Religion Sex: Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development. E-book. Formato PDF - 9780243624225

Closely allied to the claim of the mystic that his experiences bring him into touch with a world of super-sensuous reality, is the attempt to prove that Science is incapable of dealing with anything but in the first place, the endless ascertainment of facts and the physical conditions under which they occur, and in the second place to the criticism of error. Well, no one denies that it is part of the work of science to ascertain facts, or even that its work consists in ascer taining facts and framing 'laws that will explain them. But why are we to limit science to pkysz'cal facts only? All facts are not physical. If I have a head ache, the unpleasant feeling is a fact. If I feel hot or cold, angry or pleased, think one thing ugly or anoth er be'autiful, my feelings are as much facts as any thing else that exists. Nay, if I fancy I see a ghost, or a vision, these also are facts so far as my mental state at the time is concerned. So also are my beliefs about all mannerof things, and often the most import ant facts with which I am connected. Facts may be objective or subjective. They may exist in relation to all minds normally constituted, or they may exist in relation to my own mind only; or, yet again, they may exist only in relation to certain states of mind, but they do not, nevertheless, cease to be facts.