series. That series, though it is such, is also more than a series. It represents a term which may assume any directive function in determining what the consequents may be. This is not true of the mechanical series. Hence when we give consciousness a causal function it is not as a passive effect in a series, but as an initiating agency which may exercise a directive power and act in a direction the opposite of that which mechanical laws require.

Just so far, then, as consciousness is a unique causal agent in the series, now appearing as if it were an independent unit and at others as if it were not, it must seem to represent something non-mechanical. That is, in so far as consciousness can determine whether it shall be a passive fact or an active one in the series, and in this active agency deciding the direction of its influence, it must appear to be an initiating and originating agent, and that places it outside the mechanical series at the same time that it appears to be in it. Such a conception of it suggests its independence and once concede it to be an independent causal agent and you have the possibility that it is not a transient or phenomenal event.

It is not my intention to discuss the evidence for survival. We are occupied here only with the possibility of it in so far as the normal facts of life support it. They do not prove it. They simply show that the materialistic hypothesis is not proved. I concede that all the evidence of normal life, so far as scientific method is concerned, favors materialism and if we have no other evidence, materialism is the only theory the intelligent man can hold, but he has not proved it beyond this agreement of the facts with it. He has not offered such proof as he demands in his laboratory for the non-existence of a particular element or phenomenon. So far as his facts go they leave it possible

that consciousness may exist apart from the physical organism, though we may have no evidence that it is a fact. Whether it is a fact is not the topic of discussion here. That remains for another chapter.

CHAPTER VII

DIFFICULTIES OF THE PROBLEM

E shall have to give illustrations of statements regarding the nature of another life, but we cannot do so without first warning readers of the difficulties under which we labor in determining their value. We have not expressed any certain conviction as to the nature of a spiritual world and its life; while we did indicate indifference to what it might be as long as it had no definite relation to our ethical obligations in this life. If rational at all, it must have some such relations, but they remain still to be determined. We have made only slight progress as yet in regard to the questions involved, except that of mere survival. The public forgets or is ignorant of what the great problems are, and so assumes that it is enough if we prove survival to carry with it any idea it pleases about the nature of the life which makes it possible. It has not discriminated between two wholly distinct problems, and the different methods involved in solving them.

The two problems are (1) that of survival and (2) that of the nature of the world in which we survive. The first of these is very easy of solution compared with the second, and from the painfully slow progress before the public of the first problem, we can imagine what the second will be. The solution of the first of the problems is effected by satisfying three requirements. (a) The exclusion of fraud and secondary personality from the facts which claim to be

communication from the dead. (b) The acquisition of supernormal information bearing upon the personal identity of the dead. (c) The exclusion of the telepathic hypothesis in explanation. Now I regard it as a comparatively easy task to satisfy each and all of these conditions. Those who have not investigated the subject live in the blissful illusion that it is extremely difficult to satisfy any one or all of these conditions. But this illusion grows out of ignorance and indolence. If they knew in the least how to experiment, they would find it a very easy thing to exclude every condition tending to discredit the facts. It is respectability only that enables the skeptical attitude to linger and persist in its difficulties. I regard it as perfectly easy to prove survival and I shall here take it as proved with sufficient clearness to justify ignoring the objectors to it. The evidence is clear and conclusive, and indeed so overwhelmingly plentiful that concession to ignorance and skepticism is no longer justifiable.

But when it comes to the second problem I would express a calmer judgment. That is not so easy. It involves complications which the other does not have. Had the means been supplied for experiment in this field the second problem would not be so hard as it seems. The difficulty in getting the public to see what it is and what the funds needed for it are is a greater problem apparently than that of experiment. It would be an easy task to perform had the experimenter the means and the help to carry out the necessary experiments, but most people, scientific men as well as laymen, expect the case to be decided over night and by accepting the messages in accordance with the ordinary interpretations of language, and so approve or disapprove of the "revelations" according to their prejudices for or against the case. This is another inexcusable delusion on the part of both sides.

Now let us examine something of the method involved

in settling whether personal consciousness survives death. We start with the assumptions which the materialists teach us; namely, that consciousness is a function of the brain and that all knowledge is derived by normal sense perception. Now telepathy negatives the latter and shows that some knowledge can come to us independently of normal sense perception. But it does not prove survival. We must obtain intelligent messages bearing on the personal identity of deceased persons not known to the percipient or subject through whom such messages come.

Now it is perfectly easy to obtain conditions under which all normal knowledge of particular persons has been excluded. All that we have to do is to take a total stranger to a psychic and make a verbatim and complete record of what is said or occurs there, and then determine whether the contents are possibly due to guessing or chance coincidence, whether conscious or subconscious, and whether they articulately represent facts once known to the alleged deceased person. That is perfectly easy to do and it is just as easy to exclude any known telepathy from the explanation. But in securing this evidence of personal survival we do not require to raise any questions regarding the conditions for communicating the messages. It suffices to know that they represent supernormal information, after excluding all possible sources of normal explanation. We do not require to know anything about even the physiological conditions that affect the result, any more than we require to know anything about the spiritual processes by which the result is produced. It is the facts that exclude normal explanations which decide the case, provided the incidents relate to the personal identity of the dead. The subconscious of the medium may color them as much as you please or bury them up in its own chaff, provided only that they are evidently not of its own creation and give