700. The course of our argument has gradually conducted us to a point of capital importance. A profound and central question, approached in irregular fashion from time to time in previous chapters, must now be directly faced. From the actions and perceptions of spirits still in the flesh, and concerned with one another, we must pass on to inquire into the actions of spirits no longer in the flesh, and into the forms of perception with which men still in the flesh respond to that unfamiliar and mysterious agency.

Pindar.

There need, I hope, be no real break here in my previous line of argument. The subliminal self, which we have already traced through various phases of growing sensitivity, growing independence of organic bonds, will now be studied as sensitive to yet remoter influences; - as maintaining an independent existence even when the organism is destroyed. Our subject will divide itself conveniently under three main heads. First, it will be well to discuss briefly the nature of the evidence to man's survival of death which may theoretically be obtainable, and its possible connections with evidence set forth in previous chapters. Secondly, - and this must form the bulk of the present chapter, - we need a classified exposition of the main evidence to survival thus far obtained; - so far, that is to say, as sensory automatism - audition or apparition - is concerned; for motor automatism - automatic writing and trance-utterance - must be left for later discussion. Thirdly, there will be need of some consideration of the meaning of this evidence as a whole, and of its implications alike for the scientific and for the ethical future of mankind.

Much more, indeed, of discussion (as well as of evidence) than I can furnish will be needed before this great conception can be realised or argued from with the scientific thoroughness due to its position among fundamental cosmical laws. Considering how familiar the notion - the vague shadowy notion - of "immortality" has always been, it is strange indeed that so little should have been done in these modern days to grasp or to criticise it;- so little, one might almost say, since the Phaedo of Plato.

701. Beginning, then, with the inquiry as to what kind of evidence ought to be demanded for human survival, we are met first by the bluff statement which is still often uttered even by intelligent men, that no evidence would convince them of such a fact; "neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead".

Extravagant as such a profession sounds, it has a meaning which we shall do well to note. These resolute antagonists mean that no new evidence can carry conviction to them unless it be continuous with old evidence; and that they cannot conceive that evidence to a world of spirit can possibly be continuous with evidence based upon our experience of a world of matter. I agree with this demand for continuity; and I agree also that the claims usually advanced for a spiritual world have not only made no attempt at continuity with known fact, but have even ostentatiously thrown such continuity to the winds. The popular mind has expressly desired something startling, something outside Law and above Nature. It has loved, if not a Credo quia absurdum, at least a Credo quia non probatum. But the inevitable retribution is a deep insecurity in the conviction thus attained. Unsupported by the general fabric of knowledge, the act of faith seems to shrink into the background as that great fabric stands and grows.

I can hardly too often repeat that my object in these pages is of a quite opposite character. Believing that all cognisable Mind is as continuous as all cognisable Matter, my ideal would be to attempt for the realm of mind what the spectroscope and the law of gravitation have effected for the realm of matter, and to carry that known cosmic uniformity of substance and interaction upwards among the essences and operations of an unknown spiritual world. And in order to explore these unreachable altitudes I would not ask to stand with the theologian on the summit of a "cloud-capt tower," but rather on plain earth at the measured base of a trigonometrical survey.