ld,"
prays for her, and she sometimes repeats fragments of the prayers
automatically.

"Is that a blessing? Say it."[89]

"Father be and abide with thee for evermore."

"Servus Dei--I don't know."

"I have all these to look out for. I leave thee well."

"Go and do the duties before thee."

"Blessings on thy head."

"The light shall cease."

"Why do you say that?"

"Are you going? Good-bye."

"I want to go along the same path with you."

"Hear the whistle?" (This was an earthly whistle, which those present
also heard.)

FOOTNOTES:

[86] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 322.

[87] That is to say, Imperator, who always signalises his presence by
making a cross on the paper, or, with his hand, in the air.

[88] The spirits in whose company she has been.

[89] _Proc. of S.P.R._, vol. xvi. p. 396.

CHAPTER XX

Encouraging results obtained--The problem must be solved.

And now, can there be a conclusion to this work? It does not allow of
any conclusion. The most I can do in terminating is to record certain
facts. Dr Hodgson, Professor Hyslop and others, who, though
unprejudiced, began these studies as sceptical as anyone, have ended,
after long years of hesitation, by giving their adhesion to the
spiritualist hypothesis. But, as they are careful to point out, they
accept this hypothesis conditionally, and not definitely. New
experiments and new facts may turn their minds in quite another
direction.

Should we follow them? Should we each admit conditionally the
spiritualist hypothesis? Not at all; it is not thus that knowledge is
attained. Whoever believes that he has excellent reasons for preferring
any other hypothesis should remain unshakable in his convictions till
the time when new facts may oblige him to abandon them. Science does not
ask that we should prefer this or the other explanation; it only asks
that we should study the facts unprejudiced, that we should be sincere,
and not shut our eyes childishly to the evidence.

If a future life is to be, I will not say proved, but admitted by a
majority, a great number of experimenters, or, if you please, observers,
working independently of one another in all quarters of the globe, must
reach identical conclusions. Again, it must be possible for any
intelligent man willing to make the effort, and retracing the path
followed by the first observers, to arrive at the same conclusions. The
_magister dixit_ is out of date. Teachers in the prese