"
However, it would be very well if they added:
"But having no pretensions to assure the world that we are acquainted
with all the forces of nature, known and unknown, we do not claim
the right to hold back other people from bold investigations in
regions which we have not reached as yet, owing to our great
cautiousness and also to our moral timidity. Not being able to
maintain that the human organism is utterly incapable of developing
certain transcendental powers, which are rare, and observable only
under certain conditions, unknown to science, we by no means wish
to keep other explorers within the limits of our own scientific
discoveries."
By pronouncing this noble, and, at the same time, modest speech,
our physiologists would doubtless gain the undying gratitude
of posterity.
After this speech there would be no fear of mockery, no danger of
losing one's reputation for veracity and sound reason; and the
learned colleagues of these broad-minded physiologists would
investigate every phenomenon of nature seriously and openly. The
phenomena of spiritualism would then transmigrate from the region
of materialized "mothers-in-law" and half-witted fortune-telling
to the regions of the psycho-physiological sciences. The celebrated
"spirits" would probably evaporate, but in their stead the living
spirit, which "belongeth not to this world," would become better
known and better realized by humanity, because humanity will
comprehend the harmony of the whole only after learning how closely
the visible world is bound to the world invisible.
Pages:
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371