Skip to main content

Full text of "Miracles and modern spiritualism"

See other formats 


MIRACLES    AND 
MODERN     SPIRITUALISM 


MIRACLES 


AND 


MODERN   SPIRITUALISM 


BY 


ALFRED    RUSSEL    WALLACE, 

D.C.L.,   LL.D.,  F.R.S. 


REVISED  EDITION,  WITH  CHAPTERS  ON 
APPARITIONS  AND  PHANTASMS 


LONDON 

GEORGE    REDWAY 
1896 


• 

UNIVERSITY  (!. 

SAM  A  BARBARA1 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

(1874) 

THE  Essays  which  form  this  volume  were  written  at 
different  times  and  for  different  purposes.  The  first  in 
order  (though  not  the  earliest  in  date)  was  read  before 
the  Dialectical  Society,  with  the  intention  of  inducing 
sceptics  to  reconsider  the  fundamental  question  of  the 
inherent  credibility  or  incredibility  of  Miracles.  The 
second  was  written  in  1866  for  the  pages  of  a  Secu- 
larist periodical,  and  a  very  limited  number  of  copies 
printed,  chiefly  for  private  circulation.  The  third  is  the 
article  which  appeared  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  of  May 
and  June  1874  All  have  been  carefully  revised,  and  con- 
siderable additions  have  been  made  of  illustrative  fact, 
argument,  and  personal  experience,  together  with  a  few 
critical  remarks  on  Dr.  Carpenter's  latest  work. 

As  the  second  and  third  Essays  were  each  intended  to 
give  a  general  view  of  the  same  subject,  there  is  neces- 
sarily some  repetition  in  the  matters  treated  of,  and  the 
same  authorities  are  in  many  cases  quoted ;  but  it  is 
believed  that  no  actual  repetition  of  details  will  be 
found,  care  having  been  taken  to  introduce  new  facts 
and  fresh  illustrations,  so  that  the  one  Essay  will  be 
found  to  supplement  and  support  the  other. 


VI  PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

I  must  now  say  a  few  words  on  a  somewhat  personal 
matter. 

I  am  well  aware  that  my  scientific  friends  are  some- 
what puzzled  to  account  for  what  they  consider  to  be  my 
delusion,  and  believe  that  it  has  injuriously  affected  what- 
ever power  I  may  have  once  possessed  of  dealing  with 
the  philosophy  of  Natural  History.  One  of  them — Mr. 
Anton  Dohrn — has  expressed  this  plainly.  I  am  informed 
that,  in  an  article  entitled  "  Englische  Kritiker  und  Anti- 
Kritiker  des  Darwinismus,"  published  in  1861,  he  has  put 
forth  the  opinion  that  Spiritualism  and  Natural  Selection 
are  incompatible,  and  that  my  divergence  from  the  views 
of  Mr.  Darwin  arises  from  my  belief  in  Spiritualism.  He 
also  supposes  that  in  accepting  the  spiritual  doctrines  I 
have  been  to  some  extent  influenced  by  clerical  and  reli- 
gious prejudice.  As  Mr.  Dohrn's  views  may  be  those  of 
other  scientific  friends,  I  may  perhaps  be  excused  for 
entering  into  some  personal  details  in  reply. 

From  the  age  of  fourteen  I  lived  with  an  elder  brother, 
of  advanced  liberal  and  philosophical  opinions,  and  I  soon 
lost  (and  have  never  since  regained)  all  capacity  of  being 
affected  in  my  judgments  either  by  clerical  influence  or 
religious  prejudice.  Up  to  the  time  when  I  first  became 
acquainted  with  the  facts  of  Spiritualism,  I  was  a  con- 
firmed philosophical  sceptic,  rejoicing  in  the  works  of 
Voltaire,  Strauss,  and  Carl  Vogt,  and  an  ardent  admirer 
(as  I  am  still)  of  Herbert  Spencer.  I  was  so  thorough 
and  confirmed  a  materialist  that  I  could  not  at  that  time 
find  a  place  in  my  mind  for  the  conception  of  spiritual 
existence,  or  for  any  other  agencies  in  the  universe  than 


PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION  Vll 

matter  and  force.  Facts,  however,  are  stubborn  things. 
My  curiosity  was  at  first  excited  by  some  slight  but  in- 
explicable phenomena  occurring  in  a  friend's  family,  and 
my  desire  for  knowledge  and  love  of  truth  forced  me  to 
continue  the  inquiry.  The  facts  became  more  and  more 
assured,  more  and  more  varied,  more  and  more  removed 
from  anything  that  modern  science  taught  or  modern 
philosophy  speculated  on.  The  facts  beat  me.  They 
compelled  me  to  accept  them  as  facts  long  before  I  could 
accept  the  spiritual  explanation  of  them ;  there  was  at 
that  time  "  no  place  in  my  fabric  of  thought  into  which 
it  could  be  fitted."  By  slow  degrees  a  place  was  made ; 
but  it  was  made,  not  by  any  preconceived  or  theoretical 
opinions,  but  by  the  continuous  action  of  fact  after  fact, 
which  could  not  be  got  rid  of  in  any  other  way.  So  much 
for  Mr.  Anton  Dohrn's  theory  of  the  causes  which  led  me 
to  accept  Spiritualism.  Let  us  now  consider  the  state- 
ment as  to  its  incompatibility  with  Natural  Selection. 

Having,  as  above  indicated,  been  led,  by  a  strict  induc- 
tion from  facts,  to  a  belief — Istly,  In  the  existence  of  a 
number  of  preterhuman  intelligences  of  various  grades 
and,  2ndly,  That  some  of  these  intelligences,  although 
usually  invisible  and  intangible  to  us,  can  and  do  act  on 
matter,  and  do  influence  our  minds, — I  am  surely  follow- 
ing a  strictly  logical  and  scientific  course  in  seeing  how 
far  this  doctrine  will  enable  us  to  account  for  some  of 
those  residual  phenomena  which  Natural  Selection  alone 
will  not  explain.  In  the  10th  chapter  of  my  Contributions 
to  the  Theory  of  Natural  Selection  I  have  pointed  out  what 
I  consider  to  be  some  of  those  residual  phenomena ;  and 


Vlll  PREFACE  TO  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

I  have  suggested  that  they  may  be  due  to  the  action  of 
some  of  the  various  intelligences  above  referred  to.  This 
view  was,  however,  put  forward  with  hesitation,  and  I 
myself  suggested  difficulties  in  the  way  of  its  acceptance ; 
but  I  maintained,  and  still  maintain,  that  it  is  one  which 
is  logically  tenable,  and  is  in  no  way  inconsistent  with  a 
thorough  acceptance  of  the  grand  doctrine  of  Evolution, 
through  Natural  Selection,  although  implying  (as  indeed 
many  of  the  chief  supporters  of  that  doctrine  admit)  that 
it  is  not  the  all-powerful,  all-sufficient,  and  only  cause  of 
the  development  of  organic  forms. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 


ANOTHER  edition  of  this  little  work  being  called  for,  I 
have  carefully  revised  the  text,  inserted  dates,  and  given 
a  few  additional  facts  either  in  the  body  of  the  work  or 
in  footnotes. 

I  have  also  added  two  chapters  on  Apparitions  and 
Phantasms,  which  appeared  in  the  Boston  Arena  in  1891, 
and  which  constitute  my  latest  contribution  to  the  philo- 
sophy of  Spiritualism. 

Having  been  more  or  less  acquainted  with  psychical 
phenomena  for  half  a  century,  it  appears  to  my  publisher 
that  a  few  notes  on  the  changes  of  opinion  I  have  wit- 
nessed during  that  period  may  not  be  uninteresting  to 
readers  of  my  book. 

It  was  about  the  year  1843  that  I  first  became  in- 
terested in  psychical  phenomena,  owing  to  the  violent 
discussion  then  going  on  as  to  the  reality  of  the  painless 
surgical  operations  performed  on  patients  in  the  mesmeric 
trance  by  Dr.  Elliotson  and  other  English  surgeons.  The 
greatest  surgical  and  physiological  authorities  of  the  day 
declared  that  the  patients  were  either  impostors  or  per- 
sons naturally  insensible  to  pain  ;  the  operating  surgeons 
were  accused  of  bribing  their  patients ;  and  Dr.  Elliotson 
was  described  as  "polluting  the  temple  of  science."  The 

lx 


X  PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

Medico-Chirurgical  Society  opposed  the  reading  of  a 
paper  describing  an  amputation  during  the  magnetic 
trance,  while  Dr.  Elliotson  himself  was  ejected  from  his 
professorship  in  the  University  of  London.  It  was  at 
this  time  generally  believed  that  all  the  now  well-known 
phenomena  of  hypnotism  were  the  result  of  imposture. 

It  so  happened  that  in  the  year  1844  I  heard  an  able 
lecture  on  mesmerism  by  Mr.  Spencer  Hall,  and  the 
lecturer  assured  his  audience  that  most  healthy  persons 
could  mesmerise  some  of  their  friends  and  reproduce 
many  of  the  phenomena  he  had  shown  on  the  platform. 
This  led  me  to  try  for  myself,  and  I  soon  found  that  I 
could  mesmerise  with  varying  degrees  of  success,  and 
before  long  I  succeeded  in  producing  in  my  own  room, 
either  alone  with  my  patient  or  in  the  presence  of  friends, 
most  of  the  usual  phenomena.  Partial  or  complete  cata- 
lepsy, paralysis  of  the  motor  nerves  in  certain  directions, 
or  of  any  special  sense,  every  kind  of  delusion  produced 
by  suggestion,  insensibility  to  pain,  and  community  of 
sensation  with  myself  when  at  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  patient,  were  all  demonstrated,  in  such  a  number 
of  patients  and  under  such  varied  conditions,  as  to  satisfy 
me  of  the  genuineness  of  the  phenomena.  I  thus  learnt 
my  first  great  lesson  in  the  inquiry  into  these  obscure 
fields  of  knowledge,  never  to  accept  the  disbelief  of  great 
men,  or  their  accusations  of  imposture  or  of  imbecility,  as 
of  any  weight  when  opposed  to  the  repeated  observation 
of  facts  by  other  men  admittedly  sane  and  honest.  The 
whole  history  of  science  shows  us  that,  whenever  the 
educated  and  scientific  men  of  any  age  have  denied  the 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION  XI 

facts  of  other  investigators  on  a  priori  grounds  of  absur- 
dity or  impossibility,  the  deniers  have  always  been  wrong. 

A  few  years  later,  and  all  the  more  familiar  facts  of 
mesmerism  were  accepted  by  medical  men,  and  explained, 
more  or  less  satisfactorily  to  themselves,  as  not  being 
essentially  different  from  known  diseases  of  the  nervous 
system ;  and  of  late  years  the  more  remarkable  phe- 
nomena, including  clairvoyance  both  as  to  facts  known 
and  those  unknown  to  the  mesmeriser,  have  been  estab- 
lished as  absolute  realities. 

Next  we  come  to  the  researches  of  Baron  von  Reichen- 
bach  on  the  action  of  magnets  and  crystals  upon  sensi- 
tives. I  well  remember  how  these  were  scouted  by  the 
late  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter  and  Professor  Tyndall,  and  how 
I  was  pitied  for  my  credulity  in  accepting  them.  But 
many  of  his  results  have  now  been  tested  by  French  and 
English  observers  and  have  been  found  to  be  correct. 

Then  we  all  remember  how  the  phenomena  of  the 
stigmata,  which  have  occurred  at  many  epochs  in  the 
Catholic  Church,  were  always  looked  upon  by  sceptics  as 
gross  imposture,  and  the  believers  in  its  reality  as  too  far 
gone  in  credulity  to  be  seriously  reasoned  with.  Yet 
when  the  case  of  Louise  Lateau  was  thoroughly  investi- 
gated by  sceptical  physicians,  and  could  be  no  longer 
doubted,  the  facts  were  admitted;  and  when,  later  on, 
somewhat  similar  appearances  were  produced  in  hypnotic 
patients  by  suggestion,  the  whole  matter  was  held  to  be 
explained. 

Second -sight,  crystal- seeing,  automatic  writing,  and 
allied  phenomena  have  been  usually  treated  either  as 


Xll  PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

self-delusion  or  as  imposture,  but  now  that  they  have 
been  carefully  studied  by  Mr.  Myers,  Mr.  Stead,  and 
other  inquirers,  they  have  been  found  to  be  genuine 
facts;  and  it  has  been  further  proved  that  they  often 
give  information  not  known  to  any  one  present  at  the 
time,  and  even  sometimes  predict  future  events  with 
accuracy. 

Trance  mediums  who  give  similar  information  to  tha 
obtained  through  crystal-seeing  or  automatic  writing, 
have  long  been  held  up  to  scorn  as  impostors  of  the 
grossest  kind.  They  have  been  the  butt  of  newspaper 
writers,  and  have  been  punished  for  obtaining  money 
under  false  pretences;  yet  when  one  of  these  trance 
mediums,  the  well-known  Mrs.  Piper,  was  subjected  to  a 
stringent  examination  by  some  of  the  acutest  members  of 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  the  unanimous  testi- 
mony was  that  there  was  no  imposture  in  the  case,  and 
that,  however  the  knowledge  exhibited  was  acquired,  Mrs. 
Piper  herself  could  never  have  acquired  it  through  the 
medium  of  her  ordinary  senses. 

Nothing  has  been  more  constantly  disbelieved  and  ridi- 
culed than  the  alleged  appearance  of  phantasms  of  the 
living  or  of  the  recently  dead,  whether  seen  by  one  person 
alone  or  by  several  together.  Imagination,  disease,  im- 
posture, or  erroneous  observation  have  been  again  and 
again  put  forth  as  sufficient  explanation  of  these  appear- 
ances. But  when  carefully  examined  they  do  not  prove 
to  be  impostures,  but  stand  out  with  greater  distinctness 
as  veridical  and  sometimes  objective  phenomena,  as  is 
sufficiently  proved  by  the  mass  of  well-attested  and  well- 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION  Xlll 

sifted  evidence  published  by  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research.  Still  more  subject  to  ridicule  and  contempt 
are  ghosts  and  haunted  houses.  It  has  been  said  that 
these  disappeared  with  the  advent  of  gas ;  but  so  far 
from  this  being  the  case,  there  is  ample  testimony  at 
the  present  day  to  phenomena  which  come  under  these 
categories. 

In  this  connection  also  we  have  not  merely  appear- 
ances which  may  be  explained  away  as  collective  halluci- 
nations, but  actual  physical  phenomena  of  such  a  material 
character  as  stone-throwing,  bell-ringing,  movements  of 
furniture,  independent  writing  and  drawing,  and  many 
other  manifestations  of  force  guided  by  intelligence  which 
is  yet  not  the  force  or  the  intelligence  of  those  present. 
Records  of  such  phenomena  pervade  history,  and  during 
the  last  century,  and  especially  during  the  last  half- 
century,  they  have  been  increasingly  prevalent,  and  have 
been  supported  by  the  same  kind  and  the  same  amount 
of  cumulative  testimony  as  all  the  preceding  classes  of 
phenomena.  Some  of  these  cases  are  now  being  in- 
vestigated, and  there  is  no  sign  of  their  being  traced  to 
imposture.  From  personal  knowledge  and  careful  ex- 
periments I  can  testify  that  some  of  these  physical 
phenomena  are  realities,  and  I  cannot  doubt  that  the 
fullest  investigation  will  result,  as  in  all  the  other  cases, 
in  their  recognition  as  facts  which  any  comprehensive 
theory  must  recognise  and  explain. 

What  are  termed  spirit-photographs — the  appearance  on 
a  photographic  plate  of  other  figures  besides  those  of  the 
sitters,  often  those  of  deceased  friends  of  the  sitters — have 


XIV  PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

now  been  known  for  more  than  twenty  years.  Many  com- 
petent observers  have  tried  experiments  successfully  ;  but 
the  facts  seemed  too  extraordinary  to  carry  conviction  to 
any  but  the  experimenters  themselves,  and  any  allusion  to 
the  matter  has  usually  been  met  with  a  smile  of  incredulity 
or  a  confident  assertion  of  imposture.  It  mattered  not  that 
most  of  the  witnesses  were  experienced  photographers  who 
took  precautions  which  rendered  it  absolutely  impossible 
that  they  were  imposed  upon.  The  most  incredible  sup- 
positions were  put  forth  by  those  who  had  only  ignorance 
and  incredulity  to  qualify  them  as  judges,  in  order  to  show 
that  deception  was  possible.  And  now  we  have  another 
competent  witness,  Mr.  Traill  Taylor,  for  many  years 
editor  of  the  British  Journal  of  Photography,  who,  taking 
every  precaution  that  his  life-long  experience  could  sug- 
gest, yet  obtained  on  his  plates  figures  which,  so  far  as 
normal  photography  is  concerned,  ought  not  to  have  been 
there. 

Lastly,  we  come  to  consider  the  claim  of  the  intel- 
ligences who  are  connected  with  most  of  these  varied 
phenomena  to  be  the  spirits  of  deceased  men  and  women; 
such  claim  being  supported  by  tests  of  various  kinds, 
especially  by  giving  accurate  information  regarding  them- 
selves as  to  facts  totally  unknown  to  the  medium  or  to 
any  person  present.  Records  of  such  tests  are  numerous 
in  spiritual  literature  as  well  as  in  the  publications  of  the 
Society  for  Psychical  Research,  but  at  present  they  are  re- 
garded as  inconclusive,  and  various  theories  of  a  double  or 
multiple  personality,  of  a  subconscious  or  second  self,  or 
of  a  lower  stratum  of  consciousness,  are  called  in  to 


PREFACK  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION  XV 

explain  them  or  to  attempt  to  explain  them.  The  stupen- 
dous difficulty  that,  if  these  phenomena  and  these  tests 
are  to  be  all  attributed  to  the  "second  self"  of  living 
persons,  then  that  second  self  is  almost  always  a  deceiv- 
ing and  a  lying  self,  however  moral  and  truthful  the 
visible  and  tangible  first  self  may  be,  has,  so  far  as  I 
know,  never  been  rationally  explained ;  yet  this  cum- 
brous and  unintelligible  hypothesis  finds  great  favour 
with  those  who  have  always  been  accustomed  to  regard 
the  belief  in  a  spirit-world,  and  more  particularly  a  belief 
that  the  spirits  of  our  dead  friends  can  and  do  sometimes 
communicate  with  us,  as  unscientific,  unphilosophical,  and 
superstitious.  Why  it  should  be  unscientific,  more  than 
any  other  hypothesis  which  alone  serves  to  explain  intel- 
ligibly a  great  body  of  facts,  has  never  been  explained. 
The  antagonism  which  it  excites  seems  to  be  mainly  due 
to  the  fact  that  it  is,  and  has  long  been  in  some  form  or 
other,  the  belief  of  the  religious  world  and  of  the  ignorant 
and  superstitious  of  all  ages,  while  a  total  disbelief  in  spiri- 
tual existence  has  been  the  distinctive  badge  of  modern 
scientific  scepticism.  The  belief  of  the  uneducated  and 
unscientific  multitude,  however,  rested  on  a  broad  basis  of 
alleged  facts  which  the  scientific  world  scouted  and  scoffed 
at  as  absurd  and  impossible.  But  they  are  now  discover- 
ing, as  this  brief  sketch  has  shown,  that  the  alleged  facts, 
one  after  another,  prove  to  be  real  facts,  and  strange  to 
say,  with  little  or  no  exaggeration,  since  almost  every  one 
of  them,  though  implying  abnormal  powers  in  human 
beings  or  the  agency  of  a  spirit- world  around  us,  has  been 
strictly  paralleled  in  the  present  day,  and  has  been  sub- 


XVI  PREFACE  TO  THE  THIRD  EDITION 

jected  to  the  close  scrutiny  of  the  scientific  and  sceptical 
with  little  or  no  modification  of  their  essential  nature. 
Since,  then,  the  scientific  world  has  been  proved  to  have 
been  totally  wrong  in  its  denial  of  the  facts,  as  being  con- 
trary to  laws  of  nature  and  therefore  incredible,  it  seems 
highly  probable,  a  priori,  it  may  have  been  equally  wrong 
as  to  the  spirit  hypothesis,  the  dislike  of  which  mainly  led 
to  their  disbelief  in  the  facts.  For  myself,  I  have  never 
been  able  to  see  why  any  one  hypothesis  should  be  less 
scientific  than  another,  except  so  far  as  one  explains  the 
whole  of  the  facts  and  the  other  explains  only  a  part  of 
them.  It  was  this  alone  that  rendered  the  theory  of 
gravitation  more  scientific  than  that  of  cycles  and  epi- 
cycles, the  undulatory  theory  of  light  more  scientific  than 
the  emission  theory,  and  the  theory  of  Darwin  more  scien- 
tific than  that  of  Lamarck.  It  is  often  said  that  we  must 
exhaust  known  causes  before  we  call  in  unknown  causes  to 
explain  phenomena.  This  may  be  admitted,  but  I  cannot 
see  how  it  applies  to  the  present  question.  The  "second" 
or  "subconscious  self,"  with  its  wide  stores  of  knowledge, 
how  gained  no  one  knows,  its  distinct  character,  its  low 
morality,  its  constant  lies,  is  as  purely  a  theoretical  cause 
as  is  the  spirit  of  a  deceased  person  or  any  other  spirit. 
It  can  in  no  sense  be  termed  "  a  known  cause."  To  call 
this  hypothesis  "scientific,"  and  that  of  spirit  agency 
"  unscientific,"  is  to  beg  the  question  at  issue.  That 
theory  is  most  scientific  which  best  explains  the  whole 
series  of  phenomena ;  and  I  therefore  claim  that  the 
spirit-hypothesis  is  the  most  scientific,  since  even  those 
who  oppose  it  most  strenuously  often  admit  that  it  does 


PREFACE  TO  THE  THIKD  EDITION  XV11 

explain  all  the  facts,  which  cannot  be  said  of  any  other 
hypothesis. 

This  very  brief  and  very  imperfect  sketch  of  the  pro- 
gress of  opinion  on  the  questions  dealt  with  in  the 
following  pages  leads  us,  I  think,  to  some  valuable  and 
reassuring  conclusions.  We  are  taught  first  that  human 
nature  is  not  so  wholly  and  utterly  the  slave  of  delu- 
sion as  has  sometimes  been  alleged,  since  almost  every 
alleged  superstition  is  now  shown  to  have  had  a  basis  of 
fact.  Secondly,  those  who  believe,  as  I  do,  that  spiritual 
beings  can  and  do,  subject  to  general  laws  and  for  cer- 
tain purposes,  communicate  with  us,  and  even  produce 
material  effects  in  the  world  around  us,  must  see  in  the 
steady  advance  of  inquiry  and  of  interest  in  these  ques- 
tions the  assurance  that,  so  far  as  their  beliefs  are  logical 
deductions  from  the  phenomena  they  have  witnessed,  those 
beliefs  will  at  no  distant  date  be  accepted  by  all  truth- 
seekiog  inquirers. 


October  3Qth,  1895. 


CONTENTS 


PAOK 

AN    ANSWER    TO    THE    ARGUMENTS    OF    HUME,    LECKY,   AND 

OTHERS   AGAINST   MIRACLES 1 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL — 

I.   INTRODUCTORY 33 

II.   MIRACLES  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE       ....  37 

III.  MODERN    MIRACLES    VIEWED    AS   NATURAL    PHENO- 

MENA      46 

IV.  OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE  54 
V.    THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS      .  71 

VI.    MODERN     SPIRITUALISM  :     EVIDENCE    OF     MEN     OF 

SCIENCE 82 

VII.   EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN  TO 

THE  FACTS  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM    ...  93 

VIII.   THE  THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM            ....  107 

IX.   THE  MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  .  .115 

X.    NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE          .           .           .           .  126 

A  DEFENCE   OF  MODERN   SPIRITUALISM           ....  145 

ARE   THERE   OBJECTIVE   APPARITIONS 231 

WHAT   ARE   PHANTASMS,   AND   WHY   DO  THEY  APPEAR            .  255 

APPENDIX  TO   "A   DEFENCE   OF  MODERN   SPIRITUALISM"     ..  279 

INDEX  287 


"  A  presumptuous  scepticism  that  rejects  facts  without  examination 
of  their  truth,  is,  in  some  respects,  more  injurious  than  unquestioning 
credulity. " — HUMBOLDT. 

14  One  good  experiment  is  of  more  value  than  the  ingenuity  of  a  brain 
like  Newton's.  Facts  are  more  useful  when  they  contradict,  than  when 
they  support,  received  theories." — Sir  HCMPHBY  DAVY. 

"  The  perfect  observer  in  any  department  of  science  will  have  his 
eyes,  as  it  were,  opened,  that  they  may  be  struck  at  once  by  any 
occurrence  which,  according  to  received  theories,  ought  not  to  happen, 
for  these  are  the  facts  which  serve  as  clues  to  new  discoveries." — Sir 
JOHN  HBRSCHELL. 

"  Before  experience  itself  can  be  used  with  advantage,  there  is  one 
preliminary  step  to  make  which  depends  wholly  on  ourselves  ;  it  is  the 
absolute  dismissal  and  clearing  the  mind  of  all  prejudice,  and  the  deter- 
mination to  stand  or  fall  by  the  result  of  a  direct  appeal  to  facts  in  the 
first  instance,  and  of  strict  logical  deduction  from  them  afterwards." 
— Sir  JOHN  HKBSOHELL. 

"  With  regard  to  the  miracle  question,  I  can  only  say  that  the  word 
'  impossible '  is  not,  to  my  mind,  applicable  to  matters  of  philosophy. 
That  the  possibilities  of  nature  are  infinite  is  an  aphorism  with  which 
I  am  wont  to  worry  my  friends." — Professor  HUXLEY. 


MIRACLES 


AN    ANSWER    TO   THE    ARGUMENTS    OF    HUME, 
LECKY,  AND  OTHERS,  AGAINST  MIRACLES 

(A  Paper  read  before  the  Dialectical  Society  in  1871.) 

IT  is  now  generally  admitted,  that  those  opinions  and 
beliefs  in  which  men  have  been  educated  generation  after 
generation,  and  which  have  thus  come  to  form  part  of 
their  mental  nature,  are  especially  liable  to  be  erroneous, 
because  they  keep  alive  and  perpetuate  the  ideas  and 
prejudices  of  a  bygone  and  less  enlightened  age.  It  is 
therefore  in  the  interests  of  truth  that  every  doctrine  or 
belief,  however  well  established  or  sacred  they  may  appear 
to  be,  should  at  certain  intervals  be  challenged  to  arm 
themselves  with  such  facts  and  reasonings  as  they  possess, 
to  meet  their  opponents  in  the  open  field  of  controversy, 
and  do  battle  for  their  right  to  live.  Nor  can  any  exemp- 
tion be  claimed  in  favour  of  those  beliefs  which  are  the 
product  of  modern  civilisation,  and  which  have,  for  several 
generations,  been  held  unquestioned  by  the  great  mass  of 
the  educated  community  ;  for  the  prejudice  in  their  favour 
will  be  proportionately  great,  and,  as  was  the  case  with 
the  doctrines  of  Aristotle  and  the  dogmas  of  the  school- 
men, they  may  live  on  by  mere  weight  of  authority  and 

A 


2  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

force  of  habit,  long  after  they  have  been  shown  to  be 
opposed  alike  to  fact  and  to  reason.  There  have  been 
times  when  popular  beliefs  were  defended  by  the  terrors 
of  the  law,  and  when  the  sceptic  could  only  attack  them 
at  the  peril  of  his  life.  Now,  we  all  admit  that  truth  can 
take  care  of  itself,  and  that  only  error  needs  protection. 
But  there  is  another  mode  of  defence  which  equally 
implies  a  claim  to  certain  and  absolute  truth,  and  which 
is  therefore  equally  unworthy  and  unphilosophical — that 
of  ridicule  and  misrepresentation  of  our  opponents,  or  a 
contemptuous  refusal  to  discuss  the  question  at  all.  This 
method  is  used  among  us  even  now ;  for  there  is  one  belief, 
or  rather  disbelief,  whose  advocates  claim  more  than  Papal 
infallibility,  by  refusing  to  examine  the  evidence  brought 
against  it,  and  by  alleging  general  arguments  which  have 
been  in  use  for  two  centuries  to  prove  that  it  cannot  be 
erroneous.  The  belief  to  which  I  allude  is,  that  all  alleged 
miracles  are  false  ;  that  what  is  commonly  understood  by 
the  term  supernatural  does  not  exist,  or  if  it  does,  is  in- 
capable of  proof  by  any  amount  of  human  testimony ;  that 
all  the  phenomena  we  can  have  cognisance  of  depend  on 
ascertainable  physical  laws,  and  that  no  other  intelligent 
beings  than  man  and  the  inferior  animals  can  or  do  act 
upon  our  material  world.  These  views  have  been  now 
held  almost  unquestioned  for  many  generations ;  they  are 
inculcated  as  an  essential  part  of  a  liberal  education  ;  they 
are  popular,  and  are  held  to  be  one  of  the  indications  of 
our  intellectual  advancement;  and  they  have  become  so 
much  a  part  of  our  mental  nature  that  all  facts  and  argu- 
ments brought  against  them  are  either  ignored  as  un- 
worthy of  serious  consideration,  or  listened  to  with  undis- 
guised contempt.  Now  this  frame  of  mind  is  certainly 
not  one  favourable  to  the  discovery  of  truth,  and  strik- 
ingly resembles  that  by  which,  in  former  ages,  systems  of 


HUME  ON  MIRACLES  3 

error  have  been  fostered  and  maintained.  The  time  has, 
therefore,  come  when  it  must  be  called  upon  to  justify 
itself. 

This  is  the  more  necessary,  because  the  doctrine, 
whether  true  or  false,  actually  rests  upon  a  most  unsafe 
and  rotten  foundation ;  for  I  propose  to  show  that  the 
best  arguments  hitherto  relied  upon  to  prove  it  are,  one 
and  all,  fallacious,  and  prove  nothing  of  the  kind.  But  a 
theory  or  belief  may  be  supported  by  very  bad  arguments, 
and  yet  be  true ;  while  it  may  be  supported  by  some  good 
arguments,  and  yet  be  false.  But  there  never  was  a  true 
theory  which  had  no  good  arguments  to  support  it.  If, 
therefore,  all  the  arguments  hitherto  used  against  miracles 
in  general  can  be  shown  to  be  bad,  it  will  behove  sceptics 
to  discover  good  ones;  and  if  they  cannot  do  so,  the 
evidence  in  favour  of  miracles  must  be  fairly  met  and 
judged  on  its  own  merits,  not  ruled  out  of  court  as  it  is 
now. 

It  will  be  perceived,  therefore,  that  my  present  purpose 
is  to  clear  the  ground  for  the  discussion  of  the  great  ques- 
tion of  the  so-called  supernatural.  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
bring  arguments  either  for  or  against  the  main  proposition, 
but  shall  confine  myself  to  an  examination  of  the  allega- 
tions and  the  reasonings  which  have  been  supposed  to 
settle  the  whole  question  on  general  grounds. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  works  of  the  great  Scotch 
philosopher,  David  Hume,  is  An  Inquiry  concerning  Human 
Understanding,  and  the  tenth  chapter  of  this  work  is  On 
Miracles,  in  which  occur  the  arguments  which  are  so  often 
quoted  to  show  that  no  evidence  can  prove  a  miracle. 
Hume  himself  had  a  very  high  opinion  of  this  part  of  his 
work,  for  he  says  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter,  "I 
flatter  myself  that  I  have  discovered  an  argument  which, 


4        ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

if  just,  will  with  the  wise  and  learned  be  an  everlasting 
check  to  all  kinds  of  superstitious  delusion,  and  conse- 
quently will  be  useful  as  long  as  the  world  endures ; 
for  so  long,  I  presume,  will  the  accounts  of  miracles 
and  prodigies  be  found  in  all  history,  sacred  and  pro- 
fane." 

DEFINITION   OF  THE  TERM   "MIRACLE." 

After  a  few  general  observations  on  the  nature  of  evi- 
dence and  the  value  of  human  testimony  in  different  cases, 
he  proceeds  to  define  what  he  means  by  a  miracle.  And 
here  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  subject  we  find  that  we 
have  to  take  objection  to  Hume's  definition  of  a  miracle, 
which  exhibits  unfounded  assumptions  and  false  premises. 
He  gives  two  definitions  in  different  parts  of  his  essay. 
The  first  is,  "A  miracle  is  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature." 
The  second  is,  "  A  miracle  is  a  transgression  of  a  law  of 
nature  by  a  particular  volition  pf  the  Deity,  or  by  the 
interposition  of  some  invisible  agent."  Now  both  these 
definitions  are  bad  or  imperfect.;  CThe  first  assumes  that 
we  know  all  the  laws  of  nature"]  that  the  particular  effect 
could  not  be  produced  by  some  unknown  law  of  nature 
overcoming  the  law  we  do  know  ;  it  assumes  also,  that  if 
an  invisible  intelligent  being  held  an  apple  suspended  in 
the  air,  that  act  would  violate  the  law  of  gravity.  The 
second  is  not  precise  ;  it  should  be  "  some  invisible  intelli- 
gent agent,"  otherwise  the  action  of  galvanism  or  elec- 
tricity, when  these  agents  were  first  discovered,  and  before 
they  were  ascertained  to  form  part  of  the  order  of  nature, 
would  answer  accurately  to  this  definition  of  a  miracle 
The  words  "  violation  "  and  "  transgression  "  are  both  im- 
properly used,  and  really  beg  the  question  by  the  defini- 
tion. How  does  Hume  know  that  any  particular  miracle, 
is  a  violation  of  a  law  of  nature  ?  He  assumes  this  with- 


DEFINITION  OF  "  MIRACLE  5 

out  a  shadow  of  proof,  and  on  these  words,  as  we  shall 
see,  rests  his  whole  argument. 

Before  proceeding  further,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  con- 
sider what  is  the  true  definition  of  a  miracle,  or  what 
is  commonly  meant  by  that  word.  A  miracle,  as  distin- 
guished from  a  new  and  unheard-of  natural  phenomenon, 
supposes  an  intelligent  superhuman  agent,  either  visible 
or  invisible.  It  is  not  necessary  that  what  is  done  should 
be  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  do.  The  simplest  action, 
if  performed  independently  of  human  or  visible  agency, 
such  as  a  teacup  lifted  in  the  air  at  request  as  by  an  in- 
visible hand  and  without  assignable  cause,  would  be  uni- 
versally admitted  to  be  a  miracle,  as  much  so  as  the  lifting 
of  a  house  into  the  air,  the  instantaneous  healing  of  a 
wound,  or  the  instantaneous  production  of  an  elaborate 
drawing.  It_  is  true  that  miracles  have  been  generally 
held  to  be,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  due  to  the  action 
of  the  Deity ;  and  some  persons  will  not,  perhaps,  admit 
that  any  event  not  socaused  deserves  the  name  of  miracle. 
But  this  is  to  advance  an  unprovable  hypotheses,  not  to 
give  a  definition.  It  is  not  possible  to  prove  that  any 
supposed  miraculousTevent  is  either  the  direct  act  of  God 
or  indirectly  produced  by  Him  to  prove  the  divine  mission 
of  some  individual,  but  it  may  be  possible  to  prove  that  it 
is  produced  by  the  action  of  some  invisible  preterhuman 
intelligent  being.  The  definition  of  a  miracle  I  would 
propose  is  therefore  as  follows : — "  Any  act  or  event  neces- 
sarily implying  the  existence  and  agency  of  superhuman 
intelligences,"  considering  the  human  soul  or  spirit,  if 
manifested  out  of  the  body,  as  one  of  these  superhuman 
intelligences.  This  definition  is  more  complete  than  that 
of  Hume,  and  defines  more  accurately  the  essence  of  that 
which  is  commonly  termed  a  miracle. 


ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  MIRACLES. 

We  now  have  to  consider  Hume's  arguments.  The  first 
is  as  follows  : — 

""A  miracle  is  a  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature;  and  as  a  firm  and 
unalterable  experience  has  established  these  laws,  the  proof  against  a 
miracle,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  fact,  is  as  entire  as  any  argu- 
ment from  experience  can  possibly  be  imagined.  Why  is  it  more 
than  probable  that  all  men  must  die  ;  that  lead  cannot  of  itself  remain 
suspended  in  the  air;  that  fire  consumes  wood,  and  is  extinguished  by 
water ;  unless  it  be,  that  these  events  are  found  agreeable  to  the 
laws  of  nature,  and  there  is  required  a  violation  of  these  laws,  or,  in 
other  words,  a  miracle,  to  prevent  them?  Nothing  is  esteemed  a 
miracle,  if  it  ever  happened  in  the  common  course  of  nature.  It  is 
no  miracle  that  a  man  seemingly  in  good  health  should  die  on  a 
sudden  ;  because  such  a  kind  of  death,  though  more  unusual  than 
any  other,  has  yet  been  frequently  observed  to  happen.  But  it  is  a 
miracle  that  a  dead  man  should  come  to  life  ;  because  that  has  never 
been  observed  in  any  age  or  country.  \JThere  must,  therefore,  be  an 
uniform  experience  against  every  miraculous  event,  otherwise  the 
event  would  not  merit  that  appellation.  And  as  an  uniform  expe- 
rience amounts  to  a  proof,  there  is  here  a  direct  and  full  proof, 
from  the  nature  of  the  fact,  against  the  existence  of  any  miracle  ;  nor 
can  such  a  proof  be  destroyed,  or  the  miracle  rendered  credible,  but 
by  an  opposite  proof  which  is  superior." 

This  argument  is  radically  fallacious,  because  if  it  were 
sound,  no  perfectly  new  fact  could  ever  be  proved,  since 
the  first  and  each  succeeding  witness  would  be  assumed  to 
have  universal  experience  against  him.  Such  a  simple  fact 
as  the  existence  of  flying  fish  could  never  be  proved,  if 
Hume's  argument  is  a  good  one  ;  for  the  first  man  who  saw 
and  described  one  would  have  the  universal  experience 
against  him  that  fish  do  not  fly,  or  make  any  approach  to 
flying ;  and  his  evidence  being  rejected,  the  same  argument 
would  apply  to  the  second,  and  to  every  subsequent  wit- 


NO  UNIFORM  EXPERIENCE  AGAINST  MIRACLES  7 

ness ;  and  thus  no  man  at  the  present  day  who  has  not 
seen  a  flying  fish  alive,  and  actually  flying,  ought  to  believe 
that  such  things  exist. 

Again,  painless  operations  in  a  state  produced  by  mere 
passes  of  the  hand,  were,  in  the  first  half  of  the  present 
century,  maintained  to  be  contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature, 
contrary  to  all  human  experience,  and  therefore  incredible. 
On  Hume's  principles  they  were  miracles,  and  no  amount 
of  testimony  could  ever  prove  them  to  be  real.  Yet  these 
are  now  admitted  to  be  genuine  facts  by  most  physiologists, 
who  even  attempt,  not  very  successfully,  to  explain  them. 
But  miracles  do  not,  as  assumed,  stand  alone — single  facts 
opposed  to  uniform  experience.  Eeputed  miracles  abound 
in  all  periods  of  history  ;  every  one  has  a  host  of  others 
leading  up  to  it ;  and  every  one  has  strictly  analogous 
facts  testified  to  at  the  present  day.  The  uniform  op- 
posing experience,  therefore,  on  which  Hume  lays  so 
much  stress,  does  not  exist.  What,  for  instance,  can 
be  a  more  striking  miracle  than  the  levitatiou  or  raising 
of  the  human  body  into  the  air  without  visible  cause, 
yet  this  fact  has  been  testified  to  during  a  long  series  of 
centuries. 

A  few  well-known  examples  are  those  of  St.  Francis 
d'Assisi,  who  was  often  seen  by  many  persons  to  rise  in 
the  air,  and  the  fact  is  testified  by  his  secretary,  who  could 
only  reach  his  feet.  St.  Theresa,  a  nun  in  a  convent  in 
Spain,  was  often  raised  into  the  air  in  the  sight  of  all  the 
sisterhood.  Lord  Orrery  and  Mr.  Valentine  Greatrak  both' 
informed  Dr.  Henry  More  and  Mr.  Glanvil  that  at  Lord 
Conway's  house  at  Ilagley,  in  Ireland,  a  gentleman's  butler, 
in  their  presence  and  in  broad  daylight,  rose  into  the  air 
and  floated  about  the  room  above  their  heads.  This  is 
related  by  Glanvil  in  his  Sadducismus  Triumph atus.  A. 
similar  fact  is  related  by  eye-witnesses  of  Ignatius  de 


8  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LEdtY,  AND  OTHERS 

Loyola ;  and  Mr.  Madden,  in  his  life  of  Savonarola,  after 
narrating  a  similar  circumstance  of  that  saint,  remarks, 
that  similar  phenomena  are  related  in  numerous  instances, 
and  that  the  evidence  upon  which  some  of  the  narratives 
rest  is  as  reliable  as  any  human  testimony  can  be.  Butler, 
in  his  Lives  of  the  Saints,  says  that  many  such  facts  are 
related  by  persons  of  undoubted  veracity,-  who  testify  that 
they  themselves  were  eye-witnesses  of  them.  So  we  all 
know  that  at  least  fifty  persons  of  high  character  may  be 
found  in  London  who  will  testify  that  they  have  seen  the 
same  thing  happen  to  Mr.  Home.  I  do  not  here  adduce 
this  testimony  as  proving  that  the  circumstances  related 
really  took  place  ;  I  merely  bring  it  forward  now  to  show 
how  utterly  unfounded  is  Hume's  argument,  which  rests 
upon  the  assumption  of  universal  testimony  on  the  one 
side,  and  no  testimony  on  the  other. 

THE  CONTRADICTORY  NATURE   OF   HUME'S   STATEMENTS. 

I  now  have  to  show  that  in  Hume's  efforts  to  prove  his 
point,  he  contradicts  himself  in  a  manner  so  gross  and 
complete,  as  is,  perhaps,  not  to  be  found  in  the  works  of 
any  other  eminent  author.  The  first  passage  I  will  quote 
is  as  follows  : — 

"  For,  first,  there  is  not  to  be  found,  in  all  history,  any  miracle 
attested  by  a  sufficient  number  of  men,  of  such  unquestioned  good 
sense,  education,  and  learning,  as  to  secure  us  against  all  delusion  in 
themselves  ;  of  such  undoubted  integrity,  as  to  place  them  beyond 
all  suspicion  of  any  design  to  deceive  others  ;  of  such  credit  and 
reputation  in  the  eyes  of  mankind,  as  to  have  a  great  deal  to  lose  in 
case  of  their  being  detected  in  any  falsehood  ;  and  at  the  same  time 
attesting  facts  performed  in  such  a  public  manner,  and  in  so  celebrated 
a  part  of  the  world,  as  to  render  the  detection  unavoidable  ;  all  which 
circumstances  are  requisite  to  give  us  a  full  assurance  in  the  testi- 
mony of  men." 


HUME'S  CONTRADICTIONS  9 

A  few  pages  farther  on  we  find  this  passage : — 

"  There  surely  never  was  a  greater  number  of  miracles  ascribed  to 
one  person  than  those  which  were  lately  said  to  have  been  wrought 
in  France  upon  the  tomb  of  Abbe  Paris,  the  famous  Jansenist,  with 
whose  sanctity  the  people  were  so  long  deluded.  The  curing  of  the 
sick,  giving  hearing  to  the  deaf,  and  sight  to  the  blind,  were  every- 
where talked  of  as  the  usual  effects  of  that  holy  sepulchre.  But 
what  is  more  extraordinary,  many  of  the  miracles  were  immediately 
proved  upon  the  spot,  before  judges  of  unquestioned  integrity,  attested 
by  ivitnesses  of  credit  and  distinction,  in  a  learned  age,  and  on  the  most 
eminent  theatre  that  is  now  in  the  world.  Nor  is  this  all.  A  relation 
of  them  was  published  and  dispersed  everywhere  ;  nor  were  the 
Jesuits,  though  a  learned  body,  supported  by  the  civil  magistrate, 
and  determined  enemies  to  those  opinions  in  whose  favour  the 
miracles  were  said  to  have  been  wrought,  ever  able  distinctly  to  refute 
or  detect  them.  Where  shall  we  find  such  a  number  of  circumstances 
agreeing  to  the  corroboration  of  one  fact  ?  And  what  have  we  to 
oppose  to  such  a  cloud  of  witnesses,  but  the  absolute  impossibility,  or 
miraculous  nature  of  the  events  which  they  relate  ?  And  this,  surely, 
in  the  eyes  of  all  reasonable  people,  will  alone  be  regarded  as  a 
sufficient  refutation." 

In  the  second  passage  he  affirms  the  existence  of  every 
single  fact  and  quality  which  in  the  first  passage  he  de- 
clared never  existed  (as  shown  by  the  italicised  passages), 
and  he  entirely  changes  his  ground  of  argument  by  appeal- 
ing to  the  inherent  impossibility  of  the  fact,  and  not  at  all 
to  the  insufficiency  of  the  evidence.  He  even  makes  this 
contradiction  still  more  remarkable  by  a  note  which  he 
has  himself  given  to  this  passage,  a  portion  of  which  is  as 
follows  : — 

"  This  book  was  writ  by  Mons.  Montgeron,  councillor  or  judge  of 
the  Parliament  of  Paris,  a  man  of  figure  and  character,  who  was 
also  a  martyr  to  the  cause,  and  is  now  said  to  be  somewhere  in  a 
dungeon  on  account  of  his  book.  .  .  . 

"  Many  of  the  miracles  of  Abbe  Paris  were  proved  immediately 
by  witnesses  before  the  officiality  or  bishop's  court  at  Paris,  under 


10  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

the  eye  of  Cardinal  Noailles,  whose  character  for  integrity  and 
capacity  was  never  contested,  even  by  his  enemies. 

"  His  successor  in  the  archbishopric  was  an  enemy  to  the  Jan- 
senists,  and  for  that  reason  promoted  to  the  see  by  the  court.  Yet, 
twenty-two  rectors  or  cures  of  Paris,  with  infinite  earnestness, 
press  him  to  examine  those  miracles,  which  they  assert  to  be  known 
to  the  whole  world,  and  indisputably  certain  ;  but  he  wisely  fore- 
bore.  .  .  . 

"  All  who  have  been  in  France  aboxit  that  time  have  heard  of  the 
reputation  of  Mons.  Herault,  the  lieiitenant  of  police,  whose  vigi- 
lance, penetration,  activity,  and  extensive  intelligence  have  been 
much  talked  of.  The  magistrate,  who,  by  the  nature  of  his  office, 
is  almost  absolute,  was  invested  with  full  powers  on  purpose  to  sup- 
press or  discredit  these  miracles  ;  and  he  frequently  seized  immedi- 
ately, and  examined  the  witnesses  and  subjects  to  them  ;  but  never 
could  reach  anything  satisfactory  against  them. 

"In  the  case  of  Mademoiselle  Thibaut  he  sent  the  famous  De 
Sylva  to  examine  her,  whose  evidence  is  very  curious.  The  physician 
declares  that  it  was  impossible  that  she  could  have  been  so  ill  as 
was  proved  by  witnesses,  because  it  was  impossible  she  could  in  so 
short  a  time  have  recovered  so  perfectly  as  he  found  her.  He 
reasoned  like  a  man  of  sense,  from  natural  causes  ;  but  the  opposite 
party  told  him  that  the  whole  was  a  miracle,  and  that  his  evidence 
was  the  very  best  proof  of  it.  ... 

"  No  less  a  man  than  the  Due  de  Chatillon,  a  duke  and  peer  of 
France,  of  the  highest  rank  and  family,  gives  evidence  of  a  miracu- 
lous cure  performed  upon  a  servant  of  his,  who  had  lived  several 
years  in  his  house  with  a  visible  and  palpable  infirmity. 

"  I  shall  conclude  with  observing,  that  no  clergy  are  more  cele- 
brated for  strictness  of  life  and  manners  than  the  regular  clergy  of 
France,  particularly  the  rectors  or  cures  of  Paris,  who  bear  testi- 
mony to  these  impostures. 

"  The  learning,  genius,  and  probity  of  the  gentlemen,  and  the 
austerity  of  the  nuns  of  Port-Royal,  have  been  much  celebrated  all 
over  Europe.  Yet  they  all  give  evidence  for  a  miracle  wrought  on 
the  niece  of  the  famous  Pascal,  whose  sanctity  of  life,  as  well  as 
extraordinary  capacity,  is  well  known.  The  famous  Racine  gives  an 
account  of  this  miracle  in  his  famous  history  of  Port- Royal,  and 
fortifies  it  with  all  the  proofs  which  a  multitude  of  nuns,  priests, 
physicians,  and  men  of  the  world,  all  of  them  of  undoubted  credit, 


MIRACULOUS  CURE  11 

could  bestow  Upon  it.  Several  men  of  letters,  particularly  the 
Bishop  of  Tournay,  thought  this  miracle  so  certain,  as  to  employ  it 
in  the  refutation  of  Atheists  and  Freethinkers.  The  Queen-regent 
of  France,  who  was  extremely  prejudiced  against  the  Port-Royal,  sent 
her  own  physician  to  examine  the  miracle,  who  returned  an  absolute 
convert.  In  short,  the  supernatural  cure  was  so  incontestable,  that 
it  saved  for  a  time  that  famous  monastery  from  the  ruin  with  which 
it  was  threatened  by  the  Jesuits.  Sad  it  been  a  cheat,  it  had  cer- 
tainly been  detected  by  such  sagacious  and  powerful  antagonists,  and  must 
have  hastened  the  ruin  of  the  contrivers." 

It  seems  almost  incredible  that  this  can  have  been 
written  by  the  great  sceptic  David  Hume,  and  written  in 
the  same  work  in  which  he  has  already  affirmed  that  in 
all  history  no  such  evidence  is  to  be  found.  In  order  to 
show  how  very  remarkable  is  the  evidence  to  which  he 
alludes,  I  think  it  well  to  give  one  of  the  cases  in  greater 
detail,  as  recorded  in  the  original  work  of  Montgeron, 
and  quoted  in  William  Howitt's  History  of  the  Super- 
natural : — 

"  Mademoiselle  Coirin  was  afflicted,  amongst  other  ailments,  with 
a  cancer  in  the  left  breast,  for  twelve  years.  The  breast  was  de- 
stroyed by  it  and  came  away  in  a  mass  ;  the  effluvia  from  the  cancer 
was  horrible,  and  the  whole  blood  of  the  system  was  pronounced 
infected  by  it.  Every  physician  pronounced  the  case  utterly  in- 
curable, yet,  by  a  visit  to  the  tomb,  she  was  perfectly  cured  ;  and, 
what  was  more  astonishing,  the  breast  and  nipple  were  wholly  re- 
stored, "with  the  skin  pure  and  fresh,  and  free  from  any  trace  of  scar. 
This  case  was  known  to  the  highest  people  in  the  realm.  When  the 
miracle  was  denied,  Mademoiselle  Coirin  went  to  Paris,  was  examined 
by  the  royal  physician,  and  made  a  formal  deposition  of  her  cure 
before  a  public  notary.  Mademoiselle  Coirin  was  daughter  of  an 
officer  of  the  royal  household,  and  had  two  brothers  in  attendance 
on  the  person  of  the  king.  The  testimonies  of  the  doctors  are  of 
the  most  decisive  kind.  M.  Gaulard,  physician  to  the  king,  deposed 
officially,  that,  '  to  restore  a  nipple  actually  destroyed,  and  separated 
from  the  breast,  was  an  actual  creation,  because  a  nipple  is  not 
merely  a  continuity  of  the  vessels  of  the  breast,  but  a  particular 


12  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

body,  which  is  of  a  distinct  and  peculiar  organisation.'  M.  Souchay, 
surgeon  to  the  Prince  of  Conti,  not  only  pronounced  the  cancer  in- 
curable, but,  having  examined  the  breast  after  the  cure,  went  of  himself 
to  the  public  notary,  and  made  a  formal  deposition  '  that  the  cure 
was  perfect ;  that  each  breast  had  its  nipple  in  its  natural  form  and 
condition,  with  the  colours  and  attributes  proper  to  those  parts.' 
Such  also  are  the  testimonies  of  Seguier,  the  surgeon  of  the  hospital 
at  Nanterre  ;  of  M.  Deshieres,  surgeon  to  the  Duchess  of  Berry  ;  of 
M.  Hequet,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  surgeons  in  France  ;  and 
numbers  of  others,  as  well  as  of  public  officers  and  parties  of  the 
greatest  reputation,  universally  known  ;  all  of  whose  depositions  are 
officially  and  fully  given  by  Montgeron." 

This  is  only  one  out  of  a  great  number  of  cases  equally 
marvellous,  and  equally  well  attested,  and  we  therefore 
cannot  be  surprised  at  Hume's  being  obliged  to  give  up 
the  argument  of  the  insufficiency  of  the  evidence  for 
miracles  and  of  the  uniform  experience  against  them,  the 
wonder  being  that  he  ever  put  forth  an  argument  which 
he  was  himself  able  to  refute  so  completely. 

We  have  now  another  argument  which  Hume  brings 
forward,  but  which  is,  if  possible,  still  weaker  than  the 
last.  He  says  : — 

"  I  may  add,  as  a  fourth  reason,  which  diminishes  the  authority  of 
prodigies,  that  there  is  no  testimony  for  any,  even  those  which  have 
not  been  expressly  detected,  that  is  not  opposed  by  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  witnesses  ;  so  that  not  only  the  miracle  destroys  the  credit  of 
testimony,  but  the  testimony  destroys  itself.  To  make  this  the  better 
understood,  let  us  consider  that,  in  matters  of  religion,  whatever  is 
different  is  contrary  ;  and  that  it  is  impossible  the  religions  of  ancient 
Rome,  of  Turkey,  and  Siam,  and  of  China,  should,  all  of  them,  be 
established  on  any  solid  foundation.  Every  miracle,  therefore,  pre- 
tended to  have  been  wrought  in  any  of  these  religions  (and  all  of 
them  abound  in  miracles),  as  its  direct  scope  is  to  establish  the  par- 
ticular system  to  which  it  is  attributed ;  so  has  it  the  same  force, 
though  more  indirectly,  to  overthrow  every  other  system.  In  de- 
stroying a  rival  system,  it  likewise  destroys  the  credit  of  those  miracles 
on  which  that  system  was  established  ;  so  that  all  the  prodigies  of 


FALLACIES  OF  HUME  13 

different  religions  are  to  be  regarded  as  contrary  facts  ;  and  the  evi- 
dences of  these  prodigies,  whether  weak  or  strong,  as  opposite  to 
each  other.  According  to  this  method  of  reasoning,  when  we  believe 
any  miracle  of  Mahomet  or  his  successors,  we  have  for  our  warrant 
the  testimony  of  a  few  barbarous  Arabians.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  are  to  regard  the  authority  of  Titus  Livius,  Plutarch,  Tacitus, 
and,  in  short,  of  all  the  authors  and  witnesses,  Grecian,  Chinese, 
and  Roman  Catholic,  who  have  related  any  miracle  in  their  par- 
ticular religion  ;  I  say,  we  are  to  regard  their  testimony  in  the  same 
light  as  if  they  had  mentioned  that  Mahometan  miracle,  and  had  in 
express  terms  contradicted  it,  with  the  same  certainty  as  they  have 
for  the  miracle  they  relate." 

Now  this  argument,  if  argument  it  can  be  called,  rests 
upon  the  extraordinary  assumption  that  a  miracle,  if  real, 
can  only  come  from  God,  and  must  therefore  support  only 
a  true  religion.  It  assumes  also  that  religions  cannot  be 
true  unless  given  by  God.  Mr.  Hume  assumes,  therefore, 
to  know  that  nothing  which  we  term  a  miracle  can  possibly 
be  performed  by  any  of  the  probably  infinite  number  of 
intelligent  beings  who  may  exist  in  the  universe  between 
ourselves  and  the  Deity.  He  confounds  the  evidence  for 
the  fact  with  the  theories  to  account  for  the  fact,  and 
most  illogically  and  unphilosophically  argues,  that  if  the 
theories  lead  to  contradictions,  the  facts  themselves  do 
not  exist. 

I  think,  therefore,  that  I  have  now  shown  that — 1. 
Hume  gives  a  false  definition  of  miracles,  which  begs  the 
question  of  their  possibility.  2.  He  states  the  fallacy  that 
miracles  are  isolated  facts,  to  which  the  entire  course  of 
human  testimony  is  opposed.  3.  He  deliberately  and 
absolutely  contradicts  himself  as  to  the  amount  and 
quality  of  the  testimony  in  favour  of  miracles.  4.  He 
propounds  the  palpable  fallacy  as  to  miracles  connected 
with  opposing  religions  destroying  each  other. 


14  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

MODERN   OBJECTIONS   TO   MIRACLES. 

We  will  now  proceed  to  some  of  the  more  modern  argu- 
ments against  miracles.  One  of  the  most  popular  modern 
objections  consists  of  making  what  is  supposed  to  be  an 
impossible  supposition,  and  drawing  an  inference  from 
it  which  looks  like  a  dilemma,  but  which  is  really  none 
at  all. 

This  argument  has  been  put  in  several  forms.  One  is, 
"  If  a  man  tells  me  he  came  from  York  by  the  telegraph- 
wire,  I  do  not  believe  him.  If  fifty  men  tell  me  they  came 
from  York  by  telegraph  wires,  I  do  not  believe  them.  If 
any  number  of  men  tell  me  the  same,  I  do  not  believe 
them.  Therefore,  Mr.  Home  did  not  float  in  the  air,  not- 
withstanding any  amount  of  testimony  you  may  bring  to 
prove  it." 

Another  is,  "  If  a  man  tells  me  that  he  saw  the  statue 
of  Nelson  descend  from  his  column  into  Trafalgar 
Square  and  drink  water  from  the  fountains,  I  should 
not  believe  him.  If  fifty  men,  or  any  number  of  men, 
informed  me  of  the  same  thing,  I  should  still  not  believe 
them." 

Hence  it  is  inferred  that  there  are  certain  things  so 
absurd  and  so  incredible,  that  no  amount  of  testimony 
could  possibly  make  a  sane  man  believe  them. 

These  illustrations  look  like  arguments,  and  at  first 
sight  it  is  not  easy  to  see  the  proper  way  to  answer  them  ; 
but  the  fact  is  that  they  are  utter  fallacies,  because  their 
whole  force  depends  upon  an  assumed  proposition  which 
has  never  been  proved,  and  which  I  venture  to  assert  never 
can  be  proved.  The  proposition  is,  that  a  large  number 
of  independent,  honest,  sane,  and  sensible  witnesses,  can 
separately  and  repeatedly  testify  to  a  plain  matter  of  fact 
which  never  happened  at  all. 


FALLACIOUS  ARGUMENT  15 

Now,  no  evidence  has  been  adduced  to  show  that  this 
ever  has  occurred  or  ever  could  occur.     But  the  assump- 
tion is  rendered  still  more  monstrous  when  we  consider  the 
circumstances  attending  such  cases  as  those  of  the  cures 
at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe  Paris,  and  the  cases  of  living 
scientific  men  being  converted  to  a  belief  in  the  reality  of 
the  phenomena  of  modern  Spiritualism ;  for  we  must  as- 
sume that,  being  fully  warned  that  the  alleged  facts  are 
held  to  be  impossible  and  are  therefore  delusions,  and 
having  the  source  of  the  supposed  delusion  pointed  out,  and 
all  the  prejudices  of  the  age  and  the  whole  tone  of  educated 
thought  being  against  the  reality  of  such  facts,  yet  num- 
bers of  educated  men,  including  physicians  and  men  of 
science,  remain  convinced  of  the  reality  of  such  facts  after 
the  most  searching  personal  investigation.  Yet  the  assump- 
tion that  such  an  amount  and  quality  of  independent 
converging  evidence  can  be  all  false,  must  be  proved,  if 
the  argument  is  to  have  the  slightest  value,  otherwise  it  is 
merely  begging  the  question.    It  must  be  remembered  that 
we  have  to  consider,  not  absurd  beliefs  or  false  inferences, 
but  plain  matters  of  fact ;  and  it  never  has  been  proved,  and 
cannot  be  proved,  that  any  large  amount  of  cumulative  evi- 
dence of  disinterested  and  sensible  men  was  ever  obtained 
for  an  absolute  and  entire  delusion.     To  put  the  matter  in 
a  simple  form,  the  asserted  fact  is  either  possible,  or  not 
possible.     If  possible,  such  evidence  as  we  have  been  con- 
sidering would  prove  it;  if  not  possible,  such  evidence  could 
not  exist.     The  argument  is,  therefore,  an  absolute  fallacy, 
since  its  fundamental  assumption  cannot  be  proved.    If  it  is 
intended  merely  to  enunciate  the  proposition  that  the  more 
strange  and  unusual  a  thing  is  the  more  and  better  evidence 
we  require  for  it,  that  we  all  admit ;  but  I  maintain  that 
human  testimony  increases  in  value  in  such  an  enormous 
ratio  with  each  additional  independent  and  honest  witness, 


16  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

that  no  fact  ought  to  be  rejected  when  attested  by  such  a 
body  of  evidence  as  exists  for  many  of  the  events  termed 
miraculous  or  supernatural,  and  which  occur  now  daily 
among  us.  The  burden  of  proof  lies  on  those  who  main- 
tain that  such  evidence  can  possibly  be  fallacious ;  let  them 
point  out  one  case  in  which  such  cumulative  evidence 
existed,  and  which  yet  proved  to  be  false.  Let  them  give 
not  supposition,  but  proof.  And  it  must  be  remembered 
that  no  proof  is  complete  which  does  not  explain  the  exact 
source  of  the  fallacy  in  all  its  details.  It  will  not  do,  for 
instance,  to  say,  that  there  was  this  cumulative  evidence 
for  witchcraft,  and  that  witchcraft  is  absurd  and  impossible. 
That  is  begging  the  question.  The  diabolic  theories  of  the 
witch  mania  may  be  absurd  and  false ;  but  the  facts  of 
witchcraft  as  proved,  not  by  the  tortured  witches,  but  by 
independent  witnesses,  so  far  from  being  disproved,  are 
supported  by  a  whole  body  of  analogous  facts  occurring 
at  the  present  day. 

THE   UNCERTAINTY   OF  THE   ASSERTED   PHENOMENA   OF 
MODERN   SPIRITUALISM. 

Another  modern  argument  is  used  more  especially 
against  the  reality  of  the  so-called  Spiritual  phenomena. 
It  is  said,  "  These  phenomena  are  so  uncertain  ;  you  have 
no  control  over  them ;  they  follow  no  law.  Prove  to  us 
that  they  follow  definite  laws  like  all  other  groups  of 
natural  phenomena,  and  we  will  believe  them."  This  argu- 
ment appears  to  have  weight  with  some  persons,  and  yet 
it  is  really  an  absurdity.  The  essence  of  the  alleged  phe- 
nomena (whether  they  be  true  or  not  is  of  no  importance) 
is,  that  they  seem  to  be  the  result  of  the  action  of  inde- 
pendent intelligences,  and  are  therefore  deemed  to  be 
Spiritual  or  superhuman.  If  they  had  been  found  to  fol- 


MISTAKES  OP  SCIENTIFIC  MEN  17 

low  strict  law  and  not  independent  will,  no  one  would 
have  ever  supposed  them  to  be  spiritual.  The  argument, 
therefore,  is  merely  the  statement  of  a  foregone  conclusion, 
namely,  "As  long  as  your  facts  go  to  prove  the  existence 
of  distinct  intelligences,  we  will  not  believe  them  ;  demon- 
strate that  they  follow  fixed  law,  and  not  intelligence,  and 
then  we  will  believe  them."  This  argument  appears  to 
me  to  be  childish,  and  yet  it  is  used  by  some  persons  who 
claim  to  be  philosophical. 

THE   NECESSITY   OF   SCIENTIFIC   TESTIMONY. 

Another  objection  which  I  have  heard  stated  in  public, 
and  received  with  applause,  is,  that  it  requires  immense 
scientific  knowledge  to  decide  on  the  reality  of  any  un- 
common or  incredible  facts,  and  that  till  scientific  men 
investigate  and  prove  them  they  are  not  worthy  of  credit. 
Now  I  venture  to  say  that  a  greater  fallacy  than  this  was 
never  put  forth.  The  subject  is  very  important,  and  the 
error  is  very  common,  but  the  fact  is  the  exact  opposite  of 
what  is  stated  ;  for  I  assert,  without  fear  of  contradiction, 
that  whenever  the  scientific  men  of  any  age  have  denied 
the  facts  of  investigators  on  CL  priori  grounds,  they  have 
always  been  wrong. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  do  more  than  refer  to  the  world- 
known  names  of  Copernicus,  Galileo,  and  Harvey.  The 
great  discoveries  they  made  were,  as  we  know,  violently  op- 
posed by  all  their  scientific  contemporaries,  to  whom  they 
appeared  absurd  and  incredible  ;  but  we  have  equally  strik- 
ing examples  much  nearer  to  our  own  day.  When  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  brought  the  subject  of  lightning-conductors 
before  the  Royal  Society,  he  was  laughed  at  as  a  dreamer, 
and  his  paper  was  not  admitted  to  the  Philosophical  Trans- 
actions. When  Young  put  forth  his  wonderful  proofs  of 
the  undulatory  theory  of  light,  he  was  equally  hooted  at 

B 


18  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

as  absurd  by  the  popular  scientific  writers  of  the  day.1 
The  Edinburgh  Review  called  upon  the  public  to  put 
Thomas  Gray  into  a  strait  jacket  for  maintaining  the  prac- 
ticability of  railroads.  Sir  Humphrey  Davy  laughed  at 
the  idea  of  London  ever  being  lighted  with  gas.  When 
Stephenson  proposed  to  use  locomotives  on  the  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  Railway,  learned  men  gave  evidence  that 
it  was  impossible  that  they  could  go  even  twelve  miles  an 
hour.  Another  great  scientific  authority  declared  it  to 
be  equally  impossible  for  ocean  steamers  ever  to  cross  the 
Atlantic.  The  French  Academy  of  Sciences  ridiculed  the 
great  astronomer  Arago  when  he  wanted  even  to  discuss 
the  subject  of  the  electric  telegraph.  Medical  men  ridi- 
culed the  stethoscope  when  it  was  first  discovered.  Pain- 
less operations  during  the  mesmeric  coma  were  pronounced 
impossible,  and  therefore  impostures. 

