286 ^ MODERN MYSTICISM AND MODERN SCIENCE. 



The following question may be propounded : Has Science 

 not her own mysteries 1 Are there not, in every branch of 

 science, hundreds of revelations, the explanation of which has 

 not yet been vouchsafed? Assuredly; Science teems with 

 mysteries, but is devoid of mysticisms. None know so well 

 as men of science how slow the march of induction ; how 

 limited the grasp of human reason. But the mysteries of 

 science are of this sort: often beyond reason, but never 

 opposed to reason. They are, moreover, fixed, unerring, and 

 invariable. In their mystery they ever proclaim the cheering 

 truth, that the God of creation is not a capricious God ; that 

 his physical laws are unalterable. 



The broad distinction between Science and Mysticism, 

 which I have thus been endeavouring to convey, was insisted 

 on by Faraday some years ago, when he demonstrated, by 

 the issue of experiment (the issue agreed upon), that the 

 turning of tables was ever an effect of force unconsciously 

 applied. 



If phenomena be reducible to a law, their investigation 

 constitutes a science : if not reducible to law, they must be- 

 long to the supernatural. Believers must choose their ground 

 of belief; and it cannot be a mixed ground. If an individual 

 should choose to say, ' I have been made conscious of super- 

 natural manifestations by the evidence of my own senses it 

 is impossible that my senses would have deceived me ;' or if 

 he should say, c Though not having myself experienced these 

 revelations, I implicitly trust in the testimony of others,' 

 then argument is thrown away, and experiment useless. 



Let us not quarrel with any faith ; rather look tenderly 

 upon it, considering faith to be an index of the humility of a 

 mind (whatever its errors) not over-proud in its own conceit. 

 The adoption of a faith, as a faith, is tantamount to the 

 adoption of a new religion ; and heaven forbid that, however 

 false, a faith should be persecuted. 



What scientific men object to, and with reason, is the 



