lii INTRODUCTION 



thority so far as demonstrating personal survival 

 through scientific proof is concerned, makes careful 

 distinction between matter and spirit. Spirit is the 

 highest development we can conceive, he says, and ex- 

 ists in and out of the body — out of it more readily and 

 completely than in it. It is only because we think so 

 continuously in terms of physical being that we cannot 

 form mental concepts of the reality of spirit. Minds 

 disciplined to think in terms of spirit reality do not 

 doubt that development of personality outside the 

 body Is far more important than development In It. 

 In the paper contributed to this discussion he makes it 

 clear that the process which meant an end of the bodily 

 organism had no effect on the soul entity save to re- 

 lease it for further life. In proof of this he asks for 

 experience rather than argument. 



We have cited, in brief, the beliefs of these men as 

 examples of the trend of research so far as It relates 

 to idealism, and ventures on the metaphysical. Re- 

 markable as It may seem, it would be difficult to find 

 an authority in any department of science to-day who 

 Is not Interested in metaphysics: they are vitally Inter- 

 ested because they know the close relationship which 

 prevails between research and human welfare, ex- 

 pressed on this human plane and on higher planes of 

 existence also. These discerning men know full well 

 that no quest In which men can engage can, for a mo- 

 ment, equal In Interest the search for God through His 

 universe. To say the same thing In slightly different 

 language : several leading scientists — those we have 

 mentioned, and those we have not mentioned, but 

 whose opinions are Included In this symposium — have 



