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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVIII. No. 978 



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 manifest imper- 

 fections 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 some- 

 thing 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 pattern is not wholly 

 fixed and mechanically calculable. 



Where inorganic matter alone is con- 

 cerned, there everything is determined. 

 Wherever full consciousness has entered, 

 new powers arise, and the faculties and de- 

 sires of the conscious parts of the scheme 

 have an eiJect upon the whole. It is not 

 guided from outside, 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 betterment are justified be- 

 cause we are a part of the scheme, a part 

 that has become conscious, a part that real- 

 izes, dimly at any rate, what it is doing and 

 what it is aiming at. Planning and aiming 

 are therefore 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 assertions: 

 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, pos- 

 terity 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 ex- 

 tremely difficult to deny anything of a gen- 

 eral character, since evidence in its favor 

 may be only hidden and not forthcoming, 

 especially not forthcoming at any particu- 

 lar age of the world's history, or at any 

 particular stage of individual mental de- 

 velopment. Mysticism must have its place, 

 though its relation to science has so far not 

 been found. They have appeared disparate 

 and disconnected, but there need be no hos- 

 tility 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 intelli- 

 gible universe. 



Although I am speaking ex cathedra, as 

 one of the representatives of orthodox sci- 



