which, however, we know that they have nothing to do. When it is
proved that the dead exercise some intervention, we will bow
before the fact as willingly as we bow before the mediumistic
mysteries: it is a question of order, of internal policy and of
scientific method much more than of probability, preference or
fear. The hour has not yet come to abandon the principle which I
have formulated elsewhere with respect to our communications with
the dead, namely, that it is natural that we should remain at
home, in our own world, as long as we can, as long as we are not
violently driven from it by a series of irresistible and
incontrovertible proofs coming from the neighbouring abyss. The
survival of a spirit is no more improbable than the prodigious
faculties which we are obliged to attribute to the mediums if we
deny them to the dead. But the existence of mediums is beyond
dispute, whereas that of spirits is not; and it is therefore for
the spirits or for those who make use of their name to begin by
proving that they must. Before turning towards the mystery beyond
the grave, let us first exhaust the possibilities of the mystery
here on earth.


CHAPTER II. PSYCHOMETRY

1

Now that we have eliminated the gods and the dead, what have we
left? Ourselves and all the life around us; and that is perhaps
enough. It is, at any rate, much more than we are able to grasp.

Let us now study certain manifestations that are absolutely