one occurred the other day. There is a column in that
excellent little paper, Light, which is devoted to
what was recorded on the corresponding date a
generation--that is thirty years--ago. As I read over
this column recently I had quite a start as I saw my
own name, and read the reprint of a letter
which I had written in 1887, detailing some interesting
spiritual experience which had occurred in a seance.
Thus it is manifest that my interest in the subject is
of some standing, and also, since it is only within the
last year or two that I have finally declared myself to
be satisfied with the evidence, that I have not been
hasty in forming my opinion. If I set down some of my
experiences and difficulties my readers will not, I
hope, think it egotistical upon my part, but will
realise that it is the most graphic way in which to
sketch out the points which are likely to occur to any
other inquirer. When I have passed over this ground,
it will be possible to get on to something more general
and impersonal in its nature.

When I had finished my medical education in 1882, I
found myself, like many young medical men, a convinced
materialist as regards our personal destiny. I had
never ceased to be an earnest theist, because it seemed
to me that Napoleon's question to the atheistic
professors on the starry night as he voyaged to Egypt:
"Who was it, gentlemen, who made these stars?" has
never been answered. To say that the Universe was made
by immutable laws only put the question one degree