The conclusions of logic in this matter have sometimes been questioned, if not defied. Quite properly, it may be, many people, and particularly many among scientists, have been in the habit of distrusting the leading of mere logic in the solution of their problems. But in this particular matter I think that no scientist has ever succeeded in making out a negative case. A few have tried to do so, have thought themselves for a time successful, and then in the end, though not without some reservation, have gone over to the other side. Probably their undertaking has been inspired by the extravagant views sometimes entertained, as when money-getting is supposed to educate [p.167] people to an appreciation of music and art, or a ready memory for one class of things to imply the same facility in acquiring a memory of another class of things, or skill in the use of tools to make a good dentist, or physical self-control or intellectual sincerity to ensure moral truthfulness. Whereas, if it could be remembered that no special training could ever be literally applicable beyond the particular sphere of its attainment, the relation of part and part of human nature being only analogous and metaphorical, and that in any scientifically observed case special training, when artificially acquired, or when a result only of a suggested and merely imitated routine, can hardly count as conclusive evidence, the problem would lose much of its interest, and science would be ready even to accept the logical solution. Logically, then, the translation is possible, and scientifically there is no real evidence against its possibility.
As to the translation being positively natural or necessary, as well as possible, the suggestion may not be impertinent that whatever is truly possible must be also real; that is to say, certain of realization or rather somehow and somewhere, in some manner and in some degree already in expression. Even the possible can never have been made out of, or sprung up out of, nothing. Moreover, the translation here spoken of, wherein one developed side of life flashes its message, more spiritual than literal, to another side or the other side of life, plainly can require nothing unnatural. It exacts only that all the different elements of our nature and experience, whether as personally or as factionally manifested, shall be [p.168] forever true to their origin. The apparent obstacles to translation certainly cannot be obstacles on the ground of the analogies of the various parts being only metaphorical instead of literal, for already in the original differentiation that has made person and faction, that has separated the parts, these have been overcome. The very nature of the person is their overcoming. The unity of experience must persist assertive and inviolable, whatever the divisions of experience. The distinct vertebræ must always contain a spinal cord that has a common origin with them.