Allan Kardec-THE Spirit's Book_ The Principles of Spiritist Doctrine (1989)

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THE SPIRITS’ BOOK
divergent systems brought forward and rejected. one after the other; now cried down as
absurd errors, and now cried up as incontestable truths? Facts are the sole criterion of reality,
the sole argument that admits of no reply: in the absence of facts. the wise man suspends his
judgment.
In regard to all matters that have already been fully examined, the verdict of the learned is
justly held to be authoritative, because their knowledge of them is fuller and more
enlightened than that of ordinary men; but in regard to new facts or principles, to matters
imperfectly known, their opinion can only be hypothetic, because they are no more exempt
from prejudice than other people It may even be said that scientific men are more apt to be
prejudiced than the rest of the world, because each of them is naturally inclined to look at
everything from the special point of view that has been adopted by him; the mathematiciau
admitting no other order of proof than that of an algebraic demonstration, the chemist
referring everything to the action of the elements, etc. When a man has made for himself a
specialty, he usually devotes his whole mind to it; beyond the scope of this specialty he often
reasons falsely, because, owing to the weakness of human reason, he insists on treating every
subject in the same way; and therefore, while we should willingly and confidemly consult a
chemist in regard to a question of analysis, a physicist in regard to electricity, a mechanician
in regard to a motive power, we must be allowed, without in any way derogating from the
respect due to their special knowledge, to attach no more weight to their unfavourable
opinion of Spiritism than we should do to the judgment of an architect on a question relating
to the theory of music.
The positive sciences are based on the properties of matter, which may be experimented upon
and manipulated at pleasure; but spiritist phenomena are an effect of the action of
intelligences who have wills of their own, and who constantly show us that they are not
subjected to ours. The observation of facts, therefore, cannot be carried on in the latter case in
the same way as in the former one, for they proceed from another source, and require special
conditions; and, consequently, to insist upon submitting them to the same methods of
investigation is to insist on assuming the existence of analogies that do not exist. Science,
properly so called, is therefore incompetent, as such, to decide the question of the truth of
Spiritism; it has nothing to do with it; and