Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887: Volume 1, Number 2
Philosophy
Buchanan's Journal of Man, March 1887: Volume 1, Number 2
Medicine -- Periodicals; Phrenology -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
The majority of the American Psychical Research Society know vastly
less of psychic science than clergymen know of geology and astronomy.
They have been not inquirers, but obstructionists, assailing those who
dare to inquire, and the subject, as their friend says, has only
lately encroached on their attention. The admirable scientific
experiments of Professor Hare and Professor Crookes have long since
settled the questions which they now propose to take up, and when,
over forty years ago, I published in my JOURNAL OF MAN the
incontestable facts then established, and gave their rationale, the
psychic researchers of to-day were as ignorant as sucking babes of the
whole subject. This ignorance is the very _raison d'etre_ of the
society. They don't know if there is anything to be discovered, and
they propose to look out. Their failure so far is considered by
Colonel Higginson a proof of their superior wisdom, which means that
they are looking for a mare's nest, and have shown their wisdom by not
finding it!
Let those who are seeking to enter the freshman class in psychic
science assume a little appearance of modesty, and not attempt to set
themselves above the old graduates and professors of the university,
at which they have heretofore been throwing stones like an
unrestrained mob. This is plain speech, but it is just. Let them begin
their operations by an act of justice--by building a monument to
Professor Hare, the noblest of American scientists, and the object of
their persecution.
"The time has come," says our lady critic, "for mystery to work hand
in hand with scientific study or to lay aside its claims to scientific
respect." Very true, very true, indeed, except your chronology; the
time has long since gone by. Science has grappled with mystery long
since. I can point out, if you wish to see it, the very anatomical
structures, the special fibres in connection with which the spiritual
phenomena are developed. The _modus operandi_ is understood, and the
facts have been known some thirty, some a hundred, some several
thousand years. Among advanced thinkers psychic science is no more a
debatable question than the rotundity of the earth or the principles
of astronomy.
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