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PREFACE

The following pages represent in the main a discussion of certain celebrated mysteries, as  viewed in the light of the discoveries set forth in the writer’s earlier work “The Riddle of  Personality.”  That dealt, it may briefly be recalled, with the achievements of those scientists whose special  endeavor it is to illumine the nature of human personality. On the one hand, it reviewed the work  of the psychopathologists, or investigators of abnormal mental life; and, on the other hand, the  labors of the psychical researchers, those enthusiastic and patient explorers of the seemingly  supernormal in human experience. Emphasis was laid on the fact that the two lines of inquiry are  more closely interrelated than is commonly supposed, and that the discoveries made in each aid  in the solution of problems apparently belonging exclusively in the other.

To this phase of the subject the writer now returns. The problems under examination[Pg x] are, all  of them, problems in psychical research: yet, as will be found, the majority in no small measure  depend for elucidation on facts brought to light by the psychopathologists. Of course, it is not  claimed that the last word has here been said with respect to any one of these human enigmas.  But it is believed that, thanks to the knowledge gained by the investigations of the past quarter of  a century, approximately correct solutions have been reached; and that, in any event, it is by no  means imperative to regard the phenomena in question as inexplicable, or as explicable only on a  spiritistic basis.  Before attempting to solve the problems, it manifestly was necessary to state them. In doing this  the writer has sought to present them in a readable and attractive form, but without any distortion  or omission of material facts.

H. ADDINGTON BRUCE.  BROOKLINE, N. H., July, 1908.

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