me, lie Ultimate Realities, subtle, far-reaching, wonderful.'

No one can read these words of Crookes without hearing again, as an
undertone, the question which had forced itself on him at the bedside
of his dead brother, long before. All that is left of the human being
whom death has taken is a heap of substances, deserted by the force
which had used them as the instrument of its own activity. Whither
vanishes this force when it leaves the body, and is there any
possibility of its revealing itself even without occupying such a body?

Stirred by this question, the young Crookes set out to find a world of
forces which differ from the usual mechanical ones exercised by matter
on matter, in that they are autonomous, superior to matter in its inert
conglomeration, yet capable of using matter, just as the soul makes use
of the body so long as it dwells within it. His aim was to secure proof
that such forces exist, or, at any rate, to penetrate into the realm
where the transition from matter to pure, matter-free force takes
place. And once again, as in Galvani's day, electricity fascinated the
eyes of a man who was seeking for the land of the soul. What spiritism
denied, electricity seemed to grant.

The aversion to spiritism which Crookes met with in contemporary
science was, from the standpoint of such a science, largely justified.
Science, in the form in which Crookes himself conceived it, took for
granted that the relationship of human consciousness to the world was
that of external onlooking. Accordingly, if the scientist remained
within the limits thus prescribed for consciousness, it was only
consistent to refuse to make anything beyond these limits an object of
scientific research.