, 
 they do not die. The mother breaks up into two 
 daughters, but leaves no corpse behind, for the 
 daughters are identical in structure as well as sub- 
 stance with the mother. 
 
 If thus immortality be the natural state of life on 
 its lowest scale, how is it that death appears with the 
 rise of higher forms of life? Is not death, perhaps, 
 a factor in the life which is subservient to a purpose 
 that works for good? Such in fact is the case; death 
 appears in the scale of life as the necessary concom- 
 itant of individuality; and individuality originates 
 with birth. 
 
 Multiplication by division is not entirely limited to 
 the lowest creatures; we find it among animals that 
 stand comparatively high in the scale of evolution, 
 much higher at least than the moner. Some polyps, 
 and among them corals, multiply by division. Their 
 mouths having the appearance of a flower, grow 
 broader in size; the opposite edges approach each 
 other at the median line, until they unite. Thus the 
 two corners of the mouth are separated for good and 
 form two corals upon one stalk. 
 
 There is a great advantage for the animalcules 
 
The Philosophers 245 
 
 that come into existence through a process of multi- 
 plication by division. Every moner, every polyp 
 thus produced starts in life as a full-fledged creature. 
 There is no state of infancy, with all its troubles and 
 dangers, to be passed through, for these creatures 
 make their first appearance in a state of maturity. It 
 is natural that the form and soul of the original 
 organism should thus be preserved in all the details 
 of their parts. The heredity of these animals is no 
 similarity, but absolute identity. 
 
 These advantages are lost in the measure that the 
 procreation of new individuals approaches the sys- 
 tem of sexual generation. Buds are first very ten- 
 der and may easily be injured before they are as 
 strong as their mother organism. Spores are helpless 
 and may be devoured as food by the many hungry 
 animals that swarm about them. And the higher we 
 rise in the scale of evolution, the greater becomes the 
 difficulties of the germ, of a young animal, of a baby, 
 to reach maturity. These disadvantages to the indi- 
 vidual, however, are richly overbalanced by the 
 higher advantages afforded through the greater pos- 
 sibilities of development and progress. The strug- 
 gle for life grows fiercer, yet in and through the 
 struggle the organisms grow stronger; they adapt 
 themselves to conditions, first unconsciously, then 
 consciously, teaching the lessons of a higher moral- 
 ity than self-preservation, the ethics of parental love; 
 
246 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 and in man they acquire that foresight and circum- 
 spection which makes him the lord of creation. 
 
 Death is the twin of birth. Birth and death are 
 boundaries with which certain phases of the universal 
 life of the race are limited; so as to give them a well- 
 defined domain of their own, with a sovereignty of 
 their own and a responsibility of their own without, 
 however, severing them entirely from the rest of the 
 world. It is as though nature had devised this trick 
 to bring forth better results and spur its creatures on 
 to use their utmost efforts in a struggle for exist- 
 ence. 
 
 The main fact of man's psychical activity is the 
 continuity of his soul, for this is the ultimate basis 
 for the identity of a man's personality through all the 
 changes of his development. The continuity and 
 identity of each soul are conditions which beget the 
 feeling of responsibility, and thus force upon man 
 the necessity of moral conduct. 
 
 The first questions of psychology are the Whence 
 and Whither of the human soul; and we must under- 
 stand their significance in order to be able to answer 
 the main questions of life, "What shall we do? How 
 shall we act? Which aim shall we pursue?" 
 
 The continuity of man's soul-life is not limited to 
 the span of time that lies between birth and death; 
 it extends beyond the boundary line of individual 
 existence, and links the after of each single person to 
 
The Philosophers 247 
 
 the lives of his ancestors and contemporaries, as well 
 as to the generations to come. 
 
 It is not impossible to comprehend the nature of 
 man's soul, to trace its Whence, and to point out its 
 Whither; and we trust that when a man has gained 
 an insight into the relation of his own being to the 
 general life of the race, he will think with greater 
 reverence of the past and with more consideration 
 for the future. It will make him judicious in what- 
 ever he undertakes and will serve him as a mariner's 
 compass on his journey over the stormy ocean of 
 time. * * * 
 
 Before the comprehension of the true nature of 
 the soul, birth as an absolute beginning vanishes; 
 and so does death as an absolute annihilation. We 
 learn to recognize the intimate interconnection of 
 ourselves with the life of the distant past as well as 
 with the life of the ages to come. He who attains to 
 this height lives on the summit of existence and 
 breathes the air of immortality. His soul has arisen 
 into the domain of the superindividual life; death 
 has no sting for him ; he has conquered the ills that 
 flesh is heir to; and he looks upon the world with the 
 eye of divine enlightenment. In him deity has 
 become incarnate. 
 
 CARDINAL BANTANDIER 
 
 Of all the proofs of an after-life, the one that has 
 always appealed to me, and the one against which I 
 
248 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 never saw a serious argument used, is the moral 
 "argument," or to better express it, an argument of 
 metaphysical order. 
 
 Every sin deserves a punishment and every deed 
 of virtue must bear its reward. However, we see 
 that on this earth the reverse takes place in most 
 cases; therefore there must be an after-life in which 
 this metaphysical equilibrium is re-established. To 
 say that one finds the reward for a good deed in the 
 deed itself is an Utopia, and that a bad one is pun- 
 ished by remorse, is a falsehood. Besides, remorse 
 admits of this after-life in which the wicked sees that 
 he may be punished for his sins on this earth. 
 
 This is what, in my opinion, proves by demonstra- 
 tion an after-life, independently of all dogmas or 
 beliefs. 
 
 DR. W. F. WARREN 
 
 I firmly believe in "God, Freedom and Immor- 
 tality ;" but in my judgment any attempt to set 
 forth the logical grounds of the belief in any one of 
 the three, either in an exhaustive manner or in a 
 manner determining the relative worth of the evi- 
 dences in favor of any one of the three, must ever be 
 vain and futile. Such beliefs are not born of ratioci- 
 nations (reasonings). 
 
 A. P. SINNETT 
 
 At death the three lower principles — the body, its 
 mere physical vitality, and its astral counterpart — 
 
The Philosophers 249 
 
 are finally abandoned by that which really is man 
 himself, and the four higher principles escape into 
 that world immediately above our own; above our 
 own, that is, in the order of spirituality; not above it 
 at all, but in it and of it as regards real locality — 
 the astral plane, or Kama loca, according to a very 
 familiar Sanscrit expression. Here a division takes 
 place between the two duads, which the four higher 
 principles include. 1 
 
 3J£ 3JC 3JC ifC 
 
 The casual occurrence of phenomena linking our 
 physical perceptions with the unseen world has 
 kindled an ardent enthusiasm for inquiry along the 
 line of investigation thus pointed out, but the laws of 
 Nature affecting the vast realm of spiritual existence 
 are far too complicated to be discovered from an 
 observation of the phenomena, of a relatively nar- 
 row subdivision of that realm, brought within our 
 cognizance almost exclusively, by casual and irregu- 
 lar occurrences of the kind referred to. 
 
 It is only with the help of esoteric science — the 
 accumulated experience of a great school of inquir- 
 ers, devoting faculties of the highest kind, for a long 
 series of ages, to the exploration of spiritual mys- 
 teries — that a sufficiently wide view of Nature can be 
 obtained to embrace the apparently disorderly phe- 
 nomena of the astral world — the first beyond the 
 physical frontier — in all-sufficing generalizations 
 
 1 See "Esoteric Buddhism." 
 
250 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 that cover the whole scheme of spiritual evolution. 
 
 These far-reaching and magnificent conceptions 
 of Nature should not only recommend themselves, 
 when properly understood, to minds that have 
 shrunk from crude conclusions based on the imper- 
 fect data of modern spiritual observation in the 
 West, but should also be recognized by modern spir- 
 itualists themselves as calculated to purify and 
 expand their own doctrines, and guard them from 
 liability to underrate the grandeur of the region into 
 which they have partly penetrated, by relying, for its 
 interpretation, too confidently on experiences gath- 
 ered at its threshold. 
 
 For the theosophic teaching, which has been too 
 hastily resented by some spiritualists who have con- 
 ceived it hostile to their own acquired knowledge, 
 will be discovered, on a closer examination, to 
 include these experiences, and only to disconcert 
 some of the conclusions derived from them. 
 
 In esoteric science, as in microscopy, the applica- 
 tion of higher and higher powers will always con- 
 tinue to reveal a growing wealth of detail; and the 
 sketch of an organism that appeared satisfactory 
 enough when its general proportions were first dis- 
 cerned, is betrayed to be almost worse than insuf- 
 ficient when a number of previously unsuspected 
 minutiae are brought to notice. 
 
 It is already indicated that the dissolution of the 
 human principles after death, though one cannot 
 
The Philosophers 251 
 
 help speaking of the process as one of dispersion, is 
 not actually a mechanical separation of parts, nor 
 even a process analogous to the chemical dissolu- 
 tion of a compound body into elements on the same 
 plane of matter. The discussion of the process as if 
 it were a mechanical separation was represented 
 from the first as "a rough way of dealing with the 
 matter," and was adopted for the sake of emphasiz- 
 ing the transition of consciousness from one prin- 
 ciple to another which goes on in the astral world 
 after death. This transition of consciousness is, in 
 fact, the struggle between the higher and lower 
 duad. 
 
 The struggle just referred to may be regarded as 
 an oscillation of consciousness between the two 
 duads; and when the return of consciousness to the 
 lower principles, during this struggle, is stimulated 
 and encouraged by converse with still living entities 
 on the earth plane, with the help of mediumship, the 
 proper spiritual growth of the entity in Kama loca 
 (the psychic world) is, to that extent, perhaps to a 
 very considerable extent, retarded. It is this con- 
 sideration which may, in a greater degree than any 
 other, account for the disapproval with which the 
 adepts of occult science regard the active practice of 
 spiritualistic intercourse with departed human 
 beings. Such intercourse, though dictated from this 
 side by the purest affection, may seriously retard and 
 
252 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 embarrass the spiritual development of those who 
 have gone in advance of us. 
 
 It is recognized that intercourse between living 
 human beings gifted with a very elevated sort of 
 mediumship, or spiritual clairvoyance, and departed 
 friends with whom they have been closely united in 
 sympathy during life, is possible on the higher spir- 
 itual plane, after such persons have passed through 
 the struggle of Kama loca and have been completely 
 spiritualized. That intercourse may be of a more 
 subtle kind that can readily be realized by reference 
 to examples of intercourse on the earth plane, but 
 may evidently be none the less exhilarating to the 
 higher perceptions. 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 The resurrection and the continuance of our 
 being is granted. We carry the pledge of this in our 
 breast. I maintain merely that we cannot say in 
 what form or in what manner our existence will be 
 continued. * * * Man is to live hereafter. That 
 the world is for his education, is the only sane solu- 
 tion of the enigma. The planting of a desire indi- 
 cates that the gratification of that desire is in the 
 constitution of the creature that feels it. The Cre- 
 ator keeps His word with us all. What I have seen, 
 teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not 
 seen. Will you, with vast pains and care, educate 
 your children to produce a masterpiece and then 
 
The Philosophers 253 
 
 shoot them down? * * * On the borders of the 
 grave the wise man looks forward with equal elas- 
 ticity of mind and hope — and why not, after millions 
 of years, on the verge of still newer existence? I 
 have known admirable persons, without feeling that 
 they exhaust the possibilities of virtue and talent. I 
 have seen * * * what glories of climate, of sum- 
 mer mornings and evenings, of midnight sky! I 
 have enjoyed the benefits of all this complex machin- 
 ery of arts and civilization and its results of comfort! 
 But the Good Power can easily provide me millions 
 more. 
 
 SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 
 
 Since the dawn of history, various extraordinary 
 phenomena have been recorded as happening among 
 human beings. Witnesses are not wanting in mod- 
 ern times to attest to the facts of such events, even 
 in societies living under the full blaze of modern 
 science. The vast mass of such evidence is unre- 
 liable, as coming from ignorant, superstitious, or 
 fraudulent persons. In many instances the so-called 
 miracles are imitations. But what do they imitate? 
 It is not the sign of a candid and scientific mind to 
 throw overboard anything without proper investi- 
 gation. 
 
 Surface scientists, unable to explain the various 
 extraordinary mental phenomena, strive to ignore 
 their very existence. They are, therefore, more 
 
254 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 culpable than those who think that their prayers are 
 answered by a being, or beings, above the clouds, or 
 than those who believe that their petitions will make 
 such beings change the course of the universe. The 
 latter have the excuse of ignorance, or at least of a 
 false system of education in their childhood, which 
 has taught them to depend upon such beings for 
 help, and this dependence has now become a part 
 of their degenerate nature. The former have no 
 such excuse. * * * 
 
 Immortality! What question has been asked a 
 greater number of times? what idea has sent men 
 more to search the universe for an answer, what 
 question is nearer and dearer to the human heart, 
 what question is more inseparably connected with 
 our existence, than this one, the immortality of the 
 human soul? The best of human kind have 
 approached it, the worst of human kind have always 
 hoped for it. The interest in the theme has not died, 
 nor will it die, so long as human nature exists. 
 Various answers have been presented to the world 
 by various minds. Thousands, again, in every period 
 of history have given up the discussion, and yet the 
 question remains fresh as ever. 
 
 Many times in the turmoils and struggles of our 
 lives we seem to forget the question; all of a sudden 
 someone dies; one, perhaps, whom we loved, one 
 near and dear to our hearts is snatched away from 
 us. The struggle, the din and turmoil of the world 
 
The Philosophers 255 
 
 around us cease for a moment, become silent, and 
 the soul asks the old question, "What after this?" 
 
 What becomes of the soul? 
 
 It will be sheer nonsense to say it dies. It does 
 not end here. 
 
 You cannot take away or add to the universe one 
 atom of matter or one foot-pound of force. As such, 
 evolution did not come out of zero; then where did 
 it come from? It came in involution before. The 
 child is the man involved, and the man is the child 
 evolved; the seed is the tree involved, and the tree is 
 the seed evolved. All the possibilities of life are in 
 the germ. * * * 
 
 What is destruction? Here is a glass. I throw it 
 on the ground, and it breaks to pieces. What 
 becomes of it? It becomes fine. What is destruc- 
 tion? The gross becoming fine. The elements, the 
 particles, the components, the materials, the causes 
 are combined, and become this effect called the 
 glass. They go back to their causes, and this is what 
 is meant by destruction — going back to the cause. 
 What is the effect? The cause manifested. * * * 
 What becomes of the effect then? It is the same as 
 the cause, only taking a different form, a different 
 composition. But the question of immortality is not 
 settled here. What have we got? We get this, that 
 everything in this universe is indestructible. 
 
 It is very good to say there is no destruction for 
 any force. But all the forces that we see are com- 
 
256 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 binations, and all the forms that we see are combina- 
 tions. This form is a composition of several 
 component parts, and so every force that we see is 
 similarly composite. Everything that is composed 
 must sooner or later get back to its component 
 parts. Whatever in this universe is the result of the 
 combination of matter or force, whatever is the 
 result of combination, must sooner or later get back 
 to its components. 
 
 Soul is not a force ; neither is it thought. It is the 
 manufacturer of thought, but not thought; it is the 
 manufacturer of the body, but not the body. Why 
 so? We see that the body cannot be the soul. Why? 
 Because it is not intelligent. A dead man is not 
 intelligent, or a piece of flesh in a butcher's shop. 
 * * * Self is the illuminator, and the mind is an 
 instrument in its hands. This Self of man is not the 
 body and it is not thought. It cannot be a com- 
 pound. 
 
 The Self of man or soul goes beyond the law, and 
 therefore must be free, cannot be any composition, 
 or the result of any composition, or the effect of any 
 cause. It will never die, because death is going back 
 to the component parts, and that which was never a 
 compound can never die. 
 
 We are now treading on finer and finer ground. 
 Some of you will perhaps be frightened; we are 
 treading on very delicate ground. We have seen 
 that this Self, being beyond the little universe of 
 
The Philosophers 257 
 
 matter and force and thought, is a simple (not a 
 compound) and as a simple it cannot die, neither 
 can it live. That which does not die, cannot live, 
 also. So, what is death? The obverse, and life the 
 reverse of the same coin. Life is another name for 
 death, and death for life. One particular mode of 
 manifestation is what we call life ; another particular 
 mode of manifestation of the same thing is what we 
 call death. The soul of man is one part of the cosmic 
 energy that exists, one part of God. We now come 
 to find that it is beyond life and death. You were 
 never born, and you will never die. 
 
 What is this birth and death that we see? This 
 belongs to the body, because the soul is omnipres- 
 ent. * * * Because there was no birth; how 
 could there be any death? You are the omnipres- 
 ent beings of the universe. * * * What can 
 frighten you? If the suns come down, the moons 
 crumble into dust/ systems after systems are hurled 
 into annihilation; what is that to you? Stand as a 
 rock; you are indestructible. 
 
 DR. CHAS. HEBARD 
 
 To begin an answer to your question, I ask 
 another. What is life? My answer to this would be: 
 It is the manifestation of spirit through matter. But 
 when what we term death has come to us, to my 
 mind it is but the entering into another plane of con- 
 sciousness. We all, or many of us, have dreams 
 
258 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 which are as real and follow as connected trains of 
 thought and action as when awake. Yes, and better 
 thought, that we would gladly reproduce while 
 awake, but the brain's molecules have not been used 
 in their production, and consequently have left but 
 a faint impress on its substance, so we are unable to 
 recall it in its perfection ; and yet we know it to have 
 been most real. But perhaps the feeling that this is I 
 and can be nothing else who experiences all these 
 various states is what is most convincing to me that 
 I shall not cease to think and act when I put off this 
 body. 
 
 IMMANUEL KANT 
 
 The death of the body may indeed be the end of 
 the sensational use of our mind, but only the begin- 
 ning of the intellectual use. The body would thus 
 be, not the cause of our thinking, but merely a con- 
 dition restrictive thereof, and although essential to 
 a sensuous and animal consciousness, it may be 
 regarded as an impeder of our pure spiritual life. 
 
 At some future day it will be proved — I cannot 
 say when and where — that the human soul is, while 
 in earth-life, already in an uninterrupted communi- 
 cation with those living in another world; that the 
 human soul can act upon those beings, and receive, 
 in return, impressions of them without being con- 
 scious of it in the ordinary personality. 
 
 It would be a blessing if the state of things in the 
 
The Philosophers 259 
 
 other world and the conditions under which an inter- 
 change of the two worlds may take place — per- 
 ceived by us in a speculative manner — would not 
 only be theoretically exhibited, but practically estab- 
 lished by real and generally acknowledged facts thus 
 observed. 
 
 Philosophy, who never fears to compromise her- 
 self by examining all kinds of foolish questions, is 
 often much embarrassed when she encounters on her 
 march, certain facts she dares not doubt, yet will 
 not believe for fear of ridicule. This is the case with 
 ghost stories. In short, there is no reproach to 
 which philosophy is more sensible than that of cre- 
 dulity, or the suspicion of any connection with vul- 
 gar superstitions. Those who cheaply assume the 
 name of savants, and insist on receiving the priv- 
 ileges due to learned men, mock at whatever (being 
 as inexplicable to the savant as to the ignorant) 
 places both on the same level. That is why ghost 
 stories are always listened to and well received in 
 private, but pitilessly disavowed in public. We may 
 take it for granted that no academy of science will 
 ever choose such a subject for discussion, not 
 because every one of its members is fully persuaded 
 of the silliness and falseness of all these narratives, 
 but because the law of prudence has wisely put a 
 limit to the examination of such questions. Ghost 
 stones will always have those who believe in them in 
 
260 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 secret, and will always be received in public with an 
 incredulity of good form. 
 
