706. (V.) And now I maintain that in these post-mortem cases also we find the same general classes persisting, and in somewhat the same proportion. Most conspicuous are the actual apparitions, with which, indeed, the following pages will mainly deal. It is very rare to find an apparition which seems to impart any verbal message; but a case of this kind has been given in 429 E. As a rule, however, the apparition is of the apparently automatic, purposeless character, already so fully described. We have also the emotional and motor class of post-mortem cases (as Mr. Cameron Grant's, given in 736 B); and these may, perhaps, be more numerous in proportion than our collection would indicate; for it is obvious that impressions which are so much less definite than a visual hallucination (although they may be even more impressive to the percipient himself) can rarely be used as evidence of communication with the departed.

But now I wish to point out that, besides these two classes of postmortem manifestations, we have our third class also still persisting; we have definite verbal messages which at least purport, and sometimes, I think, with strong probability, to come from the departed.

I have, indeed, for the reader's convenience, postponed these motor cases to a subsequent chapter, so that the evidence here and now presented for survival will be very incomplete. Yet, at any rate, we are gradually getting before us a fairly definite task. We have in this chapter to record and analyse such sensory experiences of living men as seem referable to the action of some human individuality persisting after death. We have also obtained some preliminary notion as to the kind of phenomena for which we can hope, especially as to what their probable limitations must be, considering how great a gulf between psychical states any communication must overpass.