"WHAT happens after death?" is, of course, the most painfully personal question there is. A great many matters of controversy may interest us without vitally concerning us individually, but, after all, every one of us has, at some time or other, to face death, and it is inevitable that the question of the hereafter should have a fascination at once peculiar and painful.
To-day millions of brave men on the long-drawn-out battle fronts are face to face with the prospect of sudden death, and both to them and to those near and dear to them, the old, old problem of the future life has suddenly become urgent and acute.
This little book does not pretend to give a dogmatic and exhaustive reply to the question "After Death—What?" Fifty years ago the reply, both of orthodox upholders of faith, and those who did not believe in the survival after death, would have been much more precise, and much more emphatic. To-day there is far less tendency among the champions of faith to be dogmatically certain, and, on the other hand, there is far greater tendency among scientists to regard the question as one worthy of their scientific treatment.
The opinions gathered together in this little book arose out of a newspaper discussion conducted recently, a discussion which aroused such extraordinary interest that it was felt the articles ought to be brought together and supplemented in this more permanent form.