 For my own part, ignorant as I am of the way in 
 which the human spirit enters the world and the 
 way in which it goes out of it, I dare not deny the 
 truth of many of such narratives that are in circula- 
 tion. By a reserve, however, which to some may 
 appear singular, I permit myself to hold in doubt 
 each in particular, and yet to believe in them when 
 all taken together. 
 
 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 
 
 I shall not believe that this light is extinguished. 
 If the Father deigns to touch with divine power the 
 cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn, and 
 make it to burst forth from its prison walls, will He 
 leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, who 
 was made in the image of his Creator? If He stoops 
 to give to the rosebush, whose withered blossoms 
 float upon the breeze, the sweet assurance of another 
 springtime, will He withhold the words of hope 
 from the sons of men when the frosts of winter 
 come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though 
 changed by the forces of Nature into a multitude of 
 forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man 
 suffer annihilation after it has paid a brief visit, like 
 a royal guest, to this tenement of clay? 
 
 Rather let us believe that He, who in His appar- 
 ent prodigality wastes not the raindrop, the blade of 
 
The Philosophers 261 
 
 grass, or the evening's sighing zephyr, but makes 
 them all to carry out His plans, has given immor- 
 tality to the mortal. 
 
 REV. DR. NEWELL DWIGHT HILLIS 
 
 Science makes much of the climatic changes that 
 have befallen our planet. It tells us that Labrador, 
 the land of ice and snow, was once a tropic realm, a 
 wilderness of fruits and flowers. But some disturb- 
 ance gave our earth a new inclination toward the 
 sun, and rays that had been perpendicular and pow- 
 erful became slanting and feeble. Then a chill stole 
 into the air, and the land that had never known frost 
 was soon sheeted o'er with snow and ice, while the 
 Amazon, hitherto the home of the iceberg, passed 
 into warmth and perpetual summer. The climatic 
 change that has passed over that physical world may 
 well interpret for man the larger fact that the soul 
 stands in a new relation to death and dying, so that 
 summer reigns where once winter ruled. 1 * * * 
 
 The philosophy that pictured death as a monster, 
 is itself death-struck and dying. Science, that once 
 clipped the wings of faith, is now learning to soar 
 and sing. If land is not yet sighted, we sail through 
 a summer sea, midst drifting boughs whose leaves 
 have not yet withered; the birds that fly overhead 
 belong to climes near, though still unseen; the 
 air laden with perfume, foretells the continent that 
 lies before and lures us on. * * * 
 
 1 See Foretokens of Immortality: Revell's. 
 
262 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Wisdom is not discerned by foolishness, nor music 
 by deafness. The melody is one-half in the singer's 
 voice; the other half is in the cultured ear. Beauty 
 is but half canvas; its complement is the refined 
 vision. 
 
 Man carries very imperfect instruments for know- 
 ing. He is but a seed to be grave-planted. That 
 would be but an ignoble immortality and an impov- 
 erished futurity that man could understand. Even 
 the poet, the seer and sage discern but hints and 
 gleams of the infinite truth and beauty awaiting all. 
 The "I" gives unity to our knowledge and experi- 
 ences. Self-identity gathers up all past life. Having 
 survived the changes of many brains and half a score 
 of physical bodies, the soul begins to nourish the 
 hope that it may survive the body altogether, cast- 
 ing it off like a worn-out garment. 
 
 Reason finds a foretoken of immortality in the 
 contrast between the growth of material things and 
 that of the mind. When a tree fulfills leafage, flowers 
 and fruit, it touches the limit of its being. Its end is 
 fulfilled; growth can achieve nothing more. But all 
 this has its absolute contradiction in the mind. Not 
 even of the ripest scholar can it be said that reason 
 has touched its limit and exhausted its capacity. 
 Contrariwise, each new discovery, each new inven- 
 tion, does but prophesy other achievements and 
 nobler acquirements. To-day's goal is only the 
 starting point of a new journey to-morrow. * * * 
 
The Philosophers 263 
 
 A certain irritating force seems to foretell immor- 
 tality. All growth is through a kind of hidden 
 stimulus. When growth begins, restlessness over- 
 takes the child. Quietude becomes impossible. To 
 condemn the little creature to a chair is a form of 
 exquisite cruelty. Nature needs fresh blood in the 
 extremities for her building processes, and secures it 
 by pricking the child until it runs and jumps. When 
 the period of growth is passed, the restlessness also 
 passes. Similarly, after periods of sickness, with con- 
 valescence comes restlessness, and this restlessness 
 compels the exercise needed for health and strength. 
 But with old age comes quietude; the easy-chair 
 foretells the end. 
 
 A like irritation exists in the mind. A noble dis- 
 content inaugurates each new epoch for man. The 
 soul chafes against its barriers. Sometimes the 
 world seems like a tiny garret on a hot August night, 
 and the heart will smother unless it finds breathing- 
 room in a larger world. * * * As the child's 
 restlessness stimulates exercise, growth and matur- 
 ity, so the aspirations of the heart are preparations 
 for the prophecies of an immortal destiny. 
 
 To-day scientists are interpreting anew the 
 instincts in animals and men. Instincts are nature's 
 prophecies foretelling coming events. * * * We 
 must also reckon with that faculty in man looking 
 forward to immortality. In vain we ransack all 
 nature for a single instance in which nature's 
 
264 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 instincts have deceived insect or bird. Does nature 
 use so great skill in guiding beasts, but become a 
 blunderer in guiding man? 
 
 He who meets the bird's wing with air that bears 
 it up, the fish's fin with water that yields to its move- 
 ment; he who meets the eye with sunlight and 
 beauty, the ear with sweetness and melody, hunger 
 with bread, and thirst with flowing springs, hath 
 filled the soul also with hunger for immortal life, 
 with thirst for eternal love. At times this hunger 
 becomes so great that man could stretch up his 
 hands and "eat the planets like small cakes;" his 
 thirst is so deep that the earth itself is but a small cup 
 for the soul to drink in. Did God give man this 
 infinite hunger only to find afterward that His gen- 
 erosity involved Him in penury, so making it impos- 
 sible to furnish man with bread wherewith to satisfy 
 his hunger? This would make the Infinite to be 
 either poverty stricken or a moral monster. Here 
 millions die in ignorance and millions in sin. The joy 
 of one heart is marred by the anguish of another; the 
 wealth and beauty of one street by the pathetic pov- 
 erty and shame of another; the music of one voice is 
 destroyed by the moans of another. * * * 
 
 Human life is a colossal enigma without immor- 
 tality. The hypothesis of a future life alone can 
 explain man's troubles and solve his mysteries. The 
 inequalities of society baffle all intellects. Bad men 
 rise to the throne, the good are forced to the wall. 
 
The Philosophers 265 
 
 Tyrants dwell in kings' palaces, heroes starve in dun- 
 geons. Often vice wears purple and fine linen; 
 sometimes virtue eats crusts and wears rags. When 
 Dante was denied his vine and fig tree, wicked 
 princes drove in chariots from palaces in the city to 
 villas in the country. Why is it that the heroes of 
 liberty and religion have been hunted like partridges 
 upon the mountains? Tiberius flung his victims 
 over the precipice into the sea. Nero lighted up his 
 garden with blazing martyrs. But these tyrants 
 lived on to the end in splendor, and died on soft 
 rose-beds, as did the murderers of Socrates. Mean- 
 while, where are the patriots of liberty whose lives 
 were one long struggle against tyranny and oppres- 
 sion ? Where are your fathers who sleep at Shiloh 
 and Gettysburg, where the hillsides are all billowy 
 with graves? What about that mound in the forests 
 of Africa where Livingstone fell? If death ends all, 
 what compensation had Savonarola and William the 
 Silent and Lincoln? * * * 
 
 To the suggestion of poet and philosopher must 
 be added the thought of the scientist. If the time 
 was when science doubted or denied, now science 
 has begun to soar with seraphs and to see with 
 saints. Because its instruments are the microscope 
 and the scalpel, physical demonstration is impossible, 
 and science can neither disprove nor affirm. Yet 
 daily, evolution is unfolding new suggestions and 
 discovering strange analogies and intimations of a 
 
266 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 life beyond death. The biologists have traced for 
 us the story of the ascent of the human body. For 
 ages hath Nature been toiling upon the perfection 
 of the hand and the foot and the ear and the eye, 
 and these are now well nigh perfect. At last science 
 affirms that on earth there will never be a higher 
 creation than man. 
 
 The goal toward which Nature hath worked hath 
 been reached, and in developing the mind, Nature 
 is confronted with a stupendous crisis — the arrest of 
 the body. Once man strengthened his eyes by focus- 
 ing them upon stars distant and great, and upon 
 crystals near and tiny. Now the field-glass for the 
 distant ship and the microscope for the tiny crystal, 
 have arrested the growth of the eye. Once man 
 hurled his spear or held his plow. Now the devel- 
 opments of tools have caused the trip-hammer to 
 succeed the arm and bicycle to outrun the foot. The 
 mind hath invented a thousand instruments that 
 now fulfill the duties of the body and hath arrested 
 its growth. Herbert Spencer named Romanes as 
 the disciple who had most thoroughly studied the 
 problems of the mind from the view-point of evolu- 
 tion, and mentioned John Fiske as the ablest expo- 
 nent of the general principles of his synthetic 
 philosophy. But Romanes, moving on from higher 
 to higher, came at last to believe that the evolution 
 of the mind involved the final outgrowth of the 
 body aucl necessitated the casting it off as a physical 
 
The Philosophers 267 
 
 clog no longer helpful. John Fiske also affirms that 
 immortality is the one mighty goal toward which 
 Nature has been working from the very beginning 
 of life. * * * 
 
 He who goes down into the grave is as one who 
 goes down into a great ship to sail away to some 
 rich and historic clime. But a divine form stands 
 upon the prow, a divine hand holds the helm, a 
 divine chart marks the voyage, a divine mind knows 
 where the distant harbor is. In perfect peace the 
 voyager may sing: 
 
 "For though from out our bourne of time and place 
 The Hood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 When I have crost the bar" 
 
Lamaztine. 
 
 Fzee Tzanslation From the Fzench.* 
 Fizst ^Meditations on Immoztalify. 
 
 For me, if I should see in the plains celestial 
 
 The stars varying from their routes immemorial 
 
 And, sticking and clashing in the fields of air 
 
 Running at hazard, and filing heaven ivith despair ; 
 
 If earth itself should break and I could hear her moan, 
 
 And behold her globe wandering and alone 
 
 Float far from the Sun-humanity destroyed 
 
 Until lost in dark fields of eternal void. 
 
 And if, the last witness of funeral scenes so dread, 
 
 By chaos surrounded, the darkness and the dead, 
 
 If all alone I stood ; in spite of the catastrophe, 
 
 Thou being faultless and good, I would hope in Thee ; 
 
 For knowing Thou would'st send the endless dawn at will 
 
 To rise upon the worlds destroyed, I would await Thee still. 
 
 Addzessing Death. 
 
 When my tir'd eye closes to light, thou com'st 
 
 To flood my vision with a purer day ; 
 
 And near to Thee by my faith supported, 
 
 Dreaming on the tomb, Hope opens a world 
 
 To me more beautiful. Come then, thou, come, 
 
 Detach my chains corporeal, and open 
 
 My prison. Appear that I may throw myself at last 
 
 Towards Him who is my beginning and my end. 
 
 — Translated by William Stanley Braithwaite. 
 
 See Pages 211-213, 
 
Patt rv 
 
 The Spiritualists 
 
Ghosts! There are nigh a thousand million of them 
 walking the earth openly at noontide; some half hun- 
 dred have vanished from it, some half hundred have 
 arisen in it, ere thy watch tick one. 
 
 — Carlyle. 
 
 "At some future day it will be proved — I cannot say 
 when and where — that the human soul is, while in 
 earth-life, already in uninterrupted communication 
 with those living in another world; that the human 
 soul can act upon those beings, and receive, in return, 
 impressions of them without being conscious of it in 
 the ordinary personality" 
 
 — Immanuel Kant. 
 
"It (Spiritualism) further demonstrates, by direct 
 evidence as conclusive as the nature of the case admits, 
 that the so-called dead are still alive — that our friends 
 are often with us, though unseen, and can give direct 
 proof of a future life, which so many crave, but for 
 want of which so many live and die in anxious doubt/' 
 — Alfred Russel Wallace, F. R. S. 
 
Oft may the spirits of the dead descend 
 To watch the silent slumbers of a friend; 
 To hover round his evening-walk unseen, 
 And hold sweet converse on the dusky green; 
 To hail the spot where tirst their friendship grew, 
 And heaven and nature opened to their view! 
 Oft, when he trims his cheerful hearth, and sees 
 A smiling circle emulous to please; 
 There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, 
 And bless the scene they loved in life so well! 
 
 — Rogers. 
 
SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 It is said that under Torquemada and his suc- 
 cessor Diego Deza, ten thousand persons — so-called 
 heretics against the Catholic church — were put to 
 death by burning at the stake. That was in Spain; 
 she stood at the head of the nations of the earth in 
 those days and carried the "torch" of civilization. 
 To-day, under Pope Leo XIII, a gentle, upright, 
 noble, and scholarly man, Catholicism numbers a 
 quarter of a billion happy, hopeful and educated 
 devotees. So we will say: there is Catholicism, and 
 Catholicism. 
 
 So, also, we will say: there is Spiritualism, and 
 Spiritualism; there is the false and the true in all 
 things. 
 
 Torquemada was no worse, possibly not nearly 
 so culpable, as Diss de Barr, or a host and myriad of 
 other vampires, bats, harpies and ghouls that to-day 
 prey upon the childish credulity of the millions of 
 unfortunate ones that seek to look beyond the hori- 
 zon, or strive to pierce the veil. The difference be- 
 tween Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, Harrison D. 
 Barrett, Cora L,. V. Richmond and William T. 
 Stead on the one hand; and many, or most of the 
 "professional mediums" on the other, is infinitely 
 
 (273) 
 
274 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 greater than that between the grand and lovable old 
 man Leo XIII and the wholesale murderer and 
 inquisitor, Torquemada. 
 
 Spiritualism in its higher and philosophic aspect 
 is a religion, in its phenomenal aspect it is a science; 
 and that science now happily goes under the tech- 
 nical title of psychical research. If all its phenomena 
 were traced to the mind, conscious or sub-conscious, 
 of living persons as the cause; or to forces, other 
 than those caused by discarnate beings, still Spiritu- 
 alism as against materialism, would stand or fall with 
 the final solution of the question of the immortality 
 of the soul. 
 
 Fifty-five years ago, scientific men like Professor 
 Robert Hare, of Philadelphia; James J. Mapes, of 
 New York; and later, Alfred R. Wallace, Professor 
 Crookes and Mr. Varley, of England; Camille Flam- 
 marion, of France; Professor Zollner, of Germany, 
 and scores of other scientists of note, investigated 
 the physical phenomena of Spiritualism and have 
 uniformly declared that there is no law of material 
 science with which they are familiar that can explain 
 these phenomena; and that they have recourse only 
 to the solution always claimed by the manifesting 
 intelligence, viz: That the source of the phenomena 
 is disembodied spirits working through means and 
 methods entirely unknown in any human science. 
 
 "As the result of the experiments in investigating 
 the phenomena of Spiritualism, made by so many 
 
Spiritualism 275 
 
 eminent scientific men in all parts of the world," 
 says Mrs. Richmond, "there has been but one con- 
 clusion by scientific men, viz: that the cause of the 
 phenomena is immanent (resides in) the phenomena; 
 that both are demonstrated beyond the possibility of 
 a doubt; and that to investigate the physical, mental 
 or intuitional phenomena of Spiritualism separately 
 from the whole subject with a view of ascertaining 
 another cause than that of the action of spirits, is 
 like investigating the phenomena of the light of day 
 with a view of finding another source of light than 
 the sun. 
 
 The essential difference between the spiritualist 
 and the psychical researcher is well formulated by 
 the spiritualists themselves. We quote Mrs. Rich- 
 mond again: 
 
 "From the very first manifestation of the phenom- 
 ena of Spiritualism to the last, the cause or source of 
 ,the phenomena has been as manifest as the phe- 
 nomena. By as intelligent methods as language, 
 signals, or any established system of communication 
 between mind and mind in human states, these spir- 
 itual intelligences have been recognized. Invariably 
 they have declared themselves to be individual spirits 
 who once lived in earth forms, accompanying the 
 declaration by evidences of personal identity entirely 
 separated from and independent of any individual in 
 the earth form at the time of the manifestation. The 
 cause of the phenomena is, therefore, so clearly iden- 
 
276 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 tical with the results as to make a scientific investiga- 
 tion, on the basis of discovering a new cause, entirely 
 impertinent. To ignore the knowledge already 
 gained is totally unscientific as well as illogical. 
 Therefore, all investigations of Spiritualism de novo 
 (from the beginning), claiming, a priori that the 
 source of the manifestations is still unknown, is 
 equivalent to ignoring the whole subject. 
 
 "Spiritualists are by no means tenacious as to 
 terms, and I am perfectly willing to state that to 
 those who pursue the investigation along the lines of 
 exact science there is the fullest appreciation of their 
 work: but the majority of spiritualists, in viewing 
 the whole subject, consider that it is beyond the 
 realm of exact science and within the realm of 
 revealed or intuitional knowledge " 
 
 It will be interesting to note that the two chief 
 exponents of Spiritualism in the United States, Har- 
 rison D. Barrett, editor of "The Banner of Light," 
 the oldest and foremost spiritualistic publication in 
 the world, and Mrs. Cora L,. V. Richmond, the 
 noted lecturer, both confine themselves largely in 
 their contributions to this symposium, to the philo- 
 sophical aspect of Spiritualism. 
 
 For many millions, Spiritualism has bridged the 
 chasm, has spanned the gulf, has solved the question 
 )f life after death. 
 
The Spiritualists. 
 
 CORA L V. RICHMOND 
 
 I feel greatly honored in being associated by you 
 with eminent thinkers on the subject of all others 
 that I regard the most important to the human race, 
 and upon the real solution of which depends the 
 entire value of human life, namely: the evidence of 
 the Immortality of the Soul (and, therefore, the 
 personal identity of the spirit after death). 
 
 I regard the evidences of future continued exist- 
 ence as threefold: 
 
 First, The evidence of intuition, a priori knowl- 
 edge from within the soul, evidenced by the long- 
 ing for immortality. 
 
 Second, The evidences of Inspiration : — Revealed 
 Religion and accompanying "Spiritual Gifts." 
 
 Third, The evidences of Manifestations, variously 
 known in the world to-day as "Spiritual," "Psychic," 
 or by whatever terms the great accumulation of 
 modern facts and thoughts through investigation on 
 this subject is known. 
 
 With your permission, I will take the last named 
 classification first. This must essentially be the evi- 
 dence received from what is known in the world as 
 
 (277) 
 
278 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 "Modern Spiritualism." A movement, manifestly, 
 originating in the unseen realm, and having for its 
 instrumentalities for manifestation humble children 
 and people of neither worldly position nor scientific 
 eminence. Yet the manifestations so occurring 
 challenged in the first two decades of their existence 
 the inquiry of such minds as Dr. Alfred Russel Wal- 
 lace, Sir William Crookes and Mr. Varley, of Eng- 
 land; Prof. Robert Hare, Prof. J. J. Mapes, Hon. 
 J. W. Edmonds, Prof. William Denton, and scores 
 of others eminent in letters and science. The result 
 being that in every instance of careful investigation 
 these men became convinced of the spiritual (non- 
 human) origin of the phenomena, and that the 
 "Mediums" were instruments for conveying the evi- 
 dence of a future life of personal identity to man. 
 During the last twenty years, and notably the 
 decade just passed, another generation of scientific 
 men have taken up this investigation, arriving at 
 similar results. By far the strongest argument in 
 this connection is that certain phenomena do occur 
 in the presence, but not by the co-operation — vol- 
 untary or otherwise — of the "Media" or "Sensi- 
 tives." That in every instance the claim is that the 
 message proceeds from a Spirit who was formerly a 
 denizen of this earth in mortal form: That in large 
 majority of cases this personal identity is proven by 
 such facts as would be taken in a court of justice, 
 or in any scientific research. That theology, sci- 
 
The Spiritualists 279 
 
 ence and ordinary human investigations have failed 
 utterly to successfully account for the phenomena in 
 any other manner than that claimed in the manifes- 
 tations themselves. That a stupendous movement 
 has been the result, pressing the world forward to 
 admit a demonstration of future existence entirely 
 separated from religious or theological fanaticism or 
 excitement, and including physical, mental and psy- 
 chical results of a most astonishing nature. 
 