But  one  of  the  most  striking,  because  one  of  the  most 
recent  cases  of  this  opposition  to,  or  rather  disbelief  in,  facts 
opposed  to  the  current  belief  of  the  day,  among  men  who 
are  generally  charged  with  going  too  far  in  the  other  direc- 
tion, is  that  of  the  doctrine  of  the  "  Antiquity  of  Man." 
Boue,  an  experienced  French  geologist,  in  1823  discovered 
a  human  skeleton  eighty  feet  deep  in  the  loess  or  hardened 
mud  of  the  Rhine.  It  was  sent  to  the  great  anatomist 
Cuvier,  who  so  utterly  discredited  the  fact  that  he  threw 

1  The  following  are  choice  specimens  from  Edinburgh  Review  articles  in 
1803  and  1804  :— 

"Another  Bakerian  lecture,  containing  more  fancies,  more  blunders, 
more  unfounded  hypotheses,  more  gratuitous  fictions,  all  upon  the  same 
field,  and  from  the  fertile  yet  fruitless  brain  of  the  same  eternal  Dr. 
Young." 

And  again — 

"  It  teaches  no  truths,  reconciles  no  contradictions,  arranges  no  ano- 
malous facts,  suggests  no  new  experiments,  and  leads  to  no  new  inquiries. " 

One  might  almost  suppose  it  to  be  a  modern  scientific  writer  hurling 
scorn  at  Spiritualism ! 


SCIENTIFIC  MISTAKES  19 

aside  this  invaluable  fossil  as  worthless,  and  it  was  lost. 
Sir  0.  Lyell,  from  personal  investigation  on  the  spot,  now 
believes  that  the  statements  of  the  original  observer  were 
quite  accurate.  So  early  as  1715  flint  weapons  were  found 
with  the  skeleton  of  an  elephant  in  an  excavation  in  Gray's 
Inn  Lane,  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Conyers,  who  placed  them 
in  the  British  Museum,  where  they  remained  utterly  un- 
noticed till  quite  recently.  In  1800  Mr.  Frere  found 
flint  weapons  along  with  the  remains  of  extinct  animals 
at  Hoxne,  in  Suffolk.  From  1841  to  1846,  the  celebrated 
French  geologist,  Bouches  de  Perthes,  discovered  great 
quantities  of  flint  weapons  in  the  drift  gravels  of  the 
North  of  France ;  but  for  many  years  he  could  convince 
none  of  his  fellow  scientific  men  that  they  were  works  of 
art,  or  worthy  of  the  slightest  attention.  At  length,  how- 
ever, in  1853,  he  began  to  make  converts.  In  1859-60, 
some  of  our  own  most  eminent  geologists  visited  the  spot, 
and  fully  confirmed  the  truth  of  his  observations  and 
deductions. 

Another  branch  of  the  subject  was,  if  possible,  still  worse 
treated.  In  1825,  Mr.  McEnery,  of  Torquay,  discovered 
worked  flints  along  with  the  remains  of  extinct  animals  in 
the  celebrated  King's  Hole  Cavern  ;  but  his  account  of  his 
discoveries  was  simply  laughed  at.  In  1840,  one  of  our 
first  geologists,  the  late  Mr.  Godwin  Austen,  brought  this 
matter  before  the  Geological  Society,  and  Mr.  Vivian,  of 
Torquay,  sent  in  a  paper  fully  confirming  Mr.  McEnery's 
discoveries  ;  but  it  was  thought  too  improbable  to  be  pub- 
lished. Fourteen  years  later,  the  Torquay  Natural  History 
Society  made  further  observations,  entirely  confirming  the 
previous  ones,  and  sent  an  account  of  them  to  the  Geolo- 
gical Society  of  London  ;  but  the  paper  was  rejected  as  too 
improbable  for  publication.  Now,  however,  the  cave  has 
been  systematically  explored  under  the  superintendence 


20  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

of  a  Committee  of  the  British  Association,  and  all  the  pre- 
vious reports  for  forty  years  have  been  confirmed,  and  have 
been  shown  to  be  even  less  wonderful  than  the  reality.  It 
may  be  said  that  "  this  was  proper  scientific  caution." 
Perhaps  it  was ;  but  at  all  events,  it  proves  this  important 
fact— that  in  this,  as  in  every  other  case,  the  humble  and 
often  unknown  observers  have  been  right ;  the  men  of 
science  who  rejected  their  observations  have  been  wrong. 
Now,  are  the  modern  observers  of  some  phenomena, 
usually  termed  supernatural  and  incredible,  less  worthy  of 
attention  than  those  already  quoted  ?  Let  us  take,  first, 
the  reality  of  what  is  called  clairvoyance.  The  men  who 
have  observed  this  phenomenon,  who  have  carefully  tested 
it  through  long  years  or  through  their  whole  lives,  will 
rank  in  scientific  knowledge  and  in  intellectual  ability  as 
quite  equal  to  the  observers  in  any  other  branch  of  dis- 
covery. We  have  no  less  than  seven  competent  medical 
men — Drs.  Elliotson,  Gregory,  Ashburner,  Lee,  Herbert 
Mayo,  Esdaile,  and  Haddock,  besides  persons  of  such  high 
ability  as  Miss  Martineau,  Mr.  H.  G.  Atkinson,  Mr.  Charles 
Bray,  and  Baron  Reichenbach.  With  the  history  of  pre- 
vious discoverers  before  us,  is  it  more  likely  that  these 
eleven  educated  persons,  knowing  all  the  arguments 
against  the  facts,  and  investigating  them  carefully,  should 
be  all  wrong,  and  those  who  say  h  priori  that  the  thing  is 
impossible  should  be  all  right,  or  the  contrary  ?  If  we  are 
to  learn  anything  by  history  and  experience,  then  we  may 
safely  prognosticate  that  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others, 
those  who  disbelieve  other  men's  observations  without 
inquiry  will  be  found  to  be  in  the  wrong. 

REVIEW   OF   MR.   LECKY'S   ASSERTIONS   ABOUT   MIRACLES. 

We  now  come  to  the  modern  philosophic  objectors,  most 
eminent  among  whom  is  Mr.  Lecky,  author  of  the  History 


MR.  LECKY  ON  MIRACLES  21 

of  Rationalism  and  the  History  of  Morals.  In  the  latter 
work  he  has  devoted  some  space  to  this  question,  and  his 
clear  and  well-expressed  views  may  be  taken  to  represent 
the  general  opinions  and  feelings  of  the  educated  portion 
of  modern  society.  He  says  : — 

"  The  attitude  of  ordinary  educated  people  towards  miracles  is 
not  that  of  doubt,  of  hesitation,  of  discontent  with  the  existing 
evidence,  but  rather  of  absolute,  derisive,  and  even  unexamining 
incredulity." 

He  then  goes  on  to  explain  why  this  is  so  : — 

"  In  certain  stages  of  society,  and  under  the  action  of  certain  in- 
fluences, an  accretion  of  miracles  is  invariably  formed  around  every 
prominent  person  or  institution.  We  can  analyse  the  general  causes 
that  have  impelled  men  towards  the  miraculous  ;  we  can  show  that  these 
causes  have  never  failed  to  produce  the  effect ;  and  we  can  trace  the 
gradual  alteration  of  mental  conditions  invariably  accompanying  the 
decline  of  the  belief. 

"When  men  are  destitute  of  the  critical  spirit,  when  the  notion 
of  uniform  law  is  yet  unborn,  and  when  their  imaginations  are  still 
incapable  of  rising  to  abstract  ideas,  histories  of  miracles  are  always 
formed  and  always  believed  ;  and  they  continue  to  flourish  and  to 
multiply  until  these  conditions  are  altered.  Miracles  cease  when 
men  cease  to  believe  and  expect  them.  .  .  ." 

Again : — 

"We  do  not  say  they  are  impossible,  or  even  that  they  are  not 
authenticated  by  as  much  evidence  as  many  facts  we  believe.  We 
only  say  that,  in  certain  states  of  society,  illusions  of  this  kind  in- 
evitably appear.  .  .  ." 

"  Sometimes  we  can  discover  the  precise  natural  fact  which  the 
superstition  has  misread,  but  more  frequently  we  can  give  only  a 
general  explanation,  enabling  us  to  assign  these  legends  to  their 
place,  as  the  normal  expression  of  a  certain  stage  of  knowledge  or 
intellectual  power  ;  and  this  explanation  is  their  refutation." 

Now,  in  these  statements  and  arguments  of  Mr.  Lecky 
we  find  some  fallacies  hardly  less  striking  than  those  of 
Hume.  His  assertion  that  in  certain  stages  of  society  an 


22       ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

accretion  of  miracles  is  invariably  formed  round  every 
prominent  person  or  institution,  appears  to  me  to  be 
absolutely  contradicted  by  well-known  historical  facts. 

The  Church  of  Rome  has  ever  been  the  great  theatre  of 
miracles,  whether  ancient  or  modern.  The  most  prominent 
person  in  the  Church  of  Rome  is  the  Pope ;  the  most 
prominent  institution  is  the  Papacy.  We  should  expect, 
therefore,  if  Mr.  Lecky's  statement  be  correct,  that  the 
Popes  would  be  pre-eminently  miracle-workers.  But  the 
fact  is,  that,  with  the  exception  of  one  or  two  very  early 
ones,  no  miracles  whatever  are  recorded  of  the  great 
majority  of  the  Popes.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been 
generally  among  the  very  humblest  members  of  the 
Romish  Church,  whether  clergy  or  laity,  that  the  power 
of  working  miracles  has  appeared,  and  which  has  led  to 
their  being  canonised  as  saints. 

Again,  to  take  another  instance,  the  most  prominent 
person  connected  with  the  Reformed  Churches  is  Luther. 
He  himself  believed  in  miracles ;  the  whole  world  in  his 
day  believed  in  miracles ;  and  miracles,  though  generally 
of  a  demoniac  character,  continued  rife  in  all  Protestant 
churches  for  many  generations  after  his  death ;  yet  there 
has  been  no  accretion  of  miracles  round  this  remarkable 
man. 

Nearer  to  our  own  day  we  have  Irving,  at  the  head  of  a 
church  of  miracle-workers  ;  and  Joe  Smith,  the  founder  of 
the  miracle-working  Mormons ;  yet  there  is  not  the  slightest 
sign  of  any  tendency  to  impute  any  miracles  to  either  of 
these  men,  other  than  those  which  the  latter  individual 
claimed  for  himself  before  his  sect  was  established.  These 
very  striking  facts  seem  to  me  to  prove  that  there  must  be 
some  basis  of  truth  in  nearly  every  alleged  miracle,  and 
that  the  theory  of  any  growth  or  accretion  round  pro- 
minent individuals  is  utterly  without  evidence  to  support 


MR.  LBCKY'S  FALLACIES  23 

it.  It  is  one  of  those  convenient  general  statements  which 
sound  very  plausible  and  very  philosophical,  but  for  which 
no  proof  whatever  is  offered.1 

Another  of  Mr.  Lecky's  statements  is,  that  there  is  an 
alteration  of  mental  conditions  invariably  accompanying 
the  decline  of  belief.  But  this  "invariable  accompaniment " 
certainly  cannot  be  proved,  because  the  decline  of  the 
belief  has  only  occurred  once  in  the  history  of  the  world ; 
and,  what  is  still  more  remarkable,  while  the  mental  con- 
ditions which  accompanied  that  one  decline  have  continued 
in  force  or  have  even  increased  in  energy  and  are  much 
more  widely  diffused,  belief  has  now,  for  more  than  forty 
years,  been  growing  up  again.  In  the  highest  states  of 
ancient  civilisation,  both  among  the  Greeks  and  Romans, 
the  belief  existed  in  full  force,  and  has  been  testified  to 
by  the  highest  and.  most  intellectual  men  of  every  age. 
The  decline  which  in  the  last  and  present  centuries  has 
certainly  taken  place  cannot,  therefore,  be  imputed  to  any 
general  law,  since  it  is  but  an  exceptional  instance.2 

1  Quite  recently  in  a  paper  on   "The  Voices  of  Jeanne  d'Arc,"  read 
before  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  after  a  careful  examination  of 
the  whole  literature  of  the  subject,  Mr.  Andrew  Lang  says,  "  In  the  whole 
story  I  am  struck  by  the  comparative  lack  of  miraculous  undergrowth  of 
legend."     And  after  giving  some  illustrations  of  this  fact  he  concludes  : — 
"Thus  it  seems  that  'contagious  enthusiasm  in  a  credulous  age,'  even  in 
the  presence  of  one  who  was  herself  a  miracle,  does  not  always  generate  a 
rich  undergrowth  of  legend."     (Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  vol.  xi.  p.  211,  July  1895.) 

2  The  decline  of  the  belief  may,  however,  be  due  (as  a  friend  has  sug- 
gested to  me)  to  a  real  decline  in  the  occurrence  of  the  phenomena  which 
compelled  the  belief,  due  to  a  well-known  natural  law.     It  is  certain  that 
witches,  and  the  persons  subject  to  their  influence,  were  what  are  now 
termed  "  mediums  ; "  that  is,  persons  of  the  peculiar  organisation  required 
for  the  manifestation  of  modern  spiritual  phenomena.  For  several  centuries 
all  persons  endowed  in  almost  any  degree  with  these  peculiar  powers  were 
persecuted  as  witches,  and  burnt  or  destroyed  by  thousands  all  over  the 
so-called  civilised  world.     The  mediums  being  destroyed,  the  production 


24       ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

Again,  Mr.  Lecky  says  that  the  belief  in  the  super- 
natural only  exists  "  when  men  are  destitute  of  the  critical 
spirit,  and  when  the  notion  of  uniform  law  is  yet  unborn." 
Mr.  Lecky  in  this  matter  contradicts  himself  almost  as 
much  as  Hume  did.  One  of  the  greatest  advocates  for 
the  reality  of  the  so-called  supernatural  was  Glanvil ;  and 
this  is  what  Mr.  Lecky  says  of  Glanvil : — 

"  The  predominating  characteristic  of  Glanvil's  mind  was  an  in- 
tense scepticism.  He  has  even  been  termed  by  a  modern  critic  the 
first  English  writer  who  has  thrown  scepticism  into  a  definite  form  ; 
and  if  we  regard  this  expression  as  simply  implying  a  profound 
distrust  of  human  faculties,  the  judgment  can  hardly  be  denied. 
And  certainly  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a  work  displaying  less 
of  credulity  and  superstition  than  the  treatise  on  '  The  Vanity  of 
Dogmatising,'  afterwards  published  as  Scepsis  Scientifica,  in  which 
Glanvil  expounded  his  philosophical  views.  .  .  .  The  Sadducismus 
Triumphatus  is  probably  the  ablest  book  ever  published  in  defence 
of  the  reality  of  witchcraft.  Dr.  Henry  Moore,  the  illustrious 
Boyle,  and  the  scarcely  less  eminent  Cudworth,  warmly  supported 
Glanvil  ;  and  no  writer  comparable  to  these  in  ability  or  influence 
appeared  on  the  other  side  ;  yet  the  scepticism  steadily  increased." 

Again  Mr.  Lecky  thus  speaks  of  Glanvil : — 

"  It  was  between  the  writings  of  Bacon  and  Locke  that  that  lati- 
tudinarian  school  was  formed  which  was  irradiated  by  the  genius  of 
Taylor,  Glanvil,  and  Hales,  and  which  became  the  very  centre  and 
seed-plot  of  religious  liberty." 

of  the  phenomena  became  impossible  ;  added  to  which  the  persecution 
would  lead  to  concealment  of  all  incipient  manifestations.  Just  at  this 
time,  too,  physical  science  began  to  make  those  rapid  strides  which  have 
changed  the  face  of  the  world,  and  induced  a  frame  of  mind  which  led  men 
to  look  with  horror  and  loathing  at  the  barbarities  and  absurdities  of  the 
witch -persecutors.  A  century  of  repose  has  allowed  the  human  organism 
to  regain  its  normal  powers  ;  and  the  phenomena  which  were  formerly  im- 
puted to  the  direct  agency  of  Satan  are  now  looked  upon  by  Spiritualists 
as,  for  the  most  part,  the  work  of  invisible  intelligences  very  little  better 
or  worse  than  ourselves. 


GLANVIL  ON  WITCHCRAFT  25 

These  are  the  men  and  these  the  mental  conditions  which 
are  favourable  to  superstition  and  delusion!1 

1  The  Rev.  Joseph  Glanvil,  who  witnessed  some  of  the  extraordinary 
disturbances  at  Mr.  Mompesson's,  and  has  given  a  full  account  of  them, 
and  has  also  collected  the  evidence  for  many  remarkable  cases  of  supposed 
witchcraft,  was  not  the  credulous  fool  many  who  hear  that  he  wrote  in 
favour  of  the  reality  of  witches  will  suppose  him  to  have  been,  but  a  man 
of  education,  talent,  and  judgment.  Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  "  History  of  the 
Rise  and  Progress  of  Rationalism  in  Europe,"  says  of  him  : — "  A  divine 
who  in  his  own  day  was  very  famous,  and  who  I  venture  to  think  has  been 
surpassed  in  genius  by  few  of  his  successors.  The  works  of  Glanvil  are 
far  less  known  than  they  should  be."  I  here  give  a  few  extracts  from  his 
"  Introduction  to  the  Proof  of  the  Existence  of  Apparitions,  Spirits,  and 
Witches." 

"Section  IV. — What  things  the  author  concedes  in  this  controversy 
about  witches  and  witchcraft  : " — 

First :   He  grants  that  there  are  "  witty  and  ingenious  men  "  opposed  to 

him  in  the  matter. 

Secondly  :  He  admits  that  some  who  deny  witches  are  good  Christians. 
Thirdly :  He  says,  "  I  allow  that  the  great  body  of  mankind  is  very  credu- 
lous, and  in  this[matter,  so  that  they  do  believe  vain  impossible  things 
in  relation  to  it.  That  converse  with  the  Devil  and  real  transmutation 
of  men  and  women  into  other  creatures  are  such.  That  people  are  apt 
to  impute  the  extraordinaries  of  art  or  nature  to  witchcraft,  and  that 
their  credulity  is  often  abused  by  subtle  and  designing  knaves  through 
these.  That  there  are  ten  thousand  silly,  lying  stories  of  witchcraft 
and  apparitions  among  the  vulgar." 

Fourthly  :  "  I  grant  that  melancholy  and  imagination  have  very  great 
force  and  beget  strange  persuasions  ;  and  that  many  stories  of  witches 
and  apparitions  have  been  but  melancholy  fancies." 
Fifthly  :  "  I  know  and  yield  that  there  are  many  strange  natural  dis- 
eases that  have  odd  symptoms,  and  produce  wonderful  and  astonishing 
effects  beyond  the  usual  course  of  nature,  and  that  such  are  sometimes 
falsely  ascribed  to  witchcraft." 

Sixthly :  "  I  own  the  Popish  Inquisitors  and  other  witch-finders  have  done 
much  wrong,  that  they  have  destroyed  innocent  persons  for  witches, 
and  that  watching  and  torture  have  extorted  extraordinary  confessions 
from  some  that  were  not  guilty. " 

Seventhly  :  He  acknowledges  that  of  the  facts  which  he  affirms  to  be  real 
many  are  very  strange,  uncouth,  and  improbable,  and  that  we  cannot 
understand  them  or  reconcile  them  with  the  commonly  received 
notions  of  spirits  and  the  future  state, 


26       ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

The  critical  spirit  and  the  notion  of  uniform  law  are  cer- 
tainly powerful  enough  in  the  present  day,  yet  in  every 
country  in  the  civilised  world  there  are  now  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  intelligent  men  who  believe,  on  the  testimony 
of  their  own  senses,  in  phenomena  which  Mr.  Lecky  and 
others  would  term  miraculous,  and  therefore  incredible, 
but  which  the  witnesses  maintain  to  be  part  of  the  order  of 
nature.  Instead  of  being,  as  Mr.  Lecky  says,  an  indication 
of  "  certain  states  of  society  " — "  the  normal  expression  of 
a  certain  stage  of  knowledge  or  intellectual  power  " — this 

Having  made  these  concessions  to  his  adversaries  he  demands  others 
in  return. 

"  Section  V. — The  postulata  which  the  author  demands  of  his  adver- 
saries as  his  just  right  are,  viz.  : — 

First :  That  whether  witches  are  or  are  not  is  a  question  of  fact. 

Secondly  :  That  matter  of  fact  can  only  be  proved  by  immediate  sense  or 
the  testimony  of  others.  To  endeavour  to  demonstrate  fact  by  abstract 
reasoning  or  speculation  is  as  if  a  man  should  prove  that  Julius  Caesar 
founded  the  Empire  of  Rome  by  algebra  or  metaphysics. 

Thirdly  :  That  Scripture  is  not  all  allegory,  but  generally  has  a  plain, 
literal,  and  obvious  meaning. 

Fourthly  :  That  some  human  testimonies  are  credible  and  certain,  viz. : — 
They  may  be  so  circumstantiated  as  to  leave  no  reason  of  doubt ;  for 
our  senses  sometimes  report  truth,  and  all  mankind  are  not  liars, 
cheats,  and  knaves — at  least  they  are  not  all  liars  when  they  have  no 
interest  to  be  so. 

Fifthly  :  That  which  is  sufficiently  and  undeniably  proved  ought  not  to 
be  denied  because  we  know  not  how  it  can  be,  that  is,  because  there  are 
difficulties  in  the  conceiving  of  it ;  otherwise  sense  and  knowledge  is 
gone  as  well  as  faith.  For  the  modus  of  most  things  is  unknown,  and 
the  most  obvious  in  nature  have  inextricable  difficulties  in  the  con- 
ceiving of  them,  as  I  have  shown  in  my  Scepsis  Scientifica. 

Sixthly  :   We  know  scarcely  anything  of  the  nature  of  Spirits  and  the 

conditions  of  the  future  state. 

And  he  concludes  : — "  These  are  my  postulata  or  demands,  which  I 
suppose  will  be  thought  reasonable,  and  such  as  need  no  more 
proof." 

The  evidence  adduced  by  a  man  who  thus  philosophically  lays  down  his 
basis  of  investigation  cannot  be  despised  ;  and  a  perusal  of  Glanvil's  works 
will  well  repay  any  one  who  takes  an  interest  in  this  inquiry, 


MR.  E.  B.  TYLOR'S  VIEWS  27 

belief  has  existed  in  all  states  of  society,  and  has  accom- 
panied every  stage  of  intellectual  power.  Socrates,  Plu- 
tarch, and  St.  Augustine  alike  give  personal  testimony  to 
supernatural  facts ;  this  testimony  never  ceased  through 
the  Middle  Ages ;  the  early  reformers,  Luther  and  Calvin, 
throng  the  ranks  of  witnesses ;  all  the  philosophers,  and 
all  the  judges  of  England,  down  to  Sir  Matthew  Hale, 
admitted  that  the  evidence  for  such  facts  was  irrefutable. 
Many  cases  have  been  rigidly  investigated  by  the  police 
authorities  of  various  countries ;  and,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  the  miracles  at  the  tomb  of  the  Abbe*  Paris,  which 
occurred  in  the  most  sceptical  period  of  French  history,  in 
the  age  of  Voltaire  and  the  Encyclopaedists,  were  proved 
by  such  an  array  of  evidence,  and  were  so  open  to  investi- 
gation, that  one  of  the  noblemen  of  that  court — convinced 
of  their  reality  after  the  closest  scrutiny — suffered  the 
martyrdom  of  imprisonment  in  the  Bastille  for  insisting 
upon  making  them  public.  And  in  our  own  day  we  have, 
at  the  lowest  estimate,  many  millions  of  believers  in  modern 
Spiritualism  in  all  classes  of  society ;  so  that  the  belief 
which  Mr.  Lecky  imputes  to  a  certain  stage  of  intellectual 
culture  only,  appears,  on  the  contrary,  to  have  all  the  attri- 
butes of  universality. 

IS   THE   BELIEF   IN   MIRACLES   A   SURVIVAL   OF 
SAVAGE   THOUGHT? 

The  philosophical  argument  has  been  put  in  another  form 
by  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor,  in  a  lecture  at  the  Royal  Institution, 
and  in  several  passages  in  his  other  works.  He  maintains 
that  all  Spiritualistic  and  other  beliefs  in  the  supernatural 
are  examples  of  the  survival  of  savage  thought  among  civi- 
lised people  ;  but  he  ignores  the  facts  which  compel  the 
beliefs.  The  thoughts  of  those  educated  men  who  know, 
from  the  evidence  of  their  own  senses,  and  by  repeated  and 


28  ANSWER  TO  HUME,  LECKY,  AND  OTHERS 

careful  investigation,  that  things  called  supernatural  are 
true  and  real  facts,  are  as  totally  distinct  from  those  of 
savages  as  are  their  thoughts  respecting  the  sun,  or  thun- 
der, or  disease,  or  any  other  natural  phenomenon.  As  well 
might  he  maintain  that  the  modern  belief  that  the  sun  is 
a  fiery  mass  is  a  survival  of  savage  thought,  because  some 
savages  believe  so  too ;  or  that  our  belief  that  certain 
diseases  are  contagious  is  a  similar  survival  of  the  savage 
idea  that  a  man  can  convey  a  disease  to  his  enemy.  The 
question  is  a  question  of  facts,  not  of  theories  or  thoughts, 
and  I  entirely  deny  the  value  or  relevance  of  any  general 
arguments,  theories,  or  analogies,  when  we  have  to  decide 
on  matters  of  fact. 

Thousands  of  intelligent  men  now  living  know,  from 
personal  observation,  that  some  of  the  strange  phenomena 
which  have  been  pronounced  absurd  and  impossible  by 
scientific  men,  are  nevertheless  true.  It  is  no  answer  to 
these,  and  no  explanation  of  the  facts,  to  tell  them  that 
such  beliefs  only  occur  when  men  are  destitute  of  the 
critical  spirit,  and  when  the  notion  of  uniform  law  is  yet 
unborn ;  that  in  certain  states  of  society  illusions  of  this 
kind  inevitably  appear,  that  they  are  only  the  normal 
expression  of  certain  stages  of  knowledge  and  of  intellec- 
tual power,  and. that  they  clearly  prove  the  survival  of 
savage  modes  of  thought  in  the  midst  of  modern  civilisation. 

I  believe  that  I  have  now  shown — 1.  That  Hume's  argu- 
ments against  miracles  are  full  of  unwarranted  assumptions, 
fallacies,  and  contradictions,  and  have  no  logical  force 
whatever.  2.  That  the  modern  argument  of  the  telegraph- 
wire  conveyance  and  drinking  statue  is  positively  no  argu- 
ment at  all,  since  it  rests  on  false  or  unproved,  premises. 
3.  That  the  argument  that  dependence  is  to  be  placed  upon 
the  opinions  of  men  of  science  rather  than  on  the  facts 


CONCLUSION  29 

observed  by  other  men,  is  opposed  to  universal  experience 
and  the  whole  history  of  science.  4.  That  the  philoso- 
phical argument,  so  well  put  by  Mr.  Lecky  and  Mr.  Tylor, 
rests  on  false  or  unproved  assumptions,  and  is  therefore 
valueless. 

In  conclusion,  I  must  again  emphatically  point  out  that 
the  question  I  have  been  here  discussing  is  in  no  way, 
whether  miracles  are  true  or  false,  or  whether  modern 
Spiritualism  rests  upon  a  basis  of  fact  or  of  delusion, 
but  solely  whether  the  arguments_that  have  hitherto  been 
supposed  fwynlnsiYft  against  them  have  any  weighfr  or 
value. If  I  have  shown — as  I  flatter  myself  I  have  done — 

-^^^^^S^^—- 

that  the  arguments  which  have  been  supposed  to  settle 
the  general  question  so  completely  as  to  render  it  quite 
unnecessary  to  go  into  particular  cases,  are  all  utterly 
fallacious,  then  I  shall  have  cleared  the  ground  for  the 
production  of  evidence  ;  and  no  honest  man  desirous  of 
arriving  at  truth  will  be  able  to  evade  an  inquiry  into 
the  nature  and  amount  of  that  evidence  by  moving  the 
previous  question — that  miracles  are  unprovable  by  any 
amount  of  human  testimony.  It  is  time  that  the  "  derisive 
and  un examining  incredulity  "  which  has  hitherto  existed 
should  give  way  to  a  less  dogmatic  and  more  philosophical 
spirit,  or  history  will  again  have  to  record  the  melancholy 
spectacle  of  men,  who  should  have  known  better,  assuming 
to  limit  the  discovery  of  new  powers  and  agencies  in  the 
universe,  and  deciding,  without  investigation,  whether  other 
men's  observations  are  true  or  false. 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   ASPECT   OF 
THE    SUPERNATURAL 


THE  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE 
SUPERNATURAL 


INTRODUCTORY 

IN  the  following  pages  I  have  brought  together  a  few 
examples  of  the  evidence  for  facts  usually  deemed  miracu- 
lous or  supernatural,  and  therefore  incredible  ;  and  I  have 
prefixed  to  these  some  general  considerations  on  the  nature 
of  miracle,  and  on  the  possibility  that  much  which  has 
been  discredited  as  such  is  not  really  miraculous  in  the 
sense  of  implying  any  alteration  of  the  laws  of  nature.  In 
that  sense  I  would  repudiate  miracles  as  entirely  as  the 
most  thorough  sceptic.  It  may  be  asked  if  I  have  myself 
seen  any  of  the  wonders  narrated  in  the  following  pages. 
I  answer  that  I  have  witnessed  facts  of  a  similar  nature  to 
some  of  them,  and  have  satisfied  myself  of  their  genuine- 
ness ;  and  therefore  feel  that  I  have  no  right  to  reject  the 
evidence  of  still  more  marvellous  facts  witnessed  by  others.1 

1  In  the  late  Dr.  Carpenter's  well-known  work  on  "  Mental  Physiology  " 
(p.  627)  he  refers  to  me, by  name, as  one  of  those  who  have  "committed  them- 
selves to  the  extraordinary  proposition,  that  if  we  admit  the  reality  of  the 
lower  phenomena"  (Class  I.,  denned  as  "those  which  are  conformable  to  our 
previous  knowledge,"  &c.),  the  testimony  which  we  accept  as'good  for  these 
ought  to  convince  us  of  the  higher  (Classes  II.  and  III.,  denned  as  "  those 
which  are  in  direct  contrariety  to  our  existing  knowledge,"  &c.).  As  he 
must  refer  to  the  above  passage  and  that  eight  lines  farther  on,  my  readers 

will  have  an  opportunity  of  judging  of  the  accuracy  of  Dr.  C.'s  unqualified 

33 


84  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

A  single  new  and  strange  fact  is,  on  its  first  announce- 
ment, often  treated  as  a  miracle,  and  not  believed  because 
it  is  contrary  to  the  hitherto  observed  order  of  nature. 
Half-a-dozen  such  facts,  however,  constitute  a  little  "  order 
of  nature  "  for  themselves.  They  may  not  be  a  whit  more 
understood  than  at  first ;  but  they  cease  to  be  regarded  as 
miracles.  Thus  it  will  be  with  the  many  thousands  of 
facts  of  which  I  have  culled  a  few  examples  here.  If  but 
one  or  two  of  them  are  proved  to  be  real,  the  whole  argu- 
ment against  the  rest  of  "  impossibility  "  and  "  reversal  of 
the  laws  of  nature  "  falls  to  the  ground.  I  would  ask  any 
man  desirous  of  knowing  the  truth  to  read  the  following 
five  works  carefully  through,  and  then  say  whether  he  can 
believe  that  the  whole  of  the  facts  stated  in  them  are  to 
be  explained  by  imposture  or  self-delusion.  And  let  him 
remember  that  if  but  one  or  two  of  them  are  true,  there 
ceases  to  be  any  strong  presumption  against  the  truth  of 
the  rest.  These  works  are — 

1.  Keichenbach's  Researches  on  Magnetism,  Electricity, 
Heat,  Light,  &c.,  in  their  relations  to  the  vital  force. 
Translated  by  Dr.  Gregory. 

2.  Dr.  Gregory's  Letters  on  Animal  Magnetism. 

3.  R.  Dale  Owen's  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  Another 
World. 

4.  Hare's   Experimental    Investigation    of  the    Spirit 
Manifestations. 

5.  Home's  Incidents  of  my  Life. 

statement  that  I  refer  to  different  classes  of  facts,  when  my  words  are 
"facts  of  a  similar  nature."  It  will  be  seen  farther  on  that  I  have 
witnessed  numerous  facts  quite  incredible  to  Dr.  C.,  because  "in  direct 
contrariety  to  his  existing  knowledge,"  but  that  other  observers,  whom  I 
quote,  have  witnessed  much  more  remarkable  facts  of  the  same  class,  which 
/  therefore  feel  bound  to  accept  on  their  testimony.  This  Dr.  C.  twists 
into  an  "  extraordinary  proposition  1 " 


INTRODUCTORY  35 

All  these  are  easily  obtained,  except  the  4th,  which  may, 
however,  be  found  in  most  collections  of  occult  literature. 
I  subjoin  a  list  of  the  persons  whose  names  I  have 
adduced  in  the  following  pages,  as  having  been  convinced 
of  the  truth  and  reality  of  most  of  these  phenomena.  I 
presume  it  will  be  admitted  that  they  are  honest  men.  If, 
then,  these  facts,  which  many  of  them  declare  they  have 
repeatedly  witnessed,  never  took  place,  I  must  leave  my 
readers  to  account  for  the  undoubted  fact  of  their  belief  in 
them  as  best  they  can.  I  can  only  do  so  by  supposing 
these  well-known  men  to  have  been  all  fools  or  madmen, 
which  is  to  me  more  difficult  than  believing  they  are  sane 
men,  capable  of  observing  matters  of  fact,  and  of  forming 
a  sound  judgment  as  to  whether  or  no  they  could  possibly 
have  been  deceived  in  them.  A  man  of  sense  will  not 
lightly  declare,  as  many  of  these  do,  not  only  that  he  has 
witnessed  what  others  deem  absurd  and  incredible,  but 
that  he  feels  morally  certain  he  was  not  deceived  in  what 
he  saw. 

