proof than any other religious development with
which I am acquainted. As I have shown, it would
appear to be a rediscovery rather than an absolutely
new thing, but the result in this material age is the
same. The days are surely passing when the mature and
considered opinions of such men as Crookes, Wallace,
Flammarion, Chas. Richet, Lodge, Barrett, Lombroso,
Generals Drayson and Turner, Sergeant Ballantyne, W. T.
Stead, Judge Edmunds, Admiral Usborne Moore, the late
Archdeacon Wilberforce, and such a cloud of other
witnesses, can be dismissed with the empty "All rot" or
"Nauseating drivel" formulae. As Mr. Arthur Hill has
well said, we have reached a point where further proof
is superfluous, and where the weight of disproof lies
upon those who deny. The very people who clamour for
proofs have as a rule never taken the trouble to
examine the copious proofs which already exist. Each
seems to think that the whole subject should begin
de novo because he has asked for information. The
method of our opponents is to fasten upon the latest
man who has stated the case--at the present instant it
happens to be Sir Oliver Lodge--and then to deal
with him as if he had come forward with some new
opinions which rested entirely upon his own assertion,
with no reference to the corroboration of so many
independent workers before him. This is not an honest
method of criticism, for in every case the agreement of
witnesses is the very root of conviction. But as a
matter of fact, there are many single witnesses upon
whom this case could rest. If, for example, our only