And yet Huxley and his admirers charge the believers in the evolution of spirit with the same crime of false pretences, because, forsooth, our theories are as yet undemonstrated. There is good authority for the statement that psychological science is a debatable land upon which the modern physiologist hardly dares to venture. I deeply sympathize with the embarrassed student of the physical side of Nature. To see his cherished materialistic theories become every day more untenable, until they are reduced to the condition of mummies swathed in shrouds, self-woven and inscribed with a farrago of pet sophistries, is indeed hard. For nothing short of that could demonstrate his theory.
Nobody doubts that everything has evolved out of something prior to itself.
That there are two sides to the question, no one but an utter psychophobist will deny. It may be argued that even if the Spiritualists have demonstrated their bare facts, their philosophy is not complete, since it has missing links. But no more have the evolutionists. For my part I cannot see that the osteologists have the better of them. An inductive hypothesis, we are told, is demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it.