696 Mysticism and Asceticsm. [November, 
climate may not admit of the display of such powers, let 
the experiment be made at Calcutta or Bombay. If an adept 
does so then assuredly no “ scientist will desire either to 
place him in a madhouse or hale him before the magis- 
trate.” He who is able to perform a crucial experiment and 
refuses so to do has little room to complain if his doctrines 
meet with no acceptance, and if their rejection is an injury 
to the world he incurs, as it seems to me, a very grave moral 
responsibility. When a man of science has obtained a novel 
and important result he makes every step of his procedure 
fully known, so that all who feel interested may themselves 
judge whether he is in the right or in error. _ Suppose that 
when Davy discovered potassium he had neither exhibited 
his product before those capable of judging, nor described its 
source and the manner in which it might be obtained, but 
had contented himself with saying that he had produced a 
metal so light as to float upon water and capable of taking 
fire if moistened : had he done this he would have met with 
not credence, but rebuke. 
Again, if any Hindu adept can influence the weather, the 
death of all his countrymen who perished of famine lies 
at his door. 
Further we read Hence the adept can consciously see 
the minds of others. He can a dt by his soul force on external 
spirits. He can accelerate the growth of plants and quench 
fire, and like Daniel subdue ferocious wild beasts. He can 
send his soul to a distance and there not only read the 
thoughts of others, but speak to and touch these distant 
objects ; (what objects ?) and not only so, but he can exhibit 
to his distant friends his spiritual body in the exadt likeness 
of that of the flesh. Moreover, as the adept adts by the 
power of his spirit he can as a unitive force create out of the 
surrounding multiplex atmosphere the likeness of physical 
objects to come into his presence.” 
It need scarcely be said that any person thus endowed 
could, if he thought proper, demonstrate his pretensions quite 
as easily as the engineer can exhibit the uses of some newly 
invented machine or the chemist display the attributes of a 
recently-discovered compound. Nay, the task of the adept 
should be the simpler and easier, requiring as he does 
neither models, apparatus, nor materials. The whole spirit 
of the Indudtive Philosophy,— which is after all merely 
organised common sense, bids us suspend judgment where 
fadts are not forthcoming. We accept the testimony of a 
Hofmann, a Wurtz, or a Bunsen as to a new chemical fadt, 
simply because we know that their experiments will have 
