It would be interesting to pursue the subject of physical manifestations further, and to examine all their multiform characteristics; but that would be foreign to the purposes of this book. The examination of the mental characteristics of the intelligence which controls the different manifestations is our only purpose, and we have shown that the same laws prevail in all. It is believed that enough has been said to enable the conscientious investigator, who wishes to test the correctness of our hypothesis, to apply its fundamental propositions to all psychic phenomena. It is also believed that whoever so applies those propositions will arrive at the same conclusions to which I have come; namely, that there is no valid evidence, in any of the phenomena of so-called spiritism, that the spirits of the dead have any part in their production. On the contrary, as it seems to me, the evidence all points in the opposite direction. I refer, of course, solely to those phenomena which are produced through so-called spirit mediums. If there is any communication to be had with the denizens of the other shore, it is certainly not through them. I have reluctantly arrived at this conclusion. It would be pleasant to believe otherwise, but I have sought in vain for evidence which would warrant me in doing so. In abandoning all hope of obtaining valid evidence of the ability of disembodied spirits to hold intercourse with the living through the intervention of spirit mediums, I do not for a moment yield my hope, or my convictions, of a life beyond the grave. On the contrary, the very powers which are evoked in the production of the phenomena constitute one of the strongest links in the chain of evidence going to show that man possesses within himself an entity which does not depend for its existence upon the continued life of the body. We see that this entity possesses powers which far transcend those of our physical frame; that the mental powers of the subjective mind or entity are exercised independently of our objective senses; that they grow stronger as the body grows weaker, and are strongest in the hour of death. Have we not a logical right to infer that when it is entirely freed from physical trammels, it will have reached a condition of independent existence? What that existence is, it is not for objective man to know. It is possible that if spirits could communicate as familiarly with the living as we commune with one another, they would have no language which could bring to our comprehension their true condition. It would be like teaching an infant the principles of the differential calculus. How can the caterpillar, crawling upon the ground, hold intelligent communion with the airy butterfly, or the butterfly reveal to the caterpillar the mysteries of her winged life?