 To the reasoning mind that which is in the world 
 to-day under the name of Spiritualism (having as its 
 outgrowth psychic research and kindred names) is, 
 without any other proof, quite sufficient to establish 
 the evidence of a continued existence of the individ- 
 ual spirit beyond the change called death. 
 
 Second among the evidences of immortality are 
 the "Inspirations" of every age. Not only in the 
 sacred books: — Vedas, Shastas, Korans and Bibles 
 of all nations, — but in the visions of seers and 
 prophets, and the teachings of sages, and of people, 
 who in passing away from earth, have visions. In 
 all such visions the Spirit and Angels appear in 
 human form, and many times bear the countenances 
 of friends who are recognized by the seers. This 
 almost universal (in point of human history) experi- 
 ence cannot be ignored, especially when accom- 
 panied by such evidence as the existence of similar 
 gifts in the world to-day. A repetition of the "Gifts 
 of the Spirit" under the distinct ministration of 
 
280 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 individual intelligences that have passed from earth 
 completes a chain of proof extending into every age 
 and found to have existed among all people. Phil- 
 osophers, as well as "prophets" and "seers," have 
 taught a future existence; among which the teach- 
 ings of Plato and his teacher, Socrates, are too well 
 known to require other than the following well 
 known quotation from the dialogue between Plato 
 and Cato: 
 
 "It must be so, Plato, thou reason' st well, 
 Else why this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 This longing after immortality? 
 Or whence this secret dread, this inward horror, 
 Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul 
 Back on herself and startles at destruction? 
 
 3 Tis the divinity that stirs within us; 
 
 'Tis Heaven itself that points out an hereafter, 
 And intimates Eternity to man." 
 
 This leads to a return to the first proposition: The 
 evidence of intuition or the faculty through which 
 the mind is enabled to perceive the evidence given. 
 Nature — including soul-nature — never stultifies 
 itself. The faculty to perceive anything (or thought) 
 presumes the existence of the thing (or thought) to 
 be perceived. The existence of sight presupposes 
 something to see and light by which to see it; the 
 same with every sense. Yet we well know that every 
 sense would be valueless but for the cognition of 
 the mind. Ability or faculty to cognate spiritual 
 
The Spiritualists. 281 
 
 existence — mind separate from the body — must be 
 conclusive evidence of such an existence. And I 
 maintain that the possession of such a faculty or per- 
 ception, with all its correlated faculties is prima facie 
 evidence of a future life, even if there had never been 
 a traveler returning from that bourne. But in this 
 utilitarian and "practical" age men turn to the evi- 
 dence of the senses and of the mind, and we must 
 return to proposition number three, as being that 
 upon which rests in modern thought the evidence 
 of a future life. Facts being "stubborn things," 
 science, philosophy and religion bend ultimately to 
 the facts that illustrate the ever existent Truths of 
 the universe. 
 
 My own experiences, extending from the age of 
 ten years to the present time, of open vision and 
 communion with the spiritual realm, place this sub- 
 ject beyond the plane of possible doubt, and I must 
 claim to write as one who has knowledge of a future 
 life for each individual human spirit, and, therefore, 
 of the Immortality of the Soul. 
 
 DR. J. M. PEEBLES 
 
 Your favor reached me yesterday, and I hasten to 
 reply. You see by date of this that I am in Mel- 
 bourne, Australia, spending the winter here to avoid 
 the intense cold of our American northlands. This is 
 my fourth journey around the world. 
 
282 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 In regard to Spiritualism, or the demonstration of 
 a future life through the phenomena of Spiritualism, 
 I confess that I hardly know where to commence, 
 having been a spiritualist for over fifty years, and 
 having been personally acquainted with fully three 
 thousand mediums, no two of which having pre- 
 cisely the same spiritual gifts, qualitatively and quan- 
 titatively. The phenomena appearing through many 
 of these with my own psychic mediumship, gives me 
 a positive demonstration of a future conscious exist- 
 ence. To me, belief has been merged into knowl- 
 edge, and faith into fruition. I walk and talk almost 
 daily with the residents of the unseen world. 
 
 WM. T. STEAD 
 
 Of immortality I say nothing. That cannot, from 
 the nature of things, be demonstrated. But of a life 
 after death — a life in which those who live on this 
 side of the grave retain their identity in the other 
 world — that may yet be demonstrated by tests as 
 exact and as conclusive as any of which the science 
 of psychology admits. The evidence and experi- 
 ments of the Psychical Research Society have 
 already shattered, for one at least of our acutest 
 scientific minds, all purely materialistic hypotheses. 
 
 When dust returns to dust and ashes to ashes, the 
 ego lives on; the personal identity, the conscious- 
 ness of the individual, does not seem to be even 
 momentarily impaired. It does not seem to be too 
 
The Spiritualists 283 
 
 bold a speculation to believe that the patient meth- 
 ods of inductive science, the careful examination of 
 evidence, and the repeatedly renewed experiments 
 of investigators will before long completely re-estab- 
 lish the failing belief in the reality of the world 
 beyond the grave, and leave us with as little room 
 for doubt as to the existence of the spirit after death 
 as we have now for doubting the existence of Behr- 
 ing Straits or of the Pyramids. 
 
 It is possible that this bringing of life and immor- 
 tality to light, or at least the establishment of 
 the certainty of a future life upon impregnable sci- 
 entific foundations, may seem to some by no 
 means an unmixed blessing. To many it would 
 undoubtedly add a new terror to death. The 
 thought of a prolonged existence in a more spir- 
 itual sphere where you would witness the work- 
 ing out of the dread consequences of the breach 
 of laws and of the neglect of responsibilities, is 
 often anything but attractive to the mind of man. 
 To rest, and that forever, even in the grave, seems 
 sometimes the boon of boons. (The human mind 
 cannot conceive of profound rest or sleep with- 
 out its accompaniment or complement, refreshing 
 awakening ; and the more profound the rest, the 
 more refreshing the awakening. — Editor.) It would 
 seem to be an unattainable one. For if the testi- 
 monies of many credible witnesses may be believed, 
 there is no death. The form — the vesture — perishes, 
 
284 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 but the soul, the ego, the essential principle, lives 
 on. Revelation has always affirmed this. 
 
 It seems as if science were once more to vindicate 
 her claim to be regarded- as the handmaid of relig- 
 ion by affording conclusive demonstration of its 
 reality. Whether we like this or dislike it is imma- 
 terial. The supreme question is, What is the truth? 
 And whatever drawbacks there may be to the theory 
 of the future life, there is at least one enormous com- 
 pensating advantage in knowing that the accounts 
 between man and his Maker are not finally closed 
 when he ceases to breathe on earth, and that the 
 Almighty has still the infinite expanse of eternity in 
 which to vindicate the justice of His dealings with 
 every human soul. 
 
 (Mr Stead, the founder and editor of "The Review 
 of Reviews," a man of intense activity, a scholar and 
 public man of the widest versatility, has, since writ- 
 ing the above, become what may be said to be a 
 thorough convert to the belief of spiritism. In 
 response to the letter of inquiry printed in the pre- 
 face to this book, I received from Mr. Stead an 
 autograph copy of his little volume — "Letters from 
 Julia." This book is composed of a series of com- 
 munications received by himself and through his 
 own "mediumship" from a deceased friend. In 
 speaking of his convictions, he says :) 
 
 "I feel it impossible to resist the conclusion that 
 
 these communications are what they profess to be — 
 
 real letters from the real Julia, who is not dead, but 
 
 gone before. I know, after five years' almost daily 
 
The Spiritualists 285 
 
 intercourse with her through my automatic hand, 
 that I am conversing with an intelligence at least as 
 keen as my own, a personality as distinctly defined 
 and a friend as true and tender as I have ever known. 
 From those who scout the possibility of such a phe- 
 nomenon I would merely ask the admission that in 
 this case their favorite theory of intentional fraud, at 
 least on the part of the medium, is excluded by the 
 fact that these messages were written by my own 
 right hand, no other visible person being present. 
 No one who knows anything of the prejudice that 
 exists on the subject will deny that I have no per- 
 sonal interest to serve in taking up the exceedingly 
 unpopular and much-ridiculed position of a believer 
 in the reality of such communications. For years I 
 have labored under a serious disadvantage on this 
 account in many ways, both private and public. 
 
 "I am well aware that my position in these matters 
 will be employed against me, in order to discount 
 and discredit everything I may say or do for years 
 to come. This is unfortunate, no doubt, but of 
 course it cannot be weighed in the balance com- 
 pared with the importance of testifying to what I 
 believe to be the truth." 
 
 PROF. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE 
 
 The ultimate decision of this question, whether in 
 the negative or affirmative, is not only of vital inter- 
 est to each of us individually, but is calculated, I 
 
286 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 believe, to determine the future welfare or misery of 
 mankind. If the question should be finally decided 
 in the negative — if all men without exception ever 
 come to believe that there is no life beyond this life, 
 if children are all brought up to believe that the only 
 happiness they can ever enjoy will be upon this earth 
 — then, it seems to me, that the condition of man 
 would be altogether hopeless, because there would 
 cease to be any adequate motive for justice, for 
 truth, for unselfishness, and no sufficient reason 
 could be given to the poor man, to the bad man, or 
 to the selfish man why he should not systematically 
 seek his own personal welfare at the cost of others. 
 
 The well-being of the race in the distant future, 
 set before us by some philosophers, would not cer- 
 tainly influence the majority of men, more especially 
 as the universal teaching of science is, that the entire 
 race, with the world it inhabits, must sooner or later 
 come to an end. "The greatest good to the greatest 
 number," that noble ideal of many philosophers, 
 would never be admitted as a motive for action by 
 those who are seeking their own personal welfare. 
 The scoffing question, "What has posterity done for 
 us?" which influences many men even now, would 
 then be thought to justify universal self-seeking, 
 utterly regardless of what might happen to those 
 who come afterward. Even now, notwithstanding 
 the hereditary influences, the religious belief and 
 religious training in which our characters have been 
 
The Spiritualists 287 
 
 molded, selfishness is far too prevalent. When these 
 influences cease altogether, when under total incre- 
 dulity, and with no influences whatever leading men 
 to self-development as a means of permanent happi- 
 ness, the inevitable result will be that might alone 
 would make right, and the weakest would always 
 and inevitably go to the wall, and that the unbridled 
 passions of the strongest and most selfish men 
 would dominate the world. 
 
 Such a hell upon earth as would thus be brought 
 about will happily never exist, because it would be 
 founded upon a falsehood, and because there are 
 causes now at work which forbid a disbelief in man's 
 spiritual nature, and his continued existence after 
 death. * * * 
 
 In the midst of this present century world of 
 thought, a world which is either grossly materialistic 
 or pantheistic or idealistic, Modern Spiritualism has 
 fallen like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, emphatic- 
 ally demonstrating the action of mind without any 
 material mind, and the exertion of force without any 
 material body, and that by means of a vast amount 
 of constantly recurring facts which have forced 
 themselves upon all classes — men of science, men of 
 business, men of religion. It is in the most material 
 epoch of the world's history, in the midst of a society 
 which prides itself on discarding all superstition and 
 basing its belief on the solid foundation of physical 
 science, that this new and unwelcome visitor has 
 
288 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 intruded itself and maintained a vigorous existence 
 for nearly fifty years; has made its way into every 
 civilized country in the world, has an extensive lit- 
 erature, a large number of papers and hundreds of 
 organized societies, counts its converts by millions in 
 all kinds of society, among the crowned heads and 
 aristocracy, and those who occupy the highest ranks 
 in science, literature and philosophy, as well as 
 among the masses, while in hosts of individual cases 
 it has done what no religion has been able to do — 
 convinced the skeptic and the agnostic and the hard- 
 faced materialist of the reality of a spiritual world 
 and of a future life. 
 
 Considerable acquaintance with the history and 
 literature of this movement — in which I have myself 
 taken part for thirty-five years — has failed to show 
 me one single case in which any man who, after 
 careful inquiry, has become convinced of the truth 
 and reality of the spiritual phenomena, has after- 
 wards discredited them or regarded them as impos- 
 ture or delusion. And it must be remembered that 
 as a rule all educated, and especially all scientific 
 men, come to the investigation of this subject with a 
 very strong prejudice against it, as being almost cer- 
 tainly based on credulity and fraud, which they will 
 easily detect and expose. This was the frame of 
 mind with which the inquiry was begun by Professor 
 Hare, the first American chemist of his day; by the 
 Hon. Robert Dale Owen, a most intellectual and 
 
The Spiritualists 289 
 
 philosophical materialist; by Mr. Crookes, one of the 
 first chemists of the present age, and by scores of 
 others that might be named. These men all devoted 
 not a few hours, or days, or even weeks, to a hasty 
 examination of the subject, but many years of 
 patient inquiry and experiment, with the result in 
 every case that the more thoroughly the subject was 
 inquired into, the more able and intelligent the 
 inquiries, the more seriously did its foundation facts 
 and main doctrine become established. 
 
 Its whole course and history, therefore, pro- 
 claimed it to be neither imposture nor delusion, nor 
 the survival of the beliefs of savages, but a great and 
 all-important truth. 
 
 The phenomena may be broadly divided into two 
 groups: physical and mental. The former, however, 
 as well as the latter, almost always imply the action 
 of mind in their production. In the first division we 
 have simply physical phenomena, and among which 
 must be grouped an immense variety of effects, such 
 as sounds of all kinds, from the most delicate tick up 
 to blows as loud and vibratory as those produced by 
 a sledge hammer, and certainly not produced by 
 human agency. Then we have the alteration of the 
 weight of bodies, which has often been tested. We 
 have the phenomena of articles of various kinds 
 being moved without human agency, such as chairs, 
 tables and musical instruments. More curious is the 
 conveying of bodies to a distance; flowers and fruits 
 
290 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 are the most common of these, but also other bodies, 
 such as letters and various small objects have been 
 conveyed long distances — sometimes several miles. 
 
 Further, we have that curious phenomenon which 
 is recorded more or less throughout history, the rais- 
 ing or levitation of human bodies into the air and 
 sometimes conveying them a considerable distance. 
 More remarkable by far than these, because beyond 
 all human power to produce, is the tying of knots on 
 endless cords, the taking of coins out of sealed 
 boxes, and the passage of solid rings over a body far 
 too large for them to pass over by any natural 
 means. All these things have happened in the pres- 
 ence of careful scientists and their assistants; I have 
 frequently myself seen, in good light, sticks and 
 handkerchiefs pass through a curtain, yet an exam- 
 ination of the curtain immediately afterward did not 
 show any changes in it whatever. 
 
 Then we have physical phenomena combined 
 with mental phenomena, such as direct writing and 
 drawing. This is now such a general phenomenon 
 that almost everyone may have an opportunity of 
 testing for himself. It appears in an infinite variety 
 of ways. Papers thrown upon the floor and taken 
 up a few minutes afterward are found to be written 
 upon; spirit writing comes upon the ceiling in inac- 
 cessible places. There is also that which occurs in 
 closed slates, and often in the presence and under 
 the hand of the person witnessing it. Then there is 
 
The Spiritualists 291 
 
 a set of phenomena which may be termed musical 
 phenomena. Musical instruments are played; some- 
 times locked and closed pianos are played. I have 
 seen a music box which played and ceased playing at 
 a person's request. One of the most remarkable phe- 
 nomena, and which has been seen by tens of thou- 
 sands of persons, was the playing upon an accordion 
 held in one hand, the keys being touched and played 
 upon by invisible hands, producing most beautiful 
 music. 
 
 We have chemical phenomena. Chief among 
 these is that of protection from the effects of fire. 
 Mr. D. D. Home, deceased now some years — and 
 perhaps the most remarkable medium that ever lived 
 — used to take from a grate a brilliant, red-hot mass 
 of coals, carry them about the room in his hands, 
 and by his peculiar power indicate certain persons 
 who were able to have them placed in their hands, 
 and placing them there they would experience no 
 unpleasant results. 
 
 Another set of phenomena still more marvelous is 
 called materialization, or the production of temporal 
 spiritual forms out of surrounding matter. Mr. 
 Crookes tested these phenomena many years ago 
 and published the results. (See page 73.) The exam- 
 ination was critical, and carefully carried on for 
 weeks together in his own house, in his own labora- 
 tory, with all his own methods. These figures were 
 photographed, weighed and measured; he did every- 
 
292 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 thing that a scientific man could possibly do, and he 
 has declared that, absolutely and positively, they are 
 real existences — spiritual existences, because they 
 are only temporary; they come and pass away again. 
 The most perfect scientific test of the reality of these 
 manifestations you can possibly have, is the power 
 of photographing these forms. 
 
 Another marvelous phenomenon is that of the pro- 
 duction of casts of hands and feet, and even faces of 
 these temporarily formed spiritual beings. These 
 casts were made in melted paraffine. Paraffine is 
 melted in a large quantity of boiling water, and the 
 hands have to be dipped into the melted paraffine, 
 and then are taken out and left floating in another 
 vessel of cold water beside it. These molds are 
 found entire, so that the aperture at the wrist is 
 much smaller than the hand. Certainly no human 
 hand could come out of it. Keet have been formed 
 in the same way, which must have been accom- 
 plished by some unseen power. 
 
 Now we come to mental phenomena. They con- 
 sist, first, of what is termed automatic — that is, writ- 
 ing clone by the hands of persons against their will 
 or without their will; done involuntarily — the matter 
 that is written is not known to them. (See Prof. J. 
 H. Hyslop, page 156.) We have every kind of writ- 
 ing produced in this way. 
 
 Then another set of phenomena is termed clair- 
 voyance and clairaudience ; the seeing of spirits and 
 
The Spiritualists 293 
 
 the hearing of spirits. Persons having this power 
 are able to describe what they see and describe the 
 words they hear in such a manner that the friends of 
 these spiritual persons are able to easily recognize 
 them. Sometimes these persons are able to give 
 information of what is going on at a distance. 
 
 Then another of these curious mental phenomena 
 is trance-speaking. There are mediums now in all 
 parts of the world who have this wonderful faculty. 
 (Notably Mrs. Thompson, see Prof. Van Eeden, 
 page 128.) There is also a remarkable power con- 
 nected with this trance-speaking, which many medi- 
 ums have, the power of impersonation, or it may 
 almost be called transfiguration. The medium seems 
 taken possession of by another person, and acts the 
 character so perfectly in voice and manner, and 
 sometimes even in change of countenance, that he 
 or she resembles the person who wishes to manifest, 
 and is recognized by that person's friends. Some- 
 times persons in this state are able to hold conversa- 
 tion with others who speak a language of which they 
 have no knowledge themselves. 
 
