Part 45 (1/2)
”We have our own observation, joined to the report of Crookes and Richet.”
”But Crookes is discredited on this score. He belongs to what Haeckel calls 'the imaginative scientists.' So do Von Hartmann, Lombroso, Wallace, and Lodge.”
”Why should that be? Why should we accept their testimony on gases and the spectrum, and exclude it when it comes to a question of phenomena new to us? 'This man is a great chemist and physicist,' you say,'but a crazy a.s.s when he sets to work to examine the claims of spiritism,'
which is absurd and unjust. So far as I can see, he examined the phenomena of spiritism quite as a scientist should.”
Morton believed that his chief was taking the opposing side out of perversity and replied: ”I admit that as you read, they seem reasonable, and I also admit that the experiments with Eusapia, especially the recent ones, ought to be conclusive to my mind, but they are not. That is the singular thing--they do not convince.”
”That is because we do not clear our minds of prejudice. These men are far-sighted and profound in their own lines. They have exposed themselves to sneers by going into these new fields. They are to be honored as pioneers. Why not believe the phenomena they discuss are at least worth our attention?”
”That is Clarke's plea.”
”Precisely! And he is right. I am less critical of him to-day than I was last night. He gave his psychic over into our hands. What more could we ask?”
”He might have absented himself.”
”He may do that next time.”
”No; he was furious when I suggested the idea.”
”My interest is awakened. It may be, as Clarke says, that this young lady is about to give the world of science a new outlook. It may be that she is to out-do Home and Eusapia.”
Morton's face was cold and his voice firm as he said: ”Not if I can prevent it. My zeal as an investigator does not go so far as that. I intend to free her from all connection with this uneasy world, and to that end I have wired her step-father to come on, and with his a.s.sistance I hope to end Clarke's control of her and set to work upon the cure she expects of me.”
Weissmann smiled indulgently. ”The scientist is defeated by the lover.
I see; you would exclude all others from the sitting. Very well! that shall be as you wish; but it seems a shame now when we have such a wonderful chance to duplicate the Crookes' experiments. But, as you say, it would be too much to ask of a young and lovely girl. We will sacrifice only men and the ugly crones, eh?” Morton smiled faintly and his chief went on: ”Well, now, in case you find yourself sitting--” he held up a warning hand--”I say if you find yourself unable to stop these trances--”
”I have no doubt of that--provided I can take her out of her present a.s.sociations.”
”Very good! I was about to say that all, or nearly all, of the phenomena of last night took place within a limited radius of the psychic. The books all came from behind her. The horn hovered near her--all of which would support the arguments of the 'psychic force'
advocates. Lombroso and Tamburini both suggest that it is not absurd to say that possibly the subconscious mind may be able not merely to transmit energy, but to produce phantasmal forms, and I wondered last night whether there might not be some supernormal elongation of the psychic's arms which might enable her to seize and manipulate the horn at a distance beyond her normal reach.”
”It is easier for me to believe that Mrs. Lambert did it. I am convinced that Clarke in some way played us false.”
”I'm not sure of that. I am willing to grant that it is possible for the mind to alter the circulation of the blood, even to accelerate or decrease the up-building processes among the cells. If the mind can produce a pathologic process like a blister, it can also remove warts or cancer, as the hypnotists of the Charcot school claim. If the mind can move a book or a pencil without the intervention of any known form of matter, then Clarke (as well as his psychic) may be innocent, and all that happened last night be due to thought-transference and telekinesis.”
The young man shrugged his shoulders. ”To admit a single one of your premises would turn all our science upside down.”
Weissmann smiled musingly. ”So said the Ptolmaic philosophers when Copernicus came. Yet nothing was destroyed but error--they established the truth.”
”I didn't mean what I said, exactly. I meant that the whole theory is opposed to every known law of physics.”
”I'm not so certain of that, I can imagine a subtler form of force than magnetism. I can imagine the mind reacting upon matter, creating in its own right by the displacement and rearrangement of the molecules of a substance--say of wood. What is a wine-gla.s.s but an appearance? No, no! It will not do to be dogmatic. We must not a.s.sume too much. We must keep open minds. Are we not advancing? Is any one nearing the farther wall? No, my boy, each year should make us less arrogant. Ten thousand years from now men will still be discovering new laws of nature just as they were ten thousand years ago. It is childish to suppose that we or any other generation will know all that is to be known. Infinite research is before us just as infinite painful groping is behind us. I do not a.s.sume to say what the future will bring to mankind. Perhaps soon--very soon, science will s.h.i.+ft its entire battle-line from matter to mind. To say the mind is conditioned in a certain way to-day does not mean that these conditions may not utterly change to-morrow. Great discoveries wait in the future.”
”But you would not say that a new way of squaring the circle would appear--or that perpetual motion--”
”Oh no, no! Error is not a product of enlightenment. I only say that the problem which is insoluble to you and to me may be quite simple to the biologist of the twenty-second century. Once I thought I might come to know much of the universe, now I am quite certain I shall never know but a few processes--never the mystery itself.”