' But yet more
unsatisfactory than the impotence of the type is the obscurity of the
thing typified. We can lay down no premises, because no basis can be
found for them,--and establish no axioms, because we have no
mathematical certainties. Objects which present the assurance of
palpable facts to-day may vanish as meteors to-morrow. The effort to
crystallize into a creed one's articles of faith in these mental
phantasmagoria is like carving a cathedral from sunset clouds, or
creating salient and retreating lines of armed hosts in the northern
lights. Though willing dupes to the pretty fancy, we know that before
the light of science the architecture is resolved into mist, and the
battalions into a stream of electricity."
"Not so," replied Vilalba. "Your sky-visions are a deceit, and you know
it while you enjoy them. But the torch of science is by no means
incendiary to the system of psychology. Arago himself admits that it
may one day obtain a place among the exact sciences, and speaks of the
actual power which one human being may exert over another without the
intervention of any known physical agent; while Cuvier and other noted
scientists concede even more than this."
"Do you, then, believe," I asked, "that there is between the silent
grave and the silent stars an answer to this problem we have discussed
to-night, of the inter-relation between spirit and matter, between
soul and soul? To me it seems hopelessly inscrutable, and all effort
to elucidate it, like the language of the Son of Maia, 'by night
bringeth darkness before the eyes, and in the daytime nought clearer.
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