 Now we have a series of distinct classes of phe- 
 nomena — great roots of phenomena, each of which 
 includes an enormous variety of separate phenom- 
 ena, often varying from each other. These occur 
 with mediums who are of all ages and conditions, 
 educated and ignorant, young girls and boys, as well 
 as grown men and women. * * * 
 
294 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 In view of the numerous men who have investi- 
 gated this matter and given their decision, we may 
 entirely throw aside the idea that imposture, only in 
 slight measure, has produced these phenomena; 
 they seem to me to have the striking characteristics 
 of natural phenomena as opposed to artificial phe- 
 nomena; they have the character of general uniform- 
 ity of type, coupled with variety of detail. In every 
 country of the world, whether in America or 
 Europe, or Australia, whether i England or France 
 or Spain or Russia, we find the phenomena of the 
 same general type, while individual differences 
 among them show that they are not servilely copied 
 one from the other. Whether the mediums are men 
 or women, boys or girls, or even in some cases 
 infants, whether educated or ignorant, whether, even 
 they are civilized or savage, we find the same gen- 
 eral phenomena occurring in the very same degree 
 of perfection. 
 
 We conclude, then, that the phenomena are nat- 
 ural phenomena; that they are produced under the 
 actions of the general laws which determine the 
 inter-relations of the spiritual and material worlds, 
 and are thus in accord with the established order of 
 nature. 
 
 They are from beginning to end essentially human. 
 They come to us with human actions, with human 
 ideas; they make use of human speech, of writing 
 and drawing; they manifest wit and logic, humor 
 
The Spiritualists 295 
 
 and pathos, that we all can appreciate and enjoy; 
 the communications vary in character as those of 
 human beings; some rank with the lowest, some 
 with the very highest, but all are essentially human. 
 
 Coming to the special point of the identity of 
 spirits with deceased human beings, the evidence is 
 abundant. I will mention a case illustrative of this 
 point, taken from my own personal experience: I 
 had a brother with whom I spent seven years of my 
 early life. He died more than fifty years ago. This 
 brother before I was with him had a friend in Lon- 
 don whose name was William Martin; my brother's 
 name was William Wallace. I did not know his 
 friend's name was William, because he always spoke 
 of him as Martin. I knew nothing more. Attend- 
 ing a seance in the city of Washington, D. C, I 
 received, to my great astonishment, a message to 
 this effect: "I am William Martin; I write for my 
 old friend, William Wallace, to tell you that he will, 
 on another occasion when he can, communicate 
 with you." I am perfectly certain that only one 
 other person in America knew of the relations 
 between my brother and Martin, or knew my broth- 
 er's name, and that was my brother in California. I 
 am perfectly certain that no person in the East could 
 possibly have known either one name or the other. 
 Therefore it seems to me that this was a most 
 remarkable proof of identity. * * * 
 
 Spiritualism demonstrates the existence of forms 
 
296 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 of matter and modes of being which are unaccept- 
 able from the standpoint of mere physical science. 
 It shows us that mind may exist without brain, 
 and disconnected from any material body that we 
 can detect, and it destroys the presumption against 
 our continued existence after the physical body is 
 disorganized or destroyed. It further demonstrates, 
 by direct evidence as conclusive as the nature of the 
 case admits, that the so-called dead are still alive — 
 that our friends are often with us, though unseen, 
 and can give direct proof of a future life, which so 
 many crave, but for want of which so many live and 
 die in anxious doubt. 
 
 B. B. KINGSBURY 
 
 I feel that I shall make a very poor statement of 
 the reasons which induce me to believe. I have a 
 firm conviction of the fact of a future individual life 
 (any other kind of life would be worse than annihi- 
 lation, in my opinion). 
 
 I was led early in my college career to investigate 
 so-called mediumship with a conviction that "there 
 was something in it," but what exactly it was, was a 
 problem to be solved in the oncoming time. Mean- 
 whil I ran the usual course of religious belief, then 
 agnosticism verging to materialism as the most rea- 
 sonable view of the physical universe, its phenomena 
 and the phenomena of life generally. 
 
 The death of a daughter at the age of twenty set 
 
The Spiritualists 297 
 
 me off again to wondering if the manifestation of life 
 in her — a brilliant girl, endowed with intellectual fac- 
 ulties of a very high order, and with a most affection- 
 ate disposition, with a keen artistic sense, love and 
 talent for music — was a mere gleam of a few years, 
 or whether it in fact endured beyond the change 
 called death. My wife used a dial-planchette for 
 some time and obtained some very marvelous evi- 
 dences of a persistence of her individual life, but of 
 course the limits of such a manifestation were such 
 as to discourage the use after awhile, and a resort 
 to mediums in Chicago and elsewhere brought with 
 it a mixture of conviction and doubt with doubt 
 preponderating largely, and some fraudulent man- 
 ifestations seemed to place my wife especially in 
 the position of a doubter, I still retaining the tenta- 
 tive hypothesis that the things I had seen and expe- 
 rienced were best explained on the spiritualistic 
 theory of continuity of individual life beyond the 
 grave, survival of the soul-part of man, and of course 
 the existence of the soul as a concomitant of the 
 human being. 
 
 I shall not attempt to enumerate the many things 
 I have seen and experienced on this line, as it would 
 serve no useful purpose. I have become a member 
 of the London Society for Psychical Research and 
 have just read the exhaustive work of Professor 
 Hyslop and with it have reviewed the earlier num- 
 bers of the Proceedings of the Society, and must say 
 
298 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 that any person reading these reports of sittings 
 with Mrs. Piper in this country and in England with 
 an open mind, a mind unaffected by parti-pris or 
 prejudice, must confess that the conclusions to 
 which Hyslop, Lodge, Myers and others have come 
 is the only one satisfying all conditions. 
 
 The phenomena of hypnotism, mind-reading, tel- 
 epathy, thought-transference, clairvoyance, clairau- 
 dience, especially forms of "Vue a la distance" or 
 "Fernsehen" of Carl Du Prel seem to me to indi- 
 cate a power that the mere brain substance would be 
 incapable of producing, but these are mere matters 
 of evidence "tending,'' as lawyers would say, to the 
 establishment of this most important conclusion of 
 the continuity of individual life after the brain has 
 ceased to be of any value as an instrument aiding in 
 the work of producing this class of phenomena. 
 
 I have been much encouraged by such works as 
 Aksakoff's "Animismus and Spiritismus," many of 
 Carl Du Prel's works, Crookes' brochure, Wallace's 
 views, the very wonderful case of Mollie Fancher, 
 the automatic communications of Mrs. Underwood 
 — with whom and her gifted husband, B. F., I am 
 personally acquainted — and originals of the writings 
 I have seen at their house. 
 
 I am bound under the circumstances to believe 
 that these people, with good intellects and of honest 
 purposes, have fairly stated the facts on which they 
 base their convictions, and I am personally satisfied 
 
The Spiritualists 299 
 
 of the objectivity of ghosts and apparitions from 
 both personal experiences and the statements of 
 such scientific men as Crookes, Wallace, Judge 
 Edmonds, Professors Mapes, Hare, Richet, Weber, 
 Zollner, and others too numerous to mention here. 
 
 I have no sort of belief founded on the "Reason- 
 ings of Plato" and his school, nor any of the argu- 
 ments of almost universal belief in a future life, 
 though I might find something to say about Andrew 
 Lang's theory of the origin of religions, as the ghost 
 theory, and especially the almost universal preva- 
 lence of the phenomena called spiritualistic, witch- 
 craft, etc., in all ages and among all sorts of people 
 as stated in his "Cock- Lane and Common Sense." 
 
 Only such work as the S. P. R. has been doing 
 and is still engaged in doing can bring at last convic- 
 tion to thinking, reasonable men, of the fact of an 
 individual, conscious existence after death. 
 
 HARRISON D. BARRETT 
 
 Responding to your request for a statement with 
 regard to life beyond the grave, permit me to say in 
 brief that my position is this: 
 
 That life alone furnishes an explanation for life. 
 That I find life in every physical atom so-called, 
 which to me is but a product of combined life forces 
 to visualize the same to our outward sense. Infinite 
 life, therefore, is the foundation of my philosophy. 
 With that as a working hypothesis, the immortality 
 
300 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 of the soul is logically deducible and the continuity 
 of life beyond the grave provable by science. Man's 
 yearning for greater and greater attainments, his 
 desire to fulfill the highest and complete conception 
 of his mind could also assure me that there must be 
 another state in which he can find opportunities to 
 perfect himself, because infinite life is, all the chil- 
 dren of men are, and because infinite life is eternal in 
 duration, so must the children of infinite life be 
 co-existing with their parent. Spirit return is 
 provable by induction and deduction, as life is the 
 eternal essence in every man's soul and is forever 
 giving for its own. Such being the case, there can 
 be no possible barrier placed between a loving soul 
 excarnate and its mate or dear one incarnate in the 
 flesh. I hold that these postulates are certainly logi- 
 cal and that they are based upon sound common 
 sense. 
 
 ARTHUR J. RUSSELL 
 
 If inductive proof of a future life is required, I 
 know nothing better than "The Experiences of 
 Stainton Moses" (see Proceedings Society for Psy- 
 chical Research); D. D. Home's "Incidents in My 
 Life," London, 1863, or the little book published 
 anonymously in Boston, called "Light on the Hid- 
 den Way," written by Mrs. Catherine Paine Sutton. 
 
 Personally, I rely more on an experience of my 
 own, deductive in its nature, because it was a kind 
 
The Spiritualists 30 1 
 
 of "illumination" on the subject, similar to those col- 
 lected by Dr. J. M. Bucke of London, Ont, in his 
 book called "The Cosmic Consciousness." The 
 matter is so very personal that it is difficult to tell it 
 in a series of letters designed for publication, but it 
 threw a flood of light on the subject for me, when I 
 presume it would have little evidential weight to 
 another mind. By a sudden and clear illumination, 
 while I was walking on the street, I saw that "all 
 was good" and that there had been in reality no 
 death, but only another step in the steady progress 
 of the soul in its march upward. I know this does 
 not mean much only to the one who experiences it, 
 but I give it in the barest outline for what it may be 
 worth. 
 
 DR. ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS 
 
 (It may well be said as a brief prelude to the 
 expressions here following, that Andrew Jackson 
 Davis, better than Tennyson, Emerson or the sev- 
 eral recognized philosophers and seers of recent 
 times, foreshadowed with most wonderful accuracy 
 the evolution and discoveries of the race during the 
 past half century. He pointed the way to the now 
 universally accepted theory of evolution, to the 
 growth and future of electricity — in telegraphy, tel- 
 ephony, wireless telegraphy, etc., — to the discov- 
 eries in chemistry, light, biology, and the various 
 branches of the natural sciences. 
 
 The great researches made by Darwin, Wallace, 
 Haeckel and other noted naturalists in the field of 
 natural history and biology tend with remarkable 
 
302 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 unanimity to prove that the purpose of the world's 
 existence, so far as we can comprehend it, from a 
 physical standpoint, is for the development of the 
 individual man, and especially of his individuality. 
 For among the billion and a half of persons on the 
 earth, no two are alike physically; and mentally or 
 spiritually the difference is still greater. — Editor.) 
 
 The philosophy of death is the philosophy of 
 change; not of change in the constitution or person- 
 ality of the individual, but of change in the situation 
 of the human spiritual principle; which, instead of 
 being situated in an earthly body, is placed in a spir- 
 itual organization; and, instead of living among the 
 objects and personalities of the planet upon which 
 the individual spirit was born, its situation is so 
 altered as to fit it to live amidst more beauteous 
 forms and in higher societies. 
 
 Believe not, that what is called death is a final 
 termination to human existence, nor that the change 
 is so thorough and entire as to alter and destroy the 
 constitutional peculiarities of the individual; but 
 believe equitably, that death causes as much altera- 
 tion in the condition of the individual as the bursting 
 of a rosebud causes in the situation and condition of 
 the flower. Death is, therefore, only an event — 
 only a circumstance — in the eternal life and experi- 
 ence of the human soul. 
 
 In other language, death is simply a birth into a 
 new and more perfect state of existence. Nature, 
 which is the only true and unchangeable revelation 
 
The Spiritualists. 303 
 
 of the Divine mind, is replete with the most beauti- 
 ful and demonstrative analogies, or with universal 
 processes which perfectly correspond to the phe- 
 nomena of physical dissolution. Everything is being 
 incessantly "born again," or changed from one state 
 of being into another; and this change is accom- 
 panied, accomplished, and confirmed, by traditional 
 movements or processes which mankind term death. 
 
 And this is but a door which opens into new and 
 more perfect existence. It is a Triumphal Arch 
 through which man's immortal spirit passes at the 
 moment of leaving the outer world to depart to a 
 higher, a sublimer, a more magnificent country. 
 And there is really nothing more painful or repul- 
 sive in the natural process of dying (that which is 
 not induced by disease or accident) than there is in 
 passing into a quiet, pleasant, and dreamless slum- 
 ber. The truthfulness of this proposition is remark- 
 ably illustrated and confirmed by the following 
 observations and investigation into the physiologi- 
 cal and psychological phenomena of death, which I 
 was qualified to make upon the person of a dis- 
 eased individual at the moment of physical dissolu- 
 tion. The patient was a female about sixty years of 
 age. 
 
 When the hour of her death arrived, I was for- 
 tunately in a proper state of body and mind to 
 induce the superior condition (clairvoyant trance 
 state. See Prof. Alfred Russel Wallace, page 292). 
 
304 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 I saw that the physical organization could no longer 
 subserve the requirements of the spiritual prin- 
 ciple. But the various internal organs of the body 
 appeared to resist the withdrawal of the animating 
 soul. * * * The body and the soul, like two 
 friends, strongly resisted the various circumstances 
 which rendered their eternal separation imperative 
 and absolute. These internal conflicts gave rise to 
 manifestations of what seemed to be, to the material 
 senses, the most thrilling and painful sensations; but 
 I was unspeakably thankful and delighted when I 
 perceived and realized the fact that those physical 
 manifestations were indications, not of pain or 
 unhappiness, but simply that the spirit was eternally 
 dissolving its copartnership with the material organ- 
 ism. 
 
 Now the head of the body became suddenly envel- 
 oped in a fine, soft, mellow, luminous atmosphere; 
 and, as instantly I saw the cerebrum and the cerebel- 
 lum expand their most interior portions; I saw them 
 discontinue their appropriate galvanic functions; 
 and then I saw that they became highly charged 
 with the vital electricity and vital magnetism that 
 permeate subordinate systems and structures. That 
 is to say, the brain, as a whole, suddenly declared 
 itself to be ten-fold more positive over the lesser 
 portions of the body than it ever was during the 
 period of health. This phenomenon invariably pre- 
 cedes physical dissolution. 
 
The Spiritualists 305 
 
 Now the process of dying, or of the spirit's 
 departure from the body, was fully commenced. The 
 brain began to attract the elements of electricity, of 
 magnetism, of motion, of life and of sensation, 
 into its various and numerous departments. The 
 head became intensely brilliant; and I particularly 
 remarked that just in the same proportion as the 
 extremities of the organism grew dark, and cold, the 
 brain appeared light and glowing. 
 
 Now I saw, in the mellow, spiritual atmosphere, 
 which emanated from, and encircled her head, 
 the indistinct outlines of the formation of another 
 head. * * * This new head unfolded more and 
 more distinctly; and so indescribably compact and 
 intensely brilliant did it become, that I could neither 
 see through it nor gaze upon it as steadily as I 
 desired. While this spiritual head was being elimi- 
 nated and organized out of and above the material 
 head, I saw that the surrounding aromal atmosphere 
 which had emanated from the material head was in 
 great commotion; but as the new head became more 
 distinct and perfect, this brilliant atmosphere grad- 
 ually disappeared. * * * In the identical manner 
 in which the spiritual head was eliminated and 
 unchangeably organized, I saw, unfolding in their 
 natural progressive order, the harmonious develop- 
 ment of the neck, the shoulders, the breast, and the 
 entire spiritual organization. * * * The defects 
 and deformities of her physical body were, in the 
 
3o6 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 spiritual body which I saw thus developed, almost 
 completely removed. * * * 
 
 While this spiritual formation was going on, which 
 was perfectly visible to my spiritual perceptions, the 
 material body manifested to the outer vision of 
 observing individuals in the room, many symptoms 
 of uneasiness and pain, but these indications were 
 totally deceptive; they were wholly caused by the 
 departure of the vital or spiritual forces from the 
 extremities and viscera into the brain, and thence 
 into the ascending organism. 
 
 The spirit rose at right angles over the head or 
 brain of the deserted body. But immediately previ- 
 ous to the final dissolution of the relationship which 
 had for so many years subsisted between the two, 
 the spiritual and material bodies, I saw — playing 
 energetically between the feet of the elevated spir- 
 itual body and the head of the prostrate physical 
 body — a bright stream or current of vital electricity. 
 This taught me that what is customarily called death 
 is but a birth of the spirit from a lower into a 
 higher state; that an inferior body and mode of 
 existence are exchanged for a superior body and 
 corresponding endowments and capabilities of hap- 
 piness. I learned that the correspondence between 
 the birth of a child into this world, and the birth of 
 the spirit from the material body into a higher world 
 is absolute and complete — even to the umbilical 
 cord, which was represented by the thread of vital 
 
The Spiritualists 307 
 
 electricity, which for a few minutes subsisted 
 between and connected the two organisms together. 
 And here I perceived, what I had never before 
 obtained a knowledge of, that a small portion of this 
 vital electrical element returned to the deserted 
 body, immediately subsequent to the separation of 
 the umbilical thread; and that portion of this ele- 
 ment which passed back into the earthly organism 
 instantly diffused itself throughout the entire 
 structure, and thus prevented immediate decompo- 
 sition. * * * 
 
 I saw her continue to conform and accustom 
 herself to the new elements and elevating sensations 
 which belong to the inner life. I did not particu- 
 larly notice the workings and emotions of her newly 
 awakening and fast unfolding spirit; except, that I 
 was careful to remark her philosophic tranquillity 
 throughout the entire process and her non-participa- 
 tion with the different members of her family in 
 their unrestrained bewailing of her departure from 
 the earth. * * * 
 
 Could you but turn your natural gaze from the 
 lifeless body, which can no longer respond to your 
 look of love; and could your spiritual eyes be 
 opened; you would behold — standing in your midst 
 — a form, the same, but more beautiful and liv- 
 
 lnPf. H 1 *£ H 1 
 
 The period required to accomplish the entire 
 change, which I saw, was not far from two hours 
 
308 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 and a half; but this furnishes no rule as to the time 
 required for every spirit to elevate and reorganize 
 itself above the head of the outer form. 
 
 Without changing my position or spiritual per- 
 ceptions, I continued to observe the movements of 
 her new-born spirit. As soon as she became accus- 
 tomed to the new elements which surrounded her 
 she descended from her elevated position, which was 
 immediately over the body, by an effort of the will- 
 power and directly passed out of the door of the 
 bedroom, in which she had lain (in the material 
 form) prostrated with disease for several weeks. It 
 being in a summer month, the doors were all open, 
 and her egress from the house was attended with no 
 obstructions. I saw her pass through the adjoining 
 room, out of the door, and step from the house into 
 the atmosphere! I was overwhelmed with delight 
 and astonishment when, for the first time, I realized 
 the universal truth that the spiritual organization 
 can tread the atmosphere — which, while in the 
 coarser earthly form, we breathe — so much more 
 refined is man's spiritual constitution. She walked 
 in the atmosphere as easily, and in the same 
 manner, as we tread the earth and ascend an 
 eminence. Immediately upon her emergment 
 from the house, she was joined by two friendly 
 spirits from the spiritual country; and after ten- 
 derly recognizing and communing with each other 
 the three in the most graceful manner began 
 
The Spiritualists 309 
 
 ascending obliquely through the ethereal envelop- 
 ment of our globe. They walked so naturally and 
 so fraternally together, that I could scarcely realize 
 the fact that they trod the air — they seemed to be 
 walking upon the side of a glorious but familiar 
 mountain ! I continued to gaze upon them until the 
 distance shut them from my view; whereupon I 
 returned to my external and ordinary condition." 
 
