WIIV MERE FACTS ARE INSUFFICIENT. 383 



there is obviously not the remotest prospect of es- 

 tablishing, a trade in Manchester calicos with the 

 Eskimos and polar bears — ^but we would not pay a 

 penny, nor sacrifice the silliest scruple of a selfish 

 reticence, to determine whether it is true that our 

 dead do not pass wholly beyond our ken. And yet, 

 with a tithe of the attention and study that has 

 often been devoted to the most trivial and unworthy 

 objects, the real nature of these " psychical " phen- 

 omena might have been explored — had it suited 

 men to arrive at certainty on the subject. 



But in any case ou7^ course is clear : as men of 

 science we may deplore the apathy of mankind, as 

 philosophers we must recognize that the present con- 

 dition of the subject prevents us from treating these 

 phenomena as admitted facts, on which it is possible 

 to base inferences. 



And from a philosophic point of view they possess 

 in any case two defects. The first is that they are 

 presented to us as mere facts. Now facts, we are 

 apt to think, are mighty things, and able to force 

 their way into all minds by sheer weight. But 

 nothinor could be more mistaken : a mere fact is a 



o 



very feeble thing, and the minds of most men are 

 fortresses which cannot be captured by a single 

 assault, fortresses impenetrable to the most obvious 

 fact, unless it can open up a correspondence with 

 some of the prejudices within, and enter by a gate 

 which their treasonable support betrays to the be- 

 sieger. Or, to drop metaphor, the mind will either 

 not receive, or gradually eject and obliterate elements 

 which it cannot assimilate, which it cannot harmonize 

 with the rest of the mental furniture, be they facts 

 ten times over, and the occupation of the mind by 

 facts is extremely precarious until reasons for them 



