Chapter VIII: Science Dreads Error

Of clairvoyance, mind-reading, palmistry, spiritual science cures we have no certain facts, but we have many impostures connected with them. If ever we get real and undoubted facts proved to be connected with them, we ought to examine them with care. Science is not afraid of any portion of nature; all it dreads is ignorance, and what is worse, error. Error with regard to facts may be committed in two ways--by admitting as facts what are not facts, and by denying facts. Now, there are facts certain and well ascertained, numerous and widely known, connected with some other portions of the border-land of science that we have not yet looked into, though I have mentioned their names. He who would assert that spiritism, table-turning, spirit-rapping, and so on are mere idle talk, sheer impostures, is not well read in the literature of the present day. By denying all reality to these phenomena he strays as far from the truth as if he allowed himself to believe mere fabrications. They are not impositions, but they are worse; they are superstitions. By superstitions I mean here the practice of producing results which cannot possibly proceed from the powers of nature, and which could not without absurdity be attributed to the interference of the Creator or His good angels.

Some persons strenuously object to introducing any reference to God into scientific works. Science consists in tracing known effects to their true causes. If there were no God, He could not be a true cause and it would be unscientific to introduce His agency. But if there is a God and He acts in the world which He has made, we must take His actions into account when we study His works. Some say, "I do not believe in a God." That may be, but that does not prove that there is no God. Belief is a man's wilful and fine acceptance of what is proposed to him on the authority of some one else. Students have most of their knowledge on the authority of their professors and other men of learning. If a medical student would say, "I do not believe in microbes nor in contagion by disease germs," that would not kill the germs nor protect him against contagion. Nor would it show his superior wisdom, but rather his extravagant conceit and ignorance. So with those who believe not in God.

There are others who believe not in the existence of devils or fallen angels. That is not so bad; but yet they must remember that their refusal to believe in devils does not prove that there are none. The greatest enemies of science are those who blindly maintain false statements and false principles of knowledge. Let us look for the truth in every investigation. Even Huxley, in the midst of his attacks on dogmatic religion, protests also against dogmatic infidelity. Science, he says, is as little atheistic as it is materialistic. All this must be remembered chiefly when we undertake to explore, as we are now doing, the unknown region which we have called the border-land of science. There we find many strange phenomena, and we are trying to discover their true nature and true causes. If we can explain some of them by natural causes, as by the powers of the imagination when it is in an abnormal or hypnotic state, very well, let us explain them. But let us not rashly conclude that all other phenomena can be thus explained. Do not reason this way, as some writers have done: "Some effects," they say, "were formerly attributed to witchcraft or deviltry and can now be explained by hypnotism. Therefore all other mysterious effects can also be thus explained. Therefore there is not and never was such a thing as witchcraft or deviltry. So, too, some events often reputed miraculous can be explained by natural causes, therefore no miracle has ever happened." That is the reasoning of rash and ignorant men, and not of scientific minds. It does not follow from the fact that God usually works by natural causes, that He cannot on special occasions and for very important reasons show His hand, as it were, and act so manifestly against the course of nature as to show us that it is He who is at work and He wants us to mind Him. History furnishes many instances of this kind.