Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

92
Maeterlinck's
Conclusion
Respecting any solution Maeterlinck says: "If
you refuse to admit the agency of spirits, the
(physical) phenomena are inexplicable.
"Agreed, nor do we pretend they are not; for
hardly anything is to be explained (fully) upon this
earth. We are content simply to ascribe these to
the incomprehensible powers of the medium.
"These singular faculties are baffling only because
they are still sporadic. They are really no more
marvellous than those we use daily without marvelling
at them: our memory, our understanding,
our imagination, and so forth. They form part of
the great miracle that we are; and, having once
admitted this miracle, we should be surprised, not
so much at its extent, as at its limits.
"Nevertheless, I am not at all of opinion that we
must definitely reject the spirit theory. Everything
remains in suspense. Things are little removed
(yet) from the point marked by Sir Wm. Crookes
when he said, nearly fifty years ago (1874), in the
Quarterly Journal of Science: 'There is no proof
whatever of the agency of the spirits of the dead,
though the Spiritists hold it as a faith, not demanding
further proof, that the spirits of the dead are the sole
agents in the production of all the phenomena.'
"Nevertheless, it is saying a good deal that recent
scientific investigations have not utterly shattered
the theory. But, I repeat, it is most simple to
attribute these absurdities to telepathic communications."
"To whatever power these phenomena are
due,"
continues Maeterlinck, with justifiable sarcasm, "it