886 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 77. 



said to have been witnessed by manj' per- 

 sons moving tbrougb the air in broad day- 

 light. Often the objects were multitudi- 

 nous ; in some cases they were stones show- 

 ered through windows and down-chimney. 

 More than once it was noted that they fell 

 gentlj' and touched the ground without 

 shock. Apart from the exceptionality of 

 the reputed occurrences, their mutual re- 

 semblances suggest a natural type, and I 

 confess that until these records, or others 

 like them, are positively explained away, 

 I cannot feel (in spite of such vast amounts 

 of detected fraud) as if the case against 

 physical mediumship itself as a freak of 

 nature were definitivelj^ closed. But I ad- 

 mit that one man's psychological reaction 

 cannot here be like unto another's ; and one 

 great duty of our Society will be to pounce 

 upon any future case of this ' disturbance ' 

 type, catch it while red-handed and nail it 

 fast, whatever its quality be. 



We must accustom ourselves more and 

 more to playing the role of a meteorological 

 bureau, be satisfied for many a year to go 

 without definitive conclusions, confident 

 that if we only keep alive and heap up data, 

 the natural types of them (if there are any) 

 will surely crystallize out ; whilst old ma- 

 terial that is baffling will get settled as we 

 proceed, through its analogy with new ma- 

 terial that will come with the baiiiing char- 

 acter removed. 



But I must not weary your patience 

 with the length of my discourse. One gen- 

 eral reflection, however, I cannot help ask- 

 ing you to let me indulge in before I close. 

 It is relative to the influence of psychical 

 research upon our attitude towards human 

 history. Although, as I said before. Science 

 taken in its essence should stand only for a 

 method, and not for any special beliefs, yet, 

 as habitually taken by its votaries. Science 

 has come to be identified with a certain 

 fixed general belief, the belief that the 

 deeper order of Nature is mechanical ex- 



clusively, and that non-mechanical cate- 

 gories are irrational ways of conceiving 

 and explaining even such a thing as human 

 life. Now this mechanical rationalism, as 

 one may call it, makes, if it becomes one's 

 only way of thinking, a violent breach with 

 the ways of thinking that have, until our 

 own time, played the greatest part in human 

 history. Religious thinking, ethical think- 

 ing, poetical thinking, teleological, emo- 

 tional, sentimental thinking, what one 

 might call the personal view of life to dis- 

 tinguish it from the impersonal and me- 

 chanical, and the romantic view of life to 

 distinguish it from the rationalistic view, 

 have been, and even still are, outside of well- 

 drilled scientific circles, the dominant forms 

 of thought. But for mechanical rational- 

 ism, personality is an insubstantial illusion; 

 the chronic belief of mankind, that events 

 may happen for the sake of their personal 

 significance, is an abomination; and the no- 

 tions of our grandfathers about oracles and 

 omens, divinations and apparitions, miracu- 

 lous changes of heart and wonders worked 

 by inspired persons, answers to prayer 

 and providential leadings, are a fabric abso- 

 lutely baseless, a mass of sheer «?itruth. 

 Now, of course, we must all admit that the 

 excesses to which the romantic and personal 

 view of Nature may lead, if wholly un- 

 checked by impersonal rationalism, are 

 direful. Central African Mumbo-jumboism 

 in fact is one of unchecked romanticism's 

 fruits. One ought accordingly to sympa- 

 thize with that abhorrance of romanticism 

 as a sufficient world theory ; one ought to 

 understand that lively intolerance of the 

 least grain of romanticism in the views of 

 life of other people, which are such char- 

 acteristic marks of those who follow the 

 scientific professions to-day. Our debt to 

 Science is literally boundless, and our 

 gratitude for what is positive in her teach- 

 ings must be correspondingly immense. 

 But our own Proceedings and Journals have, 



