222 LIFE IN NATURE. 



in vain; because the ideas themselves seem to me 

 to be not the hasty speculations of any individual, 

 but the legitimate fruit of time. In so far as they 

 are true, they are a boon which our dead fathers 

 have won for us the inheritance with which they 

 have enriched us. 



Can we believe that the long inquiries of men 

 into the facts and laws that are presented to their 

 senses should fail to give them an increased power 

 of dealing with other facts and laws, of which not 

 the senses but the heart and soul take cognizance ? 

 Or can we believe that any other result should 

 ensue from this increased power than that the 

 demands of man's moral nature should be proved 

 true, also, to his intellect? 



I am myself convinced that the chief obstacle, 

 now, to our advance in this path is the conviction 

 that it is closed to us : a conviction natural enough, 

 indeed, through repeated failures, yet by those very 

 failures proved untrue. If in this volume I have 

 done anything to shake this conviction in any mind, 

 and to induce the feeling that it may be premature 

 and presumptuous, I have done enough. That little, 



