How I Know the Dead Return.

A Record of Personal Experience.

By W. T. Stead.

Cecil Rhodes once told me that early in life he had devoted much thought to the question whether or not there was a God. He came to the conclusion that there was a 50 per cent. chance that there was a God, and therefore that it was a matter of the first importance to ascertain what God wanted him to do. In like fashion I would ask the reader to consider whether or not there is any proof that the conscious life of his personality will persist after death. If he examines the evidence he will probably come to the conclusion that there is a certain per cent, chance that such is the case. He may put it at 50 per cent., at 90 per cent., or at 10 per cent., or even at a 1 per cent, off chance that death does not end all. In face of the fact that the immense majority of the greatest minds in all ages have firmly believed that the personality survives death, he will hardly venture to maintain that he is justified in asserting that there is not even a 1 per cent, chance that he will go on living after his body has returned to its elements. of course, if he should be absolutely convinced that not even such an irreducible minimum of a chance exists that he may be mistaken, if he thinks that he knows he is right and that Plato and the Apostle Paul were wrong, I beg him to read no further. This article is not written for him. I am addressing myself solely to those who are willing to admit that there is at least an off chance that all the religions and most of the philosophies—to say nothing of the universal instinct of the human race—may have had some foundation for the conviction that there is a life after death. Put the percentage of probability as low as you like, if there be even the smallest chance of its truth it is surely an obvious corollary from such an admission that there is no subject more worthy careful and scientific examination. Is it a fact or is it not? How can we arrive at certainty on the subject? It may be that this is impossible. But we ought not to [unclear: despar] of arriving at some definite solution of the question one way or the other, until we have exhausted all the facilities for investigation at our disposal. Nothing can be scientific than to ignore the subject and to go on living from day to day in complete uncertainty whether [unclear: we] are entities which dissolve like the morning mist when [unclear: or] bodies die, or whether we are destined to go on living [unclear: after] the change we call death.

Assuming that I carry the reader so far with me, I [unclear: proceed] to ask what kind of evidence can be produced to [unclear: ustify] the acceptance of a belief in the persistence of [unclear: personality] after death, not as a mere hypothesis, but as an [unclear: ascertained] and demonstrable fact.