may come to be defined in
terms of matter and is not altogether "such stuff as dreams are made
of."

It has been shown that there is some good evidence for the existence of
this second body apart from psychic religion, but to those who have
examined that religion it is the centre of the whole system,
sufficiently real to be recognised by clairvoyants, to be heard by
clairaudients, and even to make an exact impression upon a photographic
plate. Of the latter phenomenon, of which I have had some very
particular opportunities of judging, I have no more doubt than I have
of the ordinary photography of commerce. It had already been shown by
the astronomers that the sensitized plate is a more delicate recording
instrument than the human retina, and that it can show stars upon a
long exposure which the eye has never seen. It would appear that the
spirit world is really so near to us that a very little extra help
under correct conditions of mediumship will make all the difference.
Thus the plate, instead of the eye, may bring the loved face within the
range of vision, while the trumpet, acting as a megaphone, may bring
back the familiar voice where the spirit whisper with no mechanical aid
was still inaudible. So loud may the latter phenomenon be that in one
case, of which I have the record, the dead man's dog was so excited at
hearing once more his master's voice that he broke his chain, and
deeply scarred the outside of the seance room door in his efforts to
force an entrance.

Now, having said so much of the spirit body, and having indicated that
its presence is not vouched for by only one line of evidence or school
of thought, let us turn to what happens at the time of death, according
to the observation of clairvoyants on this side and the posthumous
accounts of the dead upon the other. It is exactly what we should
expect to happen, granted the double identity. In a painless and
natural process the lighter disengages itself from the heavier, and
slowly draws itself off until it stands with the same mind, the same
emotions, and an exactly similar body, beside the couch of death, aware
of those around and yet unable to make them aware of it, save where
that finer spiritual eyesight called clairvoyance exists. How, we may
well ask, can it see without the natural organs? How did the hashish
victim see his own unconscious body? How did the Florida doctor see
his friend? There is a power of perception in the spiritu