568 The Outline of Science 



fascinating qualities. Physicists, chemists, and biologists have 

 arrived at a point in the analysis of matter which opens up a vista 

 of apparently illimitable scope. Our existing scientific knowledge 

 places no ban on supernormal phenomena ; rather it suggests the 

 probability of discoveries in quite novel directions. Any pos- 

 sible utilisation of the ether, however, by discarnate intelligences 

 must be left as a problem for the future. What appears to be 

 certain is that life and mind require for their manifestation and 

 terrestrial development some form of "material" in the broadest 

 sense, and that there is certainly an interaction between mind and 

 earthly matter. 



Statement of the Position 



The two branches of knowledge, the study of Mind and the 

 study of Matter, have usually been dealt with separately; and 

 the facts have been scrutinised by different investigators the 

 psychologists and the physicists. The time is coming when the 

 study of these two apparently separate entities must be combined ; 

 for it has always been a puzzle how there can be any relation 

 or interaction between two such apparently diverse things as 

 matter and mind. 



The normal facts of their interaction are so familiar that it 

 needs an effort to pick them out with due discrimination, and to 

 present the outstanding problem in all its clearness. A philoso- 

 pher is aware of the difficulty; and most systems of philosophy 

 have been attempts to solve the mystery and formulate the prin- 

 ciples underlying the universe as a whole. But by science in its 

 narrow sense such unification has not as yet been attempted. 

 Physical science deals mainly with matter, and so far as it touches 

 on mind it assumes that mind acts, and can only act, in connec- 

 tion with, or in relation to, or as a development of, matter. The 

 science of psychology, on the other hand, aims at treating of all 

 the normal processes and interrelations of mind, and describes 

 its use of the organs of the body, both for receiving and trans- 



