Do not set the
least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I
pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No
facts to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment--an endless
seeker, with no Past at my back!"
CHAPTER X.
MODERN MAGIC.
Human nature enjoys nothing better than to wonder--to be mystified; and it
thanks and remembers those who have the skill to gratify this craving. The
magicians of old knew that truth and conducted themselves accordingly. But
our modern wonder-workers fail of their due influence, because, not
content to perform their marvels, they go on to explain them. Merlin and
Roger Bacon were greater public benefactors than Morse and Edison. Man is
--and he always has been and will be--something else besides a pure
intelligence: and science, in order to become really popular, must
contrive to touch man somewhere else besides on the purely intellectual
side: it must remember that man is all heart, all hope, all fear, and all
foolishness, quite as much as he is all brains. Otherwise, science can
never expect to take the place of superstition, much less of religion, in
mankind's affection.
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