It is a true instinct which resents the mediæval practice of freely introducing occult and unknown causes into working science. To attribute the rise of sap, for instance, to a 'vital force' would be absurd, it would be giving up the problem and stating nothing at all. Progress in science began when spiritual and transcendental causes were eliminated and treated as non-existent. The simplicity so attained was congenial to the scientific type of mind; the abstraction was eminently useful, and was justified by results. Yet unknown causes of an immaterial and even of a spiritual kind may in reality exist, and may influence or produce phenomena, for all that; and it may have to be the business of science to discover and begin to attend to them, as soon as the ordinary solid ground-plan of Nature has been made sufficiently secure. Some of us--whether wisely or unwisely--now want to enlarge the recognised scope of physical science, so as gradually to take a wider purview and include more of the totality of things. That is what the Society for Psychical Research was established for,--to begin extending the range of scientific law and order, by patient exploration in a comparatively new region. The effort has been resented, and at first ridiculed, only because misunderstood. The effort may be ambitious, but it is perfectly legitimate; and if it fails it fails. But advance in new directions may be wisely slow, and it is readily admissible that Societies devoted to long-established branches of science are right to resist extraneous novelties, as long as possible, and leave the study of occult phenomena to a Society established for the purpose. Outlandish territories may in time be incorporated as States, but they must make their claim good and become civilised first.