and should come off it and leave it alone. As I
started from a position of comparative materialism,
this objection has never had any meaning for me, but to
others I would submit one or two considerations. The
chief is that God has given us no power at all which is
under no circumstances to be used. The fact that we
possess it is in itself proof that it is our bounden
duty to study and to develop it. It is true that this,
like every other power, may be abused if we lose our
general sense of proportion and of reason. But I
repeat that its mere possession is a strong reason why
it is lawful and binding that it be used.

It must also be remembered that this cry of illicit
knowledge, backed by more or less appropriate texts,
has been used against every advance of human knowledge.
It was used against the new astronomy, and Galileo had
actually to recant. It was used against Galvani and
electricity. It was used against Darwin, who would
certainly have been burned had he lived a few centuries
before. It was even used against Simpson's use of
chloroform in child-birth, on the ground that the Bible
declared "in pain shall ye bring them forth."
Surely a plea which has been made so often, and so
often abandoned, cannot be regarded very seriously.

To those, however, to whom the theological aspect
is still a stumbling block, I would recommend the
reading of two short books, each of them by clergymen.
The one is the Rev. Fielding Ould's Is Spiritualism