The scientific basis of delusions : a new theory of trance, and its bearings on human testimony / by George M. Beard.

  • Beard, George M. (George Miller), 1839-1883.
Date:
1877
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The scientific basis of delusions : a new theory of trance, and its bearings on human testimony / by George M. Beard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and no worse than their text-books and instructors, since in the first universities of the world, the young are taught to believe without dispute, the testimony of their eyes and ears. The out- come of two thousand years of human reasoning, since the found- ing of the science of logic by Aristotle, is that the Encyclopedia Brittanica, in its latest edition, regards it as yet an open ques- tion whether ghosts appear.1 The antiquarian of the future, searching among the ruins of our great cities for samples of American culture in the years 1874 and ’75, will find the leading organs of literary expression more or less mortgaged to mediums, and published evidence of honest and able observers, that those who have been dead and buried for centuries are, under certain conditions, raised to life, that, if the present respect for the testimony of the senses shall have survived until that day, will be absolutely convincing. One reason, indeed, the main reason, why the controversy in regard to miracles, from Butler and Hume down to Mozley and Matthew Arnold, has been so discouraging a chapter in the his- tory of human striving after the truth, is that there has not been on either side any just standard for estimating the worth or .worthlessness of testimony on which, as must be allowed, the entire validity of the discussion depends; it has been a battle of giants, but of giants fighting in 'the air; both parties have been constantly beaten, and every apparent victory has been quickly followed by a renewal of the conflict. If, in their esti- mate of evidence both sides agree, there is nothing further to discuss; if they do not agree, further discussion is useless.2 1 Under the article Apparitions. 2 Since writing the above I have observed that Mr. Mozley, in the preface to the third edition of his work on Miracles, has admitted all I ha\e heie claimed. After stating that the a priori arguments against miracles are inadequate, he adds, “ but after having put the speculative class ot arguments agaiusL miracles aside, we go to the practical ques- tion of evidence, we find ourselves here again, before long, coming to a stand-still in controversy, because it soon appears that the two sides have no common criterion of good evidence and bad; that what is strong evidence to one man, is weak to another; what is sufficient to one is defective to another” He further remarks that the two sides are separated by a difference in “ fundamental principles and assumptions.” If Mr. Mozley had readied this truth sooner, he would have probablv wntten quite a different book, or rather he would have written none at all, since the establishment of the principles of evidence can only be accomplished by the aid of the physiology, and pathology of the brain— a department in which he is not, and does not profess to be an authority