SCIENCE AND THE "SPIRITS" 475 



mind. It is, moreover, a state perfectly compatible with 

 extreme intellectual subtlety and a capacity for devising 

 hypotheses which only require the hardihood engendered 

 by strong conviction, or by callous mendacity, to render 

 them impregnable. 



The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently 

 borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, 

 not by logic but by slowly rendering the mental soil 

 unfit for its cultivation. When science appeals to uni- 

 form experience, the spiritualist will retort, "How do 

 you know that a uniform experience will continue uni- 

 form? You tell me that the sun has risen for six thou- 

 sand years: that is no proof that it will rise to-morrow; 

 within the next twelve hours it may be puffed out by the 

 Almighty." Taking this ground, a man may maintain 

 the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" in the face of all 

 the science in the world. You urge, in vain, that science 

 has given us all the knowledge of the universe which we 

 now possess, while spiritualism has added nothing to that 

 knowledge. The drugged soul is beyond the reach of 

 reason. It is in vain that impostors are exposed, and the 

 special demon cast out. He has but slightly to change 

 his shape, return to his house, and find it "empty, swept, 

 and garnished." 



Since the time when the foregoing remarks were writ- 

 ten I have been more than once among the spirits, at their 

 own invitation. They do not improve on acquaintance. 

 Surely no baser delusion ever obtained dominance over 

 the weak mind of man. 



END OF VOL. I. OP "FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE" 



