SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



ing out of the hand to give a cup of cold water in the name 

 of humanity is a natural act, but I venture to say that it 

 has never yet been fully explained on the principles of pure 

 physics. But he meets supernatural experience in every 

 page of the history of humanity. Religion is natural to 

 man ; and I here mean by religion not merely the church, 

 its order of service and sacraments, though these also are 

 facts. I mean the experience and the idea of the supra- 

 sensible which has created and which preserves in life all 

 these. It is an idea, as the science of anthropology has 

 made clear, which is essential in man. " It comes into 

 being," says A. M. Fairbairn, of Mansfield College, 

 Oxford, " without any man willing it, and as it began so 

 it continues. In Uie hour of revolt individual men may 

 have nothing to do with it, but instinct is stronger than 

 will, and religion in some form both of idea and usage 

 returns, be it as the memory of a dead woman as with Mill 

 or Compte, or as an abstraction of Humanity loved of the 

 positivist, or of the unconscious, adored by the pessimist, 

 or as the unknown worshipped by the awe of the Agnostic." 

 Religion, which is supernaturalism at its highest, is thus 

 natural to man. Consequently the student of nature can- 

 not escape supernatural experience except by excluding 

 from his scrutiny human nature. Nor has he sought to 

 close his eyes to it. As a matter of fact every distinguished 

 man of science has dealt with supernatural phenomena, and 

 the same may be said of every thoughtful man. Their 

 treatment is varied and often contradictory. Some thinkers 

 conclude that there is a supernatural realm, but that it is, in 

 its nature, beyond our knowledge, and that therefore it is 

 the part of wisdom not to waste time upon it. Others have 

 held that the idea of the supernatural is a fiction which 

 has arisen from a superficial view of experience. It is, 

 however, beyond question that the great majority of 

 thoughtful men, whether distinguished or unknown, think 

 and feel that there is something in the life of the world and 