LIST. 

1.  Professor   A.    DE    MORGAN  —  Mathematician    and 
Logician. 

2.  Professor  OHALLIS — Astronomer. 

3.  Professor  WM.  GREGORY,  M.D. — Chemist. 

4.  Professor  EGBERT  HARE,  M.D. — Chemist. 

5.  ProfessorHERBERTMAYO,M.D.F.E.S. — Physiologist. 

6.  Mr.  EUTTER — Chemist. 

7.  Dr.  ELLIOTSON — Physiologist. 

8.  Dr.  HADDOCK — Physician. 

9.  Dr.  GULLY — Physician. 

10.  Judge  EDMONDS — Lawyer. 

11.  Lord  LYNDHURST — Lawyer. 

12.  CHARLES  BRAY — Philosophical  Writer. 


36  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

13.  Archbishop  WHATELY — Clergyman. 
14  Rev.  W.  KERR,  M.A. — Clergyman. 

15.  Hon.  Col.  E.  B.  WILBRAHAM — Military  Man. 

16.  Sir   EICHARD   BURTON  —  Explorer,    Linguist,    and 
Author. 

17.  NASSAU  E.  SENIOR — Political  Economist. 

18.  W.  M.  THACKERAY — Author. 

19.  T.  A.  TROLLOPE— Author. 

20.  B.  D.  OWEN — Author  and  Diplomatist. 

21.  W.  Ho  WITT — Author. 

22.  S.  C.  HALL— Author. 


MIRACLES  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE  37 


II 

MIRACLES  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE 

A  miracle  is  generally  defined  to  be  a  violation  or  suspen- 
sion of  a  law  of  nature,  and  as  the  laws  of  nature  are  the 
most  complete  expression  of  the  accumulated  experiences 
of  the  human  race,  Hume  was  of  opinion  that  no  amount 
of  human  testimony  could  prove  a  miracle.  Strauss  bases 
the  whole  argument  of  his  elaborate  work  on  the  same 
ground,  that  no  amount  of  testimony  coming  to  us  through 
the  depth  of  eighteen  centuries  can  prove  that  those  laws 
were  ever  subverted,  which  the  unanimous  experience  of 
men  now  shows  to  be  invariable.  Modern  science  has 
placed  this  argument  on  a  wider  basis,  by  showing  the 
interdependence  of  all  these  laws,  and  by  rendering  it 
inconceivable  that  force  and  motion,  any  more  than  matter, 
can  be  absolutely  originated  or  destroyed.  Prof.  Tyndall, 
in  his  paper  on  The  Constitution  of  the  Universe  in  the 
Fortniyhtly  Review,  says,  "A  miracle  is  strictly  defined 
as  an  invasion  of  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy.1 
To  create  or  annihilate  matter  would  be  deemed  on  all 
hands  a  miracle;  the  creation  or  annihilation  of  energy 
would  be  equally  a  miracle  to  those  who  understand  the 
principle  of  conservation."  Mr.  Lecky,  in  his  great  work 
on  "  Eationalism,"  shows  us  that  during  the  last  two  or 
three  centuries  there  has  been  a  continually  increasing 
disposition  to  adopt  secular  rather  than  theological  views, 

1  This  supposed  definition  of  a  miracle  is  a  pure  assumption.  Miracles 
do  not  imply  any  "  invasion  of  the  law  of  the  conservation  of  energy,"  but 
merely  the  existence  of  intelligent  beings  invisible  to  us,  yet  capable  of 
acting  on  matter,  as  explained  farther  on. 


38  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

in  history,  politics,  and  science.  The  great  physical  dis- 
coveries of  the  last  half  century  have  pushed  forward  this 
movement  with  still  greater  rapidity,  and  have  led  to  a  firm 
conviction  in  the  minds  of  most  men  of  education  that 
the  universe  is  governed  by  wide  and  immutable  laws, 
under  which  all  phenomena  whatever  may  be  classed,  and 
to  which  no  fact  in  nature  can  ever  be  opposed.  If,  there- 
fore, we  define  miracle  as  a  contravention  of  any  one  of 
these  laws,  it  must  be  admitted  that  modern  science  has 
no  place  for  it ;  and  we  cannot  be  surprised  at  the  many 
and  varied  attempts  by  writers  of  widely  different  opinions 
to  account  for  or  explain  away  all  recorded  facts  in  history 
or  religion  which  they  believe  could  only  have  happened 
on  the  supposition  of  miraculous  or  supernatural  agency. 
This  task  has  been  by  no  means  an  easy  one.  The  amount 
of  direct  testimony  to  miracles  in  all  ages  is  very  great. 
The  belief  in  miracles  has  been,  till  comparatively  recent 
times,  almost  universal,  and  it  may  safely  be  asserted  that,  of 
those  who  are,  on  general  grounds,  most  firmly  convinced  of 
the  impossibility  of  events  deemed  miraculous,  few  if  any 
have  thoroughly  and  honestly  investigated  the  nature  and 
amount  of  the  evidence  that  those  events  really  happened. 
On  this  subject,  however,  I  do  not  now  intend  to  enter. 
It  appears  to  me  that  the  very  basis  of  the  whole  question 
has  been  to  some  extent  misstated  and  misunderstood,  and 
that  in  every  well-authenticated  case  of  supposed  miracle 
a  solution  may  be  found  which  will  remove  many  of  our 
difficulties. 

One  common  fallacy  appears  to  me  to  run  through  all 
the  arguments  against  facts  deemed  miraculous,  when  it  is 
asserted  that  they  violate,  or  invade,  or  subvert  the  laws  of 
nature.  This  is  really  assuming  the  very  point  to  be 
decided,  for  if  the  disputed  fact  did  happen,  it  could  only 
be  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature,  since  the  only 


MIRACLES  AND  MOfcEttN  SCIENCE  30 

complete  definition  of  the  "  laws  of  nature  "  is  that  they  are 
the  laws  which  regulate  all  phenomena.  The  very  word 
"  supernatural,"  as  applied  to  a,  fact,  is  an  absurdity;  and 
"  miracle,"  if  retained  at  all,  requires  a  more  accurate  defi- 
nition than  has  yet  been  given  of  it.  To  refuse  to  admit, 
what  in  other  cases  would  be  absolutely  conclusive  evidence 
of  a  fact,  because  it  cannot  be  explained  by  those  laws  of 
nature  with  which  we  are  now  acquainted,  is  really  to 
maintain  that  we  have  complete  knowledge  of  those  laws, 
and  can  determine  beforehand  what  is  or  is  not  possible. 
The  whole  history  of  the  progress  of  human  knowledge 
shows  us  that  the  disputed  prodigy  of  one  age  becomes 
the  accepted  natural  phenomenon  of  the  next,  and  that 
many  apparent  miracles  have  been  due  to  laws  of  nature 
subsequently  discovered. 

Many  phenomena  of  the  simplest  kind  would  appear 
supernatural  to  men  having  limited  knowledge.  Ice  and 
snow  might  easily  be  made  to  appear  so  to  inhabitants  of 
the  tropics.  The  ascent  of  a  balloon  would  be  supernatural 
to  persons  who  knew  nothing  of  the  cause  of  its  upward 
motion ;  and  we  may  well  conceive  that,  if  no  gas  lighter 
than  atmospheric  air  had  ever  been  discovered,  and  if  in  the 
minds  of  all  (philosophers  and  chemists  included),  air  had 
become  indissolubly  connected  with  the  idea  of  the  light- 
est form  of  terrestrial  matter,  the  testimony  of  those  who 
had  seen  a  balloon  ascend  might  be  discredited,  on  the 
grounds  that  a  law  of  nature  must  be  suspended  in  order 
that  anything  could  freely  ascend  through  the  atmosphere 
in  direct  contravention  to  the  law  of  gravitation. 

A  century  ago,  a  telegram  from  three  thousand  miles' 
distance,  or  a  photograph  taken  in  a  fraction  of  a  second, 
would  not  have  been  believed  possible,  and  would  not  have 
been  credited  on  any  testimony,  except  by  the  ignorant  and 
superstitious  who  believed  in  miracles.  Five  centuries  ago 


40  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

the  effects  produced  by  the  modern  telescope  and  micro- 
scope would  have  been  deemed  miraculous,  and  if  related 
only  by  travellers  as  existing  in  China  or  Japan,  would 
certainly  have  been  disbelieved.  The  power  of  dipping 
the  hand  into  melted  metals  unhurt  is  a  remarkable  case 
of  an  effect  of  natural  laws  appearing  to  contravene  another 
natural  law ;  and  it  is  one  which  certainly  might  have 
been,  and  probably  has  been,  regarded  as  a  miracle,  and  the 
fact  believed  or  disbelieved,  not  according  to  the  amount 
or  quality  of  the  testimony  to  it,  but  according  to  the  cre- 
dulity or  supposed  superior  knowledge  of  the  recipient. 
About  fifty  years  ago  the  fact  that  surgical  operations 
could  be  performed  on  patients  in  the  mesmeric  trance 
without  their  being  conscious  of  pain  was  strenuously 
denied  by  most  scientific  and  medical  men  in  this  country, 
and  the  patients,  and  sometimes  the  operators,  denounced 
as  impostors ;  the  asserted  phenomenon  was  believed  to  be 
contrary  to  the  laws  of  nature.  Now,  probably  every  man 
of  intelligence  believes  the  facts,  and  it  is  seen  that  there 
must  be  some  as  yet  unknown  law  of  which  they  are  a 
consequence.  When  Castellet  informed  Reaumur  that  he 
had  reared  perfect  silkworms  from  the  eggs  laid  by  a  virgin 
moth,  the  answer  was  Ex  nihilo  nihilfit,  and  the  fact  was 
disbelieved.  It  was  contrary  to  one  of  the  widest  and  best 
established  laws  of  nature ;  yet  it  is  now  universally 
admitted  to  be  true,  and  the  supposed  law  ceases  to  be 
universal.  These  few  illustrations  will  enable  us  to  under- 
stand how  some  reputed  miracles  may  have  been  due  to 
yet  unknown  laws  of  nature.  We  know  so  little  of  what 
nerve  or  life-force  really  is,  how  it  acts  or  can  act,  and  in 
what  degree  it  is  capable  of  transmission  from  one  human 
being  to  another,  that  it  would  be  indeed  rash  to  affirm  that 
under  no  exceptional  conditions  could  phenomena,  such  as 
the  apparently  miraculous  cure  of  many  diseases,  or  per- 


MIRACLES  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE  41 

ception  through  other  channels  than  the  ordinary  senses, 
ever  take  place. 

To  illustrate  how  gradually  the  natural  glides  into  the 
miraculous,  and  how  easily  our  beliefs  are  determined  by 
preconceived  ideas  rather  than  by  evidence,  take  the  fol- 
lowing pair  of  cases : — 

Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  an  account  appeared  in  the  London 
Medical  Times  of  an  experiment  on  four  Eussians  who  had 
been  condemned  to  death.  They  were  made,  without 
knowing  it,  to  sleep  in  beds  whereon  persons  had  died  of 
epidemic  cholera,  but  not  one  of  them  caught  the  disease. 
Subsequently  they  were  told  that  they  must  sleep  in  the 
beds  of  cholera  patients,  but  were  put  into  perfectly 
clean  and  wholesome  beds,  yet  three  of  them  now  took 
the  disease  in  its  most  malignant  form,  and  died  within 
four  hours. 

About  two  hundred  years  ago  Valentine  Greatrak  cured 
people  of  various  diseases  by  stroking  them  with  his  hand. 
The  Rev.  Dr.  B.  Dean,  writing  an  account  from  personal 
observation,  says  : — "  I  was  three  weeks  together  with  him 
at  my  Lord  Conway's,  and  saw  him  lay  his  hands  upon  (I 
think)  a  thousand  persons :  and  really  there  is  something 
in  it  more  than  ordinary,  but  I  am  convinced  'tis  not  mira- 
culous. I  have  seen  deafness  cured  by  his  touch,  grievous 
sores  of  many  months  date  in  a  few  days  healed,  obstruc- 
tions and  stoppings  removed,  and  cancerous  knots  in  the 
breast  dissolved."  The  detailed  evidence  of  eye-witnesses 
of  high  character  and  ability  as  to  these  extraordinary 
cures  is  overwhelming,  but  cannot  here  be  given. 

Now,  of  these  two  cases  the  first  will  be  generally  be- 
lieved ;  the  second  disbelieved.  The  first  is  supposed  to  be 
a  natural  effect  of  "imagination,"  the  second  is  generally 
held  to  be  of  the  nature  of  a  miracle.  Yet  to  impute  any 
definite  physical  effect  to  imagination  is  merely  to  state 


42  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

the  facts  and  to  hide  our  complete  ignorance  of  the  causes 
or  laws  which  govern  them.  And  to  hold  that  there  can 
be  no  curative  power  in  the  repeated  contact  of  a  peculiarly 
constituted  human  being,  when  the  analogy  of  the  admitted 
facts  of  mesmerism  proves  how  powerful  and  curious  are 
the  effects  of  human  beings  on  each  other,  would  seem  to 
be  a  very  great  degree  of  presumption  in  our  present  almost 
complete  ignorance  of  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  the  body. 
But  it  will  be  objected  that  it  is  only  the  least  important 
class  of  miracles  that  can  possibly  be  explained  in  this 
manner.  In  many  cases  dead  matter  is  said  to  have  been 
endowed  with  force  and  motion,  or  to  have  been  suddenly 
increased  immensely  in  weight  and  bulk  ;  things  altogether 
non-terrestrial  are  said  to  have  appeared  on  earth,  and  the 
orderly  progress  of  the  great  phenomena  of  nature  is 
affirmed  to  have  been  suddenly  interrupted.  Now  one 
characteristic  of  most  of  this  class  of  reputed  miracles  is, 
that  they  seem  to  imply  the  action  of  another  power  and 
intelligence  than  that  of  the  individual  to  whose  miracu- 
lous power  they  are  vulgarly  imputed.  One  of  the  most 
common  and  best  attested  of  these  phenomena  is  the  move- 
ment of  various  solid  bodies  in  the  presence  of  many  wit- 
nesses, without  any  discoverable  cause.  In  reading  the 
accounts  of  these  occurrences  by  eye-witnesses  one  little 
point  of  detail  often  recurs — that  an  object  appears  to  be 
thrown  or  to  fall  suddenly,  and  yet  comes  down  gently 
and  without  noise.  This  curious  point  is  to  be  found 
mentioned  in  old  trials  for  witchcraft,  as  well  as  in  the 
most^  modern  phenomena  of  haunted  houses  or  of  spiri- 
tualism, and  is  strikingly  suggestive  of  the  objects  being 
carried  by  an  invisible  agent.  To  render  such  things 
intelligible  or  possible  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern 
science,  we  must,  therefore,  have  recourse  to  the  supposi- 
tion that  intelligent  beings  may  exist,  capable  of  acting 


MIEACLES  AND  MODEEN  SCIENCE  43 

on  matter,  though  they  themselves  are  uncognisable  directly 
by  our  senses. 

That  intelligent  beings  may  exist  around  and  among  us, 
unperceived  during  our  whole  lives,  and  yet  capable  under 
certain  conditions  of  making  their  presence  known  by 
acting  on  matter,  will  be  inconceivable  to  some,  and  will 
be  doubted  by  many  more,  but  we  venture  to  say  that  no 
man  acquainted  with  the  latest  discoveries  and  the  highest 
speculations  of  modern  science  will  deny  its  possibility. 
The  difficulty  which  this  conception  presents  will  be  of 
quite  a  different  nature  from  that  which  obstructs  our 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  miracle,  when  defined  as  a 
contravention  of  those  great  natural  laws  which  the  whole 
tendency  of  modern  science  declares  to  be  absolute  and 
immutable.  The  existence  of  sentient  beings  uncognisable 
by  our  senses  would  no  more  contravene  these  laws  than 
did  the  discovery  of  the  true  nature  of  the  Protozoa,  those 
structureless  gelatinous  organisms  which  exhibit  so  many 
of  the  higher  phenomena  of  animal  life  without  any  of  that 
differentiation  of  parts  or  specialisation  of  organs  which 
the  necessary  functions  of  animal  life  seem  to  require. 
The  existence  of  such  preter-human  intelligences,  if  proved, 
would  only  add  another  and  more  striking  illustration 
than  any  we  have  yet  received  of  how  small  a  portion  of 
the  great  cosmos  our  senses  give  us  cognisance.  Even 
such  sceptics  on  the  subject  of  the  supernatural  as  Hume 
or  Strauss  would  probably  not  deny  the  validity  of  the 
conception  of  such  intelligences,  or  the  abstract  possibility 
of  their  existence.  They  would  perhaps  say,  "We  have 
no  sufficient  proof  of  the  fact ;  the  difficulty  of  conceiving 
their  mode  of  existence  is  great ;  most  intelligent  men  pass 
their  whole  lives  in  total  ignorance  of  any  such  unseen 
intelligences :  it  is  amongst  the  ignorant  and  superstitious 
alone  that  the  belief  in  them  prevails.  As  philosophers, 


44  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

we  cannot  deny  the  possibility  you  postulate,  but  we  must 
have  the  most  clear  and  satisfactory  proof  before  we  can 
receive  it  as  a  fact." 

But  it  may  be  argued,  even  if  such  beings  should  exist, 
they  could  consist  only  of  the  most  diffused  and  subtle 
forms  of  matter.  How  then  could  they  act  upon  pon- 
derable bodies,  how  produce  effects  at  all  comparable  to 
those  which  constitute  so  many  reputed  miracles  ?  These 
objectors  may  be  reminded  that  all  the  most  powerful  and 
universal  forces  of  nature  are  now  referred  to  minute  vibra- 
tions of  an  almost  infinitely  attenuated  form  of  matter; 
and  that,  by  the  grandest  generalisations  of  modern  sci- 
ence, the  most  varied  natural  phenomena  have  been  traced 
back  to  these  recondite  forces.  Light,  heat,  electricity, 
magnetism,  and  probably  vitality  and  gravitation,  are 
believed  to  be  but  "modes  of  motion"  of  a  space-filling 
ether ;  and  there  is  not  a  single  manifestation  of  force  or 
development  of  beauty  but  is  derived  from  one  or  other  of 
these.  The  whole  surface  of  the  globe  has  been  modelled 
and  remodelled,  mountains  have  been  cut  down  to  plains, 
and  plains  have  been  grooved  and  furrowed  into  mountains 
and  valleys,  all  by  the  power  of  ethereal  heat  vibrations 
set  in  motion  by  the  sun.  Metallic  veins  and  glittering 
crystals  buried  deep  down  under  miles  of  rock  and  moun- 
tain have  been  formed  by  a  distinct  set  of  forces  developed 
by  vibrations  of  the  same  ether.  Every  green  blade  and 
bright  blossom  that  gladdens  the  surface  of  the  earth  owes 
its  power  of  growth  and  life  to  those  vibrations  we  call  heat 
and  light,  while  in  animals  and  man  the  powers  of  that 
wondrous  telegraph  whose  battery  is  the  brain  and  whose 
wires  are  nerves,  are  probably  due  to  the  manifestation  of 
a  yet  totally  distinct  "  mode  of  motion  "  in  the  same  all- 
pervading  ether.  In  some  cases  we  are  able  to  perceive 
the  effects  of  these  recondite  forces  yet  more  directly.  We 


MIRACLES  AND  MODERN  SCIENCE  45 

see  a  magnet,  without  contact,  or  impact  of  any  ponderable 
matter  capable  to  our  imagination  of  exerting  force,  yet 
overcoming  gravity  and  inertia,  raising  and  moving  solid 
bodies.  We  behold  electricity  in  the  form  of  lightning 
riving  the  solid  oak,  throwing  down  lofty  towers  and 
steeples,  or  destroying  man  and  beast,  sometimes  without 
a  wound.  And  these  manifestations  of  force  are  produced 
by  a  form  of  matter  so  impalpable,  that  only  by  its  effects 
does  it  become  known  to  us.  With  such  phenomena 
everywhere  around  us,  we  must  admit  that  if  intelligences 
of  what  we  may  call  an  ethereal  nature  do  exist,  we  have 
no  reason  to  deny  them  the  use  of  those  ethereal  forces 
which  are  the  overflowing  fountain  from  which  all  force, 
all  motion,  all  life  upon  the  earth  originate.  Our  limited 
senses  and  intellects  enable  us  to  receive  impressions  from, 
and  to  trace  some  of  the  varied  manifestations  of  ethereal 
motion  under  phases  so  distinct  as  light,  heat,  electricity, 
and  gravity ;  but  no  thinker  will  for  a  moment  assert  that 
there  can  be  no  other  possible  modes  of  action  of  this 
primal  element.  To  a  race  of  blind  men,  how  utterly  in- 
conceivable would  be  the  faculty  of  vision,  how  absolutely 
unknowable  the  very  existence  of  light  and  its  myriad 
manifestations  of  form,  colour,  and  beauty.  Without  this 
one  sense,  our  knowledge  of  nature  and  of  the  universe 
could  not  be  a  thousandth  part  of  what  it  is.  By  its  absence 
our  very  intellect  would  have  been  dwarfed,  we  cannot  say 
to  what  extent ;  and  we  must  almost  believe  that  our  moral 
nature  could  never  have  been  fully  developed  without  it, 
and  that  we  could  hardly  have  attained  to  the  dignity  and 
supremacy  of  man.  Yet  it  is  possible  and  even  probable  that 
there  may  be  modes  of  sensation  as  superior  to  all  ours  as  is 
sight  to  that  of  touch  and  hearing.  In  the  next  chapter  we 
shall  consider  the  bearings  of  this  view  of  the  subject  on  the 
more  recent  developments  of  so-called  supernaturalism. 


46  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATUKAL 


III 


One  very  powerful  argument  against  miracles  with  men 
of  intelligence  (and  especially  with  such  as  are  acquainted 
with  the  full  scope  of  the  revelations  of  modern  science), 
is  derived  from  the  prevalent  assumption  that,  if  real,  they 
are  the  direct  acts  of  the  Deity.  The  nature  of  these  acts 
is  often  such,  that  no  cultivated  mind  can  for  a  moment 
impute  them  to  an  infinite  and  supreme  being.  Few,  if 
any,  reputed  miracles  seem  to  us  at  all  worthy  of  God  ;  and 
it  is  the  man  of  science  who  is  best  enabled  to  form  a 
proper  conception  of  the  lofty  and  unapproachable  nature 
of  the  attributes  which  must  pertain  to  the  supreme  mind 
of  the  universe.  Strange  to  say,  however,  he  is  in  most 
cases  illogical  enough  to  consider  the  difficulties  in  the  way 
of  this  assumption  as  a  valid  argument  against  the  facts  in 
question  having  ever  occurred,  instead  of  being  merely  an 
argument  against  the  mode  of  interpreting  them.  He  even 
carries  this  objection  further,  by  the  equally  unfounded 
assumption  that  any  beings  who  could  possibly  produce  the 
asserted  phenomena  must  be  mentally  of  a  high  order,  and 
therefore,  if  the  phenomena  do  not  accord  with  his  ideas  of 
the  dignity  of  superior  intelligences,  he  simply  denies  the 
facts  without  examination.  Yet  many  of  these  objectors 
admit  that  the  mind  of  man  is  probably  not  annihilated  at 
death,  and  that  therefore  countless  millions  of  beings  are 
constantly  passing  into  another  mode  of  existence,  who, 
unless  a  miracle  of  mental  transformation  takes  place,  must 
be  very  far  inferior  to  himself.  Any  argument,  therefore. 


MODERN  MIRACLES  VIEWED  AS  NATURAL  PHENOMENA      47 

against  certain  phenomena  having  been  produced  by 
preter-human  intelligences,  on  account  of  the  trivial  or 
apparently  useless  nature  of  such  phenomena,  has  really 
no  logical  bearing  whatever  upon  the  question.  The  as- 
sumption that  all  preter-human  intelligences  are  more 
intellectual  than  the  average  of  mankind  is  as  utterly 
gratuitous,  and  as  powerless  to  disprove  facts,  as  that  of 
the  opponents  of  Galileo  when  they  asserted  that  the 
planets  could  not  exceed  the  perfect  number,  seven,  and 
that  therefore  the  satellites  of  Jupiter  could  not  exist. 
Let  us  now  return  to  the  consideration  of  the  probable 
nature  and  powers  of  these  preter-human  intelligences, 
whose-  possible  existence  only  it  is  my  object  at  present 
to  maintain. 

I  have  in  the  first  part  of  this  paper  given  reasons  for 
supposing  that  there  might  be,  and  probably  are,  other  (and 
perhaps  infinitely  varied)  forms  of  matter  and  modes  of 
ethereal  motion,  than  those  which  our  senses  enable  us  to 
recognise.  We  must  therefore  admit  that  there  may  be 
and  probably  are  organisations  adapted  to  act  upon  and  to 
receive  impressions  from  them.  In  the  infinite  universe 
there  may  be  infinite  possibilities  of  sensation,  each  one  as 
distinct  from  all  the  rest  as  sight  is  from  smell  or  hearing, 
and  as  capable  of  extending  the  sphere  of  the  possessor's 
knowledge  and  the  development  of  his  intellect  as  would 
the  sense  of  sight  when  first  added  to  the  other  senses  we 
possess.  Beings  of  an  ethereal  order,  if  such  exist,  would 
probably  possess  some  sense  or  senses  of  the  nature  above 
indicated,  giving  them  increased  insight  into  the  constitu- 
tion of  the  universe,  and  proportionately  increased  intelli- 
gence to  guide  and  direct  for  special  ends  those  new  modes 
of  ethereal  motion'with  which  they  would  in^  that  case  be 
able  to  deal.  Their  every  faculty  might  be  proportionate 
to  the  modes  of  action  of  the  ether.  They  might  have  a 


48  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

power  of  motion  as  rapid  as  that  of  light  or  the  electric 
current.  They  might  have  a  power  of  vision  as  acute  as 
that  of  our  most  powerful  telescopes  and  microscopes. 
They  might  have  a  sense  somewhat  analogous  to  the  powers 
of  the  last  triumph  of  science,  the  spectroscope,  and  by  it 
be  enabled  to  perceive  instantaneously,  the  intimate  con- 
stitution of  matter  under  every  form,  whether  in  organised 
beings  or  in  stars  and  nebulas.  Such  existences,  possessed 
of  such,  to  us,  inconceivable  powers,  would  not  be  super- 
natural, except  in  a  very  limited  and  incorrect  sense  of 
the  term.  And  if  those  powers  were  exerted  in  a  manner 
to  be  perceived  by  us,  the  result  would  not  be  a  miracle,  in 
the  sense  in  which  the  term  is  used  by  Hume  or  Tyndall. 
There  would  be  no  "  violation  of  a  law  of  nature  ; "  there 
would  be  no  "  invasion  of  the  law  of  conservation  of 
energy."  Neither  matter  nor  force  would  be  created  or 
annihilated,  even  though  it  might  appear  so  to  us.  In  an 
infinite  universe  the  great  reservoir  of  matter  and  force 
must  be  infinite  ;  and  the  fact  that  an  ethereal  being  should 
be  able  to  exert  force,  drawn  perhaps  from  the  boundless 
ether,  perhaps  from  the  vital  energies  of  human  beings, 
and  make  its  effects  visible  to  us  as  an  apparent  "  creation," 
would  be  no  more  a  real  miracle  than  is  the  perpetual 
raising  of  millions  of  tons  of  water  from  the  ocean,  or  the 
perpetual  exertion  of  animal  force  upon  the  earth,  both  of 
which  we  have  only  recently  traced  immediately  to  the 
sun,  and  perhaps  remotely  to  other  and  varied  sources  lost 
in  the  immensity  of  the  universe.  All  would  be  still 
natural.  The  great  laws  of  nature  would  still  maintain 
their  inviolable  supremacy.  We  should  simply  have  to 
confess  with  a  modern  man  of  science,  that  "  our  five  senses 
are  but  clumsy  instruments  to  investigate  the  imponder- 
ables," and  might  see  a  new  and  deeper  meaning  in  the 
oft-quoted  but  little  heeded  words  of  the  great  poet,  when 


MODERN  MIRACLES  VIEWED  A3  NATURAL  PHENOMENA      49 

he  reminds  us  that  "  there  are  more  things  in  heaven  and 
earth  than  are  dreamt  of  in  our  philosophy." 

It  would  appear,  then,  if  my  argument  has  any  weight, 
that  there  is  nothing  self-contradictory,  nothing  absolutely 
inconceivable,  in  the  idea  of  intelligences  uncognisable 
directly  by  our  senses,  and  yet  capable  of  acting  more  or 
less  powerfully  on  matter.  There  is  only  to  some  minds  a 
high  improbability,  arising  from  the  supposed  absence  of 
all  proof  that  there  are  such  beings.  Let  direct  proof  be 
forthcoming,  and  there  seems  no  reason  why  the  most  scep- 
tical philosopher  should  refuse  to  accept  it.  It  would  be 
simply  a  matter  to  be  investigated  and  tested  like  any 
other  question  of  science.  The  evidence  would  have  to  be 
collected  and  examined.  The  results  of  the  inquiries  of 
different  observers  would  have  to  be  compared.  The  pre- 
vious character  of  the  observers  for  knowledge,  accuracy, 
and  honesty  would  have  to  be  weighed,  and  some,  at 
least,  of  the  facts  relied  on  would  have  to  be  re-observed. 
In  this  manner  only  could  all  sources  of  error  be  elimi- 
nated, and  a  doctrine  of  such  overwhelming  importance  be 
established  as  truth.  I  propose  now  to  inquire  whether 
such  proof  has  been  given,  and  whether  the  evidence  is 
attainable  by  any  one  who  may  wish  to  investigate  the 
subject  in  the  only  manner  by  which  truth  can  be  reached 
— by  direct  observation  and  experiment. 

The  first  fact  capable  of  proof  is  this : — That  during 
the  last  forty  years,  while  physical  science  has  been  pro- 
gressing with  rapid  strides,  and  the  growing  spirit  of 
rationalism  has  led  to  a  very  general  questioning  of  all 
facts  of  a  supposed  miraculous  or  supernatural  character, 
a  continually  increasing  number  of  persons  maintain  their 
belief  in  the  existence  of  beings  of  the  nature  of  those 
we  have  hitherto  postulated  as  a  bare  possibility.  All 
these  persons  declare  that  they  have  received  direct  and 

D 


50  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

oft-repeated  proofs  of  the  existence  of  such  beings.  Most 
of  them  tell  us  they  have  been  convinced  against  all  their 
previous  notions  and  prepossessions.  Many  of  these  per- 
sons have  been  materialists,  not  believing  in  the  existence 
of  any  intelligences  disconnected  from  a  visible,  tangible 
form,  nor  in  the  continued  existence  of  the  mind  of  man 
after  death.  At  the  present  time  there  are  probably 
three  millions  of  persons  in  the  United  States  of  America 
who  have  received  to  them  satisfactory  proofs  of  the  exist- 
ence of  invisible  intelligences ;  and  in  this  country  there 
are  many  thousands  who  declare  the  same  thing.  A  large 
number  of  these  persons  continually  receive  fresh  proofs 
in  the  privacy  of  their  own  homes,  and  so  much  interest 
is  felt  in  the  subject  that  four  periodicals  are  published  in 
this  country,  several  on  the  Continent,  and  a  very  large 
number  in  America,  which  are  exclusively  devoted  to  dis- 
seminating information  relating  to  the  existence  of  these 
invisible  intelligences  and  the  means  of  communicating 
with  them.  A  little  inquiry  into  the  literature  of  the 
subject,  which  is  already  very  extensive,  reveals  the 
startling  fact  that  this  revival  of  so-called  supernaturalism 
is  not  confined  to  the  ignorant  or  superstitious,  or  to  the 
lower  classes  of  society.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  rather 
among  the  middle  and  upper  classes  that  the  larger  pro- 
portion of  its  adherents  are  to  be  found ;  and  among  those 
who  have  declared  themselves  convinced  of  the  reality  of 
facts  such  as  have  been  always  classed  as  miracles,  are 
numbers  of  literary,  scientific,  and  professional  men,  who 
always  have  borne  and  still  continue  to  bear  high  characters, 
are  above  the  imputation  either  of  falsehood  or  trickery, 
and  have  never  manifested  indications  of  insanity.  Neither 
is  the  belief  confined  to  any  one  religious  sect  or  party.  On 
the  contrary,  men  of  all  religions  and  of  no  religion  are  alike 
to  be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  believers  ;  and,  as  already 


MODERN  MIRACLES  VIEWED  AS  NATURAL  PHENOMENA      51 

stated,  many  entire  sceptics  as  to  there  being  any  super- 
human intelligences  in  the  universe  have  declared  that  by 
the  force  of  direct  evidence  they  have  been,  however  unwill- 
ingly, compelled  to  believe  that  such  intelligences  do  exist. 
Here  is  certainly  a  phenomenon  altogether  unique  in 
the  history  of  the  human  mind.  In  examining  the  evi- 
dence of  similar  prodigies  during  past  ages,  we  have  to 
make  much  allowance  for  early  education  and  the  almost 
universal  pre-existing  belief  in  the  possibility  and  frequent 
occurrence  of  miracles  and  supernatural  appearances.  In 
the  present  day  it  is  a  notorious  fact  that  among  the  edu- 
cated classes,  and  especially  among  students  of  medicine 
and  science,  the  scepticism  on  such  subjects  is  almost  uni- 
versal. But  what  seems  the  most  extraordinary  fact  of  all, 
and  one  that  would  appear  to  be  absolutely  inconsistent 
with  any  theory  of  fraud,  imposture,  or  self-delusion,  is, 
that  during  the  forty-seven  years  which  have  elapsed  since 
the  revival  of  a  belief  in  the  supernatural  in  America,  not 
one  single  individual  has  carefully  investigated  the  subject 
without  accepting  the  reality  of  the  phenomena,  and  while 
thousands  have  been  converted  to  the  belief,  not  one  adhe- 
rent has  ever  been  converted  back  from  it.  While  the 
peculiarly  constituted  individuals  who  are  the  media  of 
the  phenomena  may  be  counted  by  thousands,  not  one 
has  ever  exploded  the  imposture,  if  imposture  it  be.  And 
of  the  few  who  receive  payment  for  giving  up  their  time 
to  those  who  wish  to  witness  the  manifestations,  it  is 
remarkable  that  no  one  has  yet  tried  to  be  first  in  the 
market  with  a  full  history  of  the  wonderfully  ingenious 
apparatus  and  extraordinary  dexterity  that  must  have 
been  requisite  to  make  dupes  of  many  millions  of  people, 
and  to  establish  a  new  literature  and  a  new  religion.  They 
must  be  very  blind  not  to  see  that  such  a  work  would  be 
a  most  profitable  speculation. 


