I shall endeavor in this chapter to gather up a few missing links in my train of thought, and afterwards endeavor to give you a glimpse of the Beyond. The question I seem called upon to answer is, How can a man be alive and dead at the same time? and in order to answer it, it will be necessary to analyze the thought called death, and separate it into its various parts. The man is dead, says local report, and the consciousness of society undergoes that natural change in regard to the man which I have described. His name becomes associated with things that were, but no longer are. Even those who theoretically believe that the man continues to live either in happiness or misery, have, most of them, so little confidence in the theory which they have subscribed to, that they never dream of putting forth a mental current based on the theory. To all intents and purposes, society consigns the average man to annihilation, with a half-careless "Poor fellow, so he's gone. We'll see no more of him. Well, no time to weep, seeing as he didn't leave me anything. What new device for entrapping the elusive dollar shall I conjure up to-day?" I am dead, says the man himself as the shadows which have been gathering upon his senses culminate in a rayless silence, and every thought of motion becomes a recollection, a mere theory of fancy, that will not even approach the dominion of the will. Death, as a state of consciousness, is a thing entirely new to him, but he cannot reason on the subject. To reason is to live, to set the brain in motion, to perform mental operations; this is no longer possible. What shall this state be compared to? It is like that of one isolated in a secret cell of his own house, the key turned on him from the outside, every avenue of communication cut off, dead to the world and all that it contains. If a total loss of appetite can be associated with the state, it might continue for an indefinite period; and if the power of thought-transference comes in, a new kind of life has been begun. But science says that no man is really dead who still retains his consciousness, by which statement science belies its name. Calling itself knowledge, it spreads abroad its own ignorance. How many a post-mortem has been held in the hope of finding the secret chamber wherein that part of man which cannot die has gone to rest! How often the sweet peace of death has become a conscious madness, by this means, God only knows. Gentlemen, desist. To find a chamber whose occupant is invisible debars you forever from obtaining the proof that you have found it. But perhaps it is not the soul itself that is the object of this search, but rather some special physical representative that might be found still quivering with life and so betray its master. All folly.