I can sustain the comedy no longer. These "revelations" are the most childish twaddle that has been put before our race since the Middle Ages. They are the meanderings of imaginations on a level with that of a fifteen-year-old school-girl. One really begins to wonder if our generation is not in a state of senile decay, when tens of thousands of us acclaim this sort of thing as an outcome of superhuman intelligence. It is on a level with the "happy hunting grounds" of the Amerind. It is a dreamy parson's idea of the kind of world he would like to retire to, and continue to "do good" without getting tired. It is a flimsy, irresponsible, juvenile thing of paint and tinsel and gold-foil: the kind of transformation-scene in which we revelled, at the Christmas pantomime, when we were young. Our generation needs guidance if ever any generation of men did. Another great war would wreck the planet. The social soil heaves with underground movements. The stars are hidden from view. And people come before us with this kind of insipid puerility, and tell us it is "the greatest message ever offered to man."
Seriously, what it is can be told in few words. It is partly a fresh attempt to bring our generation back to religion. It is partly an attempt to divert working people from the politics and economics of this world. And it is partly a fresh outbreak of the unlimited credulity which every epidemic of Spiritualism has developed since 1848. There was such a phase in the fifties of the nineteenth century, when Spiritualism swept over the world. There was a second such phase in the seventies, when materializations began. This was checked by exposures everywhere in the early eighties, and not until our time has Spiritualism partly recovered. Now the vast and lamentable emotional disturbance of the War has given it a fresh opportunity, and for a time the flame of credulity has soared up again.
To come back to the question which forms the title of this book, the reader may supply the answer, but I will venture to offer him a few summary reflections. We do well to distinguish two classes of phenomena. Broadly, but by no means exactly, this is the distinction between psychical and physical phenomena. Messages on slates or paper from the spirit-world I would class with the physical phenomena. We have seen that they reek with fraud, and there is no serious claim that any of them are genuine.
The nearest we can get to a useful division is to set on one side a small class of mediums of high character who claim that, in trance and script, they are spirit-controlled.
Spiritualism is not based on these things. The thousands of enthusiastic Spiritualists of Great Britain and America know nothing about the "Ear of Dionysius" and the "cross-correspondences" of the Psychical Researchers. Their faith is solidly based on physical phenomena. They are taught by their leaders to base it on physical phenomena. Sir A. C. Doyle and Sir W. Barrett urge the levitations and other miracles of D. D. Home and Stainton Moses and Kathleen Goligher. Sir Oliver Lodge—who seems also to admit the preceding—asks us to consider seriously the performances of Marthe Beraud. Sir W. Crookes lets it be understood that to the day of his death he believed in "Katie King" and the spirit-played accordion. Professor Richet, and all those other professors and scholars whose names are fondly quoted by Spiritualists, rely entirely on physical phenomena. If you cut out all the physical-phenomena mediums of the nineteenth century, and all the ghost-photographs and "direct voices" of to-day, you have very little left. That is to say that Spiritualism is generally based on fraud.
Does it matter? Yes, it matters exceedingly. It matters more than it ever did before. The world is at a pass where it needs the clearest-headed attention and warmest interest of every man and woman in every civilization. Fine sentiments, too, we want; but not a sentimentality that palsies the judgment. Men never faced graver problems or had a greater opportunity. Instead of distraction we want concentration on earth. Instead of dreaminess we want a close appreciation of realities. There lies before our generation a period either of greater general prosperity than was ever known before, or a period of prolonged and devastating struggle. Which it shall be depends on our wisdom.
Is there any need to settle whether we shall live after death? The Spiritualist says that if we could convince men that their lot in that other world will be decided by their characters they will be more eager for justice, honour, and sobriety. But a man's position in this world is settled by his character. Justice, honour, and sobriety are laws of this world. Men would have perceived it long ago, and acted accordingly, but for the unfortunate belief that these qualities were arbitrarily commanded by supernatural powers. We need no other-worldly motives whatever for the cultivation of character. Indeed, so far as I can see, the man who gambles and drinks is more likely to say to the Spiritualist: "You tell me there is no vindictive hell for what I do here. You tell me there are no horses or fiery drinks in that other world. Then I will drink and bet while the opportunity remains, and be sober and prudent afterwards."
But the dead, the loved ones we have lost! Must we forfeit this new hope that we may see them again? Let us make no mistake. Half the civilized world has already forfeited it. Six million people in London never approach a church, and the vast majority of these believe no longer in heaven. So it is in the large towns of nearly every civilization. Yet the number of Spiritualists in the entire world is not one-tenth the number of "pagans" in London alone. And there is no weeping and gnashing of teeth. At the time of the wrench one suffers. Slowly nature embalms the wound, as she already draws her green mantle over the hideous wounds of France and Belgium. We learn serenity. Life is a gift. Every friend and dear one is a gift. It is not wise to complain that gifts do not last for ever.
The finest sentiment you can bestow on the memory of the dead is to make the world better for the living. Has your child been torn from you? In its memory try to make the world safer and happier for the myriads of children who remain. This earth is but a poor drab thing compared with what it could be made in a single generation. Hotbeds of disease abound in our cities, and children fall in scandalous numbers in the heat of summer or perish in the blasts of winter. Let the pain of loss drive us survivors into securing that losses shall be less frequent and less painful. Do not listen to those who say that critics crush the voice of the heart in the name of reason. We want all the heart we can get in life, all the strength of emotion and devotion we can engender. But let it be expended on the plain, and plainly profitable, task of making this earth a Summerland. Do that, as your leisure and your powers permit, and, when the day is over, you will lie down with a smile, whether you are ever to awaken or are to sleep for ever.