Let us now take up the question of survival of personality after death from the strictly scientific point of view; let us consider what facts we have, and the indications they seem to give. First, we know that to all appearances the consciousness and the subconsciousness are bound up with the body. They grow with the body, they decline with the body, they seem to die with the body. We can irretrievably damage the consciousness by drawing a whiff of cyanogen gas into the lungs, or by sticking a pin into the brain, or by clogging one of its tiny blood vessels with waste matter. It is terrible to us to think that the mind of a great poet or prophet or statesman may be snuffed out of existence in such a way; but then, it is no argument against a fact to say that it is terrible. Insanity is terrible, war is terrible, pestilence is terrible, so also are tigers and poisonous snakes; but all these things exist, and all these things have power over the wisest and greatest mind, to put an end to its work on this earth at least. And now we come with the new instrument of psychic research, to probe the question: What becomes of this consciousness when it disappears? Can we prove that it is still in existence, and is able by any method to communicate with us? Those who answer "Yes" argue that the mind of the dead person, unable to use its own bodily machinery any longer, manages in the hypnotic trance to use the bodily machinery of another person, called a "medium," and by it to make some kind of record to identify itself. This, of course, is a strange idea, and requires a good deal of proof. The law of probability requires us not to accept an unlikely explanation, if there is any more simple one which can account for the facts. When we examine the product of automatic writing, table-tipping, and other psychic phenomena, we have first to ask ourselves, Is there anything in all this which cannot be explained by what we already know? Then, second, we have to ask, Is there any other supposition which will explain the facts, and which is easier to believe than the spirit theory?