During the past century progress has lain chiefly in the domain of the mechanical and material. The progress has been admirable, and has led to natural rejoicing and legitimate pride. It has also led to a supposition that all possible scientific advance lies in this same direction, or even that all the great fundamental discoveries have now been made! Discovery proceeds by stages, and enthusiasm at the acquisition of a step or a landing-place obscures for a time our perception of the flight of stairs immediately ahead; but it is rational to take a more comprehensive view. Part of our experience is the connexion of spirit with matter. We are conscious of our own identity, our own mind and purpose and will: we are also conscious of the matter in which it is at present incarnate and manifested. Let us use these experiences and learn from them. Incarnation is a fact; we are not matter, yet we utilise it. Through the mechanism of the brain we can influence the material world; we are in it, but not of it; we transcend it by our consciousness. The body is our machine, our instrument, our vehicle of manifestation; and through it we can achieve results in the material sphere. Why seek to deny either the spiritual or the material? Both are real, both are true. In some higher mind, perhaps, they may be unified: meanwhile we do not possess this higher mind. Scientific progress is made by accepting realities and learning from them; the rest is speculation. It is not likely that we are the only intelligent beings in the Universe. There may be many higher grades, up to the Divine; just as there are lower grades, down to the amoeba. Nor need all these grades of intelligence be clothed in matter or inhabit the surface of a planet. That is the kind of existence with which we are now familiar, truly, and anything beyond that is for the most part supersensuous; but our senses are confessedly limited, and if there is any truth in the doctrine of human immortality the existence of myriads of departed individuals must be assumed, on what has been called "the other side." But how are we to get evidence in favour of such an apparently gratuitous hypothesis? Well, speaking for myself and with full and cautious responsibility, I have to state that as an outcome of my investigation into psychical matters I have at length and quite gradually become convinced, after more than thirty years of study, not only that persistent individual existence is a fact, but that occasional communication across the chasm--with difficulty and under definite conditions--is possible.