PREFACE Xlll 



to expose. In the particular case of which I am 

 thinking, I felt, as Strauss says, " able and called 

 upon " to undertake the business : and it is no 

 responsibility of mine, if I found the Gospels, 

 with their miraculous stories, of which the Gada- 

 rene is a typical example, blocking my way, as 

 heretofore, the Pentateuch had done. 



I was challenged to question the authority for 

 the theory of " the spiritual world," and the prac- 

 tical consequences deducible from human relations 

 to it, contained in these documents. 



In my judgment, the actuality of this spiritual 

 world the value of the evidence for its objective 

 existence and its influence upon the course of 

 things are matters, which lie as much within 

 the province of science, as any other question 

 about the existence and powers of the varied 

 forms of living and conscious activity. 



It really is my strong conviction that a man 

 has no more right to say he believes this world 

 is haunted by swarms of evil spirits, without being 

 able to produce satisfactory evidence of the fact, 

 than he has a right to say, without adducing ade- 

 quate proof, that the circumpolar antarctic ice 

 swarms with sea-serpents. I should not like to 

 assert positively that it does not. I imagine 

 that no cautious biologist would say as much ; but 

 while quite open to conviction, he might properly 

 decline to waste time upon the consideration 

 of talk, no better accredited than forecastle 