 O, what a contrast! Instead of beholding that 
 beautiful and youthfully unfolding spirit, I now saw, 
 in common with those about me, the lifeless — cold — 
 and shrouded organism of the caterpillar, which the 
 joyous butterfly had so recently abandoned. * * * 
 
 To the spiritually enlightened, these revealments 
 will possess great weight, and afford much consola- 
 tion ; but to the external intellect, to the materialist, 
 they will appear like the methodical hallucinations of 
 an excited sensorium. To the last-named class I 
 would say that: I depend not upon these spiritual 
 observations and interior communications for a 
 demonstration of the reality of an immediate resur- 
 rection and ascension of the spiritual body at the 
 time of physical dissolution. I acknowledge and 
 recommend no authorities but Nature and Reason. 
 Hence, for proofs of the immortality of the soul, I 
 involuntarily turn from the teachings of men and 
 books, to the principles of nature and the sanction- 
 ings of my highest reason. 
 
 It surely is not safe, nor is it reasonable even, to 
 
310 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 believe, as many minds do, that the human soul is 
 immortal, and that its resurrection from the grave is 
 inevitable, merely because it is asserted that Jesus 
 was seen subsequent to His death and burial. Nor 
 is it reasonable to base all our hope and faith in the 
 immortality of the soul, upon the mere speculations 
 and teachings of any form of sectarianism; because 
 the reasoning mind full readily perceives the 
 unsoundness and fallibility of such evidence; and 
 cold, unhappy, involuntary skepticism will be the 
 certain consequence. Those who believe in the 
 authority of men and books, and base their teach- 
 ings thereon, should understand that they cannot 
 satisfy those who believe in the authority of Nature 
 and Reason. 
 
 In this connection, I will state three conclusions 
 to which a deep and far-reaching investigation into 
 the use and universal tendency of nature conducted 
 me. And these conclusions lead legitimately to 
 more sublime and desirable ones, which your own 
 intuition and principle of reason will discover. 
 
 We are immortal because: — 
 
 (I.) Nature was made to develop the human 
 body. 
 
 (II.) The human body was made to develop the 
 human spirit. 
 
 (III.) Every spirit is developed and organized 
 sufficiently unlike any other spirit or substance in 
 
The Spiritualists 3 l * 
 
 the universe, to maintain its individuality through- 
 out eternal spheres. 
 
 Each human spirit possesses within itself an eter- 
 nal affinity of parts and powers; to which affinity 
 there exists nothing sufficiently superior, in power 
 and attraction, to disturb, disorganize, and annihi- 
 late. 
 
 These are evidences with which the world is not 
 familiar; but they are plain and demonstrative; and 
 are destined to cause great happiness and elevation 
 among men. 
 
 In conclusion, I desire to say, that there is noth- 
 ing to fear, but much to love in a purely natural or 
 non-accidental death. It is the fair stranger which 
 conducts the immortal soul to more glorious scenes 
 and harmonious societies. Let mankind never 
 lament because of the mere departure of an indi- 
 vidual from our earth; for the change, though cold 
 and cheerless to the material senses, is, to the inte- 
 rior vision and the ascending spirit, bathed in 
 auroral splendor! To the enlightened mind "there 
 is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying," to those 
 who live in constant conjunction with Eternal 
 Truth. 
 
 EDMOND H. SEARS 
 
 We start in life an unbroken company, brothers 
 and sisters, friends and lovers, neighbors and com- 
 rades are with us; there is circle within circle, and 
 
312 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 each one of us is at the charmed center, where the 
 heart's affections are aglow and whence they radiate 
 outward on society. Youth is exuberant with joy 
 and hope; the earth looks fair, for it sparkles with 
 May-dews wet, and no shadow hath fallen upon it. 
 We are all here and we could live here forever. The 
 home-center is on the hither side of the river; and 
 why should we strain our eyes to look beyond? 
 
 But this state of things does not continue long. 
 Our circle grows less and less. It is broken and 
 broken, and then closed up again; but every break 
 and close makes it narrower and smaller. Perhaps 
 before the sun is at his meridian the majority are 
 on the other side; the circle there is as large as the 
 one here; and we are drawn contrariwise and vibrate 
 between the two. A little longer and almost all 
 have crossed over; the balance settles down on the 
 spiritual side, and the home-center is removed to the 
 upper sphere. At length you see nothing but an 
 aged pilgrim standing alone on the river's bank and 
 looking earnestly towards the country on the other 
 side. 
 
CONCLUDING LINES 
 
 What the Editor Thinks About It 
 
 Some men know what they know, and having this 
 knowledge realize its insignificance compared with 
 what the future has in store for the coming genera- 
 tions. Others are ignorant of their ignorance, and 
 being so, are pretty well satisfied with themselves 
 and the present state of man's knowledge and aspi- 
 rations. 
 
 Here are the proofs of life after death. 
 
 But the world is become scientific, and knowl- 
 edge to have universal acceptance must be of the 
 scientific order; that is, the proposition that man 
 lives after death must be demonstrated in such a 
 manner as to force itself without possible doubt 
 upon every intelligent mind. True, when this kind 
 of a demonstration is in our possession and we shall 
 have learned that death is the gateway or threshold 
 of immortality, we shall doubtless continue for cen- 
 turies to come to speak of those who have passed 
 through this gateway — as dead, extinct and so on — 
 just as we now speak of the sun rising in the morn- 
 ing and going down at night, an expression and 
 thought we knew four hundred years ago at least to 
 be false. 
 
 (313) 
 
314 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 So fixed are the mental habits of man that ordi- 
 narily we express ourselves respecting the phenom- 
 ena of nature in the language of Moses and Job, 
 rather than that of Newton or Procter, and as we 
 speak, so also do we usually think. 
 
 Psychical research will furnish the demonstration 
 of life after death, we are fully convinced, within the 
 next twenty years, probably in a much less time than 
 that. The demonstration will be such as to force 
 itself inevitably upon every intelligent mind. This 
 is the judgment and opinion of the author of this 
 book. Meantime we to-day have infinitely stronger 
 proofs that man does not die with the death of the 
 body than Columbus, on his starting westward 
 across the Atlantic, had that the earth was round — 
 like a ball or globe — as we learned in our primary 
 geographies. 
 
 To many of the keenest, brightest, most profound 
 thinkers psychical research has already proven that 
 there is conscious existence after death. The intens- 
 ity of purpose, the sincerity and ability of the lead- 
 ers in this branch of scientific research are so well 
 known that absolute reliance may be placed on their 
 integrity and unflinching purpose to have the truth 
 and nothing but the truth. 
 
 There is not much poetry or philosophy in psy- 
 chical research. It is hard fact, laboriously brought 
 up from an unknown world — a world almost as 
 inconceivable to most men as were the facts of the 
 
Concluding Lines 315 
 
 action of the law of gravitation to our fathers. Take 
 a large ball, for example, and place on the upper 
 surface tiny wooden figures; turn the ball over and 
 they fall off. That was all there was to it, anyone 
 could see it, and he who pronounced the world to be 
 round was not only a heretic against the prevailing 
 religion — and science too for that matter — but he 
 was crazy. To think of holding on to the lower side 
 of the earth, and even moving around in ships and 
 carts without falling off. Why, it was and would be 
 to this day, without a conception of the laws of 
 gravity, simply inconceivable. 
 
 So with psychical research, it is working on the 
 nether side, it is looking towards the new country. 
 Many great men say to-day just as the wise men of 
 the Salamanca University said to Columbus: "There 
 is no other side. The world is flat. You are crazy. 
 'You shall nevermore see the buds unfold in the 
 springtime, nor be awakened by the song of the 
 thrush at dawn.' When you get on the nether side, 
 when you die — you fall off and that is the end of it." 
 
 Oh, no. We are pretty well satisfied that that is 
 ridiculous — foolish — in fact we know better, even 
 though we may desire to know still better. There 
 is to-day an important movement under way, inau- 
 gurated by some of the members of the American 
 branch of the Society for Psychical Research which, 
 if successful, will forward the work of the society 
 immeasurably. It is in the hands of Professor 
 
316 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Hyslop of Columbia University, which is a guar- 
 anty that it will not suffer for lack of earnestness of 
 purpose and full appreciation of the importance of 
 the subject. 
 
 To the scientific organization known as the Soci- 
 ety for Psychical Research, in our opinion, must we 
 look for the ultimate, unquestionable proof of life 
 after death; and that many of us who are living 
 to-day will "pass up the gang-plank to take ship for 
 the new country/' with a knowledge — given us by 
 God if you like—but acquired by reason, observa 1 
 tion, experiment and repeated demonstration — that 
 vast and still vaster fields lie before us, that grand 
 and grander possibilities are open to us and invite 
 our better efforts, that greater work, wider travels, 
 higher thoughts and deeper love are our heritage in 
 that new country. 
 
 Sunlight is life. 
 
 Out into the music of the night, a little way 
 beyond the pyramidal shadow the earth throws into 
 space — on the nether side — there in the illimitable 
 universe — there is everlasting light; there is ever- 
 lasting ? 
 
Immottality fzom New Standpoints. 
 
And the Will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who know 
 eth the mysteries of the Will, with its vigour? For God is a 
 great Will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. 
 Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death 
 utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble Will. 
 
 —Olanville. 
 
IMMORTALITY FROM NEW 
 STANDPOINTS 
 
 ELMER GATES 
 
 Professor of 'Psychology and 'Psychurgy, Washington, e D. C. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page. 
 
 Parts : 
 
 Editor's Preface, . : . ,«, : . . 321 
 
 Introduction, ....... 323 
 
 What Would be Proof of Immortality, . 324 
 
 Emotional Basis of My Belief in Immor- 
 tality, 328 
 
 Verdict of Consciousness and Its Cosmical 
 Validity, ...... 330 
 
 Argument From Mind Embodiment, . . 343 
 How Immortality will be Discovered, if 
 Ever, 353 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In segregating Prof. Gates' contribution from the 
 main body of this work I have been governed by its 
 highly scientific character, the originality and pro- 
 fundity of the thought expressed, and the startling, 
 luminous prospects of man's coming knowledge opened 
 up by it to the mind of the student. It is a fitting cli- 
 max to this Symposium — I was about to say, the voice 
 of Plato at the banquet. 
 
 It has been my endeavor, throughout, to keep the 
 matter comprising these pages within the easy compre- 
 hension of the general reader. In this chapter, how- 
 ever, there is room and need for the closest study. I 
 have placed it apart, therefore, from the rest of the 
 book and in the form of a special scientific supplement. 
 It will be found a deep and lucid essay on this supreme 
 question of life, an essay by one whom, in the judgment 
 of the Editor, future history is likely to pronounce the 
 greatest thinker of his day. 
 
 Prof. Gates is but little past forty years of age, yet 
 Prof. McGee of the Smithsonian Institution writes of 
 him : "His work will revolutionize education and lead 
 to greater intellectual progress in the next quarter of a 
 century than has been achieved in all the centuries 
 before." "His work covers the whole range of the sci- 
 ences," says Prof. Herman T. Lukens, Ph. D. "I am 
 profoundly impressed by his educational ideas and his 
 
 (321) 
 
322 Preface 
 
 experimental originality, fertility and clearness," writes 
 Prof. Geddes, of the University of Edinburgh, Scot- 
 land. "I look upon him," says Theodore Dreiser, "as 
 one of the great mental leaders upon whose periodic 
 appearance on the earth the advancement of human 
 thought depends." Ella Wheeler Wilcox, our modern 
 — and greater than — George Eliot writes, "Elmer 
 Gates I consider one of the most remarkable men of his 
 age, if not the most remarkable." Prof. Eustace Miles, 
 M. A., Cambridge University, England, says: "I am 
 interested in every aspect of his work and see nothing 
 at fault either with his methods or his conclusions." 
 
 Scores of others bear witness to the genius, the orig- 
 inality and pre-eminent intellectual qualifications of 
 Prof. Gates. 
 
Jmmoitalify ftom New ^/a7ic?/w/n/s. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 My Dear Mr. Thompson: Your several urgent 
 requests for a brief statement of my strongest reasons 
 for believing in the continuance of one's conscious per- 
 sonal identity after the change or biotic crisis called 
 death finds me rather unwilling to attempt to write out 
 my speculations and convictions upon that subject. 
 This reluctance is partly due to the diffidence one 
 might naturally be expected to feel in undertaking to 
 discuss a problem about which there is no definite sci- 
 entific knowledge; and chiefly because what I have to 
 say is deduced from certain psychologic data contained 
 in one of my yet unpublished books. These data, too 
 extensive and technical to be epitomized in so short an 
 article, are facts derived from certain new and special 
 methods of studying consciousness and of using the 
 mind, and which, if not understood, will deprive my 
 arguments of their main force and meaning. Further- 
 more, I have no knowledge of any other kind of exist- 
 
 (323) 
 
324 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 ence than those ordinary forms of life with which 
 biologists are acquainted, and my statements must 
 therefore consist of deductive speculations based on 
 psycho-physical principles and on certain difficultly-de- 
 scribable subjective experiences derived from a study 
 of my own consciousness by special methods of experi- 
 mental introspection. 
 
 I do not deem it necessary to refer to any of the well 
 known arguments which, whatever their value, have 
 failed to convince beyond the possibility of a reasonable 
 doubt. In this article I can offer only the merest sug- 
 gestions of a few of the main points upon which I base 
 the hope that death is but a doorway to some kind of 
 continued existence, the precise nature and conditions 
 of which the world has probably not even guessed. 
 Those who are interested in following further these 
 lines of insight will find them more fully elaborated in 
 some one of my forthcoming books on Psychology and 
 Psychurgy ; x wherein will be found data for two other 
 arguments, and the arguments herein given will acquire 
 a much more profound meaning after becoming 
 acquainted with the subject matter of these volumes. 
 
 WHAT WOULD BE PROOF OF IMMORTALITY? 
 
 Science needs just one inductive fact from a direct 
 observation of the objective conditions of the other life ; 
 and whilst I do not deny the possibility that there are 
 those who have had such a personal experience, yet, if 
 such is the case, that experience is so purely personal 
 
 i Psychology is the science of mind, and Psychurgy is the art of 
 more skillfully and efficiently using it. As Psychology is the science of 
 all mental experiences whatsoever it follows that the sciences as taxono- 
 mic groups of experiences are subdivisions of Psychology, and that Psy- 
 chology is the science of the sciences, and Psychurgy is the art of the arts. 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 325 
 
 that it is divested of the essential characteristics of sci- 
 entific proof. 
 
 To give a concrete instance of what I would consider 
 to be adequate proof of another kind of existence I will 
 give an hypothetical case. Suppose there were a form 
 of wave-energy somewhat similar to Roentgen Rays, 
 but differing from them as they differ from sound. Let 
 us suppose this new kind of radiant force to be invis- 
 ible, but that it can be made visible by projecting it 
 upon a wall coated with a substance whose color is 
 altered by the action of the rays. Suppose, further, 
 that all known inorganic and inanimate substances are 
 transparent to that force, so that they can be held in 
 the path of the rays, between their source and the wall, 
 without cutting off part of the rays, and thus causing 
 the color of the wall to be changed over a corresponding 
 area — producing an effect like a shadow. Suppose, 
 also, that it were discovered that a living thing is 
 opaque to these rays and that it casts a shadow as long 
 as it is alive, but becomes transparent at the moment of 
 actual death. If on killing the animal hermetically 
 sealed in a glass tube it were found, after a certain 
 lapse of time, to become suddenly transparent, and if at 
 the same instant a shadow precisely the same shape as 
 the animal were seen to pass out through the wall of 
 glass and move upward in front of the wall, then 
 the presumption would be that some organism, not 
 atomic, perhaps etheric, and capable of passing through 
 glass, had left the atomic body of the animal. If that 
 escaping organism could be caught and made to give 
 evidence that it still possesses mind, then we would 
 have an inductive laboratory proof of the existence of a 
 
326 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 "spiritual" organism and of the continuity of life 
 beyond death, — but this would not demonstrate endless 
 existence. If such an experiment can ever be made, 
 then biology and psychology will have been extended 
 across the border without an intervening chasm, and 
 the continuity of personal identity beyond death will be 
 scientifically demonstrated. It might be argued that 
 the visible animal organism is composed of atomic 
 solids and liquids and gases; and may there not be 
 etheric solids and liquids and gases, the particles of 
 which are infinitesimally smaller than atoms, and might 
 there not be an etheric body composed thereof? Such 
 proof could be made a co-ordinate part of the growing 
 body of scientific knowledge. In the judgment of 
 nearly every scientist in the world such demonstration 
 of the actuality of another life has not yet been made. 
 
 (The Editor visited the Elmer Gates Laboratories in 
 April, 1902. He learned then, by personal inquiry, of 
 certain experiments carried on by Prof. Gates in the as 
 yet unknown fields of etheric phenomena and radiant 
 force, which promise to lead to interesting results, but 
 he was unwilling to say much about them until after 
 they shall have been further investigated by others 
 besides himself. — Editor.) 
 
 Even if a disembodied or excarnate mind could com- 
 municate with me by speech, apparition, materializa- 
 tion, or telepathically, I would still have to be sure 
 that the phenomenon was not an illusion, hallucination 
 or delusion, and even if I were personally sure that 
 such direct communication with a spirit had taken 
 place, the proof would be wholly personal and could not 
 become a scientific datum except to those who, like 
 myself, had had a like experience. In true science the 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 327 
 
 element of personal testimony is eliminated even to the 
 extent of making a comparative study of the personal 
 equation; scientific proof must be capable of demon- 
 stration independently of the element of personal testi- 
 mony ; and a fact must not only prove itself congruous 
 with the whole body of related scientific knowledge, but 
 it must also be capable of direct inductive demonstra- 
 tion under such circumstances and conditions as to 
 leave no possible room for uncertainty or doubt. * * 
 That which was thought to have been a spectre may 
 only have been a realistically vivid dream, or some 
 pathological aberration of the imagination, or a trick of 
 some designing person ; and this may be true even when 
 several persons suppose they have simultaneously seen 
 the same phantom. Persons who have witnessed an 
 apparition — supposing, for the sake of argument, that 
 such things really have an objective existence — cannot 
 complain if others who have not had such an experi- 
 ence refuse to accept such statements as demonstrated 
 science, because the testimony of one person or of a 
 million persons cannot establish a scientific datum, for 
 human testimony is notably fallible and deceptive. 
 There is a higher authority for Truth than testimony, 
 namely, experimental quantitative demonstration ; taxo- 
 nomic congruity with all the other facts of that science 
 to which the given fact belongs ; and philosophical con- 
 sistency with the total body of scientific knowledge. 
 These conditions would be satisfied by the supposed 
 experiments with the etheric organism of an animal, 
 but they are not satisfied by the usual reports of experi- 
 ments with apparitions, etc. 
 
328 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 EMOTIONAL BASIS OF MY BELIEF 
 IN IMMORTALITY. 
 
