eS se 
SEPTEMBER II, 1913] 
memories, there is a record of it in matter, and the 
present is based upon it; the future is the outcome of 
the present, and is the product of evolution. 
Existence is like the output from a loom. The 
pattern, the design for the weaving, is in some sort 
“there” already; but whereas our looms are mere 
machines, once the guiding cards have been fed into 
them, the loom of time is complicated by a multitude 
of free agents who can modify the web, making 
the product more beautiful or more ugly according 
as they are in harmony or disharmony with the 
general scheme. I venture to maintain that mani- 
fest imperfections are thus accounted for, and that 
freedom could be given on no other terms, nor at 
any less cost. 
The ability thus to work for weal or woe is no 
illusion, it is a reality, a responsible power which 
conscious agents possess; wherefore the resulting 
fabric is not something preordained and inexorable, 
though by wide knowledge of character it may be 
inferred. Nothing is inexorable except the uniform 
progress of time; the cloth must be woven, but the pat- 
tern is not wholly fixed and mechanically calculable. 
Where inorganic matter alone is concerned, there 
everything is determined. Wherever full conscious- 
ness has entered, new powers arise, and the faculties 
and desires of the conscious parts of the scheme have 
an effect upon the whole. It is not guided from out- 
side, but from within; and the guiding power is 
immanent at every instant. Of this guiding power 
we are a small but not wholly insignificant portion. 
That evolutionary progress is real is a doctrine of 
profound significance, and our efforts at social better- 
ment are justified because we are a part of the 
scheme, a part that has become conscious, a part 
that realises, however dimly, what it is doing and 
what it is aiming at. Planning and aiming are there- 
fore not absent from the whole, for we are a part 
of the whole, and are conscious of them in ourselves. 
Either we are immortal beings or we are not. 
We may not know our destiny, but we must have a 
destiny of some sort. Those who make denials are 
just as likely to be wrong as those who make asser- 
tions: in fact, denials are assertions thrown into 
negative form. Scientific men are looked up to as 
authorities, and should be careful not to mislead. 
Science may not be able to reveal human destiny, but 
it certainly should not obscure it. Things are as 
they are, whether we find them out or not; and if 
we make rash and false statements, posterity will 
detect us—if posterity ever troubles its head about us. 
I am one of those who think that the methods of 
science are not so limited in their scope as has been 
thought : that they can be applied much more widely, 
and that the psychic region can be studied and 
brought under law too. Allow us anyhow to make 
the attempt. Give us a fair field. Let those who 
prefer the materialistic hypothesis by all means 
develop their thesis as far as they can; but let us try 
what we can do in the psychical region, and see 
which wins. Our methods are really the same as 
theirs—the subject-matter differs. Neither should 
abuse the other for making the attempt. 
Whether such things as intuition and revelation 
ever occur is an open question. There are some 
who have reason to say that they do. They are at 
any rate not to be denied off-hand. In fact, it is 
always extremely difficult to deny anything of a 
general character, since evidence in its favour may 
be only hidden and not forthcoming, especially not 
forthcoming at any particular age of thé world’s 
history, or at any particular stage of individual mental 
development. Mysticism must have its place, though 
its relation to science has so far not been found. 
They have appeared disparate and disconnected, but 
NO. 2289, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
47 
there need be no hostility between them, Every kind 
of reality must be ascertained and dealt with by 
proper methods. If the voices of Socrates and of Joan 
of Arc represent real psychical experiences, they must 
belong to the intelligible universe. 
Although 1 am speaking ex cathedra, as one of 
the representatives of orthodox science, I will not 
shrink from a personal note summarising the result 
on my own mind of thirty years’ experience of 
psychical research, begun without predilection— 
indeed, with the usual hostile prejudice. This is not 
the place to enter into details or to discuss facts 
scorned by orthodox science, but I cannot help re- 
membering that an utterance from this chair is no 
ephemeral production, for it remains to be criticised 
by generations yet unborn, whose knowledge must 
inevitably be fuller and wider than our own. Your 
President, therefore, should not be completely bound 
by the shackles of present-day orthodoxy, nor limited 
to beliefs fashionable at the time. In justice to 
myself and my co-workers, I must risk annoying my 
present hearers, not only by leaving on record our 
conviction that occurrences now regarded as occult 
can be examined and reduced to order by the methods 
of science carefully and persistently applied, but by 
going further and saying, with the utmost brevity, 
that already the facts so examined have convinced me 
that memory and affection are not limited to that 
association with matter by which alone they can 
manifest themselves here and now, and that per- 
sonality persists beyond bodily death. The evidence, 
to my mind, goes to prove that discarnate intelli- 
gence, under certain conditions, may interact with us 
on the material side, thus indirectly coming within 
our scientific ken; and that gradually we may hope 
to attain some understanding of the nature of a 
larger, perhaps zetherial, existence, and of the con- 
ditions regulating intercourse across the chasm. A 
body of responsible investigators has even now landed 
on the treacherous but promising shores of a new 
continent. 
Yes, and there is more to say than that. The 
methods of science are not the only way, though they 
are our way, of being piloted to truth. ‘‘ Uno itinere 
non potest perveniri ad tam grande secretum.” 
Many scientific men still feel in pugnacious mood 
towards theology, because of the exaggerated 
dogmatism which our predecessors encountered and 
overcame in the past. They had to struggle for 
freedom to find truth in their own way; but the 
struggle was a miserable necessity, and has left some 
evil effects. And one of them is this lack of sympa- 
thy, this occasional hostility, to other more spiritual 
forms of truth. We cannot really and seriously sup- 
pose that truth began to arrive on this planet a few 
centuries ago. The pre-scientific insight of genius 
—of poets and prophets and saints—was of supreme 
value, and the access of those inspired seers to the 
heart of the universe was profound. But the camp 
followers, the scribes and pharisees, by whatever 
name they may be called, had no such insight, only 
a vicious or a foolish obstinacy; and the prophets of 
a new era were stoned. 
Now at last we of the new era have been victorious, 
and the stones are in our hands; but for us to imitate 
the old ecclesiastical attitude would be folly. Let us 
not fall into the old mistake of thinking that ours is 
the only way of exploring the multifarious depths of 
the universe, and that all others are worthless and 
mistaken. The universe is a larger thing than we 
have any conception of, and no one method of search 
will exhaust its treasures. 
Men and brethren, we are trustees of the truth of 
the physical universe as scientifically explored: let 
: us be faithful to our trust. 
‘ 
