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Confessions and Criticisms by Julian Hawthorne
page 132 of 156 (84%)
of them. It is suggested that they are peculiar states of the brain and
nerve-centres, physical in their nature and origin, though evading our
present physical tests. Be that as it may, they afford a capital
introduction to the study of magic; if, indeed, they, and a few allied
phenomena, do not comprise the germs of the whole matter. Apropos of this
subject, a society has lately been organized in London, with branches on
the Continent and in this country, composed of scientific men, Fellows of
the Royal Society, members of Parliament, professors, and literary men,
calling themselves the "Psychical Research Society," and making it their
business to test and investigate these very marvels, under the most
stringent scientific conditions. But the capacity to be deceived of the
bodily senses is almost unlimited; in fact, we know that they are
incapable of telling us the ultimate truth on any subject; and we are able
to get along with them only because we have found their misinformation to
be sufficiently uniform for most practical purposes. But once admit that
the origin of these phenomena is not on the physical plane, and then, if
we are to give any weight at all to them, it can be only from a spiritual
standpoint. In other words, unless we can approach such questions by an _a
priori_ route, we might as well let them alone. We can reason from spirit
to body--from mind to matter--but we can never reverse that process, and
from matter evolve mind. The reason is that matter is not found to contain
mind, but is only acted upon by it, as inferior by superior; and we cannot
get out of the bag more than has been put into it. The acorn (to use our
former figure) can never explain the oak; but the oak readily accounts for
the acorn. It may be doubted, therefore, whether the Psychical Research
Society can succeed in doing more than to give a respectable endorsement
to a perplexing possibility,--so long as they adhere to the inductive
method. Should they, however, abandon the inductive method for the
deductive, they will forfeit the allegiance of all consistently scientific
minds; and they may, perhaps, make some curious contributions to
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