52  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

If  there  is  any  one  thing  which  modern  philosophy 
teaches  more  consistently  than  another,  it  is  that  we  can 
have  no  a  priori  knowledge  of  natural  phenomena  or  of 
natural  laws.  But  to  declare  that  any  facts,  testified  to 
by  several  independent  witnesses,  are  impossible,  and  to 
act  upon  this  declaration  so  far  as  to  refuse  to  examine 
these  facts  when  opportunity  offers,  is  to  lay  claim  to  this 
very  a  priori  knowledge  of  nature  which  has  been  univer- 
sally given  up.  One  of  our  most  celebrated  modern  men 
of  science  fell  into  the  same  error  when  he  made  his  un- 
fortunate statement  that,  "  before  we  proceed  to  consider 
any  question  involving  physical  principles,  we  should  set 
out  with  clear  ideas  of  the  naturally  possible  and  impos- 
sible ; "  for  no  man  can  be  sure  that,  however  " clear"  his 
ideas  may  be  in  this  matter,  they  will  be  equally  true 
ones.  It  was  very  "clearly  impossible"  to  the  minds  of 
the  philosophers  at  Pisa  that  a  great  and  a  small  weight 
could  fall  from  the  top  of  the  heavy  tower  in  the  same 
time ;  and  if  this  principle  is  of  any  use,  they  were  right 
in  disbelieving  the  evidence  of  their  senses,  which  assured 
them  that  they  did;  and  Galileo,  who  accepted  that 
evidence,  was,  to  use  the  words  of  the  same  eminent 
authority,  "  not  only  ignorant  as  respects  the  education  of 
the  judgment,  but  ignorant  of  his  ignorance."  Men  who 
repeatedly,  and  under  conditions  which  render  doubt  im- 
possible to  them,  witness  plain  facts  that  their  scientific 
teachers  declare  cannot  be  real,  but  yet  decline  to  disprove 
by  the  only  means  possible,  that  of  a  full  and  impartial 
examination,  may  be  excused  for  thinking  that  theirs  is  a 
parallel  case  to  that  of  Galileo  and  his  opponents. 

In  order  that  my  readers  may  judge  for  themselves 
whether  delusion  or  deception  will  best  account  for  these 
facts,  or  whether  we  have  indeed  made  a  discovery  more 
important  and  more  extraordinary  than  any  that  has  yet 


MODERN  MIRACLES  VIEWED  AS  NATURAL  PHENOMENA       53 

distinguished  the  nineteenth  century,  I  propose  to  bring 
before  them  a  few  witnesses,  whose  evidence  it  will  be 
well  for  them  to  hear  before  forming  a  hasty  judgment. 
I  shall  call  chiefly  persons  connected  with  science,  art,  or 
literature,  and  whose  intelligence  and  truthfulness  in  nar- 
rating their  own  observations  are  above  suspicion;  and  I 
would  particularly  insist  that  no  objections  of  a  general 
kind  can  have  any  weight  against  direct  evidence  to  special 
facts,  many  of  which  are  of  such  a  nature  that  there  is 
absolutely  no  choice  between  believing  that  they  did  occur, 
or  imputing  to  all  who  declare  they  witnessed  them  wilful 
and  purposeless  falsehood. 


54  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 


IV 

OD. FORCE,  ANIMAL   MAGNETISM,   AND 
CLAIRVOYANCE 

Before  proceeding  to  adduce  the  evidence  of  those  persons 
who  have  witnessed  phenomena  which,  if  real,  can  only  be 
attributed  to  preter-human  intelligences,  it  will  be  well  to 
take  note  of  a  series  of  curious  observations  on  human 
beings,  which  prove  that  certain  individuals  are  gifted  with 
unusual  powers  of  perception,  sometimes  by  the  ordinary 
senses  leading  to  the  discovery  of  new  forces  in  nature, 
sometimes  in  a  manner  which  no  abnormal  power  of  the 
ordinary  senses  will  account  for,  but  which  imply  the 
existence  of  faculties  in  the  human  mind  of  a  nature  ana- 
logous to  those  which  are  generally  termed  supernatural, 
and  are  attributed  to  the  action  of  unembodied  intelli- 
gences. It  will  be  seen  that  we  are  thus  naturally  led  up 
to  higher  phenomena,  and  are  enabled,  to  some  extent,  to 
bridge  over  the  great  gulf  between  the  so-called  natural 
and  supernatural. 

I  wish  first  to  call  my  reader's  attention  to  the  researches 
of  Baron  Reichenbach,  as  detailed  in  Dr.  Gregory's  transla- 
tion of  his  elaborate  work.  He  observed  that  persons  in 
a  peculiar  nervous  condition  experienced  well-marked  and 
definite  sensations  on  contact  with  magnets  and  crystals, 
and  in  total  darkness  saw  luminous  emanations  from  them. 
He  afterwards  found  that  numbers  of  persons  in  perfect 
health  and  of  superior  intellect  could  perceive  the  same 
phenomena.  As  an  example,  I  may  mention  that  among 
the  numerous  persons  experimented  on  by  Baron  Reichen- 
bach were : — 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE       55 

Dr.  ENDLICHER,  Professor  of  Botany  and  Director  of  the 

Botanic  Garden  of  Vienna. 
Dr.  NIED,  a  Physician  at  Vienna,  in  extensive  practice, 

very  active  and  healthy. 
M.  WILHELM  HOCHSTETTER,  son  of  Professor  Hochstetter 

of  Esslingen. 

M.  THEODORE  KOTSCHY,  a  Clergyman,  Botanist,  and  well- 
known  traveller  in  Africa  and  Persia  ;  a  powerful, 

vigorous,  perfectly  healthy  man. 
Dr.  Huss,  Professor  of  Clinical  Medicine,  Stockholm, 

and  Physician  to  the  King  of  Sweden. 
Dr.  RAGSKY,  Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  Medical  and 

Surgical  Josephakademie  in  Vienna. 
M.  CONSTANTIN  DELHEZ,  a  French  Philologist,  residing 

in  Vienna. 

M.  ERNEST  PAUER,  Consistorial  Councillor,  Vienna. 
M.  GUSTAV  AUSCHNETZ,  Artist,  Vienna. 
BARON  VON   OBERLAENDER,   Forest   Superintendent  in 

Moravia. 

All  these  saw  the  lights  and  flames  on  magnets,  and 
described  the  various  details  of  their  comparative  size, 
form,  and  colour,  their  relative  magnitude  on  the  positive 
and  negative  poles,  and  their  appearance  under  various 
conditions,  such  as  combinations  of  several  magnets, 
images  formed  by  lenses,  &c. ;  and  their  evidence  exactly 
confirmed  the  descriptions  already  given  by  the  "  sensi- 
tive "  patients  of  a  lower  class,  whose  testimony  had  been 
objected  to,  when  the  observations  were  first  published. 

In  addition  to  these,  Dr.  Diesing,  Curator  in  the  Imperial 
Academy  of  Natural  History  at  Vienna,  and  the  Chevalier 
Hubert  von  Rainer,  Barrister  of  Klagenfurt,  did  not  see 
the  luminous  phenomena,  but  were  highly  sensitive  to  the 
various  sensations  excited  by  magnets  and  crystals.  About 


56  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

fifty  other  persons  in  all  conditions  of  life,  of  all  ages,  and 
of  both  sexes,  saw  and  felt  the  same  phenomena.     In  an 
elaborate  review  of  Reichenbach's  work  in  the  British  and 
Foreign  Medico-Chirurgical  Review,  the  evidence  of  these 
twelve  gentlemen,  men  of  position  and  science,  and  three  of 
them  medical  men,  is  completely  ignored,  and  it  is  again  and 
again  asserted  that  the  phenomena  are  subjective,  or  purely 
imaginary.    The  only  particle  of  argument  to  support  this 
view  is,  that  a  mesmeric  patient  was  by  suggestion  made  to 
see  "  lights  "  as  well  without  as  with  a  magnet.    It  appears 
to  me  that  it  would  be  as  reasonable  to  tell  Gordon  Gum- 
ming or  Dr.  Livingstone  that  they  had  never  seen  a  real 
lion,  because,  by  suggestion,  a  score  of  mesmeric  patients 
can  be  made  to  believe  they  see  lions  in  a  lecture-room. 
Unless  it  can  be  proved  that  Reichenbacli  and  these  twelve 
gentlemen  have  none  of  them  sense  enough  to  apply  simple 
tests  (which,  however,  the  details  of  the  experiments  show 
were  again  and  again  applied),  I  do  not  see  how  the  general 
objections  made  in  the  above-mentioned  article,  that  Reich- 
enbach  is  not  a  physiologist,  and  that  he  did  not  apply 
sufficient  tests,  can  have  the  slightest  weight  against  the 
mass  of  evidence  he  adduces.     It  is  certainly  not  credit- 
able to  modern  science  that  these  elaborate  investigations 
should  be  rejected  without  a  particle  of  disproof ;  and  we 
can  only  impute  it  to  the  distasteful  character  of  some  of 
the  higher  phenomena  produced,  and  which  it  is  still  the 
fashion  of  professors  of  the  physical  sciences  to  ignore 
without  examination.     I  have  seen  it  stated  also,  that 
Reichenbach's  theory  has  been  disproved  by  the  use  of  an 
electro-magnet,  and  that  a  patient  could  not  tell  whether 
the  current  was  on  or  off.     But  there  is  the  detail  of  this 
experiment  published,  and  how  often  has  it  been  confirmed, 
and  under  what  conditions  ?    And  if  true  in  one  case,  how 
does  it  affect  the  question  when  similar  tests  were  applied 


OD-FOECE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCK       57 

to  Reichenbach's  patients,  and  how  does  it  apply  to  facts 
like  this,  which  Reichenbach  gives  literally  by  the  hundred? 
"  Prof.  D.  Endlicher  saw  on  the  poles  of  an  electro-magnet 
flames  forty  inches  high,  unsteady,  exhibiting  a  rich  play 
of  colours,  and  ending  in  a  luminous  smoke,  which  rose  to 
the  ceiling  and  illuminated  it "  (Gregory's  Trans.,  p.  342). 
The  least  the  deniers  of  the  facts  can  do  is  to  request 
these  well-known  individuals  who  gave  their  evidence 
to  Reichenbach  to  repeat  the  experiments  again  under 
exactly  similar  conditions,  as  no  doubt  in  the  interests  of 
science  they  would  be  willing  to  do.  If  then,  by  suggestion, 
they  can  all  be  led  to  describe  equally  well  defined  and 
varied  appearances  when  only  sham  magnets  are  used,  the 
odylic  flames  and  other  phenomena  will  have  been  fairly 
shown  to  be  very  doubtful.  But  as  long  as  negative  state- 
ments only  are  made,  and  the  whole  body  of  facts,  testified 
to  by  men  at  least  equal  in  scientific  attainments  to  their 
opponents,  are  left  untouched,  no  unprejudiced  individual 
can  fail  to  acknowledge  that  the  researches  of  Reichenbach 
have  established  the  existence  of  a  vast  and  connected 
series  of  new  and  important  natural  phenomena.  Doctors 
Gregory  and  Ashburner  in  England  state  that  they  have 
repeated  several  of  Reichenbach's  experiments  under  test 
conditions,  and  have  found  them  quite  accurate. 

The  late  Mr.  Rutter,  of  Brighton,  made,  quite  indepen- 
dently, a  number  of  curious  experiments,  which  he  has  de- 
tailed in  his  little  work  on  Magnetised  Currents  and  the 
Magnetoscope,  and  which  were  witnessed  by  hundreds  of 
medical  and  scientific  men.  He  showed  that  the  various 
metals  and  other  substances,  the  contact  of  a  male  or 
female  hand,  or  even  of  a  letter  written  by  a  male  or 
female,  each  produced  distinct  effects  on  the  magnetoscope. 
And  a  single  drop  of  water  from  a  glass  in  which  a  homoeo- 
pathic globule  had  been  dissolved  caused  a  characteristic 


58  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

motion  of  the  instrument  when  dropped  upon  the  hand  of 
the  operator,  even  when  he  did  not  know  the  substance 
employed.  Dr.  King  corroborates  these  experiments,  and 
states  that  he  has  seen  a  decillionth  of  a  grain  of  silex  and 
a  billionth  of  a  grain  of  quinine  cause  motion  by  means  of 
this  apparatus.  Every  caution  was  taken  in  conducting 
the  experiments,  which  were  equally  successful  when  a 
third  party  was  placed  between  Mr.  E.  and  the  magneto- 
scope.  Magnets  and  crystals  also  produced  powerful 
effects,  as  indicated  by  Reichenbach.  Yet  Mr.  Rutter's 
experiments,  like  Reichenbach's,  are  ignored  by  our  scien- 
tific men,  although  during  several  years  he  offered  facility 
for  their  investigation.1 

The  case  of  Jacques  Aymar,  whose  powers  were  imputed 
by  himself  and  others  to  the  divining-rod,  but  which  were 
evidently  personal,  is  one  of  the  best  attested  on  record, 
and  one  which  indisputably  proves  the  possession  by  him 

1  Dr.  Carpenter  (Mental  Physiology,  p.  287)  states  that  Mr.  Rutter's 
experiments  were  shown  to  be  fallacies  by  Dr.  Madden,  who  found  that 
unless  he  knew  the  substance  operated  on,  no  definite  indications  were 
given.  But  this  only  proves  that  different  operators  have  different 
degrees  of  power.  And  Dr.  Carpenter  very  unfairly  omits  to  notice  three 
very  important  classes  of  test  experiments  made  by  Mr.  Rutter.  In  one 
a  crystal  is  placed  on  a  stand  altogether  detached  from  the  instrument 
or  the  table  on  which  it  stands.  Yet  when  this  is  touched,  it  sets  the 
pendulum  in  motion  ;  and  the  direction  of  the  motion  changes  as  the 
direction  of  the  axis  of  the  crystal  is  changed  (Rutter's  Human 
Electricity  p.  151).  Again,  when  the  pendulum  has  acquired  its  full 
momentum,  either  rotary  or  oscillatory,  it  takes  from  7  to  10  minutes  to 
come  to  a  state  of  rest.  But  if  any  piece  of  bone  or  other  dead  animal 
matter  is  placed  in  the  operator's  hand,  the  pendulum  comes  to  a  dead 
stop  in  from  5  to  20  seconds  ;  a  feat  which  cannot  be  performed  voluntarily 
or  by  any  amount  of  "expectant  attention"  (op.  cit.,  p.  147,  and  App.  p. 
lv.).  Again,  knowledge  of  the  substance  operated  on  is  not  necessary  with 
all  operators,  to  produce  definite  and  correct  results  (loc.  cit.  App.  p.  Ivi.). 
What  are  we  to  think  of  a  writer  who  comes  forward  as  a  master  to  teach 
the  public,  and  'sets  before  them  such  a  partial  and  one-sided  account  of 
the  evidence  as  this  ? 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE       59 

of  a  new  sense  in  some  degree  resembling  that  of  many 
other  clairvoyants.  Mr.  Baring-Gould,  in  his  Curious 
Myths  of  the  Middle  Ages,  gives  a  full  account  of  the  case 
with  a  reference  to  the  original  authorities.  These  are,  M. 
Chauvin,  a  doctor  of  medicine,  who  was  an  eye-witness,  and 
who  published  his  narrative  ;  the  Sieur  Pauthot,  Dean  of  the 
College  of  Medicine  at  Lyons  ;  and  the  Proces- verbal  of  the 
Procureur  du  Eoi.  The  facts  of  the  case  are  briefly  as 
follows.  On  the  5th  of  July  1692,  a  wine-seller  and  his 
wife  were  murdered  and  the  bodies  found  in  their  cellar  in 
Lyons,  their  money  having  been  carried  off.  A  bloody 
hedging  bill  was  found  by  the  side  of  the  bodies,  but  no 
trace  of  the  murderers  was  discovered.  The  officers  of 
justice  were  completely  at  fault,  when  they  were  told  of  a 
man  named  Jacques  Aymar,  who,  four  years  before,  had 
discovered  a  thief  at  Grenoble  who  was  quite  unsuspected 
of  the  crime.  The  man  was  sent  for  and  taken  to  the 
cellar,  where  his  divining-rod  became  violently  agitated, 
and  his  pulse  rose  as  though  he  were  in  a  fever.  He  then 
went  out  of  the  house,  and  walked  along  the  streets  like 
a  hound  following  a  scent.  He  crossed  the  court  of  the 
Archbishop's  palace  and  down  to  the  gate  of  the  Rhone, 
when,  it  being  night,  the  quest  was  relinquished.  The  next 
day,  accompanied  by  three  officers,  he  followed  the  track 
down  the  bank  of  the  river  to  a  gardener's  cottage.  He 
had  declared  that  so  far  he  had  followed  three  murderers, 
but  here  two  only  entered  the  cottage,  where  he  declared, 
they  had  seated  themselves  at  a  table  and  had  drunk  wine 
from  a  particular  bottle.  The  owner  declared  positively 
no  one  had  been  there,  but  Aymar,  on  testing  each  indi- 
vidual in  the  house,  found  two  children  who  had  been  in 
contact  with  the  murderers,  and  these  reluctantly  confessed 
that  on  Sunday  morning  when  they  were  alone,  two  men 
had  suddenly  entered  and  had  seated  themselves  and  taken 


60  SCIENTIFIC  ASPKCT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

wine  from  the  very  bottle  which  had  been  pointed  out. 
He  then  followed  them  down  the  river  and  discovered  the 
places  where  they  slept,  and  the  particular  chairs  or  benches 
they  had  used.  After  a  time  he  reached  the  military  camp 
of  Sablon,  and  ultimately  reached  Beaucaire,  where  the 
murderers  had  parted  company,  but  he  traced  one  of  them 
into  the  prison,  and  among  fourteen  or  fifteen  prisoners 
pointed  out  a  hunchback  (who  had  only  been  an  hour  in 
the  prison)  as  the  murderer.  He  protested  his  innocence, 
but  on  being  taken  back  along  the  road,  was  recognised 
in  every  house  where  Aymar  had  previously  traced  him. 
This  so  confounded  him  that  he  confessed,  and  was  ulti- 
mately executed  for  the  murder. 

During  the  process  of  this  wonderful  experiment,  which 
occupied  several  days,  Aymar  was  subjected  to  other  tests 
by  the  Procurator-General.  The  hedging  bill  with  which 
the  murder  was  committed,  with  three  others  exactly  like 
it,  were  secretly  buried  in  different  places  in  a  garden.  The 
diviner  was  then  brought  in ;  and  his  rod  indicated  where 
the  blood-stained  weapon  was  buried,  but  showed  no  move- 
ment over  the  others.  Again  they  were  all  exhumed  and 
reinterred,  and  the  Comptroller  of  the  Province  himself 
bandaged  Aymar's  eyes  and  led  him  into  the  garden,  with 
the  same  result.  The  two  other  murderers  were  after- 
wards traced,  but  they  had  escaped  out  of  France.  Pierre 
Gamier,  Physician  of  the  Medical  College  of  Montpelier, 
has  also  given  an  account  of  various  tests  to  which  Aymar 
was  subjected  by  himself,  the  Lieutenant-General,  and  two 
other  gentlemen,  to  detect  imposture ;  but  they  failed  to 
discover  any  sign  of  deception,  and  he  traced  the  course  of  a 
man  who  had  robbed  the  Lieutenant-General  some  months 
before,  pointing  out  the  exact  side  of  a  bed  on  which  he 
had  slept  with  another  man. 

Here  is  a  case  which  one  would  think  was  demonstrated ; 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE       61 

the  investigation  having  been  carried  on  under  the  eyes  of 
magistrates,  officers,  and  physicians,  and  resulting  in  the 
discovery  of  a  murder  and  the  tracking  out  of  his  course 
with  more  minute  accuracy  than  ever  bloodhound  tracked 
a  fugitive  slave ;  yet  Mr.  Baring- Gould  calls  the  man  an 
"  impostor,"  and  speaks  of  his  "  expos6  and  downfall."  And 
what  are  the  grounds  on  which  these  harsh  terms  are 
used  ?  Merely  that  at  a  later  period,  when  brought  to 
Paris  to  satisfy  the  curiosity  of  the  great  and  learned,  his 
power  left  him,  and  he  seems  to  have  either  had  totally 
false  impressions  or  to  have  told  lies  to  conceal  his  want  of 
power.  But  how  does  this  in  the  least  affect  the  question  ? 
The  fact  that  he  was  so  easily  found  out  at  Paris,  or 
rather  that  he  there  possessed  no  extraordinary  powers, 
would  surely  prove  rather  that  there  could  not  possibly 
have  been  any  imposture  in  the  former  case  when  he  stood 
every  test,  and  instead  of  failing,  succeeded.  He  can  only 
be  proved  an  impostor  by  proving  all  the  witnesses  to  be 
also  impostors,  or  by  showing  that  no  such  crime  was  ever 
committed  or  ever  discovered.  This,  however,  neither  Mr. 
Baring-Gould  nor  any  one  else  has  ever  attempted  to  do ; 
and  we  must  therefore  conclude  that  the  murder  was 
really  discovered  by  Jacques  Aymar  in  the  manner  de- 
scribed, and  that  he  undoubtedly  possessed  the  equivalent 
of  a  new  sense  in  many  respects  resembling  the  powers  of 
some  modern  clairvoyants. 

The  subject  of  Animal  Magnetism  is  still  so  much  a  dis- 
puted one  among  scientific  men,  and  many  of  its  alleged 
phenomena  so  closely  border  on,  if  they  do  not  actually 
reach,  what  is  classed  as  supernatural,  that  I  wish  to  give  a 
few  illustrations  of  the  kind  of  facts  by  whichit  is  supported. 
I  will  first  quote  the  evidence  of  Dr.  William  Gregory,  late 
Professor  of  Chemistry  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh, 
who  for  many  years  made  continued  personal  investigations 


62  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

into  this  subject,  and  has  recorded  them  in  his  Letters  on 
Animal  Magnetism,  published  in  1851.  The  simpler  phe- 
nomena of  what  are  usually  termed  "  Hypnotism "  and 
"  Electro-Biology "  are  now  universally  admitted  to  be 
real ;  though  it  must  never  be  forgotten  that  they  too  had 
to  fight  their  way  through  the  same  denials,  accusations, 
and  imputations  that  are  now  made  against  clairvoyance 
and  phreno-mesmerism.  The  same  men  who  advocated, 
tested,  and  established  the  truth  of  the  more  simple 
facts,  claim  that  they  have  done  the  same  for  the  higher 
phenomena ;  the  same  class  of  scientific  and  medical  men 
who  once  denied  the  former,  now  deny  the  latter.  Let 
us  see,  then,  if  the  evidence  for  the  one  is  as  good  as  it  was 
for  the  other. 

Dr.  Gregory  defines  several  stages  of  clairvoyance,  some- 
times existing  in  the  same,  sometimes  in  different  patients. 
The  chief  division,  however,  is  into  1.  Sympathy  or  thought- 
reading,  and  2.  True  clairvoyance.  The  evidence  for  the 
first  is  so  overwhelming,  it  is  to  be  met  with  almost  every- 
where, and  is  so  generally  admitted,  that  I  shall  not  occupy 
space  by  giving  examples,  although  it  is,  I  believe,  still 
denied  by  the  more  materialistic  physiologists.  We  will, 
therefore,  confine  our  attention  to  the  various  phases  of 
true  clairvoyance. 

Dr.  Haddock,  residing  at  Bolton,  had  a  very  remarkable 
clairvoyante  (E.)  under  his  care.  Dr.  Gregory  says,  "  After 
I  returned  to  Edinburgh,  I  had  very  frequent  communica- 
tion with  Dr.  H.,  and  tried  many  experiments  with  this 
remarkable  subject,  sending  specimens  of  writing,  locks  of 
hair,  and  other  objects,  the  origin  of  which  was  perfectly 
unknown  to  Dr.  H.,  and  in  every  case,  without  exception, 
E.  saw  and  described  with  accuracy  the  persons  con- 
cerned "  (p.  403). 

Sir  Walter  C.  Trevelyan,  Bart.,  received  a  letter  from  a 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE       63 

lady  in  London,  in  which  the  loss  of  a  gold  watch  was 
mentioned.  He  sent  the  letter  to  Dr.  H.  to  see  if  E.  could 
trace  the  watch.  She  described  the  lady  accurately,  and 
her  house  and  furniture  minutely,  and  described  the  watch 
and  chain,  and  described  the  person  who  had  it,  who,  she 
said,  was  not  a  habitual  thief,  and  said  further  that  she  could 
tell  her  handwriting.  The  lady,  to  whom  these  accounts 
were  sent,  acknowledged  their  perfect  accuracy,  but  said 
the  description  of  the  thief  applied  to  one  of  her  maids 
whom  she  did  not  suspect,  so  she  sent  several  pieces  of 
handwriting,  including  that  of  both  her  maids.  The  clair- 
voyante  immediately  selected  that  of  the  one  she  had 
described,  and  said  "she  was  thinking  of  restoring  the 
watch,  saying  she  had  found  it."  Sir  W.  Trevelyan  wrote 
with  this  information,  but  a  letter  from  the  lady  crossed 
his,  saying  the  girl  mentioned  before  by  the  clairvoyante 
had  restored  the  watch  and  said  she  had  found  it  (p.  405). 

Sir  W.  Trevelyan  communicated  to  Dr.  Gregory  another 
experiment  he  had  made.  He  requested  the  Secretary  of 
the  Geographical  Society  to  send  him  the  writing  of  several 
persons  abroad,  not  known  to  him,  and  without  their  names. 
Three  were  sent.  E.  discovered  in  each  case  where  they 
were ;  in  two  of  them  described  their  persons  accurately ; 
described  in  all  three  cases  the  cities  and  countries  in 
which  they  were,  so  that  they  could  be  easily  recognised, 
and  told  the  time  by  the  clocks,  which  verified  the  place 
by  difference  of  longitude  (p.  407). 

Many  other  cases,  equally  well  tested,  are  given  in  great 
detail  by  Dr.  Gregory ;  and  numerous  cases  are  given  of 
tests  of  what  may  be  called  simple  direct  clairvoyance. 
For  example,  persons  going  to  see  the  phenomena  purchase 
in  any  shop  they  please  a  few  dozens  of  printed  mottoes 
enclosed  in  nutshells.  These  are  placed  in  a  bag,  and  the 
clairvoyante  takes  out  a  nutshell  and  reads  the  motto. 


64  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

The  shell  is  then  broken  open  and  examined,  and  hundreds 
of  mottoes  have  been  thus  read  correctly.  One  motto  thus 
read  contained  ninety-eight  words.  Numbers  of  other 
equally  severe  test  cases  are  given  by  Dr.  Gregory,  devised 
and  tried  by  himself  and  by  other  well-known  persons. 

Now,  will  it  be  believed,  that  in  the  very  elaborate 
article  in  the  British  and  Foreign  Medico -Chirurgical 
Jteview,  already  referred  to,  on  Dr.  Gregory's  and  other 
works  of  an  allied  nature,  not  one  single  experiment  of  this 
land  is  mentioned  or  alluded  to  ?  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
general  objection  to  Dr.  Gregory's  views,  because  he  was  a 
chemist  and  not  specially  devoted  to  physiology  (forgetting 
that  Dr.  Elliotson  and  Dr.  Mayo,  who  testify  to  similar 
facts,  were  both  specially  devoted  to  physiology),  and  a  few 
quotations  of  a  general  nature  only  are  given  ;  so  that  no 
reader  could  imagine  that  the  work  criticised  was  the 
result  of  observation  or  experiment  at  all.  The  case  is  a 
complete  illustration  of  judicial  blindness.  The  opponents 
dare  not  impute  wilful  falsehood  to  Dr.  Gregory,  Dr.  Mayo, 
Dr.  Haddock,  Sir  Walter  Trevelyan,  Sir  T.  Willshire,  and 
other  gentlemen  who  vouch  for  these  facts ;  and  yet  the 
facts  are  of  such  an  unmistakable  nature,  that  without 
imputing  wilful  falsehood  they  cannot  be  explained  away. 
They  are  therefore  silently  ignored,  or  more  probably  the 
records  of  them  are  never  read.  But  the  silence  or  con- 
tempt of  our  modern  scientific  men  cannot  blind  the  world 
any  longer  to  those  grand  and  mysterious  phenomena  of 
mind,  the  investigation  of  which  can  alone  conduct  us  to 
a  knowledge  of  what  we  really  are. 

Dr.  Herbert  Mayo,  F.RS.,  late  Professor  of  Anatomy 
and  Physiology  in  King's  College,  and  of  Comparative 
Anatomy  in  the  Royal  College  of  Surgeons,  also  gives  his 
personal  testimony  to  facts  of  a  similar  nature.  In  his 
Letters  on  the  Truths  contained  in  Popular  Superstitions 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE       65 

(2nd  edit.,  p.  178),  he  says  :  "  From  Boppard,  where  I  was 
residing  in  the  years  1845-46,  I  sent  to  an  American 

gentleman  in  Paris  a  lock  of  hair,  which  Col.  C ,  an 

invalid  then  under  my  care,  had  cut  from  his  own  head 
and  wrapped  in  writing-paper  from  his  own  writing-desk. 

Col.  C was  unknown  even  by  name  to  this  American 

gentleman,  who  had  no  clue  whatever  whereby  to  identify 
the  proprietor  of  the  hair.  And  all  that  he  did  was  to 
place  the  paper  in  the  hands  of  a  noted  Parisian  somnam- 
bulist. She  stated,  in  the  opinion  she  gave  on  the  case, 

that  Col.  C had  partial  palsy  of  the  hips  and  legs,  and 

that  for  another  complaint  he  was  in  the  habit  of  using  a 
surgical  instrument.  The  patient  laughed  heartily  at  the 
idea  of  the  distant  somnambulist  having  so  completely 
realised  him." 

Dr.  Mayo  also  announces  his  conversion  to  a  belief  in 
the  truth  of  phrenology  and  phreno-mesmerism,  and  Dr. 
Gregory  gives  copious  details  of  experiments  in  which 
special  care  has  been  taken  to  avoid  all  the  supposed 
sources  of  fallacy  in  phreno-mesmerism  ;  yet,  although  Dr. 
Mayo's  work  is  included  in  the  criticism  already  referred 
to,  none  of  the  facts  he  himself  testifies  to,  nor  the  latest 
opinions  he  puts  forward,  are  so  much  as  once  mentioned. 

Dr.  Joseph  Haddock,  the  physician  resident  and  prac- 
tising at  Bolton  who  has  been  already  mentioned,  has 
published  a  work  entitled  Somnolism  and  Psycheism,  in 
which  he  endeavours  to  classify  the  facts  of  mesmerism 
and  clairvoyance,  and  to  account  for  them  on  physiological 
and  psychical  principles.  The  work  is  well  worth  reading, 
but  my  purpose  here  is  to  bring  forward  one  or  two  facts 
from  those  which  he  gives  in  an  appendix  to  his  work. 
Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  those  who  deny  the 
reality  of  clairvoyance  to  ask  contemptuously,  "If  it  is 
true,  why  is  not  use  made  of  it  to  discover  lost  property,  or 

v. 


66  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

to  get  news  from  abroad  ?  "   To  such  I  commend  the  follow- 
ing statement,  of  which  I  can  only  give  an  abstract. 

On  Wednesday  evening,  December  the  20th,  1848,  Mr. 
Wood,  grocer,  of  Cheapside,  Bolton,  had  his  cash-box  with 
its  contents  stolen  from  his  counting-house.  He  applied 
to  the  police  and  could  get  no  clue,  though  he  suspected 
one  individual.  He  then  came  to  Dr.  Haddock  to  see  if 
the  girl,  Emma,  could  discover  the  thief  or  the  property. 
When  put  in  rapport  with  Emma,  she  was  asked  about  the 
lost  cash-box,  and  after  a  few  moments  she  began  to  talk 
as  if  to  some  one  not  present,  described  where  the  box  was, 
what  were  its  contents,  how  the  person  took  it,  where  he 
first  hid  it ;  and  then  described  the  person,  dress,  associa- 
tions of  the  thief  so  vividly,  that  Mr.  Wood  recognised  a 
person  he  had  not  the  least  suspected.  Mr.  Wood  imme- 
diately sought  out  this  person,  and  gave  him  the  option  of 
coming  at  once  to  Dr.  Haddock's  or  to  the  police-office. 
He  chose  the  former,  and  when  he  came  into  the  room 
Emma  started  back,  told  him  he  was  a  bad  man,  and  had 
not  on  the  same  clothes  as  when  he  took  the  box.  He  at 
first  denied  all  knowledge  of  the  robbery,  but  after  a  time 
acknowledged  that  he  had  taken  it  exactly  in  the  manner 
described  by  Emma,  and  it  was  accordingly  recovered. 

