But it is against curiosity about knowledge that men have fought most
stubbornly. Galileo was forbidden to be curious about the moon. One of
the most difficult things to establish is our right to be curious
about facts. The dogmatists offer to provide us with all the facts a
reasonable man can desire. If we persist in believing that there is a
world of facts yet undiscovered and that it is our duty to set out in
quest of it, in the eyes of the dogmatists we are scorned as heretics
and charlatans. Even at the present day, when the orthodoxies sit on
shaky thrones, dogma still opposes itself to curiosity at many points.
A great deal of the popular dislike of psychical research is due to
hatred of curiosity in a new direction. People who admit the existence
of a world of the dead commonly feel that none the less it ought to be
taboo to the too-curious intellect of man. They feel there is
something uncanny about spirits that makes it unsafe to approach them
with an inquisitive mind. I am not concerned either to attack or
defend Spiritualism. I merely suggest that a rational attack on
Spiritualism must be based on the insufficiency of the evidence put
forward in its behalf, not on the ground that the curiosity which goes
in search of such evidence is in itself wicked.
It is odd to see how men who take sides with dogma give themselves the
airs of men who live for duty, while they regard the more curious
among their fellows as licentious, trifling, irreverent and
self-indulgent.
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