X PROLOGUE 39 



which was first clearly formulated by Descartes, 

 leads not to the denial of the existence of any 

 Supernature ; l but simply to the denial of the 

 validity of the evidence adduced in favour of this, 

 or of that, extant form of Supernaturalism. 



Looking at the matter from the most rigidly 

 scientific point of view, the assumption that, 

 amidst the myriads of worlds scattered through 

 endless space, there can be no intelligence, as 

 much greater than man's as his is greater than 

 a blackbeetle's ; no being endowed with powers of 

 influencing the course of nature as much greater 

 than his, as his is greater than a snail's, seems to 

 me not merely baseless, but impertinent. Without 

 stepping beyond the analogy of that which is 

 known, it is easy to people the cosmos with entities, 

 in ascending scale, until we reach something prac- 

 tically indistinguishable from omnipotence, omni- 

 presence, and omniscience. If our intelligence 

 can, in some matters, surely reproduce the past of 

 thousands of years ago and anticipate the future, 

 thousands of years hence, it is clearly within the 

 limits of possibility that some greater intellect, 

 even of the same order, may be able to mirror the/ 

 whole past and the whole future ; if the universe 



1 I employ the words "Supernature" and "Supernatural" 

 in their popular senses. For myself, I am bound to say that 

 the term ** Nature " covers the totality of that which is. The 

 world of psychical phenomena appears to me to be as much part 

 of "Nature" as the world of physical phenomena ; and I am 

 unable to perceive any justification for cutting the Universe 

 into two halves, one natural and one supernatural. 



