$6 THE GRAMMAR OF SCIENCE 



ceptions, but refuse either from inertia or emotional bias 

 to draw the inferences from them which can be drawn. 

 A scientific inference — witness Darwin's as to the vahdity 

 of natural selection, — however logical, often takes years 

 to overcome the inertia of the scientific world itself, and 

 longer still may be the period before it forms an essential 

 factor of the thought of the majority of normal-minded 

 human beings. Yet, while logically trained minds which 

 are able to draw inferences frequently neglect to do so, 

 the illogically trained, on the other hand, unfortunately 

 devote a large part of their ill-regulated energies to the 

 production of every kind of cobweb of rash inference ; 

 and this with such rapidity that the logical broom fails 

 to keep pace with their activity. The mediaeval super- 

 stitions as to ghosts and necromancy are scarcely 

 discredited before they reappear as theosophy and 

 spiritualism. 



The assumption which lies at the bottom of most 

 popular fallacious inference might pass without reference, 

 for it is obviously absurd, were it not, alas ! so widely 

 current. The assumption is simply this : that the 

 strongest argument in favour of the truth of a statement 

 is the absence or impossibility of a demonstration of its 

 falsehood. Let us note some of its products : — All the 

 constituents of material bodies are to be found in the 

 atmosphere ; it is impossible to assert that these con- 

 stituents could not be brought together.^ £ro^o, the 

 Mahatmas of Thibet can take upon themselves material 

 forms in St. John's Wood. — Science cannot demonstrate 

 that the uniform action of material causes precludes the 

 hypothesis of a benevolent Creator. E7'£-o, the primitive 

 impulses and hopes of men receive confirmation from 

 science. — Consciousness is found associated with matter ; 

 we cannot demonstrate that consciousness is not found 

 with a/l forms of matter. Er^o, all matter is conscious, 

 or matter and mind are never found except in conjunction, 



1 " That is a noteworthy fact which I have not fully appreciated before," 

 remarks the untrained mind, and is already more than half-converted to 

 theosophy. 



