ABRACADABRA BRACADABR RACADAB ACADA CAD A Why is superstition so deep-rooted? Why do we cling to error so tenaciously? Why does every new, occult fad soon attract a host of followers? Let us see. First, there is a charm to everything that is extraordinary--we love the unusual, the different, the marvelous, the miraculous; second, we hate to see destroyed that which we love. Hence, the tendency to exaggeration, which is a consequence of it; and hence the regretful reluctance to have our dreams of wondrousness dispelled. Is there anything quite so unpleasant, when we have told a friend of some marvelous manifestation we had witnessed, as to have that friend prove to us that the manifestation was but a trick? Not only is our pride hurt, but our pet joy is spoiled; we had been hugging a sacred mystery, only to find it a delusion. That which we call mystery is unfinished knowledge--not complete ignorance. That which we call the supernatural is but the natural not yet understood, or only partly understood. We know a little of everything, but not everything of everything, nor even everything of any one thing. Science is only a mystery solved. A prevalent and dangerous form of credulity or enthusiasm is that which makes us extremists or faddists. A faddist is an extremist, and an extremist is a faddist. It is one thing to be so stubborn and old-fashioned that nothing new has any interest to us, and it is another to be so credulous and catholic that we seize every new theory with a mad enthusiasm. Every fad and delusion is founded on a truth, but the extremist sees in them more than a truth; his brain becomes a kaleidoscope, with numerous reflecting surfaces which reflect multifold imaginary pictures. From two or three simple truths, sprang an immense false system of astrology; from the simple truth that our temperaments and characters are more or less expressed upon our bodies, sprang some of the silly doctrines of palmistry and physiognomy; from the simple truth that every person has an individuality which is expressed in his apparel, his home and his manners, sprang the ridiculous theory of psychometry; from the simple truth that souls live beyond the grave, and that our imagination may picture those souls, sprang the untenable belief in ghosts, spirits and mediums; and from the simple fact that our pains and troubles are intensified by brooding over them, sprang the fallacy of Christian Science. Who would say that the Boston tea party _caused_ the Revolutionary war, or that the firing on Fort Sumpter _caused_ the "late unpleasantness"? The quarrel between Queen Anne and the Duchess of Marlborough over a pair of gloves did not cause the change of ministry and the following peace with Louis XIV, nor did the blood of Lucretia put an end to the kingly powers at Rome, as some say, and neither did the sight of Virginia terminate the decemviral power,