by Mrs. Chenoweth who is tolerant of that view. But the spontaneousness of the allusion and the connection in which it was made favors the possibility that it is genuinely transcendental in its origin.

Another instance is still stronger. Mrs. Verrall who was psychic and a lecturer on Greek and Latin Literature in Newnham College, Cambridge, England, believed in telepathy as an explanation of a large number of her own phenomena and those of Mrs. Piper. She was a member of the American Society and knew my position on the possibility of explaining at least some cases of telepathy by spirit intervention. She died in July, 1916, and early in October purported to communicate through Mrs. Chenoweth. She very soon referred to telepathy and coming back to it a second time said that she was not so certain since her death as she was before it that telepathy explained her phenomena and that my hypothesis of spirit intervention might be true. She said she was investigating it, remarking also what was true; namely, that in life she had thought some things were not due to it. She showed a decided leaning to the possibility of my theory. Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing about her except that she did automatic writing and that she was dead, having seen the mention of her death in Light, the English Spiritualist paper which she takes, or rather the Club to which she belongs. Mrs. Chenoweth knew nothing of her views about telepathy or spirits. Though it may not be proof that foreign intervention is necessary in telepathy between the living, it is interesting to remark that this change of mind characterized two psychic researchers who had died and who had believed in its more general application when living.

I am far from contending for such an hypothesis. I merely regard it as conceivable in spite of the objections applied to it. As we do not know whether telepathy is a direct or an indirect process between

the living, the field is clear for any conjectures we may choose to apply, and I am as tolerant to spirits in the case as I might be toward telepathy. We are too ignorant of the process to deny one any more than the other, and I only await evidence for one or the other hypothesis. All the evidence in certain instances tends toward it and only because it is not conclusive must we await more decisive facts. But we are entitled to urge our ignorance as a reason for not being too cock sure that telepathy does not involve spirit intervention. I am not concerned with the position that science requires us to assume telepathy and to stretch it to the breaking point before applying spirits. This assumption is often stated as the duty to assume the "natural" before applying the "supernatural." But I boldly affirm that science does not require, or even does not permit us to assume telepathy against spirits, except in an argument. When applying scientific theories we are required to assume the explanation that explains and not to make any concessions to the mere skeptic. In an argument with the skeptic designed to convert him, we are obliged to concede all he demands about telepathy and to stretch it to its full length, but this is a policy of conversion, not a policy of explanation. Regardless of skeptical habits of mind science binds us to explanatory hypotheses and so to the testing of them whether we convert any one or not. With a skeptic I might concede possibilities in telepathy, when arguing to convert him, that I would not concede in making scientific explanations. We are doing ad hominem work in conversion, but ad rem work in explanation, and our duties are different in them. So I feel no obligations to defend my respectability with skeptics by pretending to have assured beliefs where others may have a better scientific foundation, though I may conduct my discussion as if I did.

I should not even plead the consistency of spirit intervention as an explanation, as a defense of it scientifically. We must have more and better evidence, though consistency would suffice, if there was any assured disproof of telepathy as an exclusively living affair. It will require more evidence than I have presented to establish foreign intervention, and I propose it here more as a possibility than as an assuredly tenable position.

If we knew what the process of communicating is and whether space limitations affect it as they do any relations between living people, we might readily determine whether spiritistic agencies solved the whole problem. For we have some evidence that space affects telepathic phenomena between the living, when experimentally tried, and it is as certain that there are a large number of coincidences which are not affected by space limitations. They are often classified under telepathy, but there is no proof that they belong there, while actual experiments, as far as they go, favor the affect of distance to hinder telepathic transmission. Now in real or alleged messages from the dead, we sometimes receive the statement that they can tell what we are thinking or doing simply by turning their attention to us. I have noticed the same phenomenon as affecting control. That is, if the subconscious turned its attention to some one seen as an apparition, rapport is apparently established at once with that person and direct control will begin with impersonation in the first person, though I suspect that the subconscious, under the influence of automatism, is producing the whole result with modifications transmitted from the person with whom it is in rapport.

This would suggest the view that space does not affect spirit action and they certainly often show that they disregard it when communicating or exhibit knowledge that has to be obtained at a great distance. They

also claim that their perceptions are extended beyond ours. Now if this be a fact we can well imagine that transmission might overcome space limitations as well as perception. Accepting this fact they might be the instant transmitters of thoughts which they receive from the living either in the vicinity or at a distance, and their success would depend upon the variable conditions affecting the percipient and the question of voluntary and involuntary messages. But in spite of this possibility we have not yet obtained secure evidence that it is the general fact. There is some evidence that it is the fact in certain instances, but we lack a criterion for determining whether the cases not exactly like them come under the same law.

"I

CHAPTER VI

THE POSSIBILITY OF A FUTURE LIFE

Fa man die shall he live again?"

That was the question of Job and we are often told that it has never been answered. A part of it has been answered by all human experience and that is that man dies. But what is death? If we were sure of the answer to that question we could easily say whether he "lived" again. Some tell us that life as we know it is not worth while, but neither they nor those whom they would have adopt that creed have the courage to commit suicide and the riddle remains with us. But what is the problem before our attention?

When people ask whether we shall survive death they do not often indicate what they expect from an affirmative answer. In fact the answer varies with the degree of intelligence which men show. The outline of the different beliefs in the world shows this. The savage takes it very literally often, but not any more so than the believers in a physical resurrection. Others adopt a philosophy which makes the soul so supersensible as to escape all physical tests of its existence and nature, and can thus picture a state of existence which excludes the physical from its representation. The theosophist represents this type of believer. He stands midway between the pure materialist and the believer in the bodily resurrection. But both of them have to contend with the materialist who denies that there is any soul to survive and thus throws the whole burden of proof upon the man who believes in the affirmative.