ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

4;40 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
" He is not dead, this friend-not dead
But in the paths we mortals tread
Got some few trifling steps ahead
And nearer to the end
So that you too, once past this bend,
Shall meet again as face to face this friend
You fancy dead."
IN MEMORY OF DR. HYSLOP.
BY SIR WILLIAM F. BARRETT.
Time will allow me to write only a brief appreciation of my
friend, the late Dr. Hyslop. His many years of strenuous and
disinterested work on behalf of Psychical Research will ever remain
the best monument to his memory. Combined with wide
knowledge and untiring zeal, he possessed fearless courage in the
pursuit of truth. Like his friend and predecessor, Dr. Hodgson,
he was led by the force of accumulating evidence from scepticism
to an acceptance of most of the tenets held by spiritualists. At
the close of one of his books [Psychical Research and tlte Resurf'ection,
p. 407], Dr. Hyslop tells us that, although intended for
the Christian ministry, he was driven at first to accept Material·
ism, "not because it was a desirable philosophy, but because the
evidence of fact was [seemed to be] on its side, and neither the
illusions of idealism nor the interests of religious hope were sufficient
to tempt me into a career of hypocrisy and cowardice." He
goes on to say that after passing" through all the labyrinths of
philosophy, losing nothing and gaining nothing in its meshes,
in an accidental moment my attention was attracted by
psychic research, in which the first prospect of crucial facts
presented itself and in the accumulation of facts within
the field of supernormal phenomena I found the dawn of another
day." He rightly concluded that " the residual and neglected phenomena
of mind promise as wide an extension in psychological
knowledge as the new discoveries i.!_l the material world have produced
in physical science."
In the preface to one of the latest of his numerous books,
" Life After Death," Dr. 'Hyslqp states that the result of his long
continued and patient investigation convinced him that " it is
comparatively easy to prove survival, when you have once elimin-
Digitized by Coogle