SIR OLIVER LODGE 259 



take. Hence the a priori prejudgments and prejudices 

 are now altered. If there is testimony bearing upon 

 the perennial existence and survival of these higher 

 things, we need no longer look at it askance, or con- 

 sider it as foreign to our perception of reality. Reality 

 Is a much bigger thing than the mechanicians had 

 thought. They are true as far as they go, but we can 

 go much further. Testimony to survival is no longer 

 unacceptable. Indeed we should expect something of 

 the kind. What survival means, and what its impli- 

 cations are, may still remain to be ascertained. But 

 there is a prima facie case for investigation. We are 

 not traitors to science when we explore mental proc- 

 esses, however unusual and surprising they may be. 

 There is a large amount of evidence that personality 

 persists, that individuals continue after the destruction 

 of their bodily organism. They may find it difficult to 

 manifest their continued existence; but, according to 

 the evidence, they have managed to do so. The evi- 

 dence must be scrutinised with great care; but there is 

 no reason to disbelieve it on a priori grounds. The 

 body of evidence has grown of late years, and is grow- 

 ing. So that many now have no doubt that their loved 

 ones continue, that they are still watching and helping 

 and guiding, as of old; that realities do net go out of 

 existence, that these higher attributes of man are just 

 as real as any others, more real because more per- 

 sistent; that there will be a time of reunion, that in- 

 telligence and character and tastes and aptitudes per- 

 sist, and that love Is the dominating force In the uni- 

 verse, — a universe far greater and higher than Its 

 merely material manifestations. It is true, as Sir Ber- 

 keley Moynihan has recently declared, that the God 



