The time has surely come when the fair claim of ghosts to the impartial attention and careful observation of mankind should no longer be ignored.

In earlier times people believed in them so much that they cut their acquaintance; in later times people believe in them so little that they will not even admit their existence.

Thus these mysterious visitants have hitherto failed to enter into that friendly relation with mankind which many of them seem sincerely to desire.
But what with the superstitious credulity of the one age and the equally superstitious unbelief of another, it is necessary to begin from the beginning and to convince a sceptical world that apparitions really appear.

In order to do this it is necessary to insist that your ghost should no longer be ignored as a phenomenon of Nature.

He has a right, equal to that of any other natural phenomenon, to be examined and observed, studied and defined.