“Science keeps down the weed of superstition not by logic, but by rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation”
I continued under
that table for at least a quarter of an hour, after which, with a
feeling of despair as regards the prospects of humanity never before
experienced, I regained my chair. Once there, the spirits resumed
their loquacity, and dubbed me 'Poet of Science.'
This, then, is the result of an attempt made by a scientific man to
look into these spiritual phenomena. It is not encouraging; and for
this reason. The present promoters of spiritual phenomena divide
themselves into two classes, one of which needs no demonstration,
while the other is beyond the reach of proof. The victims like to
believe, and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly
powerless in the presence of this frame of mind. It is, moreover, a
state perfectly compatible with extreme intellectual subtlety and a
capacity for devising hypotheses which only require the hardihood
engendered by strong conviction, or by callous mendacity, to render
them impregnable. The logical feebleness of science is not
sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition,
not by logic but by, slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its
cultivation. When science appeals to uniform experience, the
spiritualist will retort, 'How do you know that a uniform experience
will continue uniform? You tell me that the sun has risen for six
thousand years: that is no proof that it will rise tomorrow; within
the next twelve hours it may be puffed out by the Almighty.' Taking
this ground, a man may maintain the story of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'
in the face of all the science in the world. You urge, in vain, that
science has given us all the knowledge of the universe which we now
possess, while spiritualism has added nothing to that knowledge. The
drugged soul is beyond the reach of reason. It is in vain that
impostors are exposed, and the special demon cast out. He has but
slightly to change his shape, return to his house, and find it 'empty,
swept, and garnished.'
*****
Since the time when the foregoing remarks were written I have been
more than once among the spirits, at their own invitation. They do
not improve on acquaintance.
“Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its own immediate boundaries.”
No matter how subtle a natural
phenomenon may be, whether we observe it in the region of sense, or
follow it into that of imagination, it is in the long run reducible to
mechanical laws. But the mechanical data once guessed or given,
mathematics are all-powerful as an instrument of deduction. The
command of Geometry over the relations of space, and the far-reaching
power which Analysis confers, are potent both As means of physical
discovery, and of reaping the entire fruits of discovery. Indeed,
without mathematics, expressed or implied, our knowledge of physical
science would be both friable and incomplete.
Side by side with the mathematical method we have the method of
experiment. Here from a starting-point furnished by his own
researches or those of others, the investigator proceeds by combining
intuition and verication. He ponders the knowledge he possesses, and
tries to push it further; he guesses, and checks his guess; he
conjectures, and confirms or explodes his conjecture. These guesses
and conjectures are by no means leaps in the dark; for knowledge once
gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries. There
is no discovery so limited as not to illuminate something beyond
itself. The force of intellectual penetration into this penumbral
region which surrounds actual knowledge is not, as some seem to think,
dependent upon method, but upon the genius of the investigator. There
is, however, no genius so gifted as not to need control and
verification. The profoundest minds know best that Nature's ways are
not at all times their ways, and that the brightest flashes in the
world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have
their counterparts in the world of fact. Thus the vocation of the
true experimentalist may be defined as the continued exercise of
spiritual insight, and its incessant correction and realisation. His
experiments constitute a body, of which his purified intuitions are,
as it were, the soul.
Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research,
physical science has, of late years, assumed a momentous position in
the world.
“The brightest flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they have been proven to have their counterparts in the world of fact.”
Indeed,
without mathematics, expressed or implied, our knowledge of physical
science would be both friable and incomplete.
Side by side with the mathematical method we have the method of
experiment. Here from a starting-point furnished by his own
researches or those of others, the investigator proceeds by combining
intuition and verication. He ponders the knowledge he possesses, and
tries to push it further; he guesses, and checks his guess; he
conjectures, and confirms or explodes his conjecture. These guesses
and conjectures are by no means leaps in the dark; for knowledge once
gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries. There
is no discovery so limited as not to illuminate something beyond
itself. The force of intellectual penetration into this penumbral
region which surrounds actual knowledge is not, as some seem to think,
dependent upon method, but upon the genius of the investigator. There
is, however, no genius so gifted as not to need control and
verification. The profoundest minds know best that Nature's ways are
not at all times their ways, and that the brightest flashes in the
world of thought are incomplete until they have been proved to have
their counterparts in the world of fact. Thus the vocation of the
true experimentalist may be defined as the continued exercise of
spiritual insight, and its incessant correction and realisation. His
experiments constitute a body, of which his purified intuitions are,
as it were, the soul.
