If we are dealing with unknown quantities,
we cannot deny their connection with other unknown quantities.
If I have a self of which I can say nothing, how can I even say
that it is my own self? How can I even say that I always had it,
or that it did not come from somewhere else? It is clear that we
are in very deep waters, whether or no we have rushed down a steep
place to fall into them.
It will be noted that what we really lack here is not
the supernatural but only the healthy supernatural.
It is not the miracle, but only the miracle of healing.
I warmly sympathise with those who think most of this rather morbid,
and nearer the diabolic than the divine, but to call a thing
diabolic is hardly an argument against the existence of diabolism.
It is still more clearly the case when we go outside the sphere
of science into its penumbra in literature and conversation.
There is a mass of fiction and fashionable talk of which it may
truly be said, that what we miss in it is not demons but the power
to cast them out. It combines the occult with the obscene;
the sensuality of materialism with the insanity of spiritualism.
In the story of Gadara we have left out nothing except the Redeemer,
we have kept the devils and the swine.
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