SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



Siwry. It means a Power immanent in nature and yet 

 above it, which seems to see the end from the beginning, 

 and to be the identical Creative Energy at every stage of 

 the evolving process. Thus we have entered an age in 

 which the supernatural, in the world and in the progressive 

 life of man, is not looked upon as something unnatural, 

 but rather as the very 7iature of nature. And hence the 

 modern supernaturalist wants to know the nature of 

 things. He does not, as did the supernaturalist of olden 

 days, burn a Tyndall or a Spencer. He builds a college 

 for him that he may have the opportunity of studying 

 nature and of enriching life by the knowledge of it. In 

 the words of Caird he calls in the aid of *' science and the 

 knowledge of human nature and human .society " so that 

 his supernaturalism will be neither noxious nor dangerous, 

 but the rich soil out of which springs up all that is healthy 

 in nature and holy in human life. 



Such is the friendly attitude of the new supernatural- 

 ism to science. And the representatives of science have 

 reciprocated these friendly approaches. They are more 

 willing to admit, than they were in the middle of last 

 century, that there are elements in experience which are 

 not amenable to their chronometer or measuring line. 

 They can measure and number the notes of a master-piece 

 of song, but when they come under its spell, they are lifted 

 up into an element which knows no vibrations, and of 

 which, if they would speak at all, they must, like Tennyson, 

 take up their parable and say, '' the tide of music's golden 

 sea is setting toward eternity." So in art. They can 

 measure the height and angle of the spire which they see 

 against the sky, but they know that their instrument is 

 helpless when they try it on the boundless space in which 

 the spire is individualized. They know also thai when 

 they have made a methodical map of the movements of 

 nature — and their success here treads on the heels of the 

 supernatural — tbey have still to account for the Energy 



