422 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



makes the future life inferior in state to this, which would be a reversal of all 

 else we know of the universe. 



What is the method of coming ? In the case of the mesmeric example we see 

 that one spirit in the body acts upon another spirit in the body, through what 

 we call magnetism. If this is the medium for communication or contact, spirit- 

 ually, in one case, does not all nature tell us it must be so in all cases? In the 

 one case we see that manifestation by this means is the result of what we call 

 will power— or in other words, spirit impulse. If the intelligence, the will and 

 all spirit attributes survive the body, why can it not exert this will power or em- 

 ploy this impulse in one state as in the other? It is having them that is the con- 

 trolling fact. There are certain limitations on this power in the physical form 

 from what we call law — there must be limitations from the same cause in the other. 

 Everything cannot be possible in the one condition more than in the other — for 

 the fundamental fact is individuality, and this must have, to be a personality, its 

 limitations of invasion. And here, perhaps, will be found the one great obstacle 

 to a clearer understanding and a wider acceptance of intercourse between the 

 two states of life by humanity. Our wrong teaching as to nature, as to matter 

 and phenomena, and as to our conception of God, has also been against the com- 

 prehension of the relation between the two states of life. 



Now, suppose we conceive God, not as a separated personality, ruling by 

 behest, but as the universal principle of nature, his commands being eternal rules 

 or law ? That what we see was not made by him as a mere experiment, but is 

 Him — by expression. As he employs matter for the expression of himself — life 

 and inteUigence — how could that expression come from the higher life other than by 

 a universal law ? We cannot conceive of its coming by one law, going by another 

 and returning by a third. We must be under the one eternal law before coming, 

 while here and hereafter. Manifestation, then, is only a thing of condition and 

 degree — ^just as it is in this life. A man is superior in this life, morally, mentally, 

 physically. Just as the body he lives in is adapted to these uses — conditions being 

 equal. This fact is as well known as any other connected with his organism. 

 In the life to which he goes after this there must be corresponding degrees in 

 power and capacity, else the fundamental law of progress could not find opera- 

 tion. And nature is prolific in these analogies if we would but see them. An 

 uninstructed man would never believe the butterfly was the risen caterpillar; but 

 the entomologist knows it is. The man who never saw the face or conversed 

 with the spirit of his dead friend may not comprehend the fact, but the man who 

 has can answer the question : " If a man die shall he live again ? " It is in both 

 cases a mere fact of knowing. 



Pardon a digression here, for a few general observations. It is not neces- 

 sary to express an opinion as to the religious beliefs of men. But there is one 

 thing common to all : There is not, never was a religion among men, but was 

 founded on the belief of the existence of man after death, and his return to this 

 life as the evidence of that existence. The facts are the common property of all 

 men in all ages, and better established than that Moses, Zoroaster, Confucius, 



