September 25, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



429 



ence, I will not shrink from a personal 

 note summarizing the result on my own 

 mind of thirty years' experience of psy- 

 chical research, begun without predilection 

 — indeed with the visual hostile prejvidiee. 

 This is not the place to enter into details 

 or to discuss facts scorned by orthodox 

 science, but I can not help remembering 

 that an utterance from this chair is no 

 ephemeral production, for it remains to be 

 criticized 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 brev- 

 ity, that already the facts so examined 

 have convinced me that memory and af- 

 fection are not limited to that association 

 with matter by which alone they can 

 manifest themselves here and now, and 

 that personality persists beyond bodily 

 death. The evidence to my mind goes to 

 prove that discarnate intelligence, under 

 certain conditions, may interact with us 

 on the material side, thus indirectly com- 

 ing within our scientific ken; and that 

 gradually we may hope to attain some 

 understanding of the nature of a larger, 

 perhaps ethereal, existence, and of the 

 conditions regulating intercourse across 

 the chasm. A' body of responsible investi- 

 gators has even now landed on the treach- 

 erous but promising shores of a new con- 

 tinent. 



Yes, and there is more to say than that. 

 The methods of science are not the only 



way, though they are our way, of arriving 

 at truth. 



XJno itinere non potest perveniri ad tam grande 

 secretum. 



Many scientific men still feel in pugna- 

 cious 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 sympathy, this occasional hos- 

 tility, to other more spiritual forms of truth. 

 We can not really and seriously suppose 

 that truth began to arrive on this planet a 

 few centuries ago. The pre-scientifie insight 

 of genius — of poets and prophets and 

 saints — was of supreme value, and the ac- 

 cess 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 ; we inherit the fruits of the age- 

 long conflict, and the stones are in our 

 hands. Let us not fall into the old mis- 

 take of thinking that ours is the only way 

 of exploring the multifarious depths of 

 the universe, and that all others are worth- 

 less and mistaken. The universe is a 

 larger thing than we have any conception 

 of, and no one method of search will ex- 

 haust its treasures. 



Men and brethren, we are trustees of 

 the truth of the physical universe as scien- 

 tifically explored: let us be faithful to our 

 trust. 



Genuine religion has its roots deep down 

 in the heart of hiunanity and in the real- 

 ity of things. It is not surprising that by 

 our methods we fail to grasp it : the actions 



