this demands that they mould the
world in the same forms of thought. If one calls green what another
calls sour, and one feels as noise what another feels as toothache,
they cannot enter into a social group. Yet it is no less confusing and
no less antisocial if the world which one sees as a system of causes
and effects is to another a realm of capricious, causeless, zigzag
happenings. The mental links which join society are threatened if some
live with their thoughts in a world of order and natural law, and
others in a mystical chaos.

This has nothing to do with differences of opinion. Society profits
from contrasting views, from discussion and struggle. The opposing
parties in a real debate understand each other well and are working
with the same logic and the same desire for order of thought. This
contrast between order and mysticism has still less to do with the
difference of knowledge and belief in a higher religious and
philosophical sense. There is no real antagonism between science and
religion, between experience and philosophical speculation. They point
to each other, they demand each other, and no social question is
involved when the interests of one man emphasize more the scholarly
search for scientific truth, and those of another concentrate
throughout his lifework on the emotional wisdom of religion. It is
quite different with mysticism and science; they are not two parties
of a debate on equal terms. They exclude each other, as the mystic
projects his feeling interests into those objects which the scientist
tries to analyze and to understand as effects of causes. Nothing is a
safer test of the cultural development of a society than the instinct
for the difference between religion and superstition. Mysticism is a
systematized superstition. It never undermines the true interests of
society more than when it goes to work with pseudo-scientific tools.
Its most repellent form, that of sheer spiritualism, has in recent
years declined somewhat, and the organizations for antilogical,
psychical research eke out a pitiable existence nowadays. But the
community of the silent or noisy believers in telepathy, mystical
foresight, clairvoyance, and wonder workers seems to increase.

The scientific psychologist might have a twofold contact with such
movements. His most natural interest is that of studying the mental
makeup of those who chase this will-o'-the-wisp. Their mental vagaries
and superstitious fancies are qui