Strictly logical conclusions drawn from categories of facts so derived, deserve the name of Science.
Science is, therefore, a definite method of arriving at exact conclusions. No other method can legitimately bear the name of science.
No one pretends to dispute the conclusions logically involved in the Binomial Theorem; or in the Parallelogram of forces; or in correlative mechanical equivalents; or in many of the known laws of chemistry and physiology.
When, however, we come to mental processes and psychical phenomena, the facts are so redundant, and so differently reported and apprehended, that argument, belief and prejudice, credulity and incredulity, overshadow and drown with a war of words all clear, scientific methods or conclusions.
But if man, as a whole, is a fact in nature; or if “God made Man a Living Soul,” then the whole nature of man exists under law, and is apprehensible to science.
Man’s function as a scientist is to read, to reflect, to weigh, to measure, and to understand.
There are those who object to Natural Science as applied to “Divine” things. They would preserve the mystery, and seem to prefer miracle and dogma to knowledge and law.
Their preference is to be respected, even though ignorance and superstition result. Since the domain of science, in America at least, is no longer restricted by ecclesiastic law, the conflict between Religion and Science has gradually disappeared, and the conflict is rather that between knowledge and ignorance, with ignorance on the wane.
“Things settled by long use, if not absolutely good, at least fit well together.”
This transition period seems confusing to many earnest souls with its “New Thought,” its “occultisms” and its “Lo here’s” and “Lo there’s.” But through and beneath it all, may be heard a note of harmony, the promise and the potency of the triumph of light and knowledge.