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O.14

ever be the determinations of the places of the heavenly bodies, and the mathematical deductions from them"; "the chemical constitution of the stars can never be known"; etc. I myself, to my shame, used to predict a brief score of years ago that psychical research could never gather other harvest than that of wasted lives; and I will not forget the lesson. The provocation to such maxims is the fits of public discontent with scientific men for not investigating certain matters; and the men of science themselves have been apt to pretend to a general power of research which a sound logic would show that no man can possess. But I do not