So far the theologians have failed to meet this demand and to provide the necessary habitat for consciousness which shall be independent of, and yet causally continuous with, the material world which the scientist knows. It is this illogical discontinuity which has alienated the sympathies of so many men of scientific mind and forced them to attempt to reduce all mental and spiritual phenomena to terms of matter. The foregoing should be sufficient to show how important it is that Psychical Research--the connecting link between the study of the material and that of the purely spiritual--should adopt as soon as possible some form of working hypothesis which is not repugnant either to religious or scientific thought. It is only by doing this that we can hope to retain the sympathies of both classes of thinkers and this is surely worth an effort quite apart from all other considerations. Here again I believe that the higher space hypothesis meets the requirements of the case and this is my second chief reason for urging its adoption. CHAPTER III APPLICATION TO CERTAIN OF THE FACTS ELICITED BY PSYCHIC RESEARCH In this chapter I propose to give some instances of the way in which the higher space hypothesis throws light on certain Psychic Phenomena which, without its aid, appear extremely obscure and difficult of explanation, but I shall make no attempt to cover the whole range of phenomena known to students. Some are not yet, in my opinion, sufficiently well authenticated to necessitate consideration, and those which are, some--such as Telekinesis, Prevision, and certain aspects of unconsciousness--are more conveniently treated in later chapters; others are so mysterious as to render any attempt at explanation premature until we have a wider and firmer foundation of fact on which to build; others again, such as thought transference or Telepathy, will probably prove explicable without introducing the Higher Space hypothesis in any direct connection. There are some, however, which may well be considered here. The first, and by far the most important problem which confronts us in attempting to form an idea of post-mortem conditions, or of the existence of personality apart from the physical body, lies in the fact that we cannot conceive of personality as absolutely disembodied--as pure essence. Yet we know that if personality does in fact survive physical death, it must do so in some form, completely non-material in the ordinary sense of the word, which is invisible, impalpable, in short entirely imperceptible, to our normal senses. Probably it is the difficulty of conceiving such a mode of existence which has chiefly prevented physical scientists, as a whole, from accepting the obvious interpretation of the evidence for Survival offered by various Psychic phenomena. Few people, I think, who have studied the literature of the subject, would be prepared to deny that Survival is, at least, strongly indicated by the evidence in question.