There need, I hope, be no real break here in my previous line of argument. The subliminal self, which we have already traced through various phases of growing sensitivity, growing independence of organic bonds, will now be studied as sensitive to yet remoter influences;--as maintaining an independent existence even when the organism is destroyed. Our subject will divide itself conveniently under three main heads. _First_, it will be well to discuss briefly the nature of the evidence to man's survival of death which may theoretically be obtainable, and its possible connections with evidence set forth in previous chapters. _Secondly_,--and this must form the bulk of the present chapter,--we need a classified exposition of the main evidence to survival thus far obtained;--so far, that is to say, as sensory automatism--audition or apparition--is concerned; for motor automatism--automatic writing and trance-utterance--must be left for later discussion. _Thirdly_, there will be need of some consideration of the meaning of this evidence as a whole, and of its implications alike for the scientific and for the ethical future of mankind. Much more, indeed, of discussion (as well as of evidence) than I can furnish will be needed before this great conception can be realised or argued from with the scientific thoroughness due to its position among fundamental cosmical laws. Considering how familiar the notion--the vague shadowy notion--of "immortality" has always been, it is strange indeed that so little should have been done in these modern days to grasp or to criticise it;--so little, one might almost say, since the _Phædo_ of Plato. Beginning, then, with the inquiry as to what kind of evidence ought to be demanded for human survival, we are met first by the bluff statement which is still often uttered even by intelligent men, that _no_ evidence would convince them of such a fact; "neither would they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." Extravagant as such a profession sounds, it has a meaning which we shall do well to note. These resolute antagonists mean that no new evidence can carry conviction to them unless it be _continuous_ with old evidence; and that they cannot conceive that evidence to a world of spirit can possibly be continuous with evidence based upon our experience of a world of matter. I agree with this demand for continuity; and I agree also that the claims usually advanced for a spiritual world have not only made no attempt at continuity with known fact, but have even ostentatiously thrown such continuity to the winds. The popular mind has expressly desired something startling, something outside Law and above Nature. It has loved, if not a _Credo quia absurdum_, at least a _Credo quia non probatum_. But the inevitable retribution is a deep insecurity in the conviction thus attained. Unsupported by the general fabric of knowledge, the act of faith seems to shrink into the background as that great fabric stands and grows.