A few words--which many persons will read with amazement--must be added
here on the subject of _Cui bono?_ Multitudinous vials of scorn have
been poured out on the inanities of ordinary spiritualistic _séances_;
and all research into such matters is rigidly boycotted in scientific
circles as being unworthy of any intelligent individuals notice. Even
when the President of the Royal Society himself, and others who are
entitled to write F.R.S. or D.Sc. after their names, have been known
to touch the accursed and degrading thing, they have been either
ostracised or half-pardoned contemptuously. This attitude is based on
the belief that occultism is an idle and vain form of mental activity,
and cannot, with any reason, be expected to add anything to the stock
of human knowledge or to produce results of service to mankind. _Cui
bono?_ Why waste time in tomfoolery that can never be useful and may
possibly lead feeble persons into the abyss of insanity?
The defect of the attitude is that it is unscientific. The proudest
claim of Science is that she deals with the Facts of the universe
and gives her allegiance to Truth rather than to Opinion. But these
features are the characteristics of every well-conducted sitting for
the development of psychical manifestations. The search is for facts;
and the object pursued is the attainment of truth. If, then, a leader
of science denounce the sitting as being necessarily futile he does one
of two things: either he disallows the proudest claim of Science; or he
declares the limits of his own personal knowledge to be those of Fact
and Truth.
It has often happened that researches which appeared at the outset
to be a mere waste of time have in the end been found productive of
much practical and useful knowledge. The modern inquiries into the
feasibility of speaking with the dead are a case in point. They have
already brought the world of Science and Industry face to face with the
possibility and near prospect of a command over Matter and Physical
Force such as men have never hitherto enjoyed and such as must lead
inevitably to the greatest advance of material prosperity that mankind
has ever experienced. This may best be made clear by dealing with some
concrete example.
The lessons of the Great War, the utterances of expert authorities like
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, and the newspapers generally, have taught the
public that the navigation of the air will be the great and dominating
factor of the world’s progress in future. This need not be enlarged
upon here. Everyone admits that the command of the air will solve the
problem of intercourse between all the regions of the globe, and will
bring in its train a vast improvement in all the arts of living and a
greatly-widened distribution of natural wealth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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