 Whilst I disclaim the possession of any personal 
 experience tending to directly demonstrate there is an 
 existence beyond death, yet, I must confess, that I have 
 always had what I will call an emotive certainty or a 
 feeling-insight that there is that in my mind which will 
 persist after the death and dissolution of my body. You 
 ask me for my reasons for this certainty, and I reply 
 that I have no reasons, but that such is unmistakably 
 and ineradicably my very definite feeling, — it is not, as 
 I said before, an intellectual conclusion, but an emotive 
 or esthetic insight. It is not a matter of intellective 
 reasoning that makes Viro love Patiencia more than 
 Furiosa, but a matter of his innate disposition and per- 
 sonal liking, but he can understand intellectually why 
 he prefers one to the other. On the other hand, he 
 cannot tell you why he prefers Amanda to Miranda, 
 because he is unable to detect any conspicuous differ- 
 ences between them in appearance or conduct ; and yet 
 the one holds his heart captive whilst to the other he is 
 indifferent. Why? He cannot give reasons — it is a 
 matter of feeling. Ask a Mozart or a Beethoven why 
 he prefers music to painting, and he will not be able to 
 give you any better reason than that it is more to his 
 taste. Why did Faraday prefer scientific research, and 
 Kant philosophy, and Poe poetry, and Thorwaldsen 
 sculpture ? Because of emotive preference and the pre- 
 dilection of feeling. Well, in like manner I find in my 
 emotive nature a feeling of immortality — I find in the 
 very nature of my consciousness a feeling of immeas- 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 329 
 
 urable oldness — an echo of time immemorial as well as 
 a feeling of necessary endlessness, and I cannot reason 
 away these feelings. Do not understand me to say that 
 I have memories of any former existence or previsions 
 of any future existence, — that to which I refer is far 
 more fundamental than would be such reminiscences 
 and previsions: I cognize in the very nature of con- 
 sciousness a characteristic that is eternally old and 
 coeternal with Space, Duration and Truth. When I am 
 aware of my consciousness I feel and know that there 
 is in it a factor that was present primordially in the 
 beginningless Cosmos. This feeling is part of my con- 
 sciousness just as surely as is my love for scientific 
 research or my desire for world-betterment or my ven- 
 eration for the All ; I did not put these feelings there — 
 I found them there when I grew old enough to intro- 
 spect my mind, and there, in spite of recurrent doubt 
 and criticism, they have remained. This feeling-insight 
 of the endless perpetuity of my conscious identity is one 
 of great certainty — I feel entirely sure that there is for 
 my consciousness a To-morrow after death. It may 
 therefore be said that such belief in immortality as I 
 possessed during the earlier years of my life was intui- 
 tive or instinctive — due to the emotional demands of 
 my nature — and based upon a feeling-insight still more 
 fundamental than my emotions — and I could not then 
 and I cannot now weaken these feelings ; even when I 
 was led to believe that all known biologic and physical 
 facts were against such an assumption I found in my 
 consciousness, clearer than ever, the feeling of end- 
 lessness and also the emotive insight of personal con- 
 tinuity. 
 
330 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 THE VERDICT OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND ITS 
 COSMICAL VALIDITY. 
 
 After long experience in experimental introspection 
 and after some skill in the art of consciousing 2 I began 
 dimly to perceive that this feeling-insight — this emotive 
 certainty — and this consciousness-cognition is inher- 
 ently and innately the result of the cosmical nature of 
 consciousness, which, having been born out of that- 
 which-is, partakes of ITS universal nature, and thereby 
 finds in the very modes of knowing the evidences of 
 certain fundamental truths of existence ; and that there- 
 fore my conviction and insight and cognition might be 
 a symptom of an actuality in Nature, and that this 
 feeling and insight might itself be based on a deeper 
 and more universal mode of knowing than my own 
 individual mental capacities, — and this seemed to give 
 me an intellectual ground for my belief. 
 
 Consciousness has its own essential nature, which is 
 constitutive of all knowledge according to the nature of 
 that knowing-process, and also, in extension of the idea 
 of Kant, according to the nature of the known ; and I 
 seem to understand that this nature of the knowing- 
 process is necessarily congruous with the immanent 
 nature of the Universe — the known — because con- 
 sciousness, as individualized, has been genetically 
 derived therefrom and is dynamically and psycholog- 
 ically part thereof. If, in the universe of the known, 
 for instance, it is the nature of bodies to have dimen- 
 
 2 Exposition of Psychology and Psychurgy by Introspective In- 
 duction is the title of the third of the forthcoming volumes, and it in- 
 cludes a presentation of the art of consciousing as the method of know- 
 ledge-getting and criterion of Truth. 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints. 331 
 
 sions, and if a body, no matter how small, could not 
 exist without dimension, — if the very nature of Reality 
 is such as to necessitate that fact, — then, consciousness 
 (being part of that reality and of the same identical 
 nature) must be so constituted as to know that a dimen- 
 sionless body could not exist. In the same way 
 Consciousness insists, for example, that there is "Some- 
 thing" that had no beginning, and Reason adds : else 
 there would be nothing now ; it insists that Space could 
 not have had a beginning, that Duration could not, 
 that Truth could not ; and that something or somewhat 
 else than these Three Eternals must have been co-eter- 
 nally beginningless — a Fourth Eternal, which must 
 have been uncaused; for there was naught antecedent 
 to cause it. That "Something" is the Eternal Mystery 
 of Existence and we may call it Spinoza's "eternal sub- 
 stance," "energy," "spirit," "God," or we may name it 
 what we please. Whatever It is, it is that which is the 
 mutationless substrate of the visible and invisible uni- 
 verse of phenomenal manifestation, and in It must have 
 been immanently combined such essential eternal prop- 
 erties as dimensions, persistence, motion and mind: — 
 for if consciousness were not eternally immanent in 
 this Fourth Eternal, how could mind or minds ever have 
 arisen ? Consciousness must therefore have been eter- 
 nally a condition or property of that-which-fills-space, 
 and consciousness must consequently be as universal in 
 that space-filling substance as is motion or gravity. 
 Mind is as much a part of the process of Nature as is 
 the flow of the tides, the growing of grass, or the 
 evolution of the sidereal system. Mind is as inherent 
 in the Cosmos as is motion; and even Mr. Pierce's 
 
332 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Tychism does not help us to conceive of the origination 
 of mind out of dimension, motion and persistence. If 
 it is not an eternal property of that which was begin- 
 ningless, then how did mind arise? If consciousness is 
 immanent in Cosmos, then it has a nature more funda- 
 mental than our own limited individual experience — it 
 must have a cosmical nature which is constitutive of its 
 own experiences, and if such is the case, may we not 
 expect to find its feeling-insights and deeply intuitive 
 cognitions to be fundamentally true ? And if immortal- 
 ity is a fact in Nature, would not consciousness, being 
 an immanent and omnipresent part of Nature, know it 
 just as it knows space to be boundless? When Con- 
 sciousness studies itself it is studying that factor in 
 Nature which is regnant wherever acts are adapted to 
 ends, whether it be in a cell or in God. And if Con- 
 sciousness finds in itself a cognition of its own endless- 
 ness, then that cognition is there because such is the 
 fact in Nature. Plato's argument that this "fond long- 
 ing after immortality," being an almost universal aspi- 
 ration, proves immortality, is upon my line of argument 
 shown to be the effect of a more fundamental insight ; 
 because the argument I am offering accounts for this 
 longing and the universality of this belief. I do not 
 account for immortality by saying that God or Nature 
 would not arouse hopes incapable of being fulfilled, as 
 is also argued by Leconte, but by making it an intuitive 
 insight arising out of the immanency of mind in the 
 universe and its consequent acquaintance with the total- 
 ity of conditions and possibilities, and being part of the 
 entire Cosmos its nature must be the same as that 
 which is fundamental in Cosmos, and therefore its nat- 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 333 
 
 ural consciousness of itself would lead to such func- 
 tioning as would inevitably produce the cognition of its 
 own endlessness and the feeling-insight of its continued 
 personal conscious identity, — that is, it would do so if 
 such be the fact in Nature. 
 
 Can consciousness directly know any truth about 
 existence which the mind has not inductively experi- 
 enced beforehand? If so, then we may have further 
 reason for confidence in this feeling-insight. An 
 example of such knowledge anterior to experience is 
 easily given : I have never, for example, found by per- 
 sonal experience that there is not a boundary to space, 
 but consciousness tells me that there can be no such 
 boundary — not merely that there is not such a limit, but 
 that in the very nature of things consciousness knows 
 that there cannot be such a limit, — and reason tells us 
 that even an impassable boundary would only serve to 
 indicate the unlimited extension beyond ; I have had no 
 personal proof that duration was beginningless, and yet 
 consciousness knows that anterior to an assignable com- 
 mencement there was absolutely infinite time — it not 
 only knows that there was no beginning, but that there 
 could not possibly have been a beginning; I have not, 
 according to my present memory, lived always as this 
 particular mind which I now call myself, and yet the 
 consciousness in me knows that the same truths which 
 are now true did not at any remote time in antiquity 
 first commence to be true : God did not at some remote 
 period in the past suddenly wake up and announce that 
 thereafter the "shortest distance between two points 
 would be a straight line" — this truth and such truths 
 were always true and even Omnipotence could not 
 
334 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 change them : Truth reigns eternally over Omnipotence, 
 in whom therefore can be no shadow of turning ; and in 
 somewhat the same way my consciousness seems to 
 know that it will survive the death of my body, and I 
 give it the same credence as I give to its cognitions 
 about Space, Duration, Motion and Truth. All this is 
 not demonstration to any but to those who clearly find 
 such insights and cognitions in their consciousness ; and 
 I cannot evade the conviction, based on my own experi- 
 ence, that all persons may by proper training get that 
 kind of skill in consciousing which will enable them to 
 find in their own consciousness the same introspective 
 evidence that I have found, and those who do so find it 
 will indeed have a priceless possession. 
 
 In the book previously mentioned, and also in another 
 one of my forthcoming books, entitled "An Introduc- 
 tory Account of the Art of Using the Mind," I have 
 shown that the active process of consciousness by which 
 it becomes conscious of its own nature and states, — 
 (which process I have called consciousing) the true 
 method of knowledge-getting and the criterion of 
 Truth, that the simplest experience or "feeling" which 
 consciousness has in being conscious, is the funda- 
 mental experience, premise and datum, according to the 
 nature of and in the terms of which all its other expe- 
 riences are alone possible; and that this experience 
 which it has with its own nature and mode of activity 
 has the quality of indubitable certainty incapable of 
 being doubted by any form of sophism, argument or 
 skepticism — that this basic experience is a datum that 
 we absolutely know. All statements that may be put 
 into words may be doubted, but this fact, namely, that 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 335 
 
 consciousness knows that it is conscious cannot by any 
 possibility be doubted. If consciousness had not that 
 one first experience, then no other experiences would 
 be possible: it is at once the process, the content and 
 the goal of experience. Can consciousness know any 
 more about itself? It can directly know its own 
 nature — it knows that its states are not all qualitatively 
 alike — that changes perpetually occur in the states ; and 
 it knows that if it could not detect differences and like- 
 nesses in these states it could not know anything what- 
 soever, and so on. But not only can it know its own 
 nature — the nature of the knowing-process — but it also 
 knows certain fundamental things about the objective 
 world — the Cosmos — its other and completed Self: it 
 knows a priority with a certainty greater than the find- 
 ings of individual experience, for example, that a thing 
 cannot be in two places at once; that a thing cannot 
 move from one place to another and skip half the dis- 
 tance ; that parallel lines cannot meet, etc. ; — and these 
 knowings of consciousness are confirmed by a poste- 
 riori experience with things. If in like manner con- 
 sciousness within itself evidences that it is conscious of 
 its own indefinite perpetuity, then may we not believe 
 that immortality is a fact in Nature?, And is not this an 
 insight to which minds will more fully attain as they are 
 more highly evolved, and as they become more and 
 more experimentally acquainted with those higher men- 
 tative processes which have hitherto hardly been known 
 to humanity ? 
 
 Let me reiterate and otherwise state this argument. 
 I may doubt all statements capable of being put into 
 words, but consciousness cannot doubt that it is con- 
 
336 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 scious. The mind may indeed doubt any statement that 
 may be made about the origin and nature of conscious- 
 ness — it may doubt any theory or generalization about 
 consciousness — but consciousness, when it has, so to 
 speak, the "feeling" or "sensation" of being conscious, 
 then it cannot doubt the existence of consciousness : it 
 experiences it immediately and directly; it knows that 
 one fact absolutely, namely, that consciousness exists. 
 With a skepticism far more profound than that of Des- 
 cartes I may question even the sanity of the mind itself, 
 but consciousness cannot doubt its own conscious expe- 
 rience in being conscious. That particular experience 
 to which I now refer cannot be stated in a proposition — 
 it is simpler than any concept or idea or image or sensa- 
 tion out of which propositions are constructed, and the 
 experience to which I allude is at once the fundamental 
 feeling and the fundamental cognition. It must be 
 experienced to be known, and this experience is the 
 fundamental and first induction, — a bit of knowledge 
 that cannot be doubted — a fact that is a criterion of 
 Truth. Now, can consciousness have further equally 
 indubitable experiences with itself? It can. And 
 therein lies the possibility of knowledge. It may dis- 
 cover, e. g., that there is more than one qualitative state 
 of consciousness ; that changes of state constantly and 
 necessarily occur ; that states follow each other in a 
 time-sequence ; that the states have different intensities ; 
 that they vary in duration; that the states mutually 
 modify each other, and so on, and all these experiences 
 constitute inductive data even more surely than do any 
 of the experiences of the mind with objective phenom- 
 ena. Reread this point, so as to emphasize its import- 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 337 
 
 ance in your mind. When an inventory is made of all 
 these inductive experiences of consciousness with its 
 own nature and processes, and when these data are 
 arranged according to their different degrees of inte- 
 gration, and when they are taxonomically classified, we 
 have a new domain in psychology — an inductive sci- 
 ence of consciousness, or, if you please, an inductive 
 metaphysic. 
 
 When we introspectively study the intellective con- 
 tent of that wondrous subjective domain, we find not 
 only those particular kinds of inductive data to which I 
 have just referred, consisting of experiences of con- 
 sciousness with itself, but we find also another kind of 
 data relating to the constitutive conditions of objective 
 existence. I would call the former a posteriori and the 
 latter a priori were it not for the fact that these words 
 have already an accepted philosophical meaning quite 
 different to that which I attach to these two kinds of 
 introspective data, — and yet there is an instructive simi- 
 larity. When by usual methods of observation, and lab- 
 oratory experiment, we discover, e. g., that a prism 
 refracts light, we call it an a posteriori datum ; if, how- 
 ever, in advance of everliaving known that a prism 
 would refract light we deduce the idea from known 
 physical and optical laws, then we would, somewhat 
 loosely, call it an a priori datum. More strictly speak- 
 ing, all that humanity has by experience found to be 
 true is a posteriori whilst a priori relates to cognitions 
 of conditions and things which, whilst they may come 
 to us in actual experience, have their origin in the 
 nature of the mind and are independent of experience, 
 and show what a thing must be if it ever comes into 
 
338 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 existence. My extension of the meaning of the a priori 
 involves the concept that it is a cognition of the con- 
 dition of things not merely as the nature of the mind 
 constitutes them, which is the Kantian insight, but that 
 it is also a cognition of the condition of things as they 
 are necessarily constituted by objective nature and by 
 that Total Reality in which the mind is one factor : that 
 is, the nature of the mind and the nature of objective 
 existence are one nature, and the mind has such nature 
 as it possesses because it is part of the Total Reality, 
 and because both the mind and objective existence must 
 conform to the essential truth in accordance with which 
 all things must necessarily exist. These necessary 
 truths are known to consciousness as such, because 
 mind and objective existence have evolved in accord- 
 ance with such necessary truths. 
 
 For my present purpose I will point out that there 
 are two domains of a posteriori knowledge; first, the 
 objective domain of inductive experience as hitherto 
 recognized by science, whether it consists of an observa- 
 tion of objective things or of an experimental study of 
 one's own mental processes; second, the subjective 
 domain of consciousness inductively studying itself. In 
 that subjective realm consciousness may (A) make an 
 inventory of its experiences with itself — an a posteriori 
 domain which I have ventured to study by special 
 methods, or (B) it may make an inventory of its funda- 
 mental cognitions regarding the necessary nature of 
 objective existence; — this might also be called a poste- 
 riori, because these cognitions are inductively found in 
 the mind, as, e. g., the cognition that Space is and must 
 be boundless, Duration beginningless and endless, that 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 339 
 
 Motion cannot be discontinuous, and so on ; and on the 
 other hand it might be called a priori because whatever 
 comes into existence must conform to these cognitions ; 
 we know beforehand what a thing cannot be or do. 
 
 It is most remarkable and of highest philosophic 
 interest that what consciousness finds a priority neces- 
 sary human experience finds a posteriority to be a fact 
 in Nature. 
 
 Consciousness a priority knows that a body cannot 
 skip half the distance in going from one point to 
 another, and human experience has a posteriority found 
 no single instance of discontinuous motion : this demon- 
 strates that consciousness finds in its own nature those 
 cognitions which put it in touch with the eternal nature 
 of existence, and being inherently and eternally part of 
 reality, we do not wonder. To get a convenient point 
 of view, let us for a moment consider Truth, Space and 
 Duration as Three Eternals; and "That-which-fills- 
 space" as the Fourth Eternal. This Fourth Eternal can 
 exist only according to the condition of what conscious- 
 ness cognizes as necessary truths, e. g., it is a necessary 
 truth that the half is less than the whole ; that a diam- 
 eter shall have one particular relation to the circumfer- 
 ence; that the sum of the three angles of a triangle 
 equal two right angles ; that motions take the direction 
 of least resistance, etc. The Fourth Eternal is that 
 which is co-eternal with Duration — uncreated, endless. 
 This Fourth Eternal is the manifested Totality, visible 
 and invisible, known and unknown ; the smallest portion 
 of it must occupy some space, and it therefore has 
 Dimension as an immanent and eternal property ; it has 
 lasted eternally and will last forever and has therefore 
 
340 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Persistence; it is in endless movement, the amount of 
 which motion, physics teaches us, can neither be 
 increased nor diminished, and therefore has as an 
 immanent and eternal property that we call Motion; 
 and if it had not also as an immanent and eternal prop- 
 erty that we call Life or Consciousness, then life pr 
 consciousness could never have arisen in this Universe. 
 Of the four immanent and eternal properties of "That- 
 which-fills-space" — Dimension, Motion, Persistence 
 and Mind — we are directly aware of only one, namely, 
 Mind, and through that we know the others. Mind is 
 therefore immanent in the Cosmos, co-eternal with it, 
 and omnipresent in it. It is not strange, then, that con- 
 sciousness has in its own nature a cognition of the 
 nature of the Total Reality, — and being eternally part 
 of the All we may a priority expect its fundamental 
 cognitions to be in accord with the very conditions of 
 its own existence as well as of all objective existence. 
 
