THE PROBLEM 19 



The reason why science finds itself helpless to pre- 

 vent spiritualism's, insidious sapping of the intellectual 

 fiber of the race is because it is asked to prove a negative, 

 upon the basis of unreal data. How difficult such a task 

 is is obvious as it is proverbial. Until science has demon- 

 strated that there is not a continuation of individual 

 supernatural existence after natural death, the spiritual- 

 ist can, and will, come forward with supposed demonstra- 

 tions that there is such a continuation. But the most 

 characteristic feature of science is its actuality, its reality, 

 its naturality. Pearson has pointed out, in characteristi- 

 cally clear and vigorous language, the reason why, in the 

 minds of uninformed persons, science appears helpless in 

 this situation. He says : 



Scientific ignorance may either arise from an insufficient classification 

 of facts, or be due to the unreality of the facts with which science has been 

 called upon to deal. Let us take, for example, fields of thought which 

 were very prominent in medieval times, such as alchemy, astrology, witch- 

 craft. In the fifteenth century nobody doubted the "facts" of astrology 

 and witchcraft. Men were ignorant as to how the stars exerted their 

 influence for good or ill; they did not know the exact mechanical process 

 by which all the milk in a village was turned blue by a witch. But for 

 them it was nevertheless a fact that the stars did influence human lives, 

 and a fact that the witch had the power of turning the milk blue. Have 

 we solved the problems of astrology and witchcraft today? 



Do we now know how the stars influence human lives, or how witches 

 turn milk blue? Not in the least. We have learnt to look upon the facts 

 themselves as unreal, as vain imaginings of the untrained human mind; 

 we have learnt that they could not be described scientifically because they 

 involved notions which were in themselves contradictory and absurd. With 

 alchemy the case was somewhat different. Here a false classification of 

 real facts was combined with inconsistent sequences — that is, sequences 

 not deduced by a rational method. So soon as science entered the field 

 of alchemy with a true classification and a true method, alchemy was con- 

 verted into chemistry and became an important branch of human knowl- 

 edge. Now it will, I think, be found that the fields of inquiry, where 

 science has not yet penetrated and where the scientist still Confesses 



