“Truth”
If An outsider could only elbow his way into the groves at Academe, and see our humbugging Scientists with their masks off, what a tale he would have to tell upon his return to a credulous world! How these Cheap-Jack modern philosophers must grin at each other when they see us swallowing such line speeches as this, (in the August “Popular Science Monthly,”) and imagining that they express their real views:
“But, in extensive divisions of thought, truth is only a relative thing; of inestimable value for its time, and most of all valuable as a means of getting away from it and attaining more perfect truth. Logic is the art or science of arriving at truth dt ratiocination; but science is the field where logic is put to practical application and subjected to the most rigorous tests. The human mind if left to logic alone may go wild in any direction; science holds it steadily to the observed order of Nature as the standard by which it is to be tried. The whole circle of the sciences bears witness to the correctness of scientific thinking; and the history of every science abounds in proofs of the relativity of truth. Certain parts of elementary facts may remain constant, but even the interpretations of these, true only for their time, are changed, age after age.”
The circle of the sciences does no such thing. It, on the contrary, shows a body of men drifting away from the soul of things towards their dry husks. It shows ahem, in their eagerness to trample religious faith under "foot, erecting an idol fur themselves in their deified pure matter. It displays as much moral cowardice, narrowness of prejudice, vindictive prescriptiveness, and reactionary tendency, as can be found in even the most despotic of religious creeds.
This famous circle of the sciences presents itself as a Juggernaut car, crushing such of its devotees as crowd to the front and are flung to the ground by the angry mob behind them. It vaunts its impartiality and superior goodness, does this false Science of our times, when its career is black with the injustice it has done to its discoverers and heroes.
It has progressed, but its march is like that of the Caliph of Bagdad to his bath,—over the prostrate bodies of its subjects. What welcome has it ever given to a new born truth? Ask Harvey, Columbus, Galileo, Jenner, Galvani, Mesmer, Faust, Watt, Morse and the mediums of our day.
It maintains its position of superiority by reason of its own “cheek” and the lazy good-nature of the public. It is a pert minx, who is suffered to flaunt as a belle because it is easier to concede her claims than incur her tongue Lashing by opposition.
It is high time that Spiritualists who know anything at all of the real origin of Science, should combine to cut the comb of this cackling chicken, hatched from the addled eggs of Occultism. It is time that they began to return blow for blow, and insult for insult. Is there one among them, possessed of a spark of manhood, who will not feel indignation at such insults as the following (from Pop. Sci. Monthly for July) and desire to strike back?:
“But the mass of people are still very far from having so clear, and settled, and strong a conviction of the order of Nature, that they will not lend a willing ear to the most preposterous stories of its violation. What is the lesson of the gross ghostology of modern Spiritualism, before which even educated people will throw up gravity, and all the laws of physics, at the first puzzle of a juggling exhibitor, unless it be that the scientific doctrine of the government of the world by inviolable law is yet far from being rooted in the general mind. Those who entertain such loose views of the constitution of Nature will almost necessarily take to the superstitious side of religion, and resent all attempts to submit their beliefs, even where they involve physical effects, to the test of science.”
Was ever such conceit displayed! A body of men who fancy there can be no other forte capable of neutralizing gravity; who, with one breath, say that “matter contains the promise and potency of every form of life," and with the next deny the existence of spirit, with every manifestation of disdain,—a body of men like these, to insult us by such language as the above! Why this very Popular Science Monthly has not yet even mentioned, as matter of news, William Crookes’ discovery of the mechanical force resident m Light, although announced, and demonstrated before the British Association two months ago! But it had space in the August number to inform us that a decoction of tansy will kill bots! Science, quotha! Pah!
A Dream and its Fulfillment
A correspondent of the New Haven Register, writing from Danbury, says: on the first of the present month a gentleman well known in Boston, a dealer in tea there, came to this place to see a cousin he had never before had the pleasure of meeting, and was prevailed upon to stay overnight. Alter all had retired, the family heard the stranger walking the floor above them, but supposing that he would call them if he was unwell or needed any assistance they soon fell asleep. In the morning he told his friend that he had had a very singular dream, not only once hut several times over. He dreamed that he had cut a man's throat from ear to ear, and so vivid was the picture he could not sleep. After laughing over the matter a little he took breakfast and proceeded to the depot, assuring the wife of his friend that upon arriving at New York he would telegraph to her upon what day she might look for a small chest of fine tea that he had promised her. The telegram carte as agreed, saying it would be at the express office the next day. On taking up the New York Herald, of September 5th, the following notice appeared, and was read by two or three in the factory where the young man works, and who were knowing to the facts above stated.
“A person by the name of Dixon was found last evening, in thin city, with bin throat cut from ear to ear.”
Not thinking it was his friend he daily called at the express office for the tea, but as it did not arrive fie supposed his friend bad forgotten it. A day or to ago he received a letter from Dixon, at Bellevue hospital, saying that on the evening he left Danbury he called on a friend of his, with whom he stayed till about eleven o’clock, gad had hardly reached the sidewalk when some unknown person knocked him down, and the next he knew he was at the hospital with bin thrust can six inches across. The wound had been attended to and he was getting along finely, and as soon as he got out be would send the chest of tea.
Editor's notes
Sources
Spiritual Scientist, v. 2, No. 21, July 29, 1875, p. 246
Spiritual Scientist, v. 5, No. 6, October 12, 1876, p. 65