292 BAEON EEICHENBACH'S 



slinking back, are content to let those who pronounce the 

 manifestations to be a sheer imposition, lodge a protest, and 

 make no rejoinder; when, on the 15th of November 1854, 

 I myself saw the confederacy hissed off their stage, and not 

 allowed to resume; when I heard them designated by the 

 audience with the names of ' swindlers,' ' rogues,' and 

 * vagabonds,' names which they have not dared to resent: 

 if, in the presence of all these circumstances^ I once more 

 approach the subject, the explanation is not difficult, and 

 will soon appear. 



There is no issue more feared by philosophers under 

 which designation we are to group all those who love know- 

 ledge and devote themselves to the task of investigating truth 

 than an indeterminate issue. Every human mind, seri- 

 ously occupied in the contemplation of the higher objects 

 and aspirations of human existence, yearns after some per- 

 fect and complete conviction as to the truth or falsehood 

 of propositions that come upon the arena of its scrutiny. 



The true philosopher is never ashamed to own that he 

 has been mistaken; inasmuch as opinions in regard to any 

 subject, at any given epoch, must necessarily depend upon 

 the evidence accumulated and available up to that epoch. 

 Not being ashamed to own himself mistaken, the true phi- 

 losopher may be always distinguished from the pretender 

 to philosophy by the solicitude he manifests in submitting 

 his proposition to any test that dissentients may elect. 



There may be persons who will interpret reasoned pre- 

 liminaries of this sort as a proof of half conviction. Dealing 

 with a current form of mysticism, as I have already pro- 

 fessed to do, why not (some over-enthusiastic champion of 

 truth and reason may say) brand the thing as an imposition 

 at once, the professors of preternatural philosophy as rogues 

 and vagabonds, even as fortune-telling gipsies are branded 

 as rogues and vagabonds? Simply, I reply, because expe- 

 rience has taught that there is no surer means of perpetu- 



