place in this new edition of
his collection of _Real Ghost Stories_.

"The reality," he wrote, "of the Invisibles has long since ceased to be
for me a matter of speculation. It is one of the things about which I
feel as certain as I do, for instance, of the existence of the people of
Tierra del Fuego; and while it is of no importance to me to know that
Tierra del Fuego is inhabited, it is of vital importance to know that
the spirits of the departed, and also of those still occupying for a
time the moveable biped telephone which we call our body, can, and given
the right conditions _do_, communicate with the physical
unconsciousness of the man in the street. It is a fact which properly
apprehended would go far to remedy some of the worst evils from which we
have to complain. For our conception of life has got out of form, owing
to our constant habit of mistaking a part for the whole, and everything
looks awry."

Estelle W. Stead

Bank Buildings,
Kingsway, London, W.C.2.

_Easter_, 1921.

A PREFATORY WORD.

Many people will object--some have already objected--to the subject of
this book. It is an offence to some to take a ghost too seriously; with
others it is a still greater offence not to take ghosts seriously
enough. One set of objections can be paired off against the other;
neither objection has very solid foundation. The time has surely come
when the fair claim of ghosts to the impartial attention and careful
observation of mankind should no longer be ignored. In earlier times
people believed in them so much that they cut their acquaintance; in
later times people believe in them so little that they will not even
admit their existence. Thus these mysterious visitants have hitherto
failed to enter into that friendly relation with mankind which many of
them seem sincerely to desire.

But what with the superstitious credulity of the one age and the equally
superstitious unbelief of another, it is necessary to begin from the
beginning and to convince a sceptical world that apparitions really
appear. In order to do this it is necessary to insist that your ghost
should no longer be ignored as a phenomenon of Nature. He has a right,
equal to that of any other natural phenomenon, to be examined and
observed, studied and defined. It is true that he is a rather difficult
phenomenon; his comings and goings are rather intermittent and fitful,
his substance is too shadowy to be handled, and he has avoided hithert