ABSTRACT
The men of science who are opposed to, or indifferent to, psychical research because they profess to know that there is ‘nothing in it’ beyond illusion and delusion based on fraud, these men really stand upon their belief that the materialistic conception of the world is true. Unless psychical research —that is to say inquiry according to the strictest principles of empirical science—can discover facts incompatible with materialism, materialism will continue to spread. Psychical research has to make head against the cold indifference and the open hostility of those who should be its friends, among the men of science on the one hand, and the spiritualists on the other. An active interest in psychical research is not without its dangers for those who make research in isolation, or in isolated groups of two or three.
