There are a dozen ways in which the theory could be rigorously tested. One has been tried and completely failed: the communication of messages which were left in proper custody before death. We shall, of course, presently have an announcement that such a message has been read. Some zealous Spiritualist will leave a sealed message, and will take care that some medium or other is able to read it. We may be prepared for such things. The fact is that half-a-dozen serious and reliable Spiritualists have tried this test, and it has hopelessly miscarried. Another test was that devised by Dr. Hodgson--to leave messages in cipher, though not sealed. This also has completely failed. A third test would be for one of these ghosts of learned Cambridge men, who are so fluent on things that do not matter, to dictate a passage from an obscure Greek poet through a medium who does not know Greek _at the request of a sitter_. It is a familiar and ancient trick for a medium to recite or write a passage in a foreign language. It has been learned beforehand. But let a scholar ask the spirit of a dead scholar to spell out through the ignorant medium _there and then_ a specified line or passage within his knowledge. I have tried the experiment. It never succeeds. Another test would be for one of these ghostly scholars to dictate a word of a line of some obscure Greek poet (chosen by the sitter) to one medium (ignorant of Greek), and another word of the same line to another medium immediately afterwards, before there was the remotest possibility of communication. A score of such tests could be devised. Three of the best writing mediums the Society for Psychical Research cares to indicate could be accommodated, under proper observation, in different rooms of the same building, and these tests carried out. We could invite the spirit to pass from medium to medium and repeat the message to all three, or give a part to each. Until some such rigorous inquiry is carried out, we may decline to be interested. I have before me several volumes of the _Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research_. Candidly, they are full of trash and padding. There is very little that merits serious consideration, and nothing that is not weakened by uncertainties, suppressions, and over-zealous eagerness.