The methods of spiritual research and psychological
observation are the only efficient agencies to employ. We have to
proceed by analogy in everything to be sure. Yet the candid men of
science must very soon find out that it is not sufficient to examine a
few stars--a handful of sand, as it were, from the margin of the
shoreless, cosmic ocean--to conclude that these stars are the same as
all other stars--our earth included; that, because they have attained a
certain very great telescopic power, and gauged an area enclosed in the
smallest of spaces when compared with what remains, they have,
therefore, concurrently perfected the survey of all that exists within
even that limited space. For, in truth, they have done nothing of the
kind. They have had only a superficial glance at that which is made
visible to them under the present conditions, with the limited power of
their vision. And even though it were helped by telescopes of a
hundred-fold stronger power than that of Lord Rosse, or the new Lick
Observatory, the case would not alter.
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