472 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



torical experience of the race, that the inherent rational tendencies 

 develop into established logical habits and principles of belief. For 

 many this development remains stunted or arrested; and they continue 

 as children of a larger growth, leaning much on others, rarely ventur- 

 ing abroad alone and wisely confining their excursions to familiar 

 ground. When they unfortunately become possessed with the desire 

 to travel, their lack of appreciation of the sights which their journeys 

 bring before them gives to their reports the same degree of reliability 

 and value as attaches to the much ridiculed comments of the philistine 

 nouveaux riches. 



For these sufficient reasons it is Utopian to look forward to the day 

 when the occult shall have disappeared, and the lion and the lamb 

 shall feed and grow strong on the same nourishment. Doubtless new 

 forms and phases of the occult will arise to take the place of the old as 

 their popularity declines; and the world will be the more interesting and 

 more characteristically a human dwelling-place for containing all sorts 

 and conditions of minds. None the less it is the plain duty and privi- 

 lege of each generation to utilize every opportunity to dispel error and 

 superstition, and to oppose the dissemination of irrational beliefs. It is 

 particularly the obligation of the torch-bearers of science to illuminate 

 the path of progress and to transmit the light to their successors with 

 undiminished power and brilliancy; this flame must burn both as a 

 beacon-light to guide the wayfarer along the highways of advance and 

 as a warning against the will-of-the-wisps that shine seductively in the 

 bye-ways. The safest and most efficient antidote to the spread of the 

 pernicious tendencies inherent in the occult lies in the cultivation of a 

 wholesome and whole-souled interest in the genuine and profitable 

 problems of nature and of life, and in the cultivation with it of a stead- 

 fast adherence to common sense and to a true logical perspective of the 

 significance and value of things. These qualities, fortunately for 

 our forefathers, are not the prerogative of the modern; and, fortunately 

 for posterity, are likely to remain characteristic of the scientific and 

 antagonistic to the occult. 



