Preface

TEXT FLY WITHIN THE BOOK ONLY
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Atu Qtpiov tivai 17? yv&pfl rov fie\\ovra (f)t\o i'iv
An open mind is the gate-way to philosophy.
Plato
OCCULTISM AND MODERN SCIENCE
BY
T. KONSTANTIN OESTgRREICH
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TUBINGEN
TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
THE present book is concerned with a field of knowledge which is not much cultivated in Germany, but which has for a number of years been academically recog- nized by the English-speaking and the Latin races. At the publisher's request it is addressed to the general public, including therein such of my colleagues as have not been more closely concerned with the subjects dealt with. I have tried to describe from a non-partisan p^int of view the scientific position as it seems to me to exist. That this position is as yet far from clear in many respects will be obvious as I proceed. But it follows that it is obvious that we have to do to a considerable extent with a new field of knowledge which is not yet ripe, and which German science is called upon to join in culti- vating, so that at last certainty may be reached as to what is actually true and the proper philosophical consequences deduced therefrom.
ORSELINA, LOCARNO Stptemhr, 1920
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
^ AHIS book, the first edition of which was JL exhausted in six months, has accomplished what I hoped it would, and directed the interest of persons capable of scientific thought to the problems of parapsychology. At last there is movement in many places, though it need hardly be said that in many others dogmatic slumber still prevails. The reception of the book by the general public also goes to prove that we live in a time of mental freedom, which ia not governed by dogma, and should be ready to make a great advance, if it were not that the general conditions of life make German scientific work nowadays difficult even in this field. The theoretical interpretation which I have attempted of the facts recorded must for the present remain in details hypothetical, and my meaning would be wholly misunderstood if the various lines of thought which I have developed were taken to be positive dogmatic conclusion*.
TUBINCBN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PACU5
INTRODUCTION - - I