 Consequently, if consciousness, in studying itself, 
 finds its a priori cognitions (known by an inductive 
 study of itself) to be a posteriority true, and knows 
 them to be necessarily so, may we not also expect to 
 find its fundamental emotive-insights or feeling- 
 insights to have a corresponding actuality and fulfill- 
 ment in nature ? Now there is evidence that such is the 
 case: consciousness (and the mind which it builds) 
 finds in itself certain feeling-data, e. g., it innately, 
 inherently, and naturally avoids pain and seeks pleas- 
 ure; — it prefers the happy to the unhappy emotions. 
 This is true of all living things. Now what is its mean- 
 ing? It is interesting to note, as an explanation of 
 this meaning, that the pleasant states promote and pro- 
 
Immortality^ from New Standpoints 341 
 
 long life, whilst the unhappy states injure and destroy 
 it ! Conversely, all life-promoting experiences become 
 pleasant and all life-destroying actions become painful 
 in the course of evolution. Now, consciousness finds in 
 itself, after the exclusion of all irrelevant matter, a 
 feeling-urging for the best, whether that best be known 
 or unknown, and even whether its acquisition involves 
 pleasurable or painful experiences — it is willing to 
 endure pain if for the best; and evolutionary data as 
 well as psycho-physical principles demonstrate that that 
 is best which is ultimately life-promoting, and that if 
 even at first it be painful it will ultimately secure a 
 greater pleasure or satisfaction. In this case the feel- 
 ing-insight which is a priori turns out to be a posteri- 
 ority true and best; and in this fact is a great lesson. 
 * * * Again, there is in us more and more as we 
 evolve higher in the evolutionary scale another feeling- 
 insight of an esthetic character which urges us to seek 
 grace, symmetry and beauty. And we have learned 
 a posteriority that graceful movements are most eco- 
 nomical of energy ; that symmetry means strength ; and 
 that beauty means perfection — that the merely useful 
 does not possess the highest utility until it also be beau- 
 tiful. Thus, in the very nature of esthetic emotion is an 
 a priori insight which is a posteriority best. * * * 
 Once more, in the very nature of emotive activity is the 
 fundamental desire for conscious contact with another 
 self or selves, culminating in the desire for the maxi- 
 mum conscious contact with the total other self — the 
 Cosmos; the mind itself is fundamentally a phenome- 
 non of social interaction between the self and the not- 
 self through sensory experience; in fact, until it has 
 
342 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 developed a cognitive relation with the not-self it can- 
 not even have a concept of the self. Now, this desire 
 for others — this fundamental urging towards altruism 
 — is the basis of all social phenomena, and will culmi- 
 nate in a conscious oneness with the Total Reality. 
 What is a priority present in consciousness as a feeling- 
 urging towards others is a posteriority active in organic 
 life as social development and as religious feeling. 
 * * Now, no factor of consciousness is more funda- 
 mental than its cognition for its own continuance, and 
 (in my own consciousness at least) no emotive feeling 
 is more definite than that of the endlessness of my own 
 personal identity ; therefore, if it can be shown that the 
 fundamental cognitions of consciousness and its funda- 
 mental feeling-insights are a posteriority actual in 
 Nature, and if it can be shown that one of these cog- 
 nitions of consciousness involves its own endlessness 
 and that its feeling-insights involve its personal per- 
 petuity, then immortality will have been demonstrated. 
 It is perhaps important to remark that the process of 
 consciousing in making a progressive inventory of its 
 experiences arrives at a point where by means of its 
 fundamental power to detect likenesses and differences, 
 it discovers two great kingdoms of conscious states, 
 namely, first, those wholly due to the experiences of 
 consciousness with itself, some of which are modifiable 
 by volition ; and second, those which are derived from 
 the experiences of consciousness with sensations, some 
 of which are modifiable by volition — some belong to the 
 bodily organs and some come from the nerves of special 
 sensation. The first are cognized to be different from 
 the second — the former have a subjective and the latter 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 343 
 
 an objective character, and thus consciousness, by a 
 process too technical to be here described, finds no 
 chasm to be bridged between the self and the not-self ; 
 the individual self is part of the Total Self ; you trace 
 your pedigree back to the beginningless Totality — the 
 ALL — you have the Universehood in you: whatever 
 the Fourth Eternal is, that thou art also ! 
 
 ARGUMENT FROM MIND-EMBODIMENT 
 
 Psycho-physical ( experiment proves that conscious 
 experiences, such as those of sensations, intellections, 
 emotions, etc., create structural changes and additions 
 in brain cells, which additions remain as the enregis- 
 tered memories of those experiences. This was directly 
 proved by extensive experiments upon dogs and other 
 animals, and abundant clinical and pathological evi- 
 dence shows the same to be the case with man. A dog 
 trained to consciously discriminate between thousands 
 of different tints, shades, pitches and hues of color had 
 a larger development of brain-fiber and a greater num- 
 ber of brain cells than one that had not thus been 
 trained. 3 
 
 The important conclusion is that the mind-activity 
 creates organic structures, and that mind embodies 
 itself in the mechanism of the body. This is an import- 
 ant law : namely, that states of consciousness embody 
 themselves in material organization. The whole mass 
 of evidence collected in the study of organic evolution 
 is proof that with increase of mental development there 
 is a corresponding increase of anatomical development. 
 If this were not so there would be functional differenti- 
 
 3 See The Monist July 1895, and the author's forthcoming vol- 
 umes. 
 
344 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 ation without concomitant structural differentiation: 
 there would be functioning without functioning struc- 
 tures, which is impossible. The body of a living crea- 
 ture is a mind-manifesting mechanism; the different 
 degrees of evolutionary development are different 
 integrative degrees of mind-embodiment. If evolution 
 resulted in getting less and less mind it would not be 
 progression but retrogression: evolution is therefore 
 explicable only as a process of mind-embodiment. 
 
 If Mind were not, like Motion, Dimension and Per- 
 sistence, a phenomenon connected with "substance," 
 then it could equally well be manifested by a total and 
 absolute vacuum. An empty space, empty of atoms, 
 ether and of all substance whatsoever, cannot have 
 properties — cannot act or react — cannot be dead or 
 alive, then — only "substance" or "energy" can exhibit 
 activities. So far as we know a living thing (that is, a 
 mind) cannot exist apart from, or independently of, a 
 material embodiment. Mentation is inextricably con- 
 nected with metabolism ; and metabolism is a series of 
 atomic and molecular motions ; and it may be true that 
 sidereal motions are connected with higher orders of 
 cosmic mentation. Spencer has said that throughout 
 the Universe in general and in detail there takes place 
 a perpetual redistribution of matter and motion, and to 
 which I would add, there also takes place a redistribu- 
 tion of mind. The Universe is, owing to the mind 
 immanent in all of it, and for other reasons, a Living 
 Totality. The Universe is alive ! If my consciousness 
 is born out of the cosmically immanent Mind, then I am 
 a differentiated unit of that cosmical Mind : just as my 
 visible body is differentiant and part of the matter of 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 345 
 
 the Universe, so my consciousness is part of the 
 Supreme Mind immanently embodied in that Uni- 
 verse. If all minds are taxonomic units in the psycho- 
 logic totality — if my consciousness is a taxonomic part 
 of the One Consciousness, then, even if my bodily 
 organism were annihilated, my mind would still be a 
 taxonomic part of the One Consciousness and would be 
 rementated into structural embodiment whenever it 
 would consciously recur to the Great Mentator. Let 
 me restate the point: I am a living organism; a new 
 conscious experience makes structural additions to my 
 brain cells, and every conscious state which recurs to 
 me creates a corresponding redistribution of the matter 
 of my organism into an embodiment or enregistration 
 of that given state of consciousness ; and likewise, in the 
 living Universe in which I am supposedly a psychologic 
 unit, and a taxonomic sub-unit of the total conscious- 
 ness, whenever that taxonomic conscious state which is 
 me, is reconscioused by the ALL, I would be re-enreg- 
 istered in a structural embodiment by the redistribution 
 of the matter of the ALL. I am not merely an anatomi- 
 cal but also a psychologic organ in the Omnicosm. To 
 be a logical part of the whole or a taxonomic part of 
 the whole is to make it quite impossible for conscious- 
 ness to conceive that whole without becoming conscious 
 of each of its parts, and if I am a taxonomic unit in the 
 Omnicosmic Mind the act of remembering me would 
 re-create me. I don't say this is proof of immortality, 
 but it is a psycho-physical possibility extended from 
 what we know actually takes place in living organisms 
 to what can and probably must take place within the 
 living Universe. If there is One Mind immanent in 
 
346 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 Cosmos, and if you as an individual are a taxonom- 
 ically differentiated conscious state, then that conscious 
 state, which is you, must be mentatively re-embodied 
 whenever it is remembered ; nay, it cannot become dis- 
 embodied. If every conscious experience embodies 
 itself in structure, and if a mind cannot exist apart 
 from material organization, then it follows, that if you 
 are a psychologic unit of the Universe, that you must 
 remain embodied in some form of organism visible or 
 invisible. 
 
 Why should Omnicosm perpetually undergo internal 
 differentiation and integration, and the endless redis- 
 tribution of its component Matter, Motion and Mind? 
 The answer is, that in no other way can The Totality 
 remain conscious of itself: consciousness has that 
 nature which makes it impossible for it to exist save in 
 a state of perpetual change. A uniform sensation of 
 pressure becomes quickly unnoticeable — the pressure 
 must perpetually vary or the sensation will cease, and 
 this is true of all conscious states whatsoever. It is 
 impossible to maintain a uniform conscious state. Con- 
 sequently the Supreme Mind which is embodied in the 
 Infinite Universe in some manner similar to the way in 
 which mind is embodied in your organism, must con- 
 stantly undergo changes within itself, and to be fully 
 conscious these changes must take place perpetually in 
 every part of itself or it would become unconscious. 
 This state of psychologic change could be maintained 
 only by an infinite series of differentiations and integra- 
 tions, each one of which in order to keep on changing 
 must continually progress or retrogress mentally, that is, 
 only by conscious evolution of its parts (as creatures or 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 347 
 
 worlds) can that perpetual change of consciousness 
 take place by which consciousness can exist. And if 
 the individual progresses indefinitely it must ever 
 embody more and more mind, and the limit would, of 
 course, be the becoming conscious of the One Mind, 
 and its Nirvana of Immortality would be its conscious 
 identification with the ALL. 
 
 This would indicate that living things are physio- 
 logic and psychologic organs within the one organism, 
 and you or I are functional parts of the one infinite 
 mechanism, — that is, of the body of the living ALL. 
 This conclusion is in harmony with the conception of 
 a cosmical mind immanent in all substance, making a 
 One Mind functionally transcendent in Omnicosm, — a 
 beginningless and endless Being whose dwelling place 
 is infinite space, who embodies all power, and in whom 
 we literally live, move and have our being. Let it dwell 
 awhile in your contemplation that something has 
 always been in Space and that if that space had ever 
 been empty of that something it would be empty now, 
 otherwise something could come from nothing. If your 
 mind is like mine, and if you have the same access to 
 your consciousness that I have, you will know that 
 there never could have been a time when there was 
 nothing but empty space — that Something must have 
 beginninglessly occupied that space, uncaused and 
 uncreated, — in the same way that Space, Duration and 
 Truth are uncaused and uncreated. Space is uncaused 
 because it couldn't not have been. The Something 
 which has been co-eternal with Duration and Space 
 also couldn't not have been, because if at any time it 
 had not been, it could never have come into being. I 
 
348 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 say, that if your mind is like mine you will find in your 
 consciousness the unmistakable evidence that "That- 
 which-fills-space" is eternal, and out of it through 
 its endless mutations has arisen the Universe of mani- 
 festation, and all that we call Nature. If this Eternal 
 Something had not had in it as an immanent property 
 that which is the basis of consciousness, then life or 
 mind could not have appeared in the Universe. For 
 you cannot deduce mind from such other properties of 
 the Eternal Something as Persistence, Dimension and 
 Motion. If you find in your consciousness the evidence 
 of which I speak, namely, that consciousness must 
 necessarily be as eternal as the "substance" or "energy" 
 or "reality" or "something" which is in Space, then 
 you will understand that consciousness is something 
 connected intimately and componently with every por- 
 tion or particle of that something, and consequently 
 that mind or intelligence is at the very heart of Cosmos. 
 Now, mind consists in a response to stimuli by which 
 the self adjusts itself to the environment and thus 
 adapts acts to ends, and consequently that "eternal some- 
 thing" which is made up of such properties as Persist- 
 ence, Dimension and Motion, is also made up of another 
 property which directs these motions intelligently, and 
 we have the conception of an Immanent God. More- 
 over, all living things act and react upon each other 
 through intervening space by means of several kinds of 
 etheric wave-energy — each mind is in reciprocal action 
 with all other minds. Thus, for instance, every living 
 thing gives off electrical waves when mentally active 
 and in proportion to the degree of its activity, and these 
 waves transmitted through space at the speed of a 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 349 
 
 hundred and eighty thousand miles per second, modify 
 the mentative processes of the living things upon which 
 they fall. In like manner, there is a growing body of 
 evidence tending to show that under certain physio- 
 logical, psychological and material conditions sensory 
 images can be telepathically transmitted from one brain 
 to another. These forces by reacting between organ- 
 isms places them in reciprocal functional relation, more 
 effectually tying them into one unitary functioning than 
 the different organs of the body are tied together by 
 nerves and nerve-fibers. There is much evidence prov- 
 ing that all minds on the earth are tied together into 
 One Mentative Process — it is as if we were all standing 
 in the surf of the great cosmical ocean and felt the 
 same wave at the same instant. Furthermore, all minds 
 according to their degree of knowledge are guided by 
 the same truths, and in all minds the same kind of con- 
 sciousness is at work, and thus it is that we are led to 
 the conception that the earth as a whole is the center of 
 a cosmical mentative process of evolutionary develop- 
 ment differentiating itself into millions of creatures of 
 every taxonomic degree of mind-embodiment. If the 
 other worlds of space are peopled with life, then they 
 too are mentative organs of the Cosmos, and are tied 
 together by interplanetary wave-motions through the 
 ether, and we are led to the conception of a sidereal 
 functioning, and so on, including Omnicosm as a living 
 unit — as one functional mental totality — and this is the 
 conception of the Functional God : the eternally begot- 
 ten ALL. Once more, every mental integrant is com- 
 posed of sub-units of which it is the psychic synthesis. 
 Thus, as I have elsewhere more elaborately demon- 
 
350 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 strated, out of sensations of the nine kinds the mind 
 constructs images of objects, each image being a syn- 
 thesis of all the sensory experiences which the mind has 
 had with that object. The sensations are actually 
 embodied in the brain as enregistered memory-struc- 
 tures consisting of chemical and anatomical additions to 
 the brain-elements, and by means of fibers the different 
 sensation-enregistrations are associatively integrated 
 into an image. Now, no one of these sense-cells could 
 entertain that state of consciousness which we call an 
 image, because an image-consciousness is one taxo- 
 nomic degree higher than a sensation-consciousness. In 
 like manner, out of segregated images the mind con- 
 structs concepts, and the concept-consciousness is one 
 taxonomic degree higher than an image-consciousness, 
 and so on, through ideation, thinking, etc. If there is a 
 mental unit which is a synthesis of all the individual 
 minds on this earth, then that unit is one taxonomic 
 degree higher than the most advanced human mind on 
 earth ; and if there is a synthesis of the world-minds of 
 all the planets in space, then that intelligence is one 
 taxonomic degree higher still, and so on, until we 
 arrive at the conception of the final synthesis of all 
 highest orders of intelligences, which would be a con- 
 scious state transcendently higher than its highest units, 
 and this is the conception of the Transcendent God. I 
 have given these three conceptions more as an allegory 
 or symbol of some corresponding reality, which, in my 
 opinion, science is some day destined to work out ; and 
 I have ventured this speculation to facilitate the con- 
 ception of a Living Universe in which all creatures of 
 all grades are functional parts of the one mind. And 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 351 
 
 in such a universe-embodied mind each creature, as a 
 taxonomic part, is a memory enregistered in the infinite 
 organism, and as such would have an endless progres- 
 sive existence. 
 
 The key-note to this special argument lies in the con- 
 ception of what is meant by being a taxonomic unit in, 
 and part of, the Supreme Mind. When I say that I am 
 materially part of the Universe I allude to the fact that 
 my body is a lump, chunk or piece of the total amount 
 of matter of the Universe; and by being dynamically 
 part of the ALL I mean that my body represents in its 
 activities a definite amount of energy which is part of 
 the Infinite Energy; but when I speak of myself as a 
 differential out of, and psychologically part of, the 
 Infinite Consciousness I do not mean an amount of 
 matter or a quantity of energy, but a separately dis- 
 criminated and discriminable conscious state which dif- 
 fers from all other conscious states in the ALL in two 
 ways : 1st, according to the fundamental power of con- 
 sciousness to detect likenesses and differences in its 
 own states this particular differentiated state which in 
 me has qualitative peculiarities of its own ; 2d, it is of 
 a given integrative degree in the taxonomic scale of 
 conscious states and as such represents a psychic quan- 
 tity. By psychic quantity I mean the relative degree of 
 taxonomic inclusion or subsumption; thus, a sensation 
 is a taxonomic unit in an image ; images are taxonomic 
 units in concepts; and concepts are units of an idea. 
 An idea must consist of relations between at least two 
 concepts, and each concept must be an integration of at 
 least two images, and so on. Now, two concepts repre- 
 sent a larger psychic quantity or a wider taxonomic 
 
352 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 domain than one concept, — and a concept covers a 
 larger domain of natural phenomena than an image. 
 It is in this sense that I speak of a man's mind as being 
 a psychic part or a taxonomic unit in the Omnicosmic 
 Mind ; and being a taxonomic concept a man must bear 
 taxonomic relations of inclusion and exclusion, of sub- 
 sumption and supersumption, to the One Mind, and, as 
 such, forms an integral and logical part of the total 
 consciousness; and as such cannot be forgotten, and 
 being kept in the consciousness of Omnicosm, must be 
 embodied in an amount of matter and energy corre- 
 sponding to that man's evolutionary degree of mind- 
 embodiment, because consciousness cannot exist apart 
 from organized substance. 
 
 Hence also, man's organism is part of the organized 
 mechanism of Omnicosm according to the degree of his 
 mind-embodiment. 
 
 All that takes place in infinite Space must be due to a 
 differentiation and integration of the perpetually-redis- 
 tributed activities of the "eternal substance," and every 
 integrant is genetically, materially, dynamically, spati- 
 ally and psychically part of that ALL ; and as a psychic 
 part of the ALL must be biologically embodied, because 
 mind cannot exist apart from matter ; and every embod- 
 iment must be more complex structurally according as 
 it is more complex and evolved mentally. Important 
 consequences follow from this which I will not enu- 
 merate. 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 353 
 
 HOW IMMORTALITY WILL BE DISCOVERED, 
 IF EVER 
 
 If immortality is a fact in Nature, then the steady- 
 progress of Science may be expected eventually to dis- 
 cover it ; and the best way to promote progress towards 
 that end is to abandon theorizing and speculations and 
 devote our time to the advancement of every science 
 and of every part of science, without preferment for 
 one part over another. It is the business of the inves- 
 tigator in studying any given science to acquire correct 
 images of all the objects of his domain, giving prefer- 
 ence to no one class over another; it is his business 
 to get all the correct concepts and ideas of his subject 
 without being biased for financial or other reasons 
 towards any one class of concepts — otherwise his men- 
 tal content will be neither a logical or a taxonomical 
 whole ; and with reference to the general advancement 
 of science it may be said that no one science should be 
 given preference over another, but to the fullest extent 
 of our powers and facilities all the sciences should be 
 equally advanced, and in that way we may hope for the 
 quickest solution of those riddles of the Universe which 
 have so persistently baffled faith and philosophy. 
 Hypotheses and theories generally misinterpret all the 
 facts and phenomena subsumed under them, and a the- 
 ory not only misleads the individual for a part or whole 
 of his lifetime, but such theories have misled whole 
 races of people for hundreds and thousands of years. 
 Only Truth can safely and surely lead us to more truth, 
 and if progress is to be efficiently promoted it will be 
 necessary to get together in classified form every fact 
 which can be inductively demonstrated ; and from this 
 
354 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 taxonomy of knowledge we must eliminate all personal 
 interpretation, falsehood and theory. There is in every 
 science a certain number of things that can be abso- 
 lutely known, and such facts will remain true a million 
 years from now, and in so far as they guide us at all 
 they will guide us more wisely than mere theories and 
 beliefs. Such a body of inductive knowledge is the 
 Revelation which Cosmos has been making to Man — 
 the collected, verified and classified sum of demon- 
 strated knowledge constitutes the true Scriptures of the 
 Human Race, and in its application, through invention 
 and otherwise, we have the true methods for the bet- 
 terment and redemption of humanity ; and the greatest 
 opportunity of the age consists in applying trained 
 minds to extending science and in applying it to the 
 amelioration of human conditions. As all discovery 
 and invention must be made by the mind; and as all 
 knowledge consists of mental content; and as all 
 growth and progress is mental progress, it follows that 
 an art of more skillfully and efficiently using the mind 
 must be the method by which Science is to be extended 
 and applied. Psychology is the science of all mental 
 experiences, and it is therefore the science of the sci- 
 ences; and all knowledge of any science consists of 
 intellectual experiences with the things of that science, 
 and by the art of consciousing we can eliminate theory 
 and hypothesis and falsehood from scientific data and 
 thus there will be produced a body of actual knowledge, 
 incapable of being doubted, and safe for the guidance 
 of conduct, because so far as it goes it is true. There 
 is no more important undertaking for the human race 
 than the getting together of the total sum of its verified 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 355 
 
 knowledge and the provision of facilities for more 
 readily and completely teaching and applying it. 
 
