Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/268

2 in contradiction to physical truth, they lie rather in another plane; they are like two lines or curves in space, which do not meet, and therefore can not cut each other. There are matters of the highest moment which manifestly do lie outside the domain of physical science: the possibility of the continuance of human existence in a spiritual form after the termination of physical life is, beyond contradiction, one of the grandest and most momentous of possibilities, but in the nature of things it lies outside physics. Yet there is nothing absolutely absurd, nothing which contradicts any human instinct, in the supposition of such possibility; consequently, the student of physical science, even if he can not find time or inclination to look into such matters himself, may well have patience with those who can. And he may easily afford to be generous; the field of physical science is grand enough for any ambition, and there is room enough in the wide world both for physical and for psychical research.

In truth, a wide-spread rebellion among some of the most thoughtful of mankind must be the result of any attempt to press the supposed principle of uniformity to the extent of denying all facts and phenomena which do not submit themselves. Religious faith is necessarily conversant with such facts and phenomena; and though even here a familiarity with the conclusions of science may be useful in steadying the mind and fortifying it against superstition, still there are supernatural truths bound up with the Christian creed, toward which it behooves all to bow with respect, and which can not be refuted by any appeal to the uniformity of Nature.

For Nature can only be uniform when the same causes are at work; and to declare an alleged fact to be incredible, on the ground that it does not conform to the natural order of things, can only be reasonable upon the hypothesis that no new influence has been introduced in addition to those which the natural order of things recognizes. But such an influence may be found in the action of will, or of some spiritual energy which does not exist in the ordinary natural order.

For example, it would be unwise absolutely to deny on a priori grounds the history of the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi. There are not wanting examples to show that physical results of a remarkable kind can be produced by abnormal and excessive action of the affections, and feelings, and imagination. Recently recorded cases seem to invest even with a somewhat high probability the alleged experience of St. Francis.

I am not of course committing myself to any opinion as to the spiritual corollaries which may follow from an admission of the reality of the stigmata; one person may say that they have great religious significance, another that they are a curious instance of the physical effect of the imagination. I only argue that they must not be at once brushed away in deference to some supposed law of uniformity.

Still less is it wise to deny the possibility of events, recorded in