"
[9] For a fuller exposition of this point, see my Outlines of
Cosmic Philosophy, Vol. II. pp. 436-445.
[10] Fragments of Science, p. 119.
An unseen world consisting of purely psychical or spiritual
phenomena would accordingly be demarcated by an absolute gulf
from what we call the material universe, but would not
necessarily be discontinuous with the psychical phenomena which
we find manifested in connection with the world of matter. The
transfer of matter, or physical energy, or anything else that is
quantitatively measurable, into such an unseen world, may be set
down as impossible, by reason of the very definition of such a
world. Any hypothesis which should assume such a transfer would
involve a contradiction in terms. But the hypothesis of a
survival of present psychical phenomena in such a world, after
being denuded of material conditions, is not in itself absurd or
self-contradictory, though it may be impossible to support it by
any arguments drawn from the domain of human experience. Such is
the shape which it seems to me that, in the present state of
philosophy, the hypothesis of a future life must assume. We have
nothing to say to gross materialistic notions of ghosts and
bogies, and spirits that upset tables and whisper to ignorant
vulgar women the wonderful information that you once had an aunt
Susan.
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