The borderland of [metaphysical] knowledge is, therefore, best left to time, which is the best test as to truth.[1582]
This is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a Materialist. But when a Hæckel, after just saying that “historical events of past time,” having “occurred many millions of years ago,[1583] ... are for ever removed from direct observation,” and that neither Geology nor Phylogeny[1584] can or will “rise to the position of a real ‘exact’ science,” then insists on the development of all organisms—“from the lowest vertebrate to the highest, from amphioxus to man”—we ask for a weightier proof than he can give. Mere “empirical sources of knowledge,” so extolled by the author of Anthropogeny—when he has to be satisfied with the qualification for his own views—are not competent to settle problems lying beyond their domain; nor is it the province of exact Science to place any reliance on them.[1585] If “empirical”—and [pg 701] Hæckel himself declares so repeatedly—then they are no better, nor any more reliable, in the sight of exact research, when extended into the remote past, than are our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed on the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palingenetic speculations treated any more favourably by the real Scientists, than are our cyclic repetitions of the evolution of the great in the minor races, and the original order of Evolution. For the province of exact, real Science, materialistic though it be, is to carefully avoid anything like guess-work, speculation which cannot be verified; in short, all suppressio veri and all suggestio falsi. The business of the men of exact Science is to observe, each in his chosen department, the phenomena of Nature; to record, tabulate, compare and classify the facts, down to the smallest minutiæ which are presented to the observation of the senses with the help of all the exquisite mechanism that modern invention supplies, not by the aid of metaphysical flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate right to do, is to correct by the assistance of physical instruments the defects or illusions of his own coarser vision, auditory powers, and other senses. He has no right to trespass on the grounds of Metaphysics and Psychology. His duty is to verify and to rectify all the facts that fall under his direct observation; to profit by the experiences and mistakes of the Past in endeavouring to trace the working of a certain concatenation of cause and effect, which—but only by its constant and unvarying repetition—may be called a Law. This it is which a man of Science is expected to do, if he would become a teacher of men and remain true to his original programme of natural or physical Sciences. Any side path from this royal road becomes speculation.
Instead of keeping to this, what does many a so-called man of Science do in these days? He rushes into the domain of pure Metaphysics, while deriding them. He delights in rash conclusions and calls them “a deductive law from the inductive law” of a theory based upon and drawn out of the depths of his own consciousness—that consciousness being perverted by, and honeycombed with, one-sided Materialism. He attempts to explain the “origin” of things, which are yet embosomed only in his own conceptions. He attacks spiritual beliefs and religious traditions millenniums old, and denounces everything, save his own hobbies, as superstition. He suggests theories of the Universe, a cosmogony developed by blind, mechanical forces of Nature alone, far more miraculous and impossible than even one based [pg 702] upon the assumption of fiat lux ex nihilo—and tries to astonish the world by his wild theory; and this theory, being known to emanate from a scientific brain, is taken, on blind faith, as very scientific and as the outcome of Science.
Are these the opponents Occultism should dread? Most decidedly not. For such theories are treated no better by real Science than are our own by empirical Science. Hæckel, hurt in his vanity by du Bois-Reymond, is never tired of publicly complaining of the latter's onslaught on his fantastic theory of descent. Rhapsodizing on “the exceedingly rich storehouse of empirical evidence,” he calls those “recognized Physiologists” who oppose every speculation of his drawn from the said “storehouse”—ignorant men, and declares:
If many men, and among them even some Scientists of repute—hold that the whole of phylogeny is a castle in the air, and genealogical trees [from monkeys?] are empty plays of phantasy, they only in speaking thus demonstrate their ignorance of that wealth of empirical sources of knowledge to which reference has already been made.[1586]
We open Webster's Dictionary and read the definitions of the word “empirical”:
Depending upon experience or observation alone, without due regard to modern science and theory.
This applies to the Occultists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc. Again:
An empiric; one who confines himself to applying the results of his own observations only [which is Hæckel's case]; one wanting science ... an ignorant and unlicensed practitioner; a quack; a charlatan.
No Occultist or “Magician,” has ever been treated to any worse epithets. Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaphysical grounds, and does not endeavour to rank his knowledge, the fruits of his personal observation and experience, among the exact Sciences of modern learning. He keeps within his legitimate sphere, where he is master. But what is one to think of a rank Materialist, whose duty is clearly traced before him, who uses such an expression as this: