570 The Outline of Science 



Much had been done previously in the observation and col- 

 lection of facts, but in 1882 a new Society was founded in Lon- 

 don for their special study, along lines as far as possible similar 

 to those which had conduced to the astonishing progress of physi- 

 cal science. And with the birth of this Society (the Society for 

 Psychical Research, or the S.P.R.) Psychic Science may be said 

 to have entered upon a more stable career. The Society has pub- 

 lished thirty -two volumes of Proceedings and twenty of its Jour- 

 nal; amongst its presidents and honorary members there are 

 illustrious names; and Sir A. J. Balfour, the President in 1893, 

 at the end of his Address quite truly implied that the Society 

 had already shown, "not as a matter of speculation or conjecture, 

 but as a matter of ascertained fact, that there are things in heaven 

 and earth not hitherto dreamed of in our scientific philosophy." 



To mention the names of the pioneers, and to trace the his- 

 tory of their laborious effort to attain truth, would take up space 

 that may be more usefully devoted to a setting forth of the main 

 phenomena which had to be examined and either rejected as 

 fictions or established as facts. So long as there are legitimate 

 differences of opinion as to the nature of these phenomena, it 

 will be best not to dogmatise nor attempt to sustain a thesis in 

 favour of some and against others, but only to summarise the 

 phenomena now familiar to most people at least as folklore 

 stories and to indicate, as far as may be, some means by which 

 it may be hoped that these odd occurrences can be rationalised 

 and understood. We must proceed on the well-tried hope and 

 expectation that everything in the universe, however apparently 

 bizarre, is intelligible to the mind when it is sufficiently well 

 known. Mystery and superstition belong to ignorance; they 

 enshroud tracts which lie in the dark, outside the civilised and 

 cultivated region. An effort is required to deal with such phe- 

 nomena at all, even if they turn out to be facts; for, without 

 some link or clue with which to connect facts together, they are 

 difficult of apprehension, and they can hardly be said to conform 



