It is rather remarkable that the majority of learned men have closed their minds to what have seemed bare and simple facts to many people. Those who call themselves spiritualists have an easy and simple faith; they interpret their experiences in the most straightforward and unsophisticated manner, and some of them have shown unfortunately that they can be led into credulity and error, without much difficulty, by unscrupulous people. Nevertheless, that simple-hearted folk are most accessible to new facts seems to be rather accordant with history. Whenever, not by reasoning but by direct experience, knowledge has been enlarged, or when a revelation has come to the human race through the agency of higher powers, it is not the wise but the simple who are first to receive it. This cannot be used as an argument either way; the simple may be mistaken, and may too blithely interpret their sense-impressions in the most obvious manner; just as on the other hand the eyes of the learned may be closed to anything which appears disconnected from their previous knowledge. For after all it is inevitable that any really new order of things must be so disconnected; some little time must elapse before the weight of facts impel the learned in a new direction, and meanwhile the unlearned may be absorbing direct experience, and in their own fashion may be forging ahead. It is an example of the ancient paradox propounded in and about 1 _Cor._ i. 26; and no fault need be found with what is natural. It behoves me to mention in particular the attitude of men of science, of whom I may say _quorum pars parva fui_; for in no way do I wish to dissociate myself from either such stricture or such praise as may be appropriate to men who have made a study of science their vocation,--not indeed the peaks of the race, but the general body. For it is safe to assume that we must have some qualities in common, and that these must be among the causes which have switched us on to a laborious and materially unremunerative road. Michael Foster said in his Presidential Address to the British Association at Dover:-- "Men of science have no peculiar virtues, no special powers. They are ordinary men, their characters are common, even commonplace. Science, as Huxley said, is organised common sense, and men of science are common men, drilled in the ways of common sense." This of course, like any aphorism, does not bear pressing unduly: and Dr. Arthur Schuster in a similar Address at Manchester hedged it round with qualifying clauses:--