found them to be true, is it unreasonable to suppose
that he is fairly accurate in his description of his own experiences
and state of life at the very moment at which he is communicating? Or
when Mr. Arthur Hill receives messages from folk of whom he never
heard, and afterwards verifies that they are true in every detail, is
it not a fair inference that they are speaking truths also when they
give any light upon their present condition? The cases are manifold,
and I mention only a few of them, but my point is that the whole of
this system, from the lowest physical phenomenon of a table-rap up to
the most inspired utterance of a prophet, is one complete whole, each
attached to the next one, and that when the humbler end of that chain
was placed in the hand of humanity, it was in order that they might, by
diligence and reason, feel their way up it until they reached the
revelation which waited in the end. Do not sneer at the humble
beginnings, the heaving table or the flying tambourine, however much
such phenomena may have been abused or simulated, but remember that a
falling apple taught us gravity, a boiling kettle brought us the steam
engine, and the twitching leg of a frog opened up the train of thought
and experiment which gave us electricity. So the lowly manifestations
of Hydesville have ripened into results which have engaged the finest
group of intellects in this country during the last twenty years, and
which are destined, in my opinion, to bring about far the greatest
development of human experience which the world has ever seen.

It has been asserted by men for whose opinion I have a deep
regard--notably by Sir William Barratt--that psychical research is
quite distinct from religion. Certainly it is so, in the sense that a
man might be a very good psychical researcher but a very bad man. But
the results of psychical research, the deductions which we may draw,
and the lessons we may learn, teach us of the continued life of the
soul, of the nature of that life, and of how it is influenced by our
conduct here. If this is distinct from religion, I must confess that I
do not understand the distinction. To me it IS religion--the very
essence of it. But that does not mean that it will necessarily
crystallise into a new religion. Personally I trust that it will not
do so. Surely we are disunited enough already? Rather would I see it
the great unifying force, the one provable thing connected with every
relig