"Yes," said Silvia, "and within the next decade Muensterberg will have
compelled a complete remodeling of our forms of legal procedure. No
attorney worth his salt would undertake to ignore the apparatus devised
by the psychologist, and the time is nearly gone by when, as he says,
courts will prefer to listen to the 'science' of the handwriting
experts, rather than permit the examination of a witness by methods in
accord with the exact work of the psychologist."
"That is true," assented Jack, "and not the least gratifying part of the
whole matter is that it isn't the unimportant who are the ones to speak
respectfully of the changing ideal; in fact, the smaller a man's
calibre the more sure you can be that he will cling to the established
order. It is only very great men who have the courage of their
intuitions long enough to prove them. Muensterberg can afford to say what
he thinks. Now if I go to this meeting and tell these men that 'there
are cases where a fact cannot come at all unless a preliminary faith
exists in its coming,' what do you think they will say?"
Hilda smiled. "Most of them will suspect you of quoting 'Science and
Health.' If they accuse you of it, read them the rest of the paragraph."
"What is it?" asked Silvia eagerly.
"I can find it in a moment," said Hilda, going to the bookshelves, and
taking down a modest olive-colored volume. "Here it is. 'And where faith
in a fact can help create the fact, that would be an insane logic which
should say that faith running ahead of scientific evidence is the lowest
kind of immorality into which a thinking being can fall. Yet such is the
logic by which our scientific absolutists pretend to regulate our
lives.' That is from the late Professor James, who is said to have been
the profoundest thinker this country has ever produced, and he has said
much more equally startling to those little minds that, like full
bottles, have no room for more."
Dr. Earl threw back his head and laughed; his quandary was over, his
course settled. He turned to Silvia with a genial smile. "Score one more
victory for the Feminists," he said. "I wonder if there ever has been a
time, anywhere on earth, where women were actually and aggressively
noncombatants. The Spartan woman handing over her husband's shield is
typical. Whenever and wherever there has been a cause worth fighting
for, worth dying for--always and forever we can see the figure of the
woman, shield on arm and javelin in hand, standing at the door of the
slothful warrior's tent, calling him to action. Sometimes the eternal
feminine leads on, but very frequently, I regret to say, it has to get
back and drive, and sometimes if it did not kneel and push I fear the
wheels of progress would not revolve at all; that we do go on, slowly
and uncertainly, it is true, but that we go on at all, is due to the
woman soul that will not let us waste our years in the wilderness when
the land of promise is so near at hand. Ladies, I go!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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