Now  as  the  names,  place,  and  date  of  this  occurrence  are 
given,  and  it  is  narrated  by  an  English  physician,  it  can 
hardly  be  denied  without  first  making  some  inquiry  at  the 
place  where  it  is  said  to  have  happened.  The  next  instance 
is  of  clairvoyance  at  a  much  greater  distance.  A  young 
man  had  sailed  suddenly  from  Liverpool  for  New  York.  His 
parents  immediately  remitted  him  some  money  by  the  mail- 
steamer,  but  they  heard,  some  time  afterwards,  that  he  had 
never  applied  for  it.  The  mother  came  twenty  miles  to 
Bolton  to  see  if,  by  Emma's  means,  she  could  learn  any- 
thing of  him.  After  a  little  time  Emma  found  him,  de- 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE      67 

scribed  his  appearance  correctly,  and  entered  into  so  many 
details  as  to  induce  his  mother  to  rely  upon  her  statements, 
and  to  request  Dr.  Haddock  to  make  inquiries  at  intervals 
of  about  a  fortnight.  He  did  so,  traced  the  young  man  by 
her  means  to  several  places,  and  the  information  thus  ac- 
quired was  sent  to  his  parents.  Shortly  after,  Dr.  Haddock 
received  information  from  the  father  that  a  letter  had 
arrived  from  his  son,  and  that  "it  was  a  most  striking 
confirmation  of  Emma's  testimony  from  first  to  last." 

Dr.  Edwin  Lee,  in  his  work  on  Animal  Magnetism, 
gives  an  account  of  fourteen  stances  at  Brighton  in  private 
houses  with  Alexis  Didier,  the  well-known  clairvoyant. 
On  every  one  of  these  occasions  he  played  at  cards  blind- 
folded, often  naming  his  adversary's  cards  as  well  as  his 
own,  read  numbers  of  cards  written  by  the  visitors  and 
enclosed  in  envelopes,  read  any  line  as^ed  for  in  any  book 
eight  or  ten  pages  farther  on  than  the  page  opened,  and 
described  the  contents  of  numbers  of  boxes,  card-cases,  and 
other  envelopes.  Dr.  Lee  also  gives  an  account  of  the  cele- 
brated Robert  Houdin's  interview  with  Alexis,  when  similar 
tests  were  applied  by  that  great  conjuror,  who  brought  his 
own  cards  and  dealt  them  himself,  and  yet  Alexis  immedi- 
ately told  his  every  card  in  both  the  hands  without  turning 
them  up.  Houdin  took  a  book  from  his  pocket  and  open- 
ing it,  asked  Alexis  to  read  a  line  at  a  particular  level  eight 
pages  in  advance.  The  clairvoyant  stuck  a  pin  in  to  mark 
the  line  and  read  four  words  which  were  found  on  the 
corresponding  line  at  the  ninth  page  forward.  Houdin 
proclaimed  it  "  stupefying,"  and  the  next  day  signed  this 
declaration  :  "I  cannot  help  stating  that  the  facts  above 
related  are  scrupulously  exact,  and  the  more  I  reflect  upon 
them,  the  more  impossible  do  I  find  it  to  class  them  among 
the  tricks  which  are  the  object  of  my  art." 

A  fortnight  later  he  sent  a  letter  to  M.  de  Mirville  (by 


68  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

whom  he  had  been  introduced  to  Alexis)  giving  an  account 
of  a  second  stance,  where  the  same  results  were  repeated, 
and  concluding :  "  I  therefore  came  away  from  this  stance 
as  astonished  as  any  one  can  be,  and  fully  convinced  that 
it  would  be  quite  impossible  for  any  one  to  produce  such 
surprising  effects  by  mere  skill." 

The  late  Mr.  H.  G.  Atkinson,  F.G.S.,  showed  me  one  of 
the  tests  of  clairvoyance  by  Adolphe  Didier,  brother  of 
Alexis,  which  he  saw  produced  himself  at  a  private  house  in 
London.  A  well-known  nobleman  wrote  a  word  at  the 
bottom  of  a  piece  of  paper  which  he  folded  over  repeatedly, 
so  that  it  was  covered  by  five  or  six  layers  of  paper.  It 
was  then  given  to  Adolphe,  who  was  surrounded  by  a 
circle  of  observers  while  he  wrote  with  a  pencil  outside 
what  had  been  written  within.  The  curious  point  is  that 
he  made  several  trials  and  crossed  them  out  again,  but  at 
length  wrote  the  exact  word,  the  others  being  approxima- 
tions to  it.  This  is  very  curious,  and  indicates  the  exist- 
ence of  a  new  sense,  a  kind  of  rudimentary  perception, 
which  can  only  get  at  the  exact  truth  by  degrees,  and  it 
corresponds  remarkably  with  the  manner  in  which  clair- 
voyants generally  describe  objects.  They  do  not  say  at 
once,  "  It  is  a  medal,"  but  "  It  is  metal,"  "  It  is  round  and 
flat,"  "  It  has  writing  on  it,"  and  so  on. 

Now,  when  we  have  the  evidence  of  Dr.  Gregory, 
Dr.  Mayo,  Dr.  Lee,  Dr.  Haddock,  and  of  hundreds  of  other 
equally  honest  if  not  equally  capable  men  who  have  wit- 
nessed similar  facts,  is  it  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
difficulty  that  all  of  these  persons  in  every  case  were  the 
victims  of  imposture  ?  Medical  men  are  not  very  easily 
imposed  on,  especially  in  a  matter  which  they  can  observe 
and  test  repeatedly  ;  and  when  we  find  that  such  a  cele- 
brated professor  of  legerdemain  asHoudin  not  only  detected 
no  imposture,  but  declared  the  phenomena  impossible  to  be 


OD-FORCE,  ANIMAL  MAGNETISM,  AND  CLAIRVOYANCE      69 

the  effect  of  skill  or  trick,  we  have  a  complete  answer  to 
all  who,  without  investigation,  proclaim  the  whole  a  cheat. 
In  this  case  it  is  clear  that  there  is  no  room  for  self-decep- 
tion. Either  every  one  of  the  cases  of  clairvoyance  yet 
recorded  (and  they  certainly  number  thousands)  is  the 
result  of  imposture,  or  we  have  ample  proof  that  certain 
individuals  possess  a  new  sense  of  which  it  is  probable  we 
all  have  the  rudiments,  If  ordinary  vision  were  as  rare 
as  clairvoyance,  it  would  be  just  as  difficult  to  prove  its 
reality  as  it  is  now  to  establish  the  reality  of  this  won- 
derful power.  The  evidence  in  its  favour  is  absolutely 
conclusive  to  any  one  who  will  examine  it,  and  who  is  not 
deluded  by  that  most  unphilosophical  dogma  that  he 
knows  a  priori  what  is  possible  and  what  is  impossible. 

In  a  paper  by  Dr.  T.  Edwards  Clark,  of  New  York,  on 
the  Physiology  of  Trance,  which  appeared  in  the  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Psychological  Medicine,  it  is  stated  that  a  cata- 
leptic patient  was  under  the  care  of  M.  Despine,  late 
Inspector  of  the  Mineral  Waters  of  Aix,  in  Savoy,  who 
says  of  her :  "  Not  only  could  our  patient  hear  by  means 
of  the  palms  of  her  hands,  but  we  have  seen  her  read 
without  the  assistance  of  the  eyes,  merely  with  the  tips  of 
the  fingers,  which  she  passed  rapidly  over  the  page  that 
she  wished  to  read.  At  other  times  we  have  seen  her  copy 
a  letter  word  for  word,  reading  it  with  her  left  elbow  while 
she  wrote  with  her  right  hand.  During  these  proceedings 
a  thick  pasteboard  completely  intercepted  any  visual  ray  that 
might  have  reached  her  eyes.  The  same  phenomenon  was 
manifested  at  the  soles  of  her  feet,  on  the  epigastrium,  and 
other  parts  of  the  body." 

Dr.  Clark  adds  :  "  There  are  many  other  cases  equally 
as  strange  as  these  that  have  [been  noted  by  different 
persons  standing  high  in  the  medical  profession." 

The  above  test  of  holding  a  pasteboard  before  the  eyes 


70  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

is  one  which  Dr.  Carpenter  informed  me  he  considered 
inconclusive,  as  he  found  that  supposed  clairvoyants  always 
failed  to  see  through  it.  But  it  is  evident  that  he  had 
never  met  with  a  case  of  very  perfect  clairvoyance  like 
that  above  described.1 

We  will  now  pass  to  the  evidence  for  the  facts  of  what 
is  termed  Modern  Spiritualism. 

1  Not  one  of  the  important  facts  mentioned  in  this  chapter,  on  the 
authority  of  medical  men,  nor  any  others  of  a  like  nature  to  be  found 
in  the  works  here  quoted,  are  taken  notice  of  by  Dr.  Carpenter  in 
his  elaborate  work  on  Mental  Physiology,  in  which  he  nevertheless 
boldly  attempts  to  settle  the  whole  question  of  the  reality  of  such  facts ! 
It  is,  we  suppose,  owing  to  his  limited  space  that,  in  a  work  of  over 
700  pages,  none  of  the  well-attested  facts  opposed  to  his  views  could  be 
brought  to  the  notice  of  his  readers. 


THE  EVIDENCE  OP  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS        71 


V 

THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS 

I  now  propose  to  give  a  few  instances  in  which  the 
evidence  of  the  appearance  of  preter-humau  or  spiritual 
beings  is  as  good  and  definite  as  it  is  possible  for  any 
evidence  of  any  fact  to  be.  For  this  purpose  I  shall  use 
some  of  the  remarkable  cases  collected  and  investigated 
by  the  late  Eobert  Dale  Owen,  formerly  member  of 
Congress  and  American  Minister  at  Naples.  Mr.  Owen 
is  the  author  of  works  of  a  varied  character;  JSssays, 
Moral  Physiology,  The  Policy  of  Emancipation,  and  many 
others.  He  was,  I  believe,  throughout  his  life  a  consistent 
and  philosophical  sceptic,  and  his  writings  show  him  to 
have  been  well  educated,  logical,  and  extremely  cautious 
in  accepting  evidence. 

In  1855,  during  his  official  residence  at  Naples,  his 
attention  seems  to  have  been  first  attracted  to  the  sub- 
ject of  the  "  supernatural  "  by  witnessing  the  phenomena 
occurring  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Home.  He  tells  us  that 
"  sitting  in  his  own  well-lighted  apartment,  in  company 
with  three  or  four  friends,  all  curious  observers  like  him- 
self," a  table  and  lamp  weighing  ninety-six  pounds  "rose 
eight  or  ten  inches  from  the  floor,  and  remained  suspended 
in  the  air  while  one  might  .count  six  or  seven,  the  hands 
of  all  present  being  laid  upon  the  table." 

And  on  another  occasion  he  states:  "In  the  dining- 
room  of  a  French  nobleman,  the  Count  d'Ourches,  residing 
near  Paris,  I  saw  on  the  first  day  of  October  1858,  in 
broad  daylight,  at  the  close  of  a  dejetiner  a  la  fourchette,  a 


72  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

dinner-table  seating  seven  persons,  with  fruit  and  wine 
on  it,  rise  and  settle  down  as  already  described,  while  all 
the  guests  were  standing  around  it,  and  not  one  of  them 
touching  it.  All  present  saw  the  same  thing." 

He  then  commenced  collecting  evidence  of  so-called 
supernatural  phenomena,  occurring  unsought  for,  and  has 
brought  together,  in  his  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  An- 
other World,  one  of  the  best  arranged  and  best  authenti- 
cated series  of  facts  which  have  yet  been  given  to  the 
public  on  this  subject. 

This  work  will  certainly  rank  among  the  most  philoso- 
phical that  have  yet  appeared  upon  the  subject  of  which 
it  treats;  and  perhaps  had  it  been  entitled  "A  Critical 
Examination  into  the  Evidence  of  the  Supernatural," 
which  it  really  is,  it  would  have  attracted  more  attention 
than  it  appears  to  have  done. 

Nothing  is  more  common  than  the  assertion  that  all 
supposed  apparitions,  when  not  impostures,  are  hallucina- 
tions; because,  it  is  said,  there  is  no  well-authenticated 
case  of  an  apparition  having  been  seen  by  two  persons  at 
once.  It  is  therefore  advisable  to  give  an  outline  here  of 
one  case  of  this  kind,  which  is  given  more  fully  at  p.  278 
of  Mr.  Owen's  book. 

Sir  John  Sherbroke  and  G  eneral  George  Wynyard  were 
Captain  and  Lieutenant  in  the  33rd  Regiment,  stationed 
in  the  year  1785  at  Sydney,  in  the  island  of  Cape  Breton, 
Nova  Scotia.  On  the  15th  of  October  of  that  year, 
about  nine  in  the  morning,  as  they  were  sitting  together 
at  coffee  in  Wynyard's  parlour,  Sherbroke,  happening  to 
look  up,  saw  the  figure  of  a  pale  youth  standing  at  a  door 
leading  into  the  passage.  He  called  the  attention  of  his 
companion  to  the  stranger,  who  passed  slowly  through  the 
room  into  the  adjoining  bed-chamber.  Wynyard,  on  see- 
ing the  figure,  turned  as  pale  as  death,  grasped  his  friend's 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS        73 

arm,  and,  as  soon  as  it  had  disappeared,  exclaimed,  "  Great 
God !  iny  brother !  "  Sherbroke  thinking  there  was  some 
trick,  had  a  search  immediately  made,  but  could  find  no 
one  either  in  the  bedroom  or  about  the  premises.  A 
brother  officer,  Lieutenant  Gore,  coming  in  at  the  time, 
assisted  in  the  search,  and  at  his  suggestion  Sherbroke 
made  a  memorandum  of  the  date,  and  all  waited  with 
anxiety  for  letters  from  England,  where  Wynyard's  brother 
was.  The  expected  letter  came  to  Captain  Sherbroke, 
asking  him  to  break  to  his  friends  the  news  of  his  brother 
John's  death,  which  had  occurred  on  the  day  and  hour 
when  he  had  been  seen  by  the  two  officers.  In  1823 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Gore  gave  his  account  in  writing  to 
Sir  John  Harvey,  Adjutant-General  of  the  Forces  in 
Canada.  He  also  stated  that  some  years  afterwards  Sir 
John  Sherbroke,  who  had  never  seen  John  Wynyard  alive, 
recognised  in  England  a  brother  of  the  deceased,  who  was 
remarkably  like  him,  by  the  resemblance  to  the  figure  he 
had  seen  in  Canada.  Mr.  Owen  has  obtained  additional 
proof  of  the  correctness  of  these  details  from  Captain 
Henry  Scott,  R.N.,  who  was  told  by  General  Paul  Ander- 
son, C.B.,  that  Sir  John  Sherbroke  had,  shortly  before  his 
death,  related  the  story  to  him  in  almost  exactly  the  same 
words  as  Mr.  Owen  has  given  it,  and  which  was  communi- 
cated in  manuscript  to  Captain  Scott. 

The  evidence  in  this  case  of  the  fact  of  the  appearance 
of  the  same  apparition  to  two  people  (one  of  whom  did 
not  know  the  individual)  is  very  complete  ;  and  I  cannot 
rest  satisfied  with  any  theory  which  requires  me  to  reject 
such  evidence  without  offering  any  intelligible  explanation 
of  what  occurred. 

I  will  now  give  an  abstract  of  a  few  more  of  Mr.  Owen's 
cases,  to  illustrate  their  general  character  and  the  careful 
manner  in  which  they  have  been  authenticated  and  tested. 


74  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

The   first  is   one   which   he   calls    "The   Fourteenth   of 
November."     (Footfalls,  p.  299.) 

On  the  night  between  the  14th  and  15th  November 
1857,  the  wife  of  Captain  G.  Wheatcroft,  residing  in  Cam- 
bridge, dreamed  that  she  saw  her  husband  (then  in  India). 
She  immediately  awoke,  and  looking  up,  she  perceived  the 
same  figure  standing  by  her  bedside.  He  appeared  in  his 
uniform,  the  hands  pressed  across  the  breast,  the  hair 
dishevelled,  the  face  very  pale.  His  large  dark  eyes  were 
fixed  full  upon  her;  their  expression  was  that  of  great 
excitement,  and  there  was  a  peculiar  contraction  of  the 
mouth,  habitual  to  him  when  agitated.  She  saw  him, 
even  to  each  minute  particular  of  his  dress,  as  distinctly  as 
she  had  ever  done  in  her  life.  The  figure  seemed  to  bend 
forward  as  if  in  pain,  and  to  make  an  effort  to  speak,  but 
there  was  no  sound.  It  remained  visible,  the  wife  thinks, 
as  long  as  a  minute,  and  then  disappeared.  She  did  not 
sleep  again  that  night.  Next  morning  she  related  all  this 
to  her  mother,  expressing  her  belief  that  Captain  W.  was 
either  killed  or  wounded.  In  due  course  a  telegram  was 
received  to  the  effect  that  Captain  W.  had  been  killed 
before  Lucknow  on  the  15th  of  November.  The  widow 
informed  the  Captain's  solicitor,  Mr.  Wilkinson,  that  she 
had  been  quite  prepared  for  the  fatal  news,  but  she  felt 
sure  there  was  a  mistake  of  a  day  in  the  date  of  his  death. 
Mr.  Wilkinson  then  obtained  a  certificate  from  the  War 
Office,  which  was  as  follows : — 

"9579. 

«  NO. . 

"  WAR  OFFICE,  30th  January  1858. 

"  These  are  to  certify  that  it  appears,  by  the  records  in  this  office, 
that  Captain  G.  Wheatcroft,  of  the  6th  Dragoon  Guards,  was  killed 
in  action  on  the  15th  of  November  1857. 

(Signed)        "  B.  HAWES. 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS        75 

A  remarkable  incident  now  occurred.  Mr.  Wilkinson 
was  visiting  a  friend  in  London,  whose  wife  has  all  her 
life  had  perception  of  apparitions,  while  her  husband  is  a 
"  medium."  He  related  to  them  the  vision  of  the  Captain's 
widow,  and  described  the  figure  as  it  appeared  to  her,  when 
Mrs.  N.  instantly  said,  "  That  must  be  the  very  person  I 
saw  on  the  evening  we  were  talking  of  India."  In  answer 
to  Mr.  Wilkinson's  questions,  she  said  they  had  obtained  a 
communication  from  him  through  her  husband,  and  he  had 
said  that  he  had  been  killed  in  India  that  afternoon  by  a 
wound  in  the  breast.  It  was  about  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening :  she  did  not  recollect  the  date.  On  further  in- 
quiry, she  remembered  that  she  had  been  interrupted  by 
a  tradesman,  and  had  paid  a  bill  that  evening ;  and  on 
bringing  it  for  Mr.  Wilkinson's  inspection,  the  receipt  bore 
date  the  Fourteenth  of  November.  In  March  1858,  the 
family  of  Captain  Wheatcroft  received  a  letter  from  Cap- 
tain G C ,  dated  Lucknow,  19th  of  December 

1857,  in  which  he  said  he  had  been  close  to  Captain  W. 
when  he  fell,  and  that  it  was  on  the  fourteenth  in  the  after- 
noon, and  not  on  the  15th,  as  reported  in  Sir  Colin  Camp- 
bell's despatches.  He  was  struck  by  a  fragment  of  shell 
in  the  breast.  He  was  buried  at  Dilkoosha,  and  on  a  wooden 
cross  at  the  head  of  his  grave  are  cut  the  initials  G.  W., 
and  the  date  of  his  death,  14th  of  November.  The  War 
Office  corrected  their  mistake.  Mr.  Wilkinson  obtained 
another  copy  of  the  certificate  in  April  1859,  and  found 
it  in  the  same  words  as  that  already  given,  only  that  the 
14th  of  November  had  been  substituted  for  the  15th. 

Mr.  Owen  obtained  the  whole  of  these  facts  directly  from 
the  parties  themselves.  The  widow  of  Captain  Wheatcroft 
examined  and  corrected  his  MSS.,  and  showed  him  a  copy 
of  Captain  C.'s  letter.  Mr.  Wilkinson  did  the  same;  and 
Mrs.  N herself  related  to  him  the  facts  which  occurred 


76  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

to  her.     Mrs.  N had  also  related  the  circumstances  to 

Mr.  Howitt  before  Mr.  Owen's  investigations,  as  he  cer- 
tifies in  his  History  of  the  Supernatural,  vol.  ii.  p.  225. 
Mr.  Owen  also  states  that  he  has  in  his  possession  both 
the  War  Office  certificates,  the  first  showing  the  erroneous, 
and  the  second  the  corrected  date. 

Here  we  have  the  same  apparition  appearing  to  two 
ladies  unknown  to  and  remote  from  each  other  on  the  same 
night ;  the  communication  obtained  through  a  third  person, 
declaring  the  time  and  mode  of  death ;  and  all  coinciding 
exactly  with  the  events  happening  many  thousand  miles 
away.  We  presume  the  facts  thus  attested  will  not  be 
disputed ;  and  to  attribute  the  whole  to  "  coincidence" 
must  surely  be  too  great  a  stretch  of  credulity,  even  for 
the  most  incredulous. 

The  next  case  is  one  of  haunting,  and  is  called 

THE  OLD  KENT  MANOR  HOUSE  (p.  304). 

In  October  1857,  and  for  several  months  afterwards, 
Mrs.  K.,  the  wife  of  a  field-officer  of  high  rank,  was  resid- 
ing in  Eamhurst  Manor  House,  near  Leigh,  in  Kent.  From 
her  first  occupying  it,  every  inmate  of  the  house  was  more 
or  less  disturbed  at  night  by  knocking,  and  sounds  as  of 
footsteps,  but  more  especially  by  voices,  which  could  not 
be  accounted  for.  Mrs.  E.'s  brother,  a  young  officer,  heard 
these  voices  at  night,  and  tried  every  means  to  discover 
the  source  of  them  in  vain.  The  servants  were  much 
frightened.  On  the  second  Saturday  in  October,  Miss  S., 
a  young  lady  who  had  been  in  the  habit  of  seeing  appari- 
tions from  her  childhood,  came  to  visit  Mrs.  R.,  who  met 
her  at  the  railway  station.  On  arriving  at  the  house,  Miss 
S.  saw  on  the  threshold  two  figures,  apparently  an  elderly 
couple,  in  old-fashioned  dress.  Not  wishing  to  make  her 
friend  uneasy,  she  said  nothing  about  them  at  the  time. 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS         77 

During  the  next  ten  days  she  saw  the  same  figures  several 
times  in  different  parts  of  the  house,  always  by  daylight. 
They  appeared  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of  a  neutral 
tint.     On  the  third  occasion  they  spoke  to  her,  and  said 
that  they  had  formerly  possessed  that  house,  and  that  their 
name  was  Children.     They  appeared  sad  and  downcast, 
and  said  that  they  had  idolised  their  property,  and  that 
it  troubled  them  to  know  that  it  had  passed  away  from 
their  family,  and  was  now  in  the  hands  of  strangers.     On 
Mrs.  R  asking  Miss  S.  if  she  had  heard  or  seen  anything, 
she  related  this  to  her.     Mrs.  E.  had  herself  heard  the 
noises  and  voices  continually,  but  had  seen  nothing,  and 
after  a  month  had  given  up  all  expectation  of  doing  so, 
when  one  day,  as  she  had  just  finished  dressing  for  dinner, 
in  a  well-lighted  room  with  a  .fire  in  it,  and  was  coming 
down  hastily,  having  been  repeatedly  called  by  her  brother 
who  was  impatiently  waiting  for  her,  she  beheld  the  two 
figures  standing  in  the  doorway,  dressed  just  as  Miss  S. 
had  described  them,  but  above  the  figure  of  the  lady, 
written  in  the  dusky  atmosphere  in  letters  of  phosphoric 
light,  the  words  "Dame  Children,"  and  some  other  words 
intimating  that  she  was  "  earth-bound."     At  this  moment 
her  brother  again  called  out  to  her  that  dinner  was  waiting, 
and,  closing  her  eyes,  she  rushed  through   the  figures. 
Inquiries  were  made  by  the  ladies  as  to  who  had  lived  in 
the  house  formerly,  and  it  was  only  after  four  months 
that  they   found  out,  through  a  very  old  woman,  who 
remembered  an  old  man,  who  had  told  her  that  he  had  in 
his  boyhood  assisted  to  keep  the  hounds  for  the  Children 
family,  who  then  lived  at  Eamhurst.     All  these  particulars 
Mr.  Owen  received  himself  from  the  two  ladies  in  Decem- 
ber 1858.     Miss  S.  had  had  many  conversations  with  the 
apparitions,  and  on  Mr.  Owen's  inquiring  for  any  details 
they  had  communicated,  she  told  him  that  the  husband 


78  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPKRNATURAL 

had  said  his  name  was  Richard,  and  that  he  had  died  in 
1753.  Mr.  Owen  now  determined,  if  possible,  to  ascertain 
the  accuracy  of  these  facts,  and  after  a  long  search  among 
churchyards  and  antiquarian  clergymen,  he  was  directed 
to  the  "  Hasted  Papers  "  in  the  British  Museum.  From 
these  he  ascertained  that  "  Richard  Children  settled  him- 
self at  Kamhurst,"  his  family  having  previously  resided  at 
a  house  called  "  Childrens,"  in  the  parish  of  Tunbridge.  It 
required  further  research  to  determine  the  date.  This  was 
found  several  months  later  in  an  old  "History  of  Kent," 
by  the  same  "Hasted,"  published  in  1778,  where  it  is 
stated  that  "  Ramhurst  passed  by  sale  to  Richard  Children, 
Esq.,  who  resided  here,  and  died  possessed  of  it  in  1753, 
aged  eighty-three  years."  In  the  "  Hasted  Papers  "  it  was 
also  stated  that  his  son  did  not  live  at  Ramhurst,  and  that 
the  family  seat  after  Richard's  time  was  Ferox  Hall,  near 
Tunbridge.  Since  1816  the  mansion  has  been  occupied 
as  a  farmhouse,  having  passed  away  entirely  from  the 
Children  family. 

However  much  any  one  of  these  incidents  might  have 
been  scouted  as  a  delusion,  what  are  we  to  say  to  the  com- 
bination of  them  ?  A  whole  household  hear  distinct  and 
definite  noises  of  persons  walking  and  speaking.  Two 
ladies  see  the  same  appearances,  at  different  times,  and 
under  circumstances  'the  least  favourable  for  delusion. 
The  name  is  given  to  one  by  voice,  to  the  other  by  writing ; 
the  date  of  death  is  communicated.  An  independent  in- 
quirer, by  much  research,  finds  out  that  all  these  facts  are 
true :  that  the  Christian  name  of  the  only  "  Children  " 
who  occupied  and  died  in  the  house  was  Richard,  and 
that  his  death  took  place  in  the  year  given  by  the  appari- 
tion, 1753. 

Mr.  Owen's  own  full  account  of  this  case  and  the  obser- 
vations on  it  should  be  read,  but  this  imperfect  abstract 


THE  EVIDENCE  OF  THE  REALITY  OF  APPARITIONS         79 

will  serve  to  show  that  none  of  the  ordinary  modes  of 
escaping  from  the  difficulties  of  a  "ghost  story  "  are  here 
applicable. 

DISTURBANCES  AT  CIDEVILLE  IN  FRANCE. 

At  page  195  of  Mr.  Owen's  volume  we  have  a  most 
interesting  account  of  disturbances  occurring  at  the  par- 
sonage of  Cideville,  in  the  department  of  Seine  Infe'rieure, 
France,  in  the  winter  of  1850-51.  The  circumstances 
gave  rise  to  a  trial,  and  the  whole  of  the  facts  were 
brought  out  by  the  examination  of  a  great  number  of 
witnesses.  The  Marquis  de  Mirville  collected  from  the 
legal  record  all  the  documents  connected  with  the  trial, 
including  the  procbs  verbal  of  the  testimony.  It  is  from 
these  official  documents  Mr.  Owen  gives  his  details  of  the 
occurrences. 

The  disturbances  commenced  from  the  time  when  two 
boys,  aged  12  and  14,  came  to  be  educated  by  M.  Tinel, 
the  parish  priest  of  Cideville,  and  continued  two  months 
and  a  half,  until  the  children  were  removed  from  the  par- 
sonage. They  consisted  of  knockings  as  if  with  a  hammer 
on  the  wainscot,  scratchings,  shakings  of  the  house  so 
that  all  the  furniture  rattled,  a  din  as  if  every  one  in  the 
house  were  beating  the  floor  with  mallets,  the  beatings 
forming  tunes  when  asked,  and  answering  questions  by 
numbers  agreed  on.  Besides  these  noises  there  were 
strange  and  unaccountable  exhibitions  of  force.  The 
tables  and  desks  moved  about  without  visible  cause ;  the 
fire-irons  flew  repeatedly  into  the  middle  of  the  room, 
windows  were  broken ;  a  hammer  was  thrown  into  the 
middle  of  the  room,  and  yet  fell  without  noise,  as  if  put 
down  by  an  invisible  hand ;  persons  standing  quite  alone 
had  their  dresses  pulled.  On  the  Mayor  of  Cideville 
coming  to  examine  into  the  matter,  a  table  at  which  he 


80  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

sat  with  another  person,  moved  away  in  spite  of  their 
endeavours  to  hold  it  back,  while  the  children  were 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  room ;  and  many  other 
facts  of  a  similar  nature  were  observed  repeatedly  by 
numerous  persons  of  respectability  and  position,  every 
one  of  whom,  going  with  the  intention  of  finding  out  a 
trick,  were,  after  deliberate  examination,  convinced  that 
the  phenomena  were  not  produced  by  any  person  present. 
The  Marquis  de  Mirville  was  himself  one  of  the  witnesses. 
The  interest  of  this  case  consists,  first,  in  the  evidence 
having  been  brought  out  before  a  legal  tribunal ;  and 
secondly,  in  the  remarkable  resemblance  of  the  phenomena 
to  those  which  had  occurred  a  short  time  previously  in 
America,  but  had  not  yet  become  much  known  in  Europe. 
There  is  also  the  closest  resemblance  to  what  occurred  at 
Epworth  Parsonage  in  the  family  of  Wesley's  father,  and 
which  is  almost  equally  well  authenticated.1  Now  when 

1  In  an  article  entitled  "  Spirit  Rapping  a  Century  Ago,"  in  an  early 
number  of  the  Fortnightly  Review,  an  account  is  given  of  the  disturbances 
at  Epworth  Parsonage,  the  residence  of  the  Wesley  family,  and  it  is 
attempted  to  account  for  them  by  the  supposition  that  they  were  entirely 
produced  by  Hester  Wesley,  one  of  John  Wesley's  sisters  ;  yet  the  pheno- 
mena, even  as  related  by  this  writer,  are  such  as  no  human  being  could 
possibly  have  produced,  while  the  moral  difficulties  of  the  case  are  admitted 
to  be  quite  as  great  as  the  physical  ones.  Every  reader  of  the  article  must 
have  perceived  how  lame  and  impotent  is  the  explanation  suggested ;  and 
one  is  almost  forced  to  conclude  that  the  writer  did  not  believe  in  it  him- 
self, so  different  is  the  tone  of  the  first  part  of  the  article  in  which  he 
details  the  facts,  from  the  latter  part  in  which  he  attempts  to  account  for 
them.  When  taken  in  connection  with  other  similar  occurrences  narrated 
by  Mr.  Owen,  all  equally  well  authenticated,  and  all  thoroughly  investi- 
gated at  the  time,  it  will  be  impossible  to  receive  as  an  explanation  that 
they  were  in  every  case  mere  childish  tricks,  since  that  will  not  account 
for  more  than  a  minute  fraction  of  the  established  facts.  If  we  are  to 
reject  all  the  facts  this  assumption  will  not  explain,  it  will  be  much 
simpler  and  quite  as  satisfactory  to  deny  that  there  are  any  facts  that 
need  explaining. 


81 

in  three  different  countries,  phenomena  occur  of  an  exactly 
similar  nature  and  which  are  all  open  to  the  fullest  exa- 
mination at  the  time,  and  when  no  trick  or  delusion  is 
in  either  case  found  out,  but  every  individual  of  many 
hundreds  who  go  to  see  them  become  convinced  of  their 
reality,  the  fact  of  the  similarity  of  the  occurrences  even 
in  many  details  is  of  great  weight,  as  indicating  a  similar 
natural  origin.  In  such  cases  we  cannot  fairly  accept 
the  general  explanation  of  "imposture,"  given  by  those 
who  have  not  witnessed  the  phenomena,  when  none  of 
those  who  did  witness  them  could  ever  detect  imposture. 
The  examples  I  have  quoted  give  a  very  imperfect  idea 
of  the  variety  and  interest  of  Mr.  Owen's  work,  but  they 
will  serve  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the  evidence  he  has  in 
every  case  adduced,  and  may  lead  some  of  my  readers  to 
examine  the  work  itself.  If  they  do  so,  they  will  see  that 
similar  phenomena  to  those  which  puzzled  our  forefathers 
at  Epworth  Parsonage,  and  at  Mr.  Mompesson's  at  Ted- 
worth,  have  recurred  in  our  own  time,  and  have  been  sub- 
jected to  the  most  searching  examination,  without  any 
discovery  of  trick  or  imposture ;  and  they  may  perhaps 
be  led  to  conclude  that,  though  often  asserted,  it  is  not  yet 
quite  proved  that  "ghosts  have  been  everywhere  banished 
by  the  introduction  of  gaslight." 


