ABSTRACT
This chapter considers whether there are any facts other than the special phenomena dealt with by society for psychical research which make the hypothesis of human survival antecedently probable. Now, on the face of it, the most striking feature of the world as we know it in daily life is, for our purpose, that it does not present the faintest trace of evidence for survival. Continued action is a criterion of the continued existence of any substance; and this is conspicuously lacking after death. The body ceases to give the characteristic responses, and very soon it decays and loses even its characteristic shape and appearance. Hence the only evidence that we ever had for the existence of a man's mind has ceased abruptly; and, apart from the alleged facts investigated by psychical research, it has ceased for ever so far as our experience goes.
