The argument here summarized is in no way profound or abstruse; it is extremely obvious, and as its propositions cannot well be controverted, it has had great weight with many people. I dare say it may be held responsible for the larger part of contemporary skepticism as to the future life. People have grown accustomed to demanding scientific support for doctrines, whereas this doctrine is not only destitute of scientific support but lands us in inconceivabilities; is it not, then, untenable and absurd? Such is the common argument. There are those who seek to meet it with inductive evidence of the presence of disembodied spirits or ghosts which hold direct communication only with certain specially endowed persons known as mediums. Concerning such inductive evidence it may be said that very little has as yet been brought forward which is likely to make much impression upon minds trained in investigation. If its value as evidence were to be conceded, it would seem to point to the conclusion that the grade of intelligence which survives the grave is about on a par with that which in the present life we are accustomed to shut up in asylums for idiots. On the whole the mediumistic ideas and methods are frankly materialistic, their alleged communications with the other world are through sights and sounds, and if their pretensions could be sustained the result would be simply the rehabilitation of the primitive ghost-world. Their theory of things moves on so low a plane as hardly to merit notice in a serious philosophic discussion. To return to the argument that the doctrine of the survival of conscious activity apart from material conditions is unsupported by experience and is inconceivable, we may observe that it is inconceivable just because it is entirely without foundation in experience. Our powers of conception are narrowly determined by the limits of our experience, and when that experience has never furnished us with the materials for framing a conception we simply cannot frame it. Hence we cannot conceive of the conscious soul as entirely dissociated from any material vehicle.