82  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  TBE  SUPERNATURAL 


VI 

MODERN  SPIRITUALISM:  EVIDENCE   OF  MEN 
OF  SCIENCE 

We  have  now  come  to  the  consideration  of  what  is  more 
especially  termed  "  Modern  Spiritualism,"  or  those  pheno- 
mena which  occur  only  in  the  presence  or  through  the 
influence  of  peculiarly  constituted  individuals,  hence 
termed  "  mediums."  The  evidence  is  here  so  abundant, 
coming  from  various  parts  of  the  world,  and  from  persons 
differing  widely  in  education,  tastes,  and  religion,  that  it  is 
difficult  to  give  any  notion  of  its  force  and  bearing  by  short 
extracts.  I  will  first  adduce  that  of  three  men  of  the 
highest  eminence  in  their  respective  departments — Pro- 
fessor De  Morgan,  Professor  Hare,  and  Judge  Edmonds. 

The  late  AUGUSTUS  DE  MORGAN,  many  years  Professor 
of  Mathematics  and  afterwards  Dean  of  University  Col- 
lege London,  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  where  he  took 
his  degree  as  fourth  wrangler.  He  studied  for  the  bar, 
and  was  a  voluminous  writer  on  mathematics,  logic,  and 
biography.  He  was  for  eighteen  years  Secretary  to  the 
Eoyal  Astronomical  Society,  and  was  a  strong  advocate 
for  a  decimal  coinage.  In  1863  a  work  appeared  entitled 
From  Matter  to  Spirit,  the  Result  of  Ten  Years'  Experience 
in  Spirit  Manifestations,  by  C.  D.,  with  a  preface  by  A.  B. 
It  is  very  generally  known  that  A.  B.  is  Professor  De 
Morgan,  and  C.  D.  Mrs.  De  Morgan.  The  internal  evi- 
dence of  the  preface  is  sufficient  to  all  who  know  the 
Professor's  style ;  it  has  been  frequently  imputed  to  him 
in  print  without  contradiction,  and  in  the  Athenceum  for 
1865,  in  the  "  Budget  of  Paradoxes,"  he  notices  the  work 


SPIRITUALISM  :    EVIDENCE  OF  MEN  OF  SCIENCE          83 

in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  that  he  accepts  the  imputation 
of  the  authorship,  and  still  holds  the  opinions  therein  ex- 
pressed.1 From  this  preface,  which  is  well  worth  reading 
for  its  vigorous  and  sarcastic  style,  I  proceed  to  give  a  few 
extracts : — 

"  I  am  satisfied  from  the  evidence  of  my  own  senses  of 
some  of  the  facts  narrated  (in  the  body  of  the  work),  of 
some  others  I  have  evidence  as  good  as  testimony  can  give. 
I  am  perfectly  convinced  that  I  have  both  seen  and  heard, 
in  a  manner  that  should  make  unbelief  impossible,  things 
called  spiritual,  which  cannot  be  taken  by  a  rational  being 
to  be  capable  of  explanation  by  imposture,  coincidence,  or 
mistake.  So  far  I  feel  the  ground  firm  under  me  "  (p.  1). 

"  The  Spiritualists,  beyond  a  doubt,  are  in  the  track  that 
has  led  to  all  advancement  in  physical  science ;  their  oppo- 
nents are  the  representatives  of  those  who  have  striven 
against  progress."  .  .  . 

"I  have  said  that  the  deluded  spirit-rappers  are  on  the 
right  track :  they  have  the  spirit  and  the  method  of  the 
grand  times  when  those  paths  were  cut  through  the  un- 
cleared forest  in  which  it  is  now  the  daily  routine  to  walk. 
What  was  that  spirit?  It  was  the  spirit  of  universal 
examination  wholly  unchecked  by  fear  of  being  detected 
in  the  investigation  of  nonsense. 

"  But  to  those  who  know  the  truth  of  facts,  and  who  do 
not  know  what  can  and  what  cannot  be,  it  will  appear  on 
reflection  that  the  most  probable  direction  of  inquiry — the 
best  chance  of  eliciting  a  satisfactory  result,  is  that  which 
is  suggested  by  the  spirit  hypothesis.  I  mean  the  hypo- 
thesis that  some  intelligence  which  is  not  that  of  any 
human  being  clothed  in  flesh  and  blood,  has  a  direct  share 
in  the  phenomena. 

1  The  work  has  been  since  advertised  as  by  Professor  and  Mrs.  De 
Moryan. 


84  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  StJPEfcNATtJRAL 

"  Take  the  hypothesis  on  its  own  A  priori  probability, 
and  compare  it  with  that  of  attraction.  Suppose  a  person 
wholly  new  to  both  subjects,  wholly  undrilled  both  in 
theology  and  physics.  He  is  to  choose  between  two  asser- 
tions, one  true  and  one  false,  and  to  lose  his  life  if  he 
choose  the  false  one.  The  first  assertion  is  that  there  are 
incorporeal  intelligences  in  the  universe,  and  that  they 
sometimes  communicate  with  men  ;  the  second  is  that  the 
particles  of  the  stars  in  the  Milky  Way  give  infinitesimal 
permanent  pulls  to  the  particles  of  our  earth.  I  suppose 
that  most  men  among  those  who  have  all-existing  pre- 
possessions would  feel  rather  puzzled  to  know  which 
they  would  have  chosen  had  they  been  situated  as  above 
described."  .  .  . 

"My  state  of  mind,  which  refers  the  whole  either  to 
some  unseen  intelligence,  or  something  which  man  has 
never  had  any  conception  of,  proves  me  to  be  out  of  the 
pale  of  the  Royal  Society."  .  .  . 

"  Of  the  future  state  we  are  informed  by  some  theolo- 
gians, but  quite  out  of  their  own  heads,  that  all  wants  will 
be  supplied  without  effort,  and  all  doubts  resolved  without 
thought.  This  a  state  !  not  a  bit  of  it ;  a  mere  phase  of 
non-existence ;  annihilation  with  a  consciousness  of  it. 
The  rapping  spirits  know  better  than  that ;  their  views, 
should  they  really  be  human  impostures,  are  very,  very 
singular.  In  spite  of  the  inconsistencies,  the  eccentricities, 
and  the  puerilities  which  some  of  them  have  exhibited, 
there  is  a  uniform  vein  of  description  running  through  their 
accounts,  which,  supposing  it  to  be  laid  down  by  a  combi- 
nation of  impostors,  is  more  than  remarkable — even  mar- 
vellous. The  agreement  is  one  part  of  the  wonder,  it  being 
remembered  that  the  '  mediums  '  are  scattered  through  the 
world ;  but  the  other  and  greater  part  of  it  is,  that  the 
impostors,  if  impostors  they  be,  have  combined  to  oppose 


SPIRITUALISM  :    EVIDENCE  OF  MEN  OF  SCIENCE          85 

all  the  current  ideas  of  a  future  state,  in  order  to  gain 
belief  in  the  genuineness  of  their  pretensions ! " 

"  Ten  years  ago  Mrs.  Hayden,  the  well-known  American 
medium,  came  to  my  house  alone.  The  sitting  began  im- 
mediately after  her  arrival.  Eight  or  nine  persons  were 
present,  of  all  ages  and  of  all  degrees  of  belief  and  unbelief 
in  the  whole  thing  being  imposture.  The  raps  began  in  the 
usual  way.  They  were  to  my  ear  clear,  clean,  faint  sounds 
such  as  would  be  said  to  ring  had  they  lasted.  I  likened 
them  at  the  time  to  the  noise  which  the  ends  of  knitting- 
needles  would  make  if  dropped  from  a  small  distance  upon 
a  marble  slab,  and  instantly  checked  by  a  damper  of  some 
kind.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Hayden  was  seated  at  some  distance  from 
the  table,  and  her  feet  were  watched.  .  .  .  On  being 
asked  to  put  a  question  to  the  first  spirit,  I  begged  that  I 
might  be  allowed  to  put  my  question  mentally — that  is, 
without  speaking  it,  or  writing  it,  or  pointing  it  out  to 
myself  on  an  alphabet — and  that  Mrs.  Hayden  might  hold 
both  arms  extended  while  the  answer  was  in  progress.  Both 
demands  were  instantly  granted  by  a  couple  of  raps.  I  put 
the  question,  and  desired  the  answer  might  be  in  one  word, 
which  I  assigned,  all  mentally.  I  then  took  the  printed 
alphabet,  put  a  book  upright  before  it,  and  bending  my 
eyes  upon  it,  proceeded  to  point  to  the  letters  in  the  usual 
way.  The  word  chess  was  given  by  a  rap  at  each  letter.  I 
had  now  reasonable  certainty  of  the  following  alternative : 
either  some  thought-reading  of  a  character  wholly  inexpli- 
cable, or  such  superhuman  acuteness  on  the  part  of  Mrs. 
Hayden  that  she  could  detect  the  letter  I  wanted  by  my 
bearing,  though  she  (seated  six  feet  from  the  book  which 
hid  my  alphabet)  could  see  neither  my  hand  nor  my  eye, 
nor  at  what  rate  I  was  going  through  the  letters.  I  was 
fated  to  be  driven  out  of  the  second  alternative  before  the 
evening  was  done. 


86  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

"  At  a  later  period  of  the  evening,  when  another  spirit 
was  under  examination,  I  asked  him  whether  he  remem- 
bered a  certain  review  which  was  published  soon  after  his 
death,  and  whether  he  could  give  me  the  initials  of  an 
epithet  (which  happened  to  be  in  five  words)  therein 
applied  to  himself.  Consent  having  been  given,  I  began 
my  way  through  the  alphabet  as  above ;  the  only  differ- 
ence of  circumstances  being  that  a  bright  table-lamp 
was  now  between  me  and  the  medium.  I  expected  to  be 
brought  up  at,  say,  the  letter  F;  and  when  my  pencil 
passed  that  letter  without  any  signal,  I  was  surprised,  and 
by  the  time  I  came  to  K  or  thereabouts,  I  paused,  intend- 
ing to  announce  a  failure.  But  some  one  called  out,  '  You 
have  passed  it ;  I  heard  a  rap  long  ago.'  I  began  again, 
and  distinct  raps  came  first  at  C,  then  at  D.  I  was  now 
satisfied  that  the  spirit  had  failed  ;  but  stopping  to  consider 
a  little  more,  it  flashed  into  my  mind  that  C.  D.  were  his 
own  initials,  and  that  he  had  chosen  to  commence  the 
clause  which  contained  the  epithet.  I  then  said  nothing 
but  '  I  see  what  you  are  at ;  pray  go  on,'  and  I  then  got  T 
(for  The),  then  the  E  I  wanted — of  which  not  a  word  had 
been  said — and  then  the  remaining  four  initials.  I  was 
now  satisfied  that  the  contents  of  my  mind  had  been  read, 
which  could  not  have  been  detected  by  my  method  of 
pointing  to  the  alphabet,  even  supposing  that  could  have 
been  seen.  .  .  .  The  things  which  I  have  set  down  were 
the  beginning  of  a  long  series  of  experiences,  many  as  re- 
markable as  what  I  have  given." — From  Matter  to  Spirit, 
Preface,  pp.  xli.,  xlii. 

From  the  body  of  the  same  work  I  give  one  short  ex- 
tract : — "  The  most  remarkable  instance  of  table-moving 
with  a  purpose  which  ever  came  under  my  notice  occurred 
at  the  house  of  a  friend,  whose  family,  like  my  own,  were 
staying  at  the  seaside.  My  friend's  family  consisted  of  six 


SPIRITUALISM  :    EVIDENCE  OF  MKN  OF  SCIENCE  87 

persons,  and  a  gentleman,  now  the  husband  of  one  of  the 
daughters,  joined  them,  and  I  was  accompanied  by  a  young 
member  of  my  own  family.  No  paid  person  was  present. 
A  gentleman  who  had  been  expressing  himself  in  a 
very  sceptical  manner,  not  only  with  reference  to  spirit 
manifestations,  but  on  the  subject  of  spiritual  existence 
generally,  sat  on  a  sofa  two  or  three  feet  from  the  dining- 
room  table,  round  which  we  were  placed.  After  sitting 
some  time  we  were  directed  by  the  rapping  to  join  hands 
and  stand  up  round  the  table  without  touching  it.  All  did 
so  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour ;  wondering  whether  anything 
would  happen,  or  whether  we  were  hoaxed  by  the  unseen 
power.  Just  as  one  or  two  of  the  party  talked  of  sitting 
down,  the  old  table,  which  was  large  enough  for  eight  or 
ten  persons,  moved  entirely  by  itself  as  we  surrounded  and 
followed  it  with  our  hands  joined,  went  towards  the  gen- 
tleman out  of  the  circle,  and  literally  pushed  him  up  to 
the  back  of  the  sofa  till  he  called  out  '  Hold,  enough.'  " — 
From  Matter  to  Spirit,  p.  26. 

J.  W.  EDMONDS,  commonly  called  Judge  EDMONDS,  was  a 
man  of  considerable  eminence.  He  was  elected  a  member 
of  both  branches  of  the  State  Legislature  of  New  York, 
and  was  for  some  time  President  of  the  Senate.  He  was 
at  one  time  Inspector  of  Prisons,  and  made  great  improve- 
ments in  the  penitentiary  system.  After  passing  through 
various  lower  offices,  he  was  made  a  Judge  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  New  York.  This  is  the  highest  judicial  office  in 
the  State ;  he  held  it  for  six  years,  and  then  resigned, 
solely  on  account  of  the  outcry  raised  against  him  on  its 
being  known  that  he  had  become  convinced  on  the  subject 
of  Spiritualism.  He  then  resumed  his  practice  at  the  bar, 
and  was  elected  to  the  important  office  of  Kecorder  of 
New  York,  which,  however,  he  declined  to  accept. 

The  Judge  was  first  induced  by  some  friends  to  visit  a 


88  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

medium,  and  being  astonished  at  what  he  saw,  determined 
to  investigate  the  matter,  and  discover  and  expose  what 
he  then  believed  to  be  a  great  imposture.  The  following 
are  some  of  his  experiences  given  in  his  work  on  Spirit 
Manifestations : " — 

"  On  the  23rd  April  1851,  I  was  one  of  a  party  of  nine 
who  sat  round  a  centre  table,  on  which  a  lamp  was  burn- 
ing, and  another  lamp  was  burning  on  the  mantelpiece. 
And  then,  in  plain  sight  of  us  all,  that  table  was  lifted  at 
least  a  foot  from  the  floor,  and  shaken  backwards  and  for- 
wards as  easily  as  I  could  shake  a  goblet  in  my  hand. 
Some  of  the  party  tried  to  stop  it  by  the  exercise  of  their 
strength,  but  in  vain ;  so  we  all  drew  back  from  the  table, 
and  by  the  light  of  those  two  burning  lamps  we  saw  the 
heavy  mahogany  table  suspended  in  the  air." 

At  the  next  stance  a  variety  of  extraordinary  phenomena 
occurred  to  him.  "  As  I  stood  in  a  corner  where  no  one 
could  reach  my  pocket,  I  felt  a  hand  thrust  into  it,  and 
found  afterwards  that  six  knots  had  been  tried  in  my 
handkerchief.  A  bass  viol  was  put  into  my  hand,  and 
rested  on  my  foot,  and  then  played  upon.  My  person  was 
repeatedly  touched,  and  a  chair  pulled  from  under  me.  I 
felt  on  one  of  my  arms  what  seemed  to  be  the  grip  of  an 
iron  hand.  I  felt  distinctly  the  thumb  and  fingers,  the 
palm  of  the  hand,  and  the  ball  of  the  thumb,  and  it  held 
me  fast  by  a  power  which  I  struggled  to  escape  from  in 
vain.  With  my  other  hand  I  felt  all  round  where  the 
pressure  was,  and  satisfied  myself  that  it  was  no  earthly 
hand  that  was  thus  holding  me  fast,  nor  indeed  could  it 
be,  for  I  was  as  powerless  in  that  grip  as  a  fly  would  be 
in  the  grasp  of  my  hand.  It  continued  with  me  till  I 
thoroughly  felt  how  powerless  I  was,  and  had  tried  every 
means  to  get  rid  of  it."  Again,  as  instances  of  the  intelli- 
gence and  knowledge  of  the  unseen  power,  he  says  that 


SPIRITUALISM  :    EVIDENCE  OF  MEN  OF  SCIENCE  89 

during  his  journey  to  Central  America,  his  friends  in  New 
York  were  almost  daily  informed  of  his  condition.  On 
returning,  he  compared  his  own  journal  with  their  notes, 
and  found  that  they  had  accurately  known  the  day  he 
landed,  days  on  which  he  was  unwell  or  well ;  and  on  one 
occasion  it  was  said  he  had  a  headache,  and  at  the  very 
hour  he  was  confined  to  his  bed  by  a  sick  headache  2000 
miles  away.  As  another  example  he  says,  "  My  daughter 
had  gone  with  her  little  son  to  visit  some  relatives  400 
miles  from  New  York.  During  her  absence,  about  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  I  was  told  through  this  spiritual 
intercourse  that  the  little  fellow  was  very  sick.  I  went 
after  him,  and  found  that  at  the  very  hour  I  received  that 
intelligence  he  was  very  sick ;  his  mother  and  aunt  were 
sitting  up  with  him,  and  were  alarmed  for  the  result." 
.  .  .  "This  will  give  a  general  idea  of  what  I  was  wit- 
nessing two  or  three  times  a  week  for  more  than  a  year. 
I  was  not  a  believer  seeking  confirmation  of  my  own 
notions.  I  was  struggling  against  conviction.  I  have  not 
stopped  to  detail  the  precautions  which  I  took  to  guard 
against  deception,  self  or  otherwise.  Suffice  it  to  say  that 
in  that  respect  I  omitted  nothing  which  my  ingenuity 
could  devise.  There  was  no  cavil  too  captious  for  me  to 
resort  to,  no  scrutiny  too  rigid  or  impertinent  for  me  to 
institute,  no  inquiry  too  intrusive  for  me  to  make." 

In  a  letter  published  in  the  New  York  Herald,  August 
6,  1853,  after  giving  an  abstract  of  his  investigations,  he 
says :  "I  went  into  the  investigation  originally  thinking 
it  a  deception,  and  intending  to  make  public  my  exposure 
of  it.  Having,  from  my  researches,  come  to  a  different 
conclusion,  I  feel  that  the  obligation  to  make  known  the 
result  is  just  as  strong.  Therefore  it  is,  mainly,  that  I 
give  the  result  to  the  world.  I  say  mainly,  because  there 
is  another  consideration  which  influences  me,  and  that  is, 


90  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

the  desire  to  extend  to  others  a  knowledge  which  I  am 
conscious  cannot  but  make  them  happier  and  better." 

I  would  now  ask  whether  it  is  possible  that  Judge 
Edmonds  can  have  been  deceived  as  to  these  facts,  and 
not  be  insane.  Yet  he  practised  at  the  bar,  and  was 
in  the  highest  repute  as  a  lawyer  till  his  death,  about 
twenty  years  ago. 

ROBERT  HARE,  M.D.,  Emeritus  Professor  of  Chemistry 
in  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  was  one  of  the  most 
eminent  scientific  men  of  America.  He  distinguished  him- 
self by  a  number  of  important  discoveries  (among  which 
may  be  mentioned  the  oxy-hydrogen  blowpipe),  and  was 
the  author  of  more  than  150  papers  on  scientific  subjects, 
besides  others  on  political  and  moral  questions.  In  1853 
his  attention  was  first  directed  to  table-turning  a~<l  allied 
phenomena,  and  finding  that  the  explanation  of  Faraday, 
which  he  had  at  first  received  as  sufficient,  would  not 
account  for  the  facts,  he  set  himself  to  work  to  devise 
apparatus  which  would,  as  he  expected,  conclusively  prove 
that  no  force  was  exerted  but  that  of  the  persons  at  the 
table.  The  result  was  not  as  he  expected,  for  however  he 
varied  his  experiments,  he  was  in  every  case  only  able  to 
obtain  results  which  proved  that  there  was  a  power  at 
work  not  that  of  any  human  being  present.  But  in  addi- 
tion to  the  power  there  was  an  intelligence,  and  he  was 
thus  compelled  to  believe  that  existences  not  human  did 
communicate  with  him. 

It  is  often  asserted  by  the  disbelievers  in  these  pheno- 
mena that  no  scientific  man  has  fully  investigated  them. 
This  is  not  true.  No  one  who  has  not  himself  inquired 
into  the  facts  has  a  right  even  to  give  an  opinion  on  the 
subject  till  he  knows  what  has  been  done  by  others  in  the 
investigation ;  and  to  know  this  it  will  be  necessary  for 
him  to  read  carefully,  among  other  works,  Hare's  Exgeri- 


SPIRITUALISM  :    EVIDENCE  OF  MEN  OF  SCIENCE  91 

mental  Investigations  of  the  Spirit  Manifestations,  which 
has  passed  through  five  editions.  It  is  a  volume  of  460 
closely-printed  8vo  pages,  and  contains,  besides  the  details 
of  his  experiments,  numerous  discussions  on  philosophical, 
moral,  and  theological  questions,  which  manifest  great  ' 
acuteness  and  logical  power.  The  experiments  he  made 
were  all  through  private  mediums,  and  his  apparatus  was 
so  contrived  that  the  medium  could  not  possibly,  under  the 
test  condition,  either  produce  the  motions  or  direct  the 
communications  that  ensued.  For  example,  the  table  by 
its  movements  caused  an  index  to  revolve  over  an  alphabet 
on  a  disc;  yet,  when  the  medium  could  not  see  the  disc,  the 
index  moved  to  such  letters  as  to  spell  out  intelligent  and 
accurate  communications.  And  when  the  medium's  hands 
were  placed  upon  a  truly  plane  metal  plate,  supported  on 
accurately  turned  metal  balls,  so  that  not  the  slightest  im- 
pulse could  be  communicated  by  her  to  the  table,  yet  the 
table  still  moved  easily  and  intelligently.  In  another  case 
a  medium's  hands  were  suspended  in  water,  so  as  to  have 
no  connection  with  the  board  on  which  the  water  vessel  was 
placed,  and  yet,  at  request,  a  force  of  18  Ibs.  was  exerted 
on  the  boards,  as  indicated  by  a  spring  balance  (see  pages 
40  to  50).  A  considerable  space  is  devoted  to  communi- 
cations received  through  the  means  of  the  above-named 
apparatus,  describing  the  future  life  of  human  beings ; 
and,  as  far  as  my  own  judgment  goes,  these  descriptions, 
taken  as  a  whole,  give  us  a  far  more  exalted,  and  at  the 
same  time  more  rational  and  connected,  view  of  spirit  life 
than  do  the  doctrines  of  any  other  religion  or  philosophy ; 
while  they  are  certainly  more  conducive  to  morality,  and 
inculcate  most  strongly  the  importance  of  cultivating  to 
the  uttermost  every  mental  faculty  with  which  we  are  en- 
dowed. Even  if  it  be  possible  to  prove  that  the  supposed 
superhuman  source  of  these  communications  is  a  delusion, 


92  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

I  would  still  maintain  that,  standing  on  their  own  merits, 
they  give  us  the  best,  the  highest,  the  most  rational,  and 
the  most  acceptable  ideas  of  a  future  state,  and  must  prove 
the  best  incentive  to  intellectual  and  moral  advancement ; 
and  I  would  call  upon  every  thinker  to  examine  the  work 
on  this  account  alone  before  deciding  against  it. 

I  shall  next  adduce,  very  briefly,  the  testimony  of  a 
number  of  well-known  and  intelligent  Englishmen  to  facts 
of  a  similar  nature  witnessed  by  themselves. 


EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN        93 


VII 

EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN 
TO  THE  FACTS  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

T.  ADOLPHUS  TROLLOPE  was  educated  at  Oxford,  and  is 
the  well-known  author  of  numerous  works  of  high  excel- 
lence in  the  departments  of  travels,  fiction,  biography, 
and  history.  In  1855  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Mr.  Rymer,  of 
Ealing,  which  was  published  in  the  Morning  Advertiser, 
and  is  reproduced  in  Incidents  of  my  Life,  2nd  edit.,  p. 
252,  in  which  he  shows  the  inaccuracy  and  unfairness  of 
Sir  David  Brewster's  account  of  phenomena  occurring  in 
the  presence  of  both  at  Mr.  Rymer's  house,  and  concludes 
with  these  words :  "I  should  not,  my  dear  sir,  do  all  that 
duty,  I  think,  requires  of  me,  in  this  case,  were  I  to  con- 
clude without  stating  very  solemnly  that,  after  very  many 
opportunities  of  witnessing  and  investigating  the  pheno- 
mena caused  by,  or  happening  to,  Mr.  Home,  I  am  wholly 
convinced  that,  be  what  may  their  origin  and  cause  and 
nature,  they  are  not  produced  by  any  fraud,  machinery, 
juggling,  illusion,  or  trickery  on  his  part."  Again,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Athenceum,  eight  years  latter  (dated  Florence, 
March  21,  1863),  he  says,  "  I  have  been  present  at  very 
many  '  sittings '  of  Mr.  Home  in  England,  many  in  my 
own  house  in  Florence,  some  in  the  house  of  a  friend  in 
Florence.  .  .  .  My  testimony  then  is  this :  1  have  seen 
and  felt  physical  facts,  wholly  and  utterly  inexplicable,  as 
I  believe,  by  any  known  and  generally  received  physical 
laws.  I  unhesitatingly  reject  the  theory  which  considers 
such  facts  to  be  produced  by  means  familiar  to  the  best 
professors  of  legerdemain." 


94  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

An  opinion  so  positive  as  this,  from  a  man  of  such 
eminence,  who  during  eight  years  has  had  repeated  oppor- 
tunities of  witnessing,  examining,  and  reflecting  on  the 
phenomena,  must  surely  be  held  as  of  far  more  value  than 
the  opposite  opinion  so  frequently  put  forward  by  those 
who  have  either  not  witnessed  them  at  all,  or  only  on  one 
or  two  occasions. 

JAMES  M.  GULLY,  M.D.,  author  of  Neuropathy  and 
Nervousness,  Simple  Treatment  of  Disease,  The  Water  Cure 
in  Chronic  Diseases.  Of  the  last  work  the  Athenceum 
said :  "  Dr.  Gully's  book  is  evidently  written  by  a 
well-educated  medical  man.  This  work  is  by  far  the 
most  scientific  that  we  have  seen  on  Hydropathy."  Dr. 
Gully  was  one  of  the  persons  present  at  the  celebrated 
stance  described  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  in  1860  under 
the  title  "  Stranger  than  Fiction,"  and  he  wrote  a  letter 
to  the  Morning  Star  newspaper,  confirming  the  entire 
truthfulness  of  that  article.  He  says :  "I  can  state 
with  the  greatest  positiveness  that  the  record  made  in 
the  article  '  Stranger  than  Fiction '  is  in  every  particular 
correct ;  that  the  phenomena  therein  related  actually 
took  place  in  the  evening  meeting ;  and,  moreover,  that 
no  trick,  machinery,  sleight-of-hand,  or  other  artistic  con- 
trivance produced  what  we  heard  and  beheld.  I  am 
quite  as  convinced  of  this  last  as  I  am  of  the  facts 
themselves."  He  then  goes  on  to  show  the  absurdity 
of  all  suggested  explanations  of  such  phenomena  as 
Mr.  Home's  floating  across  the  room,  which  he  both  saw 
and  felt;  and  the  playing  of  the  accordion  in  several 
persons'  hands,  often  three  yards'  distance  from  Mr. 
Home.  But  the  most  important  fact  is,  that  Dr.  Gully 
became  one  of  Mr.  Home's  most  esteemed  friends.  He 
received  Mr.  Home  frequently  in  his  house,  and  had 
ample  opportunities  of  testing  the  phenomena  in  private, 


EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN        95 

and  of  certainly  detecting  the  gigantic  and  complicated 
system  of  deception,  if  it  be  such.  To  most  minds  this 
will  be  stronger  proof  of  the  reality  of  the  phenomena 
than  any  facts  observed  at  a  single  stance,  or  than  any 
unsupported  assertion  that  the  thing  is  impossible. 

WILLIAM  HOWITT,  the  well-known  author  of  Rural 
Life  in  England,  of  several  historical  works  exhibiting 
great  research,  of  many  excellent  works  of  fiction,  and 
of  a  History  of  Discovery  in  Australia,  had  extensive 
opportunities  of  investigating  the  phenomena,  and  can 
hardly  be  supposed  to  be  incapable  of  judging  of  such 
palpable  facts  as  these : — "  Mrs.  Howitt  had  a  sprig  of 
geranium  handed  to  her  by  an  invisible  hand,  which  we 
have  planted,  and  it  is  growing ;  so  that  it  is  no  delusion, 
no  fairy  money  turned  into  dross  or  leaves.  I  saw  a  spirit 
hand  as  distinctly  as  I  ever  saw  my  own.  I  touched  one 
several  times,  once  when  it  was  handing  me  a  flower." 
..."  A  few  evenings  afterwards  a  lady  desiring  that 
the  '  Last  Rose  of  Summer '  might  be  played  by  a  spirit 
on  the  accordion,  the  wish  was  complied  with,  but  in  so 
wretched  a  style  that  the  company  begged  that  it  might 
be  discontinued.  This  was  done,  but  soon  after,  evidently 
by  another  spirit,  the  accordion  was  carried  and  suspended 
over  the  lady's  head,  and  there,  without  any  visible  support 
or  action  on  the  instrument,  the  air  was  played  through 
most  admirably,  in  the  view  and  hearing  of  all." — Letter 
from  William  Howitt  to  Mr.  Barkas,  of  Newcastle,  printed 
in  Home's  Incidents  of  my  Life,  2nd  edit.,  p.  189. 

Here  the  fact  of  the  spectators  not  receiving  bad  music 
for  good,  because  they  believed  it  to  proceed  from  a  super- 
human source,  is  decidedly  in  favour  of  their  coolness  and 
judgment,  and  the  fact  was  one  which  the  senses  of  ordi- 
nary mortals  are  quite  capable  of  verifying. 

The   HON.    COLONEL  WILBRAHAM  sent  the  following 


96  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

letter  to   Mr.  Home.     I  extract  it  from  the  Spiritual 
Magazine : — 

"46  BROOK  STREET,  April  14,  -1863. 

"  MY  DEAR  MR.  HOME, — I  have  much  pleasure  in  stating  that  I 
have  attended  several  seances,  in  your  presence,  at  the  houses  of  two 
of  my  intimate  friends  and  at  my  own,  when  I  have  witnessed  phe- 
nomena similar  to  those  described  in  your  book,  which  I  feel  certain 
could  not  have  been  produced  by  any  trick  or  collusion  whatever. 
The  rooms  in  which  they  occurred  were  always  perfectly  lighted  ; 
and  it  was  impossible  for  me  to  disbelieve  the  evidence  of  my  own 
senses. — Believe  me,  yours  very  truly, 

"  E.  B.  WlLBRAHAM." 

S.  C.  HALL,  F.S.A.,  Barrister-at-Law,  for  many  years 
editor  of  the  Art  Journal,  and  well  known  in  literary, 
artistic,  and  philanthropic  circles,  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  the  editor  of  the  Spiritual  Magazine,  (1863, 
p.  336)  :— 

"  SIR, — I  follow  the  example  of  Colonel  Wilbraham,  and  desire  to 
record  my  belief  in  the  statements  put  forth  by  Mr.  D.  D.  Home 
(Incidents  of  my  Life).  I  have  myself  seen  nearly  all  the  marvels 
he  relates,  some  in  his  presence,  some  with  other  mediums,  and 
some  when  there  was  no  medium-aid  (when  Mrs.  Hall  and  I  sat 
alone).  Not  long  ago  I  must  have  confessed  to  disbelief  in  all 
miracles  ;  I  have  seen  so  many  that  my  faith  as  a  Christian  is  now 
not  merely  outward  profession,  but  entire  and  solemn  conviction. 
For  this  incalculable  good  I  am  indebted  to  '  Spiritualism  ; '  and  it 
is  my  bounden  duty  to  induce  knowledge  of  its  power  to  teach  and 
to  make  happy.  That  duty  may,  for  the  present,  be  limited  to  a 
declaration  of  confidence  in  Mr.  Home. — Yours,  &c., 

«  S.  C.  HALL." 

