Introductory, 31 



it the tendency to claim superiority and to chal- 

 lenge comparison. It is sure to come offvictor^be- 

 fore those guided by the senses alone. For while 

 great success has been achieved in providing mate- 

 rials for cabinets and in all fields of labor where the 

 senses are the chief agencies employed, the whole 

 supersensual world seems to be in a deplorable 

 state of confusion to all,except to those philosophic 

 minds who have the power to observe order in the 

 midst of seeming chaos, and have also power to con- 

 struct wholes from loose and disjointed fragments. 

 The observers of the supersensual are comparatively 

 few, and they are seldom young men ; for the natu- 

 ral field of labor of the young lies chiefly in the re- 

 gion of sensible objects. There is therefore, in 

 general, less enthusiasm and display among the stu- 

 dents of mind and morals than among Botanists 

 and Zoologists. There is in the study of the su- 

 persensual no method applicable for increasing the 

 natural power of observation with such appliances 

 as are always at hand for physical research and 

 which so impress the multitude. Each observer is 

 confined mainly to himself for his facts. The pe- 

 riod of childhood he can explore only by the dim 

 light of memory and by inference. In the whole 

 realm of animated nature below him he now is, and 

 must ever remain, entirely ignorant of sensation 

 and will, except as he infers their nature from the 

 study of himself and the comparison of himself with 

 the lower orders of creation. 



This comparison of the supersensual in animals 

 and man should be more thorough than any that 



