754. I have thus indicated one point of primary importance on which the undesignedly coincident testimony of hundreds of first-hand narratives supports a conclusion, not yet popularly accepted, but in harmony with the evolutionary conceptions which rule our modern thought. Nor does this point stand alone. I can find, indeed, no guarantee of absolute and idle bliss; no triumph in any exclusive salvation. But the student of these narratives will, I think, discover throughout them uncontradicted indications of the persistence of Love, the growth of Joy, the willing submission to Law.

These indications, no doubt, may seem weak and scattered in comparison with the wholesale, thorough-going assertions of philosophical or religious creeds. Their advantage is that they occur incidentally in the course of our independent and cumulative demonstration of the pro-foundest cosmical thesis which we can at present conceive as susceptible of any kind of scientific proof. Cosmical questions, indeed, there may be which are in themselves of deeper import than our own survival of bodily death. The nature of the First Cause; the blind or the providential ordering of the sum of things; - these are problems vaster than any which affect only the destinies of men. But to whatever moral certainty we may attain on those mightiest questions, we can devise no way whatever of bringing them to scientific test. They deal with infinity; and our modes of investigation have grasp only on finite things.

But the question of man's survival of death stands in a position uniquely intermediate between matters capable and matters incapable of proof. It is in itself a definite problem, admitting of conceivable proof which, even if not technically rigorous, might amply satisfy the scientific mind. And at the same time the conception which it involves is in itself a kind of avenue and inlet into infinity. Could a proof of our survival be obtained, it would carry us deeper into the true nature of the universe than we should be carried by an even perfect knowledge of the material scheme of things. It would carry us deeper both by achievement and by promise. The discovery that there was a life in man independent of blood and brain would be a cardinal, a dominating fact in all science and in all philosophy. And the prospect thus opened to human knowledge, in this or in other worlds, would be limitless indeed.

I do not venture to suppose that the evidence set forth in these volumes, even when considered in connection with other evidence now accessible in our Proceedings, will at once convince the bulk of my readers that the momentous, the epoch-making discovery has been already made. Nay, I cannot even desire that my own belief should at once impose itself upon the world. Let men's minds move in their wonted manner: great convictions are sounder and firmer when they are of gradual growth. But I do think that to the candid student it should by this time become manifest that the world-old problem can now in reality be hopefully attacked; that there is actual and imminent possibility that the all-important truth should at last become indisputably known; and, therefore, that it befits all "men of goodwill" to help toward this knowing with what zeal they may.

755. And this leads me to conclude this chapter with one urgent word - at once of gratitude and of appeal. To the informants, to whose care and kindness we owe the evidence collected in this work, I must express the cordial acknowledgment of the whole group of inquirers to whom their indispensable aid has been given. Especial thanks are due to those exceptionally gifted persons who have permitted us to witness and to test their supernormal powers. Viewed from the standpoint of our own personal claim, or absence of claim, upon our informants' time and attention, the amount of collaboration offered to us has been generous indeed.

But another point of view must be considered. The research on which my friends and I are engaged is not the mere hobby of a few enthusiasts. Our opinions, of course, are individual and disputable; but the facts presented here and in the S.P.R. Proceedings are a very different matter. Neither the religious nor the scientific reader can longer afford to ignore them, to pass them by. They must be met, they must be understood, unless Science and Religion alike are to sink into mere obscurantism. And the one and only way to understand them is to learn more of them; to collect more evidence, to try more experiments, to bring to bear on this study a far more potent effort of the human mind than the small group who have thus far been at work can possibly furnish. Judged by this standard, the needed help has still to come. Never was there a harvest so plenteous with labourers so few.