SIBYLLA OR THE REVIVAL OF PROPHECY _Most Popular Titles in the_ TODAY AND TOMORROW SERIES To those who are just beginning the TODAY and TOMORROW SERIES, the Publishers recommend the following volumes: DAEDALUS, _J. B. S. Haldane_ CALLINICUS, _J. B. S. Haldane_ ICARUS, _Bertrand Russell_ WHAT I BELIEVE, _Bertrand Russell_ BIRTH CONTROL AND THE STATE, _C. P. Blacker_ LYSISTRATA, _Anthony Ludovici_ HYPATIA, _Mrs. Bertrand Russell_ PROMETHEUS, _Dr. H. S. Jennings_ THRASYMACHUS, _C. E. M. Joad_ MIDAS, _H. C. Bretherton_ PLATO’S AMERICAN REPUBLIC, _J. D. Woodruff_ OUROBOROS, _Garet Garrett_ _For complete list of titles send for circular._ SIBYLLA _or_ THE REVIVAL OF PROPHECY BY C. A. MACE, M.A. _Lecturer in Logic and Psychology at the University of St. Andrews_ [Illustration] New York E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 Fifth Avenue Published, 1927 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOREWORD Can Prophecy be a science? Science at any rate, appears to aim at prophecy. We are often told that the test of an hypothesis lies in the events that it predicts; but it is a test that is much too rarely applied. We are surprised when Biologists apply it in a systematic way to the theory of evolution. Historians also tell us that the study of the past will help us to foresee the future, but in their practice they hardly succeed in catching up to the present. The organum of human knowledge, in fact, presents a curious spectacle――a vast system of foundations but no sign of the edifice these foundations are to bear. At least such was the case until recently. In the little prophetic volumes recently published we can see, perhaps, the preliminary sketch of its imposing elevation. And so another question occurs. What is the future of prophecy? Psychical research may even yet surprise us. Latent powers of divination may lurk in the human mind, but it is premature no doubt to look for enlightenment here. Less sensational but more significant is the emergence of the prophetic function in the work of science itself, and in the pedestrian progress of our general intellectual life in the twentieth century.