Page:Message of Psychic Science to the World.djvu/18

xiv. Medical men of all the different "pathies" have been kindly willing to help me in calming the minds of perplexed women by leading them to see that the most important part of any new truth is not always that which at first excites the most discussion ; that a force which was spiritual when we were ignorant of the laws of its operation does not become unspiritual because we have discovered a few of those laws ; and that knowledge which was divine when it. was vague and partial is not necessarily made "Satanic" by an effort being made to render it more complete and accurate. It would be pleasant to express my gratitude to those who have assisted me ; but as I prefer that the faults of my compilation should be attributed to myself alone, 1 will content myself with tendering the thanks of myself and my hearers to all who have aided us in our inquiry.

The Evolution controversy, so far as the unscientific are concerned with it, is practically at an end. No one now supposes that any serious moral issues depend on our being able to define with precision the difference between "varieties" and "true species." But the difficulty which we felt so keenly twenty years ago is not at an end; truths are still manifold ; and it is still hard to keep up our faith in the principle that Truth is One.

A society has lately been formed, called the Society for Psychical Research, which announces itself as willing to receive and examine, and as far as possible to classify, evidence on such subjects as thought-reading, clairvoyance, apparitions, and haunted houses. It is not difficult to foresee that