ho so well as we know the
illusory nature of every fact? Nothing is stable under our hands. Of
what avail to reduce the universe to one substance, as the monists do?
We pry, we peer into that substance--it fades like smoke. Forty years
I have probed among the cells of the body--the final mystery remains
insoluble. Why? Because the atom, the thing once demonstrated 'the
final division of matter,' is itself an illusion, made up of the
intangible and the imponderable. This I have given my whole life to
discover. Life is an illusion--why not death? Shall we dogmatize,
especially on the one thing of which we know nothing? The spirit world
is unthinkable, but so, at the last analysis, is the world of matter."

The young man, believing this to be only the mocking mood of one who
knew the argument of the dualists better than they knew it themselves,
remained silent, and Weissmann composedly resumed: "The dogmatism of
Haeckel is as vain as the assumption of Metchnikoff. We shall forever
discover and forever despair. Such is the life of man."

When he went home Morton found a note from his sister saying that she
had received a message from Viola and that she would be at home at
five. "Now don't fail to go. I have to pour tea for Sally, or I would
go with you. I'm crazy to see the girl again. I spent the morning
talking the whole thing over with Doctor Safford. She thinks as I do,
that the girl is exactly what she claims to be, a _medium_, and that
while it is her duty to go on, she ought to be protected from the
vulgar public. We both want you to take her in hand. Certainly there
_ought_ to be no disgrace in standing as interpreter between the
living and the dead. Isn't it just our foolish prejudice? If the girl
_can_ bring messages from the other world, she ought to be honored
above all other women. Seriously, Morton, her plea the other day wrung
my heart. I don't want you to get _too_ interested in her, of course,
but what we call a _disease_ may be a God-given power. Think of the
way we run after a foolish, vulgar woman who has married into
millions, and then think of the way we sniff at this girl because she
has some gift which science doesn't understand. If one teenty, tiny
bit of what they claim about her is true, science ought to cherish
her. As Marion said, if she had discovered a star so far off and so
faint it wouldn't matter in the least to any one but a few cranks
whether it existed or not, she would be honored all o