d to permit the same
kind of experimentation which Eusapia so adequately sustained.'"

"Well, now," said Cameron, "the practical question is this: are we to go
on with our investigation?"

"I am ready," said Miller, promptly. "Garland, will you purvey another
psychic and conduct the pursuit?"

"Yes, provided you all come in with spirits attuned, ready to wait
patiently and observe silently. The law of these materializations seems
to be this: the forces of the psychic are proportional to the
harmoniousness of the circle and in inverse proportion to the light.
Accepting this law as proved by our illustrious fellow-experimenters
abroad, are you ready to try again along the lines they have marked
out?"

As with one voice, all agreed.

"Very well," said I; "I will see what I can do for you in the way of a
new psychic and new phenomena. We will now experiment with design to
prove the identity of the reappearing dead. Of this I am fully
persuaded. Men will be discovering new laws of nature ten thousand years
from now, just as they are to-day. It is inconceivable that the secrets
of the universe should ever be entirely made plain. The world of mystery
retires before the dawn. Nothing is really explained--what we call
familiar facts are at bottom inexplicable mysteries, and must ever
remain so."

"Then why go on? Why not stop now and save ourselves the trouble of
investigation?"

"Because there is joy in the pursuit--because it is in the nature of man
to pursue this quest. Who knows but the conclusions of Venzano and
Morselli, of Bottazzi and Foa, have opened new vistas in human nature?
These 'supernormal powers' may chance to be of immense value to the
race, quite aside from their bearing upon the problem of death.
Furthermore, these reports come at a time when a hard-and-fast
literalism of interpretation is the fashion among scientists like
Miller. Perhaps they and the art of the day will alike be offered new
inspiration by these mystifying enlargements of human faculty. I for one
feel profoundly indebted to these brave and clear-brained Italian
scientists. I should like to see the physicists of our own universities
busying themselves with this most absorbing and vital problem."

"But they don't," retorted Fowler. "They will not even read Bottazzi's
reports."

And I fear he is justified in his belief.

[As I am reading proof on this page a fat letter from a friend in
Naples comes to my desk, filled wi