CHAPTER XXI.
SCIENTIFIC SOPHISTRY
"For we are of yesterday, and know nothing,
because our days upon Earth are a shadow."
Job 8:9.
The term "Scientific Sophistry" well fits your multitude of theories concerning Truth.
Science which connotes a higher wisdom of hidden things has degenerated on your Earth from its original purpose (the overthrow of ignorance and superstition and the development among intelligent beings of a near approximation of Ultimate Truth) to an orthodox dogmatism, which today is on a par with the unreality which this selfsame science has sought to eliminate from the shallowness of the human mind.
It is quite true that the modern scientific method of investigation: that is, along the lines of Observation, followed by the formation of a theory, and finally by demonstration, has resulted in the release of millions of souls from a darker thraldom than that which now besets them, but nevertheless, the human race on your planet now undergoing its probationary experience, is to be pitied for its blindness in matters of real import, namely SPIRITUAL TRUTHS.
Your scientific methods instead of leading you onward towards the Central Sun of Spiritual enlightenment has so beclouded your vision that your race today—that is, the so-called enlightened and learned portions of your population—have been deflected from the main path, and they will soon find themselves pursuing an illusionary will-o'-the-wisp.
Another result of the adoption of the modern scientific method has been the tendency of those endeavoring to bring light into the dark nooks and crannies of human existence, to immerse themselves in an abysmal materialism from which rescue is almost hopeless.
This condition is the result of a loss of Spiritual vision, and is the final effort on the part of scientists to explain the riddle of human existence in accordance with a cleverly thought out, but most amazingly deficient, mechanistic conception of life.
Since the inception of modern Science on your Earth, based on the scientific method of investigation, its devotees adopted a spirit of skepticism concerning all problems of human activity not susceptible to measurement with the foot-rule, or analysis with the test tube, with the result that the newer Science of Psychology was invented to supply a reasonable and material explanation for the subtle and mystifying phenomena of the human mind.