728 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



There is not a scientific spiritualist wlio would not rej^udiate the 

 statement as calumnious. If the laws of Nature can be violated, there 

 is no absurdity or chimera which is not admissible ; but, instead of 

 believing this possible, sjnritualists are the foremost of all men in in- 

 sisting on the universal inviolability of all the laws of Nature, ex- 

 tending their infrangible power not only over all physical phenomena, 

 but throughout tlie equally extensive psychic realm (in sjnte of all 

 metaphysical speculations to the contrary) an extension which Dr. 

 Carpenter has not affirmed himself. 



Dr. C^ix^iiwler presumes that liberal thinkers must be at war with 

 the laws of Nature, because Jie thinks those laws incompatible with 

 the new phenomena. The obfuscation of his mind is the same which 

 has characterized narrow-minded bigots in all ages. The narrow- 

 minded man cannot conceive two widely-different truths at once, and 

 perceive their harmonies: he adopts one with zeal, and rejects the 

 other firmly, because he thinks them incompatible. Narrow-minded 

 men are of course bitter partisans, and the great majority of mankind 

 from defective brains and irrational education see only one aspect of 

 truth, and reject all others. 



Dr. Carpenter sees no truth in mesmerism, and Baron Dupotet sees 

 no reliable truth in medicine ; Hahnemann rejected the entire accumu- 

 lations of allopathy, and the old school indignantly rejected Hahne- 

 mann's discoveries as nonentities. A doctor who administers three- 

 grain pills will not tolerate homeopathic pellets; and he who has dis- 

 covered that infinitesimals will cure is often equallj^ intolerant of the 

 three-grain pills: and so they call each other quacks and impostors, 

 in the same spirit in which Dr. Carpenter assails those who see more of 

 the truth than himself, and are equally interested in psychic and 

 physical facts. How long shall it be before the "survival of the 

 fittest," or the improvement of education, shall give us a generation 

 with brains enough to entertain two ideas at once? 



The difficulty of Dr. Carpenter and all other narrow-minded people 

 lies in the poverty of their conceptions. They have no idea that it is 

 possible for Nature to show her powers in any new way to which they 

 are unaccustomed. Hence, the ascent of a balloon seemed miraculous 

 to the ignorant peasants, who took it for the work of the devil; and 

 the formation of a solid block of ice from water was a similar viola- 

 tion of Nature's laws to the Asiatic despot, who felt justified in treat- 

 ing the traveler as a liar who told him of it. Had Dr. Carpenter been 

 his prime-minister, the traveler might have fared worse. 



There is no better evidence of philosophic imbecility than a senti- 

 ment of the all-sufficiency of our present meagre knowledge of Nature. 

 The proposition of Dr. Carpenter that all new, marvelous facts shall be 

 treated as impossibilities, and the witnesses who, without any other 

 motive than the love of truth, attest them at the expense of their own 

 popularity, shall be treated as impostors (which means, made personally 



