ABSTRACT
most of the founders of psychical research have been in their graves for over sixty years. One might well suppose that it should by now be possible to arrive at some fairly complete and fairly unbiassed estimate of their work, to decide with reasonable certainty whether their immense efforts made a contribution of note to the sum total of things known, or whether their hopes—indeed their lives—have proved in the final reckoning altogether hollow. Had those efforts and those hopes been directed towards some branch of ordinary enquiry, such an evaluation would very likely be feasible. But their enquiries were not ordinary, and anything more than the most tentative of assessments is not feasible. For the question whether or not their work has been of lasting value is inextricably tied up with the question whether or not the strange phenomena which they believed themselves to have discovered really take place. And this is still a much disputed matter. It is hardly possible to make any firm assertions of whatever tendency to which plausible objections cannot be advanced.
