SIR OLIVER LODGE 265 



tion, or the guiding principle, which assembled a con- 

 clave of Parliament or an army, may continue and may 

 alter the course of history. A written document may 

 have an effect long after the document has been de- 

 stroyed. The soul of a poem is not in the black marks 

 on a piece of paper; nor is its reality dependent on the 

 physical vehicle by which it was conveyed to others. 

 It is the soul of such things that is real, and it is that 

 which persists. 



So it may be with our bodily organism. Each or- 

 ganism is an assemblage of particles in a state of flux 

 and change. The cells have a communal existence, 

 but the permanent thing which put them together, and 

 which by their aid has accumulated experience and de- 

 veloped a personal character, is not dependent on them 

 for its Identity; and It can endure long after they have 

 been dispersed and scattered. 



These being the possibilities, the remaining question 

 is one of fact. The evidence for human survival does 

 not depend on argument but on experience. There Is 

 a growing amount of evidence that human personality 

 does really persist, that individual survivors have not 

 gone out of existence. That evidence must be critically 

 examined and subjected to scientific enquiry, and If It 

 stands the test. It must be admitted: it must be ac- 

 cepted as one of the facts ascertained In the process 

 of scientific discovery, whether we understand it or 

 not. All that the argument has done Is to show that 

 there Is nothing Irrational in the idea, that we need 

 not turn our backs on the evidence because It appears 

 to be demonstrating something Impossible. The thing 

 is possible enough: no one has a right to say that it 