 It can be shown that the order of anatomical evolu- 
 tion and the taxonomic order of psychologic develop- 
 ment and the logical order of the evolution of science 
 are one and the same thing; and that when there is 
 placed in the human brain the taxonomic knowledge of 
 any science there is but little needed besides a few years 
 of rest and growth to cause that brain to take the next 
 step in the extension of that science ; but that step can 
 be much facilitated and augmented by a scientific art of 
 using the mind. The most important instruments in a 
 laboratory are the minds that make the experiments ; 
 and the most important assets of the world are its dis- 
 coverers and inventors. If an organization can be 
 effected consisting of trained mentators devoting their 
 lives philanthropically to the ascertainment and appli- 
 cation of Truth ; if these mentators can be selected from 
 the best minds of each race, nation, profession, voca- 
 tion, etc., and furnished with the collected and verified 
 sum of knowledge and with adequate experimental 
 facilities they will rapidly solve the world's problems 
 by promoting equally the progress of all sciences. A 
 good mentator must be good emotionally and morally 
 as well as intellectually, and the application of knowl- 
 edge to the development of character is one of the most 
 important steps in the Mentative Art. 
 
 In the Mentative Art science is becoming conscious 
 of its own true method — a method by which the mind 
 discovers and invents and learns to appreciate utilities 
 and beauties ; and the most fundamental opportunity of 
 man consists in getting more mind and learning how 
 
356 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 to use it. Hitherto genius has blundered along hap- 
 hazardly, achieving success through myriads of useless 
 failures ; and that facility which has hitherto been lim- 
 ited to a few great minds will under the new methods 
 become the inheritance of the majority, and through 
 the Mentative Art the modern age will harness the 
 greatest force of Nature — MIND — and put it to solv- 
 ing the problems of humanity. In this way, by the 
 gradual increase of the amount of mind possessed by 
 individuals and by teaching them how to use their 
 minds and by giving them the classified sum of actual 
 knowledge and proper experimental facilities with 
 which to work, will they solve those interesting prob- 
 lems to which science as yet has given us no answer. 
 Personally I am profoundly convinced that science will 
 find MIND immanent in, and functionally regnant 
 over, Nature; will demonstrate the value of a moral 
 and ethical life and show its religious relations: that 
 which perfects a man as a person is morality, that which 
 perfects his relations to others is ethics, and that which 
 perfects his relation to The ALL is religion. 
 
 One more word : Science constitutes the first world- 
 movement in the history of the earth : all other religions 
 and systems have been confined to some particular race, 
 nation, sect or tribe; and these systems in the history of 
 humanity have appeared and disappeared like clouds in 
 the sky. But recently there has arisen a movement that 
 has won the respect and devotion of the best minds of 
 every race, nation and country, and by its very nature 
 it is destined not to be superseded by something else 
 after a few centuries or a few thousand years : it is the 
 world-taste for the study of inductive science and its 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 357 
 
 beneficent application through inventions, etc. This 
 movement began about the time of Thales in ancient 
 Greece; it was revived in Copernicus, Galileo and 
 Kepler; it was brought forward through Newton and 
 his contemporaries, and was evolutionized and revolu- 
 tionized by Darwin and his colleagues ; and hundreds of 
 heroic pioneers have patiently added to the sum of 
 knowledge; inventors and practical men of all kinds 
 have applied it to immediate world-betterment. This 
 world-movement has touched every hamlet and tribe on 
 the face of the earth and has left not intolerance and 
 persecutions, but blessings of all kinds ; it has given us 
 better homes, better foods, better clothes, better health, 
 — it has brought us the telegraph, the telephone, the 
 railroad, anaesthetics, antiseptics, longer life and myri- 
 ads of good and useful things. Amongst the devotees 
 of every religion, and the peoples of every race, nation 
 and country we find the best minds looking to science 
 for the solution of their problems, and we have thus 
 already before us a world-movement and the basis for a 
 world-federation. To get more mind and learn how to 
 use it in discovering and applying truth is the basis of 
 an active Universal Brotherhood. This great world- 
 movement, as yet unorganized, is "in the air ;" it is the 
 Zeit-Geist of the time ; and it inaugurates a millennial 
 cycle for humanity. This movement cannot be led by 
 any one person or body of people, as most religious 
 movements have been ; it accepts for its creed and char- 
 ter and leader nothing less than the total ever-growing 
 body of inductive scientific knowledge — the Revelation 
 of Science ; and its method will be the art of using the 
 mind as that art may hereafter be developed. This will 
 
358 Proofs of Life After Death 
 
 put the control of the world into the hands, or rather 
 into the brains, of the best minds of each class and com- 
 munity; and when once a more highly developed sci- 
 ence and art shall have been applied to the scientific 
 begetting and rearing of children, and to their early 
 education; and when a race of more normal people 
 shall, by means of a perfected mentative art and with 
 an extended scientific knowledge, have been applied to 
 the systematic ascertainment and application of Truth, 
 carried on as a religious mission, then we may expect 
 that a rapidly increasing knowledge of the Universe — 
 a synthetic science — will lead to the solution of the 
 various problems that now perplex us, — and among 
 them the problems of God, Freedom and Immortality. 
 We may anticipate the gradual obliteration of war, dis- 
 ease and crime. Following this recent extraordinary 
 intellective development will be a period of correspond- 
 ing emotive development in which Humanity will learn 
 to appreciate the utilities, beauties and opportunities of 
 existence. 
 
 Why all this about the progress of science and the 
 extraordinary world-movement that is revolutionizing 
 humanity? Because I wish to emphasize one import- 
 ant point, namely, that there is that in the Universe 
 which has succeeded, and is succeeding and will con- 
 tinue to succeed, — it has produced worlds and peopled 
 them with evolving life ; it has revealed to us a body of 
 actual knowledge; in the very fact that evolution has 
 ta£en place it shows the triumph of good over evil — the 
 victory of knowledge over ignorance — of pleasure over 
 pain. And that which has succeeded is MIND, or con- 
 sciousness ; and MIND is part of the universe, is imma- 
 
Immortality from New Standpoints 359 
 
 nent in it, has the eternal nature expressed in it ; and you 
 and I have inherited that nature, and are possessed of 
 the spirit, meaning and promise of that greatest mys- 
 tery of existence, — consciousness, — and by means of 
 Mind all possibilities are open to us; and when we 
 study its nature we are studying the nature of the 
 Supreme Mind, and are directly conscious of that which 
 has been eternally regnant in Cosmos. Whatever prob- 
 lems are solved by the future will be solved by con- 
 sciousness, whether these problems relate to the object- 
 ive or subjective world. All possibilities are opened to 
 consciousness, and the possibilities of the Universe are 
 infinite ; and among these possibilities, as I hope I have 
 shown, are those of an endless progressive existence in 
 a Universe at whose head is an Infinite Mind, of which 
 we are functional parts. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Contributors and Authorities. 
 
 SCIENTISTS. 
 
 Bade, L., Engineer, Paris, Con- 
 tribution of, 49 to 50. 
 
 Bayley, Dr. Weston D., Phila- 
 delphia, Contribution of, 52 to 
 55. 
 
 Brunot, Prof. A., Master of 
 Conferences, Sorbonne Uni- 
 versity, Paris, Contribution 
 of, 68 to 69. 
 
 Crookes, Prof. Sir William, F. 
 
 R. S., London, Expression of 
 
 in (Modern Spiritualism), 73 
 to 85. 
 
 Duclaux, E., Member of the 
 Academy, Director Pasteur 
 Institute, Paris, Contribution 
 of, 48. 
 
 Dungan, Prof. D. R., Pres. Col- 
 lege, Canton, Mo., Contribu- 
 tion of, 70 to 71 
 
 Eulenberg, Dr. A., Prof. Uni- 
 versity of Berlin, Contribu- 
 Qt, 87 to 88 
 
 Flammarion, Camille, Secretary 
 General French Astronomical 
 Soceity, Paris, Expressions 
 and Investigations of, in Ura- 
 nia, Lumen, The Unknown, 
 92 to 103 
 
 Flournoy, Professor Th., Uni- 
 versity of Geneva, Geneva, 
 Switzerland. His theory of 
 telepathy, 89 to 90 
 
 Member 
 of the Institute, Paris, letter 
 and reference, 90 to 91 
 
 Gates, Professor Elmer, Direc- 
 tor and Founder Elmer Gates 
 Laboratories of Psychology 
 and Psychurgy, Washington, 
 D. C, Contribution of, 319 to 
 359 
 
 Hericourt, Dr., School of Medi- 
 cine, Paris, Contribution of, 
 85 to 86 
 
 Hartzog, Professor Henry S. 
 President Clemsen College, S. 
 C, Contribution of, 51 
 
 (361) 
 
362 
 
 Index 
 
 Hudson, Thomson Jay, Ph. D., 
 Detroit, Author "Law of 
 Psychic Phenomena"; "Scien- 
 tific Demonstration of a Fu- 
 ture Life"; etc., Contribution 
 of, 60 to 67 
 
 James, Dr. H. P., St. Louis, 
 (See Psychical Research). 
 
 James, Professor William, Har- 
 vard University, Expressions 
 on Immortality, 91 to 92 
 
 Joire, Dr. Paul, President So- 
 ciety for Experimental Psych- 
 ology, Lille, France, Contribu- 
 tion of, 35 to 39 
 
 Lombroso, Dr. Cesare, Profes- 
 sor of Phychology, University 
 of Turin, Contribution of, 35 
 
 Massey, C. C, Expressions of, 
 58 to 59 
 
 Mendelieff, Professor D. I., 
 Director Government Bureau 
 Weights and Measures, St. 
 Petersburg, Contributions of, 
 88 to 89 
 
 Newcomb, Astronomer, Wash- 
 ington, D. C, Letter, 69 
 
 Ochorowicz, Dr., Professor Uni- 
 versity of Lemberg, Expres- 
 sions of, 71 to 72 
 
 Perrier, Edmond, Director of 
 the Museum, Paris, Contribu- 
 tion of, 69 
 
 Potter, Bishop H. C, New 
 York, Letter of and reference 
 to Professor Shaler, 39 
 
 Nichols, Prof. James H., Bos- 
 ton, Expressions of, 50 to 51 
 
 Shaler, Professor Nathaniel S., 
 Dean of Lawrence Scientific 
 School, Professor of Geology, 
 Harvard University, Expres- 
 sions on immortality, in "The 
 Individual", 39 to 48 
 
 Scozzi, Dr. Visani, Florence, 
 Italy, Contribution of, 55 to 
 58 
 
 Van Giesen, Dr. Ira, New York, 
 Letter of and reference to 
 Prof. Clifford, 104 
 
 Van der Naillen, A., President 
 School of Engineering, San 
 Francisco, Contribution of, 86 
 
 to 87 
 
 Ward, Dr. Duren J. H., Iowa 
 City, Iowa, Contribution of, 
 59 to 60 
 
 PSYCHICAL RESEARCHERS. 
 
 Beeson, Dr. Hamilton A., 
 Leedsburg, Ohio, Contribution 
 of, 175 to 176 
 
 Burgess, Dr. O. O., San Fran- 
 cisco, Contribution of, 183 to 
 188 
 
 Gibier, Dr Paul, Late Director 
 of the Pasteur Institute, New 
 York, Contribution of, 176 to 
 182 
 
 Hodgson, Richard, LL. D, Sec- 
 retary of the American 
 Branch, Society for Psychical 
 Research, Boston, Expres- 
 sions of, 121 to 127 
 
 Husted, Dr. A. D., Pittsburg, 
 Pa., Contribution of, 153 to 
 154 
 
 Hyslop, J. H., Professor of 
 Logic and Ethics, Columbia 
 University, New York, Inves- 
 tigation and expressions on 
 Mrs. Piper, 10; 107; 154 to 
 166 
 
 James, Dr. H. F., St. Louis, 
 Contribution of, 72 to 73 
 
Index 
 
 363 
 
 Lang, Andrew, London, Contri- 
 bution of, 143 
 
 Lay, Dr. Wilfrid, New Rochelle, 
 New York., Contribution of, 
 133 
 
 Lodge, Prof. Sir Oliver, F. R. S. 
 President Society for Phychi- 
 cal Research, Birmingham, 
 England, Answer to query 
 and general expressions of, 
 10; 107; 134 to 143 
 
 Myers, Frederic W. H., Late 
 President Society for Phych- 
 ical Research, Expressions of, 
 on subject of survival, 113 to 
 120 
 
 Quimby, Rev. John W., East 
 Bridgewater, Mass., Contribu- 
 tion of, 133 
 
 Richet, Professor Charles, Mem- 
 ber of the French Academy 
 of Sciences, Director of the 
 Scientific Review, Paris, Con- 
 victions of Through Psychical 
 Research, 166 to 175 
 
 Robbins, Ellen Rice, Manches- 
 ter, N. H., Contribution of, 
 196 to 197 
 
 Savage, Rev. Dr. Minot J., New 
 York, Expressions of, in "Life 
 Beyond Death", 143 to 153 
 
 Van Eeden, Dr. Frederick, Bus- 
 sum, Holland, Investigations 
 in Psychical Research and 
 Convictions of, 127 to 133 
 
 Wells, Dr. David W. Boston, 
 Contribution of, 120 to 121 
 
 Whiting, Lilian, Expressions of, 
 188 to 196 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 Anderson, A. W„ Ph. D., Presi- 
 dent Macalaster College, St. 
 Paul, Contribution of, 230 to 
 231 
 
 Bantandier, Cardinal, Rome, 
 Contribution of, 247 to 248 
 
 Bryan, Wm. J., Lincoln, Con- 
 tribution of, 260 to 261. 
 
 Butler, Dr. Hiram E., Editor 
 and Author, Applegate, Cal., 
 Contribution of, 219 to 222. 
 
 Butler, Prof. Nathaniel, Presi- 
 dent Colby College, Water- 
 ville, Me., Contribution of, 
 237 
 
 Carus, Dr. Paul, Editor and 
 Author, Chicago, Letter and 
 expressions of, 243 to 247 
 
 Colville, W. J., Expression of, 
 240 to 243 
 
 Emerson, Ralph W., Reference 
 and opinions of, 252 to 253 
 
 Gasc-Desfosses, Ed. Professor 
 Philosophy, Paris, Contribu- 
 tion of, 205 to 214 
 
 Gibbons, James, Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Baltimore, Expres- 
 sions of, 222 to 228 
 
 Grasset, Dr. J., Professor Fac- 
 ulty of Medicine, Montpelier, 
 France, Contribution of, 215 
 
 Harris, Dr. W. T., Commission- 
 er of Education, Washington, 
 D. C, Contribution of and 
 reference, 237 to 239 
 
 Hebard, Dr. Chas., Mondovi, 
 Wis., Contribution of, 257 to 
 258 
 
 Heighton, Henry E., Lawyer, 
 San Francisco, Contribution 
 of, 235 to 237 
 
 Hillis, Rev. Newell Dwight, 
 New York, Expression of, 200; 
 261 to 267 
 
 Jessup, Dr. Halton I., Phila- 
 delphia, Contribution of, 239 
 
3^4 
 
 Index 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, Reference and 
 Expressions of, 258 to 260; 270 
 
 Knowles, Edward R., LL. D., 
 West Sussex, Mass., Contribu- 
 tion of, 229 to 230 
 
 Linford, Professor James, Pres- 
 ident Brigham Young College, 
 Logan, Utah, Contribution of, 
 
 215 to 216 
 
 Mercer, Dr. Edward W., Phila- 
 delphia, Contribution of, 235 
 
 Newton, Rev. R. Heber, New 
 York, Contribution of, 205 
 
 Nunn, Dr. Richard J., Savan- 
 nah, Ga.; Contribution of, 214 
 to 215 
 
 Osborne, Professor J. W., Palo 
 Alto, Cal., Contribution of, 
 
 216 to 218 
 
 Pitzer, Dr. Geo. C., Los An- 
 geles, Contribution of, 218 
 
 Putnam, Frank A., Editor Na- 
 tional Magazine, Boston, Con- 
 tribution of, 216 
 
 Reid, Dr. H. A., Pasadena, Cal., 
 Contribution of, 232 to 235 
 
 Sinnett, A. P., Author, London, 
 Expressions of, 248 to 252 
 
 Thomas, Dr. H. W„ People's 
 Church, Chicago, Contribution 
 of, 222 
 
 Tarkhane - Mourawoff, Prince 
 Jean de, Professor, University 
 of St. Petersburg, Contribu- 
 tion of, 228 to 229 
 
 Vivekananda, Swami, Expres- 
 sions of, on Immortality, 200; 
 253 to 257 
 
 Warren, W. P., S. T. D., LL. 
 D., President Boston Univer- 
 sity, Boston, Contribution of, 
 248 
 
 Waterloo, Stanley, Author, Chi- 
 cago, Contribution of, 231 to 
 232 
 
 Whiton, J. M., Ph. D., Author, 
 New York, Contribution of, 
 218 to 219 
 
 Wilcox, Ella Wheeler, Editor 
 and Author, New York, Con- 
 tribution of, 15. 
 
 SPIRITUALISTS. 
 
 Barrett, Harrison D., Editor 
 Banner of Light, Boston, 
 President National Spiritual- 
 its' Association, Needham, 
 Mass., Contribution of, 299 to 
 300 
 
 Crookes, Sir William (see Scien- 
 tists). 
 
 Davis, Dr. Andrew Jackson, 
 Vineland, N. J., Expressions 
 on Significance of Death and 
 Evidence of Survival, 301 to 
 311 
 
 Flammarion, Camille, (see Scien- 
 tists). 
 
 Gibier, Dr. Paul, (see Psychical 
 Researchers). 
 
 Kingsbury, Hon. B. B., Defi- 
 ance, Ohio, Contribution of, 
 296 to 299 
 
 Peebles, Dr. J. M., Editor and 
 Author, Battle Creek, Mich., 
 Contribution of, 281 to 282 
 
 Richmond, Cora L. V., Lecturer, 
 Chicago, Contribution of, 277 
 to 281 
 
 Russell, Arthur J., "The Jour- 
 nal," Minneapolis, Contribu- 
 tion of, 300 to 301. 
 
 Sears, Edmond H., Reference 
 311 to 312 
 
Index 
 
 36s 
 
 Stead, Wm. T., Editor Review 
 of Reviews, London, Expres- 
 sions of, and Reference, 282 
 to 285 
 
 Wallace, Professor Alfred R., 
 F. R. S., Dorset, England, 
 Contribution of, 285 to 296 
 
 Savage, Rev. Minot J., (see Psy- 
 chical Researchers). 
 
 SUPPLEMENT. 
 
 Gates, Professor Elmer, Found- 
 er and Director Elmer Gates 
 Laboratories of Psychology 
 and Psychurgy, Washington, 
 D. C, Immortality from New 
 Standpoints, 319 to 359 
 
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