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Dr. Johnson said : " Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder 

 legs. It is not done well ; but you are surprised to find it done at all." He also 

 said of the sex, " That one of the great felicities of female life was the general 

 consent of the world that they might amuse themselves with petty occupations, 

 which contributed to the lengthening of their lives and preserving their minds in 

 a state of sanity." A lady said to him that because men cannot hem pocket- 

 handkerchiefs they torment their families and friends ; and this text we once saw 

 much embroidered by Mrs. Sarah Grand, who suggested that retired generals and 

 colonels would do well to take to knitting. Let this little volume be added to the 



scientist's library and its contents to his philosophy. 



R. R. 



Raymond ; or, Life and Death : with Examples of the Evidence for Survival of 

 Memory and Affection after Death. By Sir Oliver J. Lodge. [Pp. viii + 

 404, with 18 illustrations.] (London : Methuen & Co., Ltd. Price 10s. 6d. 

 net.) 



The first part of this book is a brief account, written with reticence and good 

 taste, of one of the heroes of the war. Of these young men, whose privilege it has 

 been to live most of their working lives, and finally to lay them nobly down, in the 

 service of a great ideal, Raymond Lodge was a fine example. And, while we 

 must condole with his parents in their sense of loss and their disappointed hopes, 

 we cannot but congratulate them on the greatness of the sacrifice which the 

 possession of such a son enabled them to offer. It is an inspiring record, and 

 especially so because we know it to be typical. 



The second part is on different lines. It may be taken, we suppose, to indicate 

 the nature of that "proof amounting now to certainty" which Sir Oliver Lodge 

 has for years declared to be accumulating in favour of his belief that the human 

 mind not only survives bodily death, but can and does communicate with those 

 still alive. The communication is less direct than that between earthly friends : 

 there has to be usually, beside the " medium " on this side, a corresponding 

 medium, called the " control," on the other ; and the message may be spoken by 

 the voice of the medium (usually in trance — more or less deep), or written by the 

 hand of a human agent more or less conscious, or signalled in an alphabetical 

 code by tilting a table on which the medium's hands are placed. Very shortly 

 after Raymond Lodge's death his relatives attempted to get into communication 

 with him by these methods. The results are interesting. It may be taken for 

 granted that a competent medium will say things implying a knowledge of the 

 sitter's affairs that has not been acquired in any ordinary way. We think it is also 

 proved that occasionally a medium will give true indications of matters which he 

 has not learnt in any ordinary way, and which the sitter himself does not know. 

 There is an instance in the book before us, where the medium described with 

 some detail a photograph which no member of the Lodge family had heard of, 

 and which at the time had not reached England in any shape. And thirdly it 

 is claimed that the communications have in certain very rare instances shown 

 a knowledge, not to be explained by coincidence or natural foresight, of events 

 still to come. These, summarily set out, are the facts ; and on them Sir Oliver 

 Lodge founds his doctrine that the medium is controlled by, and the messages 

 come from, the surviving minds of persons who once lived on this earth and are 

 now dead. 



The argument is that we have certain facts not at present explicable : Sir 

 Oliver Lodge offers an explanation, and claims that this ought to be accepted 



