428 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



result of inevitable laws, but would be seen as the 

 fruit always of some ignorance or of some rebel- 

 lion ; and so the exhilarating conviction would be 

 ours, that those disorders are within the reach of 

 remedy through larger Knowledge and a better 

 Will. 



We hear much now of the "blessed light of 

 Science;"* and if the methods and conditions of 

 Physical inquiry were applied in a really philoso- 

 phical spirit to Spiritual Phenomena, the influence 

 of Science would be more powerful than it is for 

 good. Meanwhile, it is well to remember that 

 although readiness to accept a new idea is essen- 

 tial to Discovery, it is equally true that new dan- 

 gers beset and surround all new aspects of the 

 truth. Paradoxical as it may sound to say so, 

 this is a consequence of the splendour of Man's 

 endowments, of his freedom from direction, — of the 

 swiftness and the subtlety of his mental powers. 

 On her own narrow path Instinct is a surer guide 

 than Reason, and accordingly it is often the higher 

 faculties of the mind which are the most mislead- 



* See a remarkable passage in the concluding pages of " Ecce 

 Homo." 



