It is
therefore quite possible that, by improving the methods, by
attacking the mystery from other quarters, we might obtain more
decisive results than the Hindus. We must remember that our
western science has but lately interested itself in these
problems and that it has means of investigating and experimenting
which the Asiatics never possessed. It may even be declared that
at no time in the existence of our world has the scientific mind
been better-equipped, better-suited to cope with every task, or
more exact, more skilful and more penetrating than it is today.
Because the oriental empirics have failed, there is no reason to
believe that it will not succeed in awakening and cultivating in
every man those faculties which would often be of greater use to
him than those of the intellect itself. It is not overbold to
suggest that, from certain points of view, the true history of
mankind has hardly begun.
[1] September, 1906.
12
Nevertheless, in so far as concerns the natural evolution of
those faculties, M. Bozzano's assertion seem fairly well-
justified. We do not, in fact, observe a startling or even
appreciable difference between what they were and what they are.
And this anomaly is the more surprising in as much as it is
almost universally accepted that a sense or a faculty becomes
developed in proportion to its usefulness; and there are few, I
think, that would have been not only more useful but even more
necessary to man.
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