IMMATERIAL SCIENCE. 85 



may pass at par with very learned metaphysicians, but it can 

 hardly claim the serious attention of thinking minds, particularly 

 when the "something otherwise inexplicable" is something the 

 existence of which is taken for granted. The professor continues 

 his process of reasoning : " A man dies ; the spirit passes from 

 him ; the flesh is left." The synthetical activities of the body 

 which produced the phenomena of life have ceased ; the analyti- 

 cal or destructive process is master of the situation; but "the 

 spirit passes from him " ! What passes from him ? What is 

 this spirit, professor ? " Imponderable spirit " is it ? I don't un- 

 derstand you, because I do not know what you are talking about. 

 You may explain that the spirit is ethereal matter. Will I be 

 informed as to what spirit may be or is, when I know nothing 

 about imponderable matter ? "And likewise may there not be a 

 spiritual ether surrounding us, a medium through which impulses 

 may come to the spirit from on high, and from the spirit be trans- 

 mitted to the intellect ? Such influences come to us strongly at 

 times, as at the communion table/' This may be so, but even 

 your single illustration, as to causation, lacks confirmation. We 

 have observed so-called evidences of " the spirit from on high " in 

 the prostrate forms of persons at sacred altars, persons in a state 

 of unconsciousness produced by brain acting upon brain. I 

 know, if I know anything, that a certain amount of physical 

 energy is involved in every instance of nervous excitation, and 

 that the influence of this energy acting upon matter is easily com- 

 municated to, and will act upon, willing subjects. Still further : 

 " Now, is it not conceivable that, in the spirit after its severance 

 from the flesh, our present imperfect senses may become perfect, 

 and the influence of other now unthought-of sensations become 

 possible ? " No, it is not conceivable, if the conception is to rest 

 upon a rational basis truths at this time demonstrable. The exist- 

 ence of " unthought-of sensations " is a bold assumption. The con- 

 ception is not scientific, because our present " imperfect senses " 

 are the outcome of purely physical (earthly) conditions, so far as 

 science knows anything about the senses. What science does not 

 know, or what science may know hereafter, has nothing to do and 

 can have nothing to do with the professor's conception at present. 



I concede to every man the right to formulate a belief that 

 will afford him some needed consolation in his struggle for exist- 

 ence, so long as he is perfectly willing to allow other men to do 

 likewise without let or hindrance, but no belief should be set 

 forth in the name of science unless there be tangible evidence 

 produced in support of it. 



It is frequently observed that some scientists are loath to ac- 

 cept and to abide by the results obtained as the fruitage of their 

 laborious investigations. They observe the operations of Nature, 



