1000. Some attempt to place these new discoveries in clearer relation to existing schemes of civilised thought and belief is needful for the practical purpose of enlisting help in our inquiry, which has hitherto suffered from indifference rather than from opposition.

1001. The influence of the evidence set forth in this book should prompt towards the ultimate achievement of scientific dominance in every department of human study, including - as never before - the realm of "divine things".

1002. The present age is marked by a deep and widespread dissatisfaction, by a decline of any real belief in the worth of life. A similar crisis which passed over Europe once before was dissipated by the rise of Christianity.

1003. In our age the scientific instinct must be satisfied equally with the religious; any scheme of knowledge to commend itself to our descendants must be one which, while it transcends our present knowledge, steadily continues it. It is only now that this principle is beginning to be applied to the spiritual world.

1004. The conception of Telepathy is seen gradually to enlarge and deepen, proving to us at last that the kinship between souls is more fundamental than their separation.

1005. Let us suppose that whilst incarnate men have risen from savagery into intelligence, discarnate men have become more eager and more able to communicate with earth. Sporadic instances of such communication have always occurred; but the newer scientific temper - demanding not miracles, but a higher law - is not perhaps confined to this earth alone.

1006. Actual increase of our knowledge of the spiritual world, both by discovery and by revelation, is rendering possible a religious synthesis less incomplete than any which has been attained until now.

1007. By a religious synthesis I mean a co-ordination and development of all such response of the human spirit to Cosmic Law as has risen above mere egoism or revolt into co-operation and worship.

1008. I hold that this enthusiasm of response is morally incumbent on us; since, even though the Cosmos appears imperfect, it may be destined to attain perfection partly through our own work and faith.

1009. The response actually made in the past by human spirits of high type has been, on the whole, concordant in recognising that a spiritual world underlies the material. The two leading World-Religions have developed different sides of this obscure philosophic consensus. Eastern contemplation has dwelt on the vastness of the spirit's ascent up infinite degrees of Being, to be merged at last in an impersonal All. Western worship has based on Jesus Christ's Resurrection the belief that the soul survives bodily death, and on His Revelation the belief that the world is spiritual and is ruled by Love.

1010. This dim and imperfect agreement is now supplemented by nascent discovery and revelation. From the discovery of telepathy we learn that a direct communication passes between incarnate spirits, and from discarnate spirits to incarnate. From the revelation contained in these messages from discarnate spirits, we learn in direct fashion what philosophy had suspected, - the existence and influence of a spiritual world.

1011. Our new knowledge, confirming ancient streams of thought, corroborates analogically for Christianity the record of Christ's appearances after death, and hints at the possibility of the beneficent incarnation of souls previously on a level higher than man's.

1012. Passing on to the further future, it confirms for Buddhism the conception of an endless spiritual evolution, which the whole Cosmos subserves.

1013. And meantime, by its actual and ever-growing reality, the nascent communion with enfranchised spirits offers both immediate sustenance and endless development.

1014. That development must be an increase in holiness; an intensified interpenetration both of worlds and of souls; an evolution of Energy into Life, and of Life into the threefold conception of Wisdom, Love, and Joy.

1015. This process, effected for each several soul in different fashion, is in itself continuous and cosmic; all Life is developing itself from the primal Energy, and divinising itself into the ultimate Joy.

Appendix A. The Function of a Society for Psychical Research. Appendix B. The Decline of Dogmatism. Appendix C. Prayer and Supplication.