Modern spiritism; its science and religion - SpiritArchive.org

54 MODERN SPIRITISM
as is pointed out in the Gospels, by Moses and the
prophets, and by Christ Himself, who replies, when
asked to give a scientific demonstration of it, that
such would be useless; for if
people would not believe
adequate testimony, a miracle would not convince
them (St. Luke xvi.). But there is more in this
question
this.
of so-called "scientific evidence" than
We All
Live By Faith
We, the public, are all, surprising to say, men of
"faith," /ather than of "evidence." None of us,
speaking broadly, know that water is composed of two
parts of a gas called hydrogen and one part of a gas
called oxygen by any other means than faith; we
have not arrived at it by experiment. Or take some
rather rarer scientific fact, say the moons of Jupiter.
To all
but some half-dozen these moons round that
great planet are matters of faith. I am not, however,
aware that the existence of such moons is a
matter of doubt to any one, so great is the faith
of the public in the word of those few astronomers
who alone have seen them. I maintain, then, that
we live by faith in the recorded evidence of others,
and not by evidence.
I think we may not have noticed this fact before,
and how the whole life of every atheist, of every
sceptic, equally with that of all other people, is
essentially a life of faith of the most implicit kind.
Faith is indeed such an essential in all commercial
and ordinary life that it is not noticed. No one
thinks it wonderful that we hand over twenty good
silver shillings without a doubt in exchange for a