INTRODUCTORY 23 



alchemy, astrology, and witchcraft of the Middle Ages. 

 Either they involve facts which are in themselves unreal 

 — conceptions which are self-contradictory and absurd, and 

 therefore incapable of analysis by the scientific or any 

 other method, — or, on the other hand, our ignorance arises 

 from an inadequate classification and a neglect of scientific 

 method. 



This is the actual state of the case with those mental 

 and spiritual phenomena which are said to lie outside the 

 proper scope of science, or which appear to be disregarded 

 by scientific men. No better example can be taken than 

 the range of phenomena which are entitled Spiritualism. 

 Here science is asked to analyse a series of facts which 

 are to a great extent unreal, which arise from the vain 

 imasfinincfs of untrained minds and from atavistic tendencies 

 to superstition. So far as the facts are of this character, 

 no account can be given of them, because, like the witch's 

 supernatural capacity, their unreality will be found at 

 bottom to make them self- contradictory. Combined, 

 however, with the unreal series of facts are probably 

 others, connected with hypnotic and other conditions, 

 which are real and only incomprehensible because there 

 is as yet scarcely any intelligent classification or true 

 application of scientific method. The former class of facts 

 will, like astrology, never be reduced to law, but will one 

 day be recognised as absurd ; the other, like alchemy, 

 may grow step by step into an important branch of 

 science. Whenever, therefore, we are tempted to desert 

 the scientific method of seeking truth, whenever the silence 

 of science suggests that some other gateway must be 

 sought to knowledge, let us inquire first whether the 

 elements of the problem, of whose solution we are ignorant, 

 may not after all, like the facts of witchcraft, arise from 

 a superstition, and be self- contradictory and incompre- 

 hensible because they are unreal. 



If on inquiry we ascertain that the facts cannot 

 possibly be of this class, we must then remember that it 

 may require long ages of increasing toil and investigation 

 before the classification of the facts can be so complete 



