resolution, a warm glow suddenly pervades his being. He feels at once lighter and stronger, and then perhaps he does a little thinking for himself. "If I believed in angels, I should say that they were near, and touched me then; I never felt anything like it." Little does he suspect the truth, that the whole idea which he so carefully elaborated in his mind had been flashed into it from without by an angel-friend, and that when it had borne its natural fruit in a good resolution, it became possible for the same friend to convey to him a touch of her own delight.

It may be objected that illustrations like these prove nothing as to the source of the experience; that to deny that invisible intelligences so play upon men is as rational, or more so, as to say they do. But we are not limited to such comparatively indefinite evidence. For nearly fifty years it has been permitted, or commanded, or both, that these invisible beings should demonstrate the reality of continued existence, and they have been doing so in a great variety of ways. For particulars, reference is made to the periodical literature devoted to the subject, and to the scores of books which have been written upon it.

It is not my purpose, however, to enter into this field of evidence with any approach to minutiæ, for it was not here that I acquired the ability to say, The occult world is a real, inhabited domain. I know whereof I speak.

CHAPTER XII.

In searching for truth in the fields of thought, we often run counter to our own prejudices, and almost unconsciously call a halt. There are some whose self-conceit is so great that they invariably do so the moment that any of their prejudices is in the slightest danger of a shock. But it is rather to the seeker who has in part divested himself from this hampering load, which he had perhaps inherited like a humor of the blood, that I now speak.

What is to be done? How proceed in such a case? The remedy is simple. Whenever you are dealing with abstract ideas, and find one that is refractory, either in itself for want of further analysis, or because of some special weakness of yours which incapacitates you from subduing it, never give it up; if you do, you will find yourself under it like a toad under a stone for an indefinite length of time. No, the right thing to do is to pass at once from the abstract to the concrete, and find in material things the counterpart of the truth under examination, and then proceed. The effect is often wonderful.

To illustrate. Suppose you are examining the abstract idea of the expediency of doing right. You may have some particular case in mind, probably will have, if the decision is to count for anything in your life. You may call to mind the famous saying, It is better to be right, than to be president. You will recognize the principle involved in this, but is it of universal application? you may inquire. Is there not some way by which I can take the free-and-easy course and yet incur no penalty? A great many people appear to be able to, why should not I? This is the point where you need to transfer the case from the abstract to the concrete form, and ask yourself, Suppose I were mixing chemicals according to a certain formula to produce a certain compound, and suppose one of the ingredients were wanting. Should I go ahead and trust to luck, and expect to get the compound just the same as though I followed the directions? Surely not. What would the science of chemistry amount to if such a thing were possible? How could anything new be discovered if the governing principles could not be depended on, or, in other words, if like causes did not always produce like effects, and unlike causes, unlike effects?

The most intrepid explorer in the scientific field might well despair of the prospect in such a case. But this is chemistry, and the laws of conduct are not so rigid, you may say. That is just where you miss the path. Until you attain to a belief in the unity pervading all things, from the lowest to the highest, this unity differing in outward appearance or manifestation only, and not in essential character, you will find no peace nor rest. The laws of conduct less rigid than the laws of chemistry? Say, rather, infinitely more so. For the higher the plane of action, the less likelihood is there of any superior force interposing to divert the current of events from its natural course; and the laws of conduct, remember, pertain to the life of the soul, which makes them higher than the laws of chemistry by two removes, for the laws of health relating to the physical body come in between.

But the laws of conduct are not well understood, you say. That, indeed, is true. We have only a few keys opening into this realm of the soul, and most people are content to take public opinion as a sufficient guide rather than to take the trouble to explore for themselves.

But it is the plane just below this, that of bodily life and death, which we are attempting more especially to elucidate. There seems to be no systematic teaching in regard to this that is worthy of the name of science.

The problem of life itself, what it is as a force differing from other forces, how to deduce from the manifestations of vitality what vitality is, remains unsolved. And why so? For a very simple reason. Because those who attempt the problem are unwilling or unable to conform to the conditions which they recognize as necessary in all other departments of scientific research. They do not study life objectively. They may think they do. They may think that to study life in other men or in animals is a truly objective method, but this is a fallacy.

The theory that life needs to be studied from an outside standpoint in order to be comprehended, is all right, but the man who uses his own life-force in studying that of other men or animals is not outside the subject of his thought at all. The active currents of his own being continually intervene to obscure the processes of thought and render his conclusions valueless.

It may be true that no other method which can be called objective is immediately apparent, but it does not follow that there is no other; and if we simply enlarge our ideas of what is possible, we shall find the true method to be just what we ought rationally to expect, and that is this: The student who wishes to solve this problem, either for his own satisfaction or for the enlightenment of others, must eliminate from the problem the one disturbing element, his personal life-force.

CHAPTER XIII.

Does it seem absurd to say that, in order to study life, a man must die? For that is what this method amounts to in the last analysis.

Now, I beg of you not to be unnecessarily alarmed. I have said nothing about burial. If death were only another name for annihilation, then death and burial would be inseparably associated, no doubt. But suppose it should be true that it is an error to associate the thought of annihilation with any man, is it not clear that whoever permits that error to have any place in his mind is sure to give a meaning to the word death which does not belong to it? Is it not evident that the thought of death in that case must borrow blackness and mystery of a kind that does not pertain