When, at the close of a career richer in fierce logomachy and struggle than in victory in which I have figured as a champion of the new trend of human thought in psychiatry and criminal anthropology, I began investigations into the phenomena of spiritism and afterwards determined to publish a book on the subject, my nearest friends rose against me on every side, crying, You will ruin an honorable reputation, a career in which, after so many contests, you had finally reached the goal; and all for a theory which the whole world not only repudiates, but, worse still, thinks to be ridiculous.