_in nature_ are _natural_ and should be approached as
_such_. The human mind is at least an energy which can direct other
energies; it is incorrect and misleading to call it _super_natural. It is
of course true that we do not fully understand the nature of the human
mind and we shall learn to understand it when and only when we acquire
sense enough to recognize it as _natural_. If we persist in saying and
believing that the "spiritual evidences cannot be explained on a material
base," this statement should be equally applicable to electricity or
radium. If this statement is false for these phenomena, it is equally
false for the mind or the so-called spiritual and will powers. The
scientific understanding of these phenomena will not "degrade" these
phenomena, _because that cannot be done. Facts remain facts and no
scientific explanation of a phenomenon can lower or degrade that which is
a fact._ Electricity is electricity and nothing else, no matter what its
origin; human time-binding energies (embracing all faculties) are the
highest of the known energies--equally magnificent and astonishing--no
matter what the base; and the scientific understanding of them will only
_add_ to our respect for them and for ourselves; it will unmistakably help
us to develop them indefinitely by mathematical analysis. The _base_ is
not the phenomenon--sulphuric acid and zinc _are not_ electricity;
time-binding energies _are not_ a pound of beefsteak, although a pound of
beefsteak may help to save life and be therefore _instrumental_ in the
production of a poem or of a sonata; but by no means can a beefsteak be
taken for either of them.

I have attempted, with some measure of success I trust, to solve these
problems in science and life; the results are astonishing, as they lead us
to a much higher and more embracing ethics than society has ever had. By
this analysis I prove that the understanding of this most stupendous but
NATURAL phenomenon of human life brings us to the scientifical source of
ethics and I prove that the so-called "highest ideals of humanity" have
nothing of "sentimentalism" or of the "_super_natural" in them, but are
exclusively the _fulfilment_ of the _natural laws_ for the _human class of
life_. The recognition of the fact that the phenomena of the human mind
are natural and as such conform to natural law has the further advantage
over the "supernatural" attitude in that we can no more evade a law of
human nature than th