The author sought to discover whether there may not be in living nature some unfamiliar principle which may act as an active and independent force after death wherein a mysterious agent reveals itself of the most peculiar and varied nature. He found this principle not only in man, but in the higher species of the zoological scale so that posthumous humanity is but a special example of posthumous animality and that this latter presents itself as the immediate consequence of the living world. An appendix showing the popular beliefs current in India respecting the post-mortem vicissitudes of the human entity is also found within.