Partly through mathematical and partly through experimental research,
physical science has, of late years, assumed a momentous position in
the world. Both in a material and in an intellectual point of view it
has produced, and it is destined to produce, immense changes--vast
social ameliorations, and vast alterations in the popular conception
of the origin, rule, and governance of natural things. By science, in
the physical world, miracles are wrought, while philosophy is
forsaking its ancient metaphysical channels, and pursuing others which
have been opened, or indicated by, scientific research. This must
become more and more the case as philosophical writers become more
deeply imbued with the methods of science, better acquainted with the
facts which scientific men have established, and with the great
theories which they have elaborated.
“The formation of right habits is essential to your permanent security. They diminish your chance of falling when assaulted, and they augment your chance of recovery when overthrown.”
Void of offence to
science, he may freely deal with conceptions which science shuns, and
become the illustrator and interpreter of that Power which as
'Jehovah, Jove, or Lord,'
has hitherto filled and strengthened the human heart.
Let me utter one practical word in conclusion--take care of your
health. There have been men who by wise attention to this point might
have risen to any eminence--might have made great discoveries, written
great poems, commanded armies, or ruled states, but who by unwise
neglect of this point have come to nothing. Imagine Hercules as
oarsman in a rotten boat; what can he do there but by the very force
of his stroke expedite the ruin of his craft? Take care then of the
timbers of your boat, and avoid all practices likely to introduce
either wet or dry rot amongst them. And this is not to be
accomplished by desultory or intermittent efforts of the will, but by
the formation of _habits_. The will no doubt has sometimes to put forth
its strength in order to crush the special temptation. But the
formation of right habits is essential to your permanent security.
They diminish your chance of falling when assailed, and they augment
your chance of recovery when overthrown.
********************
If thou would'st know the mystic song
Chaunted when the sphere was young,
Aloft, abroad, the paean swells,
O wise man, hear'st thou half it tells?
To the open ear it sings
The early genesis of things;
Of tendency through endless ages
Of star-dust and star-pilgrimages,
Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
Of the old floods' subsiding slime,
Of chemic matter, force and form,
Of poles and powers, cold, wet, and warm.
The rushing metamorphosis
Dissolving all that fixture is,
Melts things that be to things that seem,
And solid nature to a dream.'
EMERSON.
Was waer' ein Gott der nur von aussen stiesse,
Im Kreis das All am Finger laufen liesse
Ihm ziemt's, die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen.'
GOETHE.
*****
VIII. SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION.
“If I wanted a loving father, a faithful husband, an honorable neighbor, and a just citizen, I would seek him among the band of Atheists”
“Well step it up when it counts.”
The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation.
His [Faradays] third great discovery is the Magnetization of Light, which I should liken to the Weisshorn among mountains-high, beautiful, and alone.
... though he [Michael Faraday] took no cities, he captivated all hearts.
To him [Faraday], as to all true philosophers, the main value of a fact was its position and suggestiveness in the general sequence of scientific truth.
Taking him for all and all, I think it will be conceded that Michael Faraday was the greatest experimental philosopher the world has ever seen.
To Nature nothing can be added; from Nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the applications of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total. The law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. Waves may change to ripples, and ripples to waves; magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude; asteroids may aggregate to suns, suns may resolve themselves into florae and faunae, and floras and faunas melt in air: the flux of power is eternally the same. It rolls in music through the ages, and all terrestrial energy—the manifestations of life as well as the display of phenomena—are but the modulations of its rhythm.
Underneath his sweetness and gentleness was the heat of a volcano. [Michael Faraday] was a man of excitable and fiery nature; but through high self-discipline he had converted the fire into a central glow and motive power of life, instead of permitting it to waste itself in useless passion.
In the firmament of science Mayer and Joule constitute a double star, the light of each being in a certain sense complementary to that of the other.
Knowledge once gained casts a light beyond its own immediate boundaries.
