Has the immortal spirit decayed with the organisation, or is it dwelling in sorrow, bound in its 'house of clay'?
If this be so, the 'spirit' must be unconscious, or else separate from the very individual whose essence it is supposed to be, for the old man does not suffer when his mind is senile, but is contented as a little child.

And not only is this constant, simultaneous growth and decay of body and mind to be observed, but we know that mental functions are disordered and suspended by various physical conditions.

Alcohol, many drugs, fever, disorder the mind; a blow on the cranium suspends its functions, and the 'spirit' returns with the surgeon's trepanning.

Does the 'spirit' take part in dreams?
Is it absent from the idiot, from the lunatic?
Is it guilty of manslaughter when the madman murders, or does it helplessly watch its own instrument performing actions at which it shudders?
If it can only work here through an organism, is its nature changed in its independent life, severed from all with which it was identified?
Can it, in its 'disembodied state,' have anything in common with its past ?"[11] It will be seen that my unbelief in the existence of the Soul or Spirit was a matter of cold, calm reasoning.

As I wrote in 1885: "For many of us evidence must precede belief.