their conclusions.

At any rate, the work of the Society for Psychical Research has given
intellectual standing to what was before a sort of hole and corner
affair under suspicion twice: first, because of the character of those
involved, second, because of the character of what they revealed. It is
difficult for one not predisposed toward the occult and even strongly
prejudiced against it to deny in alleged spiritistic phenomena a
challenging residuum which may in the end compel far-reaching
modifications in the conclusions both of science and psychology. By one
set of tests this residuum is unexpectedly small. One of the canons of
the S.P.R. is to reject the work of any medium once convicted or
strongly suspected of fraud. There is a vast literature in this region
through whose outstanding parts the writer has for a good while now been
trying to find his way, often enough ready to quote the Pope in the Ring
and the Book.

"I have worn through this sombre wintry day
With winter in my soul ...
Over these dismalest of documents"

The reports of sittings cover weary pages of murky statement; the
descriptions of the discarnate life are monotonously uniform and
governed almost without exception by old, old conceptions of planes and
spheres. There is always a preponderance of the trivial--though the
advocates of spiritism claim, and the justice of this claim must be
allowed, that this is inevitable and that only through the veridical
character of the inconsequential can the consequential be established.
Moreover, the impartial student working over the records should at least
recognize the pathetic importance which those, believing themselves to
be in touch with their own dead, naturally attach to even the most
trivial instances. This sense of really being in touch, itself entirely
subjective, probably carries over ninety-nine out of every hundred who
finally become spiritists. It would be foolish to ignore the
contributive force of this sense. In one form or another it is the last
element in our recognition of our friends, and it never can be judged
externally. But on the other hand a recognition of the unwarranted
lengths to which--with lonely longing behind it--it may carry even the
best poised minds, must give us pause in accepting any conclusion thus
reached.

_The Very Small Number of Dependable Mediums_

Spiritistic literature is endlessly diffuse, but on the other hand the
more d