IX.

It is amusing to note the superficial forms of reaction against scientific positivism.  The triumph of Darwin was signalized by the invention of that happy word Agnostic, which had great vogue.  But agnosticism, as a fashion, was far too reasonable to endure.  There came a rumour of Oriental magic, (how the world repeats itself!) and presently every one who had nothing better to do gossipped about “esoteric Buddhism”—­the saving adjective sounded well in a drawing-room.  It did not hold very long, even with the novelists; for the English taste this esotericism was too exotic.  Somebody suggested that the old table-turning and spirit-rapping, which had homely associations, might be re-considered in a scientific light, and the idea was seized upon.  Superstition pranked in the professor’s spectacles, it set up a laboratory, and printed grave reports.  Day by day its sphere widened.  Hypnotism brought matter for the marvel-mongers, and there followed a long procession of words in limping Greek—­a little difficult till practice had made perfect.  Another fortunate terminologist hit upon the word “psychical”—­the p might be sounded or not, according to the taste and fancy of the pronouncer—­and the fashionable children of a scientific age were thoroughly at ease.  “There must be something, you know; one always felt that there must be something.”  And now, if one may judge from what one reads, psychical “science” is comfortably joining hands with the sorcery of the Middle Ages.  It is said to be a lucrative moment for wizards that peep and that mutter.  If the law against fortune-telling were as strictly enforced in the polite world as it occasionally is in slums and hamlets, we should have a merry time.  But it is difficult to prosecute a Professor of Telepathy—­and how he would welcome the advertisement!

Of course I know very well that all that make use of these words are not in one and the same category.  There is a study of the human mind, in health and in disease, which calls for as much respect as any other study conscientiously and capably pursued; that it lends occasion to fribbles and knaves is no argument against any honest tendency of thought.  Men whom one cannot but esteem are deeply engaged in psychical investigations, and have convinced themselves that they are brought into touch with phenomena inexplicable by the commonly accepted laws of life.  Be it so.  They may be on the point of making discoveries in the world beyond sense.  For my own part, everything of this kind not only does not interest me; I turn from it with the strongest distaste.  If every wonder-story examined by the Psychical Society were set before me with irresistible evidence of its truth, my feeling (call it my prejudice) would undergo no change whatever.  No whit the less should I yawn over the next batch, and lay the narratives aside with—­yes, with a sort of disgust.