NASSAU  WILLIAM  SENIOR,  late  Master  in  Chancery,  and 
twice  Professor  of  Political  Economy  in  the  University  of 
Oxford,  was  one  who,  it  will  astonish  many  persons  to 
hear,  had  become  convinced  of  the  truth  and  reality  of 
what  they  in  their  superior  knowledge  suppose  to  be  a 


EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN        97 

gross  delusion.  In  his  Historical  and  Philosophical  Essays, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  256-266,  he  gives  a  careful  summary  of  the 
amount  and  kind  of  evidence  in  favour  of  Phrenology, 
Homoeopathy,  and  Mesmerism,  and  concludes  thus  : — "  No 
one  can  doubt  that  phenomena  like  these  deserve  to  be 
observed,  recorded,  and  arranged ;  and  whether  we  call  by 
the  name  of  Mesmerism,  or  by  any  other  name,  the  science 
which  proposes  to  do  this,  is  a  mere  question  of  nomen- 
clature. Among  those  who  profess  this  science  there 
may  be  careless  observers,  prejudiced  recorders,  and  rash 
systematisers ;  their  errors  and  defects  may  impede  the 
progress  of  knowledge,  but  they  will  not  stop  it.  And  we 
have  no  doubt  that,  before  the  end  of  this  century,  the 
wonders  which  now  perplex  almost  equally  those  who 
accept  and  those  who  reject  modern  Mesmerism  will  be 
distributed  into  defined  classes,  and  found  subject  to  ascer- 
tained laws — in  other  words,  will  become  the  subjects  of 
a  science." 

These  views  will  prepare  us  for  the  following  statement, 
made  in  the  Spiritual  Magazine,  1864,  p.  336,  and  which 
can  be,  no  doubt,  authoritatively  denied  if  incorrect: — 
"  We  have  only  to  add,  as  a  further  tribute  to  the  attain- 
ments and  honours  of  Mr.  Senior,  that  he  was  by  long 
inquiry  and  experience  a  firm  believer  in  Spiritual  power 
and  manifestations.  Mr.  Home  was  his  frequent  guest, 
and  Mr.  Senior  made  no  secret  of  his  belief  among  his 
friends.  He  it  was  who  recommended  the  publication  of 
Mr.  Home's  recent  work  by  Messrs.  Longmans,  and  he 
authorised  the  publication,  under  initials,  of  one  of  the 
striking  incidents  there  given,  which  happened  to  a  near 
and  dear  member  of  his  family." 

The  Rev.  WILLIAM  KEUR,  M.A.,  Incumbent  of  Tipton, 
in  his  work  on  Future  Punishment,  Immortality,  and 
Modern  Spiritualism,  thus  gives  his  testimony  to  the 

G 


98  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

facts : — "  The  writer  of  these  pages  has,  for  a  length  of 
time,  bestowed  great  attention  upon  the  subject,  and  is  in 
a  position  to  affirm  with  all  confidence,  from  his  own  ex- 
perience and  repeated  trials,  that  the  alleged  phenomena 
of  Spiritualism  are,  for  by  far  the  most  part,  the  products 
neither  of  imposture  nor  delusion.  They  are  true,  and  that 
to  the  fullest  extent.  The  marvels  which  he  himself  has 
witnessed,  in  the  private  retirement  of  his  own  home,  with 
only  a  few  select  friends,  and  without  having  even  so  much 
as  ever  seen  a  public  medium,  are  in  many  respects  fully 
equal  to  any  of  the  startling  narratives  that  have  appeared 
in  print." 

THACKERAY,  though  a  cool-headed  man  of  the  world  and 
a  close  student  of  human  nature,  could  not  resist  the  evi- 
dence of  his  senses  in  this  matter.  Mr.  Weld,  in  his  Last 
Winter  in  Home,  p.  180,  states,  that  at  a  dinner  shortly 
after  the  appearance  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine  of  the  article 
entitled  "  Stranger  than  Fiction,"  Mr.  Thackeray  was  re- 
proached with  having  permitted  such  a  paper  to  appear. 
After  quietly  hearing  all  that  could  be  said  on  the  subject, 
Thackeray  replied,  "It  is  all  very  well  for  you,  who  have 
probably  never  seen  any  Spiritual  manifestations,  to  talk 
as  you  do ;  but  had  you  seen  what  I  have  witnessed,  you 
would  hold  a  different  opinion."  He  then  proceeded  to  in- 
form Mr.  Weld  and  the  company  that  when  in  New  York, 
at  a  dinner-party,  he  saw  the  large  and  heavy  dinner  table, 
covered  with  decanters,  glasses,  and  a  complete  dessert,  rise 
fully  two  feet  from  the  ground,  the  modus  operandi  being, 
as  he  alleged,  spiritual  force.  No  possible  jugglery,  he 
declared,  was  or  could  have  been  employed  on  the  occa- 
sion ;  and  he  felt  so  convinced  that  the  motive  force  was 
supernatural,  that  he  then  and  there  gave  in  his  adhesion 
to  the  truth  of  Spiritualism,  and  consequently  accepted 
the  article  on  Mr.  Home's  se'ance. 


EVIDENCE  OF  LITERARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN        99 

The  late  LORD  CHANCELLOR  LYNDHURST  was  another 
eminent  convert  to  Spiritualism.  In  the  Spiritual  Maga- 
zine, 1863,  p.  519,  it  is  said,  "  He  was  a  careful  and  scruti- 
nising observer  of  all  facts  which  came  under  his  notice, 
and  had  no  predilections  or  prejudices  against  any,  and 
during  the  repeated  interviews  which  he  has  had  with  Mr. 
Home,  he  was  entirely  satisfied  of  the  nearness  of  the 
spiritual  world,  and  of  the  power  of  spirits  to  communicate 
with  those  still  in  the  flesh.  As  to  the  truth  of  the  mere 
physical  phenomena,  he  had  no  difficulty  in  acknowledging 
them  to  the  fullest  extent,  neither  did  he,  like  many,  make 
any  secret  of  his  conviction,  as  his  friends  can  testify." 

ARCHBISHOP  WHATELY  was  a  Spiritualist.  Mr.  Fitz- 
patrick  in  his  Memoirs  of  Whately  tells  us  that  the 
Archbishop  had  been  long  a  believer  in  Mesmerism,  and 
latterly  in  clairvoyance  and  Spiritualism.  "  He  went  from 
one  extreme  to  another,  until  he  avowed  an  implicit  belief 
in  clairvoyance,  induced  a  lady  who  possessed  it  to  become 
an  inmate  of  his  house,  and  some  of  the  last  acts  of  his  life 
were  excited  attempts  at  table-turning,  and  enthusiastic 
elicitations  of  spirit-rapping."  This  converted  into  plain 
language  means,  that  the  Archbishop  examined  into  the 
facts  before  deciding  against  their  possibility,  and  having 
satisfied  himself  by  personal  experiment  of  their  reality, 
saw  their  immense  importance,  and  pursued  the  investi- 
gation with  ardour. 

Dr.  ELLIOTSON,  who  for  many  years  was  one  of  the  most 
determined  opponents  of  Spiritualism,  was  at  length  con- 
vinced by  the  irresistible  logic  of  facts.  Mr.  Coleman  thus 
writes  in  the  Spiritual  Magazine,  1864,  p.  216  : — "'I  am,' 
Dr.  Elliotson  said  to  me,  and  it  is  with  his  sanction  that  I 
make  the  announcement,  '  now  quite  satisfied  of  the  reality 
of  the  phenomena.  I  am  not  yet  prepared  to  admit  that 
they  are  produced  by  the  agency  of  spirits.  I  do  not  deny 


100  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

this,  as  I  am  unable  to  satisfactorily  account  for  what  I 
have  seen  on  any  other  hypothesis.  The  explanations 
which  have  been  made  to  account  for  the  phenomena  do 
not  satisfy  me,  but  I  desire  to  reserve  my  opinion  on  that 
point  at  present.  I  am  free,  however,  to  say  that  I  regret 
the  opportunity  was  not  afforded  me  at  an  earlier  period. 
What  I  have  seen  lately  has  made  a  deep  impression  on 
my  mind,  and  the  recognition  of  the  reality  of  these  mani- 
festations, from  whatever  cause,  is  tending  to  revolutionise 
my  thoughts  and  feelings  on  almost  every  subject.' " 

The  late  SIR  EICHARD  BURTON  was  not  a  man  to  be 
taken  in  by  a  "  gross  deception,"  yet  note  what  he  says 
about  the  Davenport  Brothers,  who  are  supposed  to  have 
been  so  often  exposed.  In  a  letter  to  Dr.  Ferguson,  and 
published  by  him,  Burton  states  that  he  has  seen  these 
manifestations  under  the  most  favourable  circumstances, 
in  private  houses,  when  the  spectators  were  all  sceptics, 
the  doors  bolted,  and  the  ropes,  tape,  and  musical  instru- 
ments provided  by  themselves.  He  goes  on  to  say :  "  Mr. 
W.  Fay's  coat  was  removed  while  he  was  securely  fastened 
hand  and  foot,  and  a  lucifer  match  was  struck  at  the  same 
instant,  showing  us  the  two  gentlemen  fast  bound,  and  the 
coat  in  the  air  on  its  way  to  the  other  side  of  the  room. 
Under  precisely  similar  circumstances,  another  gentle- 
man's coat  was  placed  upon  him."  And  he  concludes 
thus :  "  I  have  spent  a  great  part  of  my  life  in  Oriental 
lands,  and  have  seen  there  many  magicians.  Lately  I  have 
been  permitted  to  see  and  be  present  at  the  performances 
of  Messrs.  Anderson  and  Tolmaque.  The  latter  showed, 
as  they  profess,  clever  conjuring,  but  they  do  not  even 
attempt  what  the  Messrs.  Davenport  and  Fay  succeed  in 
doing.  Finally,  I  have  read  and  listened  to  every  expla- 
nation of  the  Davenport  '  tricks '  hitherto  placed  before 
the  English  public,  and,  believe  me,  if  anything  would 


EVIDENCE  OF  LITEHARY  AND  PROFESSIONAL  MEN       101 

make  me  take  that  tremendous  leap  'from  matter  to 
spirit/  it  is  the  utter  and  complete  unreason  of  the  reasons 
by  which  the  manifestations  are  explained." 

Professor  CHALLIS,  the  Plumierian  Professor  of  Astro- 
nomy at  Cambridge,  is  almost  the  only  person  who,  as  far 
I  know,  has  stated  his  belief  in  some  of  these  phenomena 
solely  from  the  weight  of  testimony  in  favour  of  them.  In 
a  letter  to  the  Clerical  Journal  of  June  (?)  1862,  he  says : 
"  But  although  I  have  no  grounds,  from  personal  observa- 
tion, for  giving  credit  to  the  asserted  spontaneous  move- 
ments of  tables,  I  have  been  unable  to  resist  the  large 
amount  of  testimony  to  such  facts,  which  has  come  from 
many  independent  sources,  and  from  a  vast  number  of 
witnesses.  England,  France,  Germany,  the  United  States 
of  America,  with  most  of  the  other  nations  of  Christen- 
dom, contributed  simultaneously  their  quota  of  evidence. 
.  .  .  In  short,  the  testimony  has  been  so  abundant  and  con- 
sentaneous, that  either  the  facts  must  be  admitted  to  be  such 
as  are  reported,  or  the  possibility  of  certifying  facts  by  human 
testimony  must  be  given  up." 

MORE  EECENT  TESTIMONY. 

Since  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of  this  work 
a  vast  mass  of  additional  testimony  has  become  available, 
and  a  considerable  number  of  eminent  men  have  declared 
their  conviction  of  the  reality  of  the  various  classes  of 
facts  which  have  been  here  described  or  referred  to.  The 
best  known  and  most  weighty  of  these  converts  are, — 
WILLIAM  CROOKES,  F.E.S.,  a  chemist  of  world- wide  re- 
putation ;  Professor  OLIVER  LODGE,  F.R.S.  of  University 
College,  Liverpool ;  the  late  Professor  ZOLLNER  of  the 
University  of  Leipsic ;  the  EARL  OF  CRAWFORD  AND  BAL- 
CARRES,  F.E.S.,  a  past-President  of  the  Eoyal  Astronomical 


102  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

Society;  Mr.  F.  W.  H.  MYERS,  of  Cambridge,  a  literary 
man  of  eminent  ability  and  judgment ;  Professor  ELLIOTT 
COUES,  of  Washington,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of 
American  men  of  science;  Professor  W.  F.  BARRETT,  of 
the  Royal  College  of  Science,  Dublin ;  the  late  Professor 
BALFOUR  STEWART,  F.R.S.,  of  the  Owens  College,  Man- 
chester; and  the  late  HENSLEIGH  WEDGWOOD,  author  of 
valuable  works  on  philology.  Besides  these  there  are 
many  who  are  less  generally  known,  while  in  every 
country  in  Europe  numbers  of  well-known  medical  men, 
as  well  as  professors  of  various  branches  of  science,  have 
satisfied  themselves  of  the  reality  and  importance  of  the 
phenomena. 

Perhaps  the  most  valuable  body  of  new  evidence  has 
been  obtained  through  Mr.  WILLIAM  STAINTON  MOSES,  for 
many  years  one  of  the  Masters  in  University  College 
School,  and  a  man  of  exceptional  ability  as  well  as  of  the 
highest  character.  He  was  as  remarkable  a  medium  as 
D.  D.  Home,  with  the  great  advantage  that  he  was  a  man 
of  considerable  literary  power  and  methodical  habits ;  and 
that,  during  the  last  seventeen  years  of  his  life,  he  kept 
accurate  and  systematic  records  of  all  the  phenomena  that 
occurred  through  his  own  pyschic  powers.  He  sat  almost 
entirely  with  private  friends,  many  of  whom  also  kept 
notes  of  what  occurred ;  and  after  a  full  examination  of 
all  these  independent  records,  Mr.  Myers  concludes  that 
the  various  phenomena,  many  of  which  were  of  the  most 
remarkable  character,  are  thoroughly  well  established.  The 
inquirer  should  read  carefully  Mr.  Myers'  article,  The 
Experiences  of  W.  Stainton  Moses,  in  the  Proceedings  of 
the  Society  for  Psychical  Eesearch,  vol.  ix.,  and  should  also 
study  Mr.  Moses'  own  publications — Spirit  Identity,  Psy- 
chography,  and  Spirit  Teachings. 
Mr.  WILLIAM  CROOKES,  F.R.S.,  investigated  the  phe- 


MORE  RECENT  TESTIMONY  103 

nomena  of  Spiritualism  for  nearly  four  years,  through  the 
aid  of  Mr.  Home,  Miss  Kate  Fox,  Miss  Florence  Cook, 
and  some  other  mediums.  The  experiments  all  took  place 
in  his  own  house  and  often  in  his  laboratory,  and  various 
tests  were  applied  by  means  of  the  electrical  and  other 
apparatus  at  his  command.  He  found  all  the  phenomena 
to  be  genuine,  including  the  production  of  what  are 
termed  spirit-forms,  which  he  succeeded  in  photographing. 
In  1874  he  published  a  brief  account  of  his  experiments 
under  the  title  Researches  in  the  Phenomena  of  Spiritualism. 
Fifteen  years  later  he  contributed  a  paper  to  the  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  entitled,  Notes 
of  Stances  with  D.  D,  Home,  of  which  he  says — "  Their 
publication  will,  at  any  rate,  show  that  I  have  not  changed 
my  mind  ;  that  on  dispassionate  review  of  statements  put 
forth  by  me  nearly  twenty  years  ago,  I  find  nothing  to 
retract  or  to  alter.  I  have  discovered  no  flaw  in  the 
experiments  then  made  or  in  the  reasoning  I  based  upon 
them." 

Mr.  OLIVER  J.  LODGE,  F.R.S.,  Professor  of  Physics  at 
Liverpool  University  College,  published  in  1890  an  account 
of  a  series  of  twenty-two  sittings,  in  his  own  house,  with 
an  American  trance  medium,  Mrs.  Piper.  His  conclusion 
is  thus  stated : — "  That  there  is  more  than  can  be  explained 
by  any  amount  of  conscious  or  unconscious  fraud,  that  the 
phenomenon  is  a  genuine  one  however,  it  is  to  be  explained, 
I  now  regard  as  absolutely  certain ;  and  I  make  the  fol- 
lowing two  statements  with  the  utmost  confidence : — (1) 
Mrs.  Piper's  attitude  is  not  one  of  deception.  (2)  No 
conceivable  amount  of  deception  can  explain  the  facts." 
The  full  details  of  these  sittings,  together  with  those  of 
other  persons  with  the  same  medium,  are  given  in  the 
Proc.  of  the  Soc.  for  Psych.  Research  for  December  1890. 

In  1894  Professor  Lodge  devoted  three  weeks  to  an 


104  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

investigation  of  physical  phenomena  occurring  in  the 
presence  of  Eusapia  Palladino,  an  uneducated  Neapolitan 
woman  who  had  been  tested  by  numbers  of  men  of  science — 
Italian,  German,  and  French — all  of  whom  became  satis- 
fied of  the  genuineness  of  the  manifestations.  The  sittings 
took  place  in  private  houses  belonging  to  Professor  Charles 
Kichet,  a  French  physician  who  has  made  a  special  study 
of  mental  diseases  and  of  hypnotism,  and  under  test  con- 
ditions usually  under  Professor  Lodge's  personal  super- 
vision. The  phenomena  consisted  of  the  motion  of  various 
objects  at  considerable  distances  from  the  medium,  the 
appearance  of  hands  and  faces  not  those  of  any  person 
present,  musical  sounds  produced  on  an  accordion  and 
piano  while  no  one  was  touching  either  instrument,  a 
heavy  table  turned  completely  over  while  untouched  by 
any  one,  various  parts  of  the  Professor's  body  touched  or 
grasped  as  by  invisible  hands  while  the  medium's  hands 
were  securely  held,  and  lights  like  glowworms  flitting 
about  the  room.  His  conclusion  was  that  these  various 
phenomena  were  not  produced  by  the  medium  in  any 
normal  way,  and  that  they  were  not  explicable  as  the 
result  of  any  known  physical  causes.  The  full  description 
and  discussion  of  these  seances  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Journal  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research  for  December 
1894,  with  objections  and  further  details  in  the  issues 
for  March,  April,  and  May  1895. 

One  more  scientific  investigator  may  be  briefly  referred 
to.  The  late  JOHANN  C.  F.  ZOLLNER,  Professor  of  Phy- 
sical Astronomy  at  the  University  of  Leipsic,  had  more 
than  thirty  sittings  with  the  American  medium  Slade,  in 
his  own  house  at  Leipsic,  or  in  the  houses  of  his  friends, 
between  November  1877  and  May  1878,  and  witnessed 
some  of  the  most  remarkable  physical  phenomena  that 
have  been  recorded ;  all  in  the  presence  of  one  or  more 


MORE  RECENT  TESTIMONY  105 

of  his  fellow-professors,  especially  of  Professors  Weber, 
Scheibner,  and  Fechner.  Among  these  phenomena  were 
the  tying  of  knots  in  cords  or  strips  of  leather,  the  ends 
of  which  were  tied  together  and  sealed  to  a  piece  of  card, 
these  ends  being  held  by  Zollner  upon  the  surface  of  the 
table,  the  looped  ends  hanging  down  on  his  knees ;  and 
the  removal  of  two  solid  wooden  rings  from  a  looped  cat- 
gut, secured  and  held  in  the  same  manner,  to  the  pillar 
of  a  small  table  from  which  they  could  not  be  removed 
without  taking  the  table  to  pieces,  and  where  they  re- 
mained till  Zollner's  death.  Equally  remarkable  was  the 
removal  of  a  coin  from  a  box  in  which  it  was  enclosed 
and  firmly  glued  up,  and  the  removal  of  two  coins  from 
another  sealed-up  box  and  their  replacement  by  pieces 
of  slate-pencil.  Writing  upon  closed  slates  under  rigid 
test  conditions  also  occurred,  as  well  as  the  appearance  of 
human  hands  and  of  movable  lights,  and  the  motion  of 
numerous  small  objects  as  if  being  carried  about  the 
room.  All  these  phenomena  are  described  in  minute  de- 
tail in  Zollner's  Transcendental  Physics,  translated  from 
the  German  by  Mr.  0.  0.  Massey  in  1880 ;  and  the  more 
remarkable  occurrences  are  clearly  illustrated  by  cuts 
from  photographs. 

The  facts  now  briefly  described  are  sufficient  to  prove, 
that  at  the  present  day,  as  in  the  earlier  period  of  the 
inquiry  nearly  half  a  century  ago,  careful,  long-continued, 
and  painstaking  experiment  by  the  most  eminent  and 
capable  men  of  science,  always  results  in  satisfying 
them  of  the  reality  of  the  phenomena;  while  those 
eminent  men  who  have  most  loudly  proclaimed  that  these 
phenomena  are  the  result  of  imposture  or  delusion  are 
unable  to  adduce  more  than  two  or  three  chance  stances 
as  the  foundation  for  their  conclusions.  On  the  one  hand, 
we  have  the  careful  and  often-repeated  observations  under 


106  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OP  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

the  most  favourable  conditions,  of  Crookes,  Oliver,  Lodge, 
and  Zollner;  on  the  other,  the  few  and  unsatisfactory 
stances  on  which  Carpenter,  Tyndall,  and  Lankester 
founded  their  adverse  verdict.  We  see,  then,  that  now, 
as  during  the  whole  course  of  the  history  of  modern 
spiritualism,  the  fuller  the  knowledge,  the  more  com- 
pletely the  reality  of  the  phenomena  is  established. 


THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM  107 


VIII 

THE  THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

Many  of  my  readers  will,  no  doubt,  feel  oppressed  by 
the  strange  and  apparently  supernatural  phenomena  here 
brought  before  their  notice.  They  will  demand  that,  if 
indeed  they  are  to  be  accepted  as  facts,  it  must  be  shown 
that  they  form  a  part  of  the  system  of  the  universe,  or  at 
least  range  themselves  under  some  plausible  hypothesis. 

There  is  such  an  hypothesis — old  in  its  fundamental 
principle,  new  in  many  of  its  details — which  links  together 
all  these  phenomena  as  a  department  of  nature  hitherto 
entirely  ignored  by  science  and  but  vaguely  speculated  on 
by  philosophy  ;  and  it  does  so  without  in  any  way  conflict- 
ing with  the  most  advanced  science  or  the  highest  philo- 
sophy. According  to  this  hypothesis,  that  which,  for  want 
of  a  better  name,  we  shall  term  "  spirit,"  is  the  essential 
part  of  all  sensitive  beings,  whose  bodies  form  but  the  ma- 
chinery and  instruments  by  means  of  which  they  perceive 
and  act  upon  other  beings  and  on  matter.  It  is  "  spirit " 
that  alone  feels,  and  perceives,  and  thinks — that  acquires 
knowledge,  and  reasons,  and  aspires — though  it  can  only 
do  so  by  means  of,  and  in  exact  proportion  to,  the  organi- 
sation it  is  bound  up  with.  It  is  the  "  spirit "  of  man  that 
is  man.  Spirit  is  mind ;  the  brain  and  nerves  are  but  the 
magnetic  battery  and  telegraph  by  means  of  which  spirit 
communicates  with  the  outer  world. 

Though  the  spirit  is  in  general  inseparable  from  the 
living  body  to  which  it  gives  animal  and  intellectual  life 
(for  the  vegetative  functions  of  the  organism  could  per- 
haps go  on  without  spirit),  there  not  unfrequently  occur 


108  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OP  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

individuals  so  constituted  that  the  spirit  can  perceive  inde- 
pendently of  the  corporeal  organs  of  sense,  or  can  perhaps 
wholly  or  partially  quit  the  body  for  a  time  and  return  to 
it  again.  At  death  it  quits  the  body  for  ever.  The  spirit 
like  the  body  has  its  laws,  and  definite  limits  to  its  powers. 
It  communicates  with  spirit  easier  than  with  matter,  and 
in  most  cases  can  only  perceive  and  act  on  matter  through 
the  medium  of  embodied  spirit.  The  spirit  which  has 
lived  and  developed  its  powers  clothed  with  a  human 
body,  will,  when  it  leaves  that  body,  still  retain  its  former 
modes  of  thought,  its  former  tastes,  feelings,  and  affec- 
tions. The  new  state  of  existence  is  a  natural  continuation 
of  the  old  one.  There  is  no  sudden  acquisition  of  new 
mental  proclivities,  no  revolution  of  the  moral  nature. 
Just  what  the  embodied  spirit  had  made  itself,  or  had 
become — that  is  the  disembodied  spirit  when  it  begins  its 
life  under  new  conditions.  It  is  the  same  in  character 
as  before,  but  it  has  acquired  new  physical  and  mental 
powers,  new  modes  of  manifesting  the  moral  sentiments, 
wider  capacity  for  acquiring  physical  and  spiritual  know- 
ledge. The  great  law  of  "  continuity,"  so  ably  shown  by 
Sir  William  Grove  in  his  presidential  address  to  the  British 
Association  at  Nottingham,  to  pervade  the  whole  realm 
of  nature,  is  thus,  according  to  the  Spiritual  theory,  fully 
applicable  to  our  passage  into  and  progress  through  a 
more  advanced  state  of  existence, — a  view  which  should 
commend  itself  to  men  of  science  as  being  in  itself  pro- 
bable, and  in  striking  contrast  with  the  doctrines  of  theo- 
logians, which  place  a  wide  gulf  between  the  mental  and 
more  nature  of  man  in  his  present  and  in  his  future  state 
of  existence. 

Now  this  hypothesis,  taken  as  a  mere  speculation,  is  as 
coherent  and  intelligible  as  any  speculation  on  such  a 
subject  can  be.  But  it  claims  to  be  more  than  a  specu- 


THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM  109 

lation,  since  it  serves  to  explain  and  interpret  that  vast 
accumulation  of  facts  of  which  a  few  examples  only  have 
been  here  given,  and  to  furnish  a  more  intelligible,  con- 
sistent, and  harmonious  theory  of  the  future  state  of  man 
than  either  religion  or  philosophy  has  yet  put  forth. 

And  first  as  to  the  interpretation  of  facts.  In  the 
simplest  phenomena  of  Animal  Magnetism,  when  the 
muscles,  the  senses,  and  the  ideas  of  the  patient,  are 
subject  to  the  will  of  the  operator,  spirit  acts  upon  spirit, 
through  the  intermediation  of  a  peculiar  relation  between 
the  magnetic  or  life  power  of  the  two  organisms ;  and  thus 
the  magnetiser  is  enabled  by  his  will  to  affect  both  the 
mind  and  the  body  of  the  patient  and  to  induce,  in  him 
for  a  time  an  ideal  world.  In  the  higher  phenomenon  of 
"simple  clairvoyance,"  the  spirit  appears  to  be  to  some 
extent  released  from  the  trammels  of  body,  and  is  enabled 
to  perceive  by  some  other  processes  than  tho.se  of  the  ordi- 
nary senses.  In  the  still  higher  clairvoyant  state  termed 
"mental  travelling"  the  spirit  would  appear  to  quit  the 
body  (still  connected  with  it,  however,  by  an  ethereal  link) 
and  traverse  the  earth  to  any  distance,  communicating  ' 
with  persons  in  remote  countries  if  it  has  any  clue  by 
which  to  distinguish  them,  and  (perhaps  through  the 
mediation  of  their  organisation)  perceiving  and  describing 
events  occurring  around  them.1 

Under  certain  conditions  disembodied  spirit  is  able  to 
form  for  itself  a  visible  body  out  of  the  emanation  from 
living  bodies  in  a  proper  magnetic  relation  to  itself ;  and, 
under  certain  still  more  favourable  conditions,  this  body 

1  It  is  possible  that  this  appearance  of  the  spirit  leaving  the  body  to 
obtain  information  of  distant  events  is  deceptive,  and  that  what  really 
occurs  is  the  representation  to  the  clairvoyant  of  mental  pictures  of  such 
events  by  spiritual  beings.  This  explanation  of  the  facts  has  been  given 
by  spirit  communications,  and  to  the  present  writer  now  seems  the  more 
probable  one. 


110  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

can  be  made  tangible.  Thus  all  the  phenomena  of 
"  mediumship "  take  place.  Gravity  is  overcome  by  a 
form  of  life-magnetism,  induced  between  the  spirit  and 
the  medium ;  visible  hands  or  visible  bodies  are  produced, 
which  sometimes  write,  or  draw,  or  even  speak.  Thus 
departed  friends  come  to  communicate  with  those  still 
living,  or  at  the  moment  of  death  the  spirit  appears 
visibly,  and  sometimes  tangibly,  to  the  loved  ones  in  a 
distant  land.  All  these  phenomena  would  take  place  far 
more  frequently  were  the  conditions  that  alone  render 
communication  possible  more  general  or  more  cultivated. 
It  appears,  then,  that  all  the  strange  facts,  denied  by  so 
many  because  they  suppose  them  "  supernatural,"  may  be 
due  to  the  agency  of  beings  of  a  like  mental  nature  to  our- 
selves— who  are,  in  fact,  ourselves — but  one  step  advanced 
on  the  long  journey  through  eternity.  The  trivial  and 
fantastic  nature  of  the  acts  of  some  of  these  disembodied 
spirits,  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  when  we  consider  the 
myriads  of  trivial  and  fantastic  human  beings  who  are  daily 
becoming  spirits,  and  who  retain,  for  a  time  at  least,  their 
human  natures  in  their  new  condition.  But  the  generally 
trivial  nature  of  the  acts  and  communications  of  spirits 
(admitting  them  to  be  such)  may  be  totally  denied.  If 
we  saw  two  or  three  persons  making  strange  gestures  in 
perfect  silence,  we  might  probably  think  they  were  idiots  ; 
but  if  we  found  that  two  of  them  were  deaf  and  dumb,  and 
the  three  were  conversing  in  the  language  of  signs,  we 
should  become  aware  that  the  gesticulations  of  their  bodies 
were  no  more  intrinsically  absurd  than  the  movements  of 
our  lips  and  features  during  speech.  So  if  we  realise  to 
ourselves  the  fact  that  spirits  can  in  most  cases  only  com- 
municate with  us  in  certain  very  limited  modes,  we  shall 
see  that  the  true  "  trivality  "  consists  in  objecting  to  any 
mode  of  mental  converse  as  being  trivial  or  undignified. 


THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM  111 

Then,  again,  as  to  the  matter  of  the  communications,  said 
to  be  generally  "  unworthy  of  a  spirit ; "  the  real  question 
is,  are  they  generally  such  as  would  have  been  unworthy 
of  the  same  spirit  when  in  the  body  ?  We  should  remem- 
ber, too,  that  in  most  cases  the  spirit  has  first  to  satisfy 
the  inquirer  of  its  existence,  and  in  many  cases  to  do  so  in 
the  face  of  a  strong  prejudice  against  the  very  possibility 
of  spirit  communication,  or  even  of  the  very  existence  of 
spirit.  And  the  undoubted  fact  that  hundreds  and  thou- 
sands of  persons  have  been  so  convinced  by  the  phenomena 
they  have  witnessed  in  the  presence  of  mediums,  shows 
that,  trivial  though  they  may  be,  these  phenomena  are  well 
adapted  to  satisfy  many  minds,  and  thus  lead  them  to 
receive  and  inquire  into  the  higher  phenomena,  which  they 
could  otherwise  never  have  been  induced  to  examine. 

This  hypothesis  of  the  existence  of  spirit,  both  in  man 
and  out  of  man,  and  their  possible  and  actual  inter-com- 
munication, must  be  judged  exactly  in  the  same  way  as  we 
judge  any  other  hypothesis — by  the  nature  and  variety  of 
the  facts  it  includes  and  accounts  for,  and  by  the  absence 
of  any  other  mode  of  explaining  so  wide  a  range  of  facts. 
The  truth  and  reality  of  the  facts,  however,  is  one  thing — 
the  goodness  of  the  hypothesis  is  another,  and  to  find  a 
flaw  in  the  hypothesis  is  not  to  disprove  the  facts.  I 
maintain  that  the  facts  have  now  been  proved,  in  the  only 
way  in  which  facts  are  capable  of  being  proved — viz.,  by 
the  concurrent  testimony  of  honest,  impartial,  and  careful 
observers.  Most  of  the  facts  are  capable  of  being  tested 
by  any  earnest  inquirer.  They  have  withstood  the  ordeal 
of  ridicule  and  of  rigid  scrutiny  for  forty-six  years,  during 
which  their  adherents  have  year  by  year  steadily  increased, 
including  men  of  every  rank  and  station,  of  every  class  of 
mind,  and  of  every  degree  of  talent ;  while  not  a  single 
individualVho  has  earnestly  devoted  himself  to  a  thorough 


112  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

examination  of  these  facts  has  denied  their  reality.  These 
are  characteristics  of  a  new  truth,  not  of  a  delusion  or 
imposture.  The  facts  therefore  are  proved. 

Before  proceeding  to  consider  the  nature  of  the  doc- 
trine which  Spiritualism  unfolds,  I  would  wish  to  say  a 
few  words  on  a  work  by  an  acute  philosophic  writer,  in 
which  the  facts  of  Spiritualism  are  for  the  most  part  ad- 
mitted, but  are  accounted  for  by  a  different  hypothesis 
from  that  which  I  have  here  briefly  explained.  Mr. 
Charles  Bray,  author  of  the  Philosophy  of  Necessity  ;  Edu- 
cation of  the  Feelings,  &c.,  has  published  a  small  volume 
whose  title  is  On  Force,  its  Mental  and  Moral  Correlates ; 
and  on  that  which  is  supposed  to  underlie  all  Phenomena; 
ivith  Speculations  on  Spiritualism,  and  other  Abnormal 
Conditions  of  Mind.  The  latter  half  of  the  work  is  en- 
tirely devoted  to  a  consideration  of  the  facts  of  modern 
Spiritualism,  and  to  an  attempt  to  account  for  them  on 
philosophical  principles.  Mr.  Bray  tells  us  that  he  has 
himself  witnessed  but  few  of  the  phenomena,  yet  enough 
to  satisfy  him  that  they  may  be  true.  He  seems  to  rely 
more  on  the  overwhelming  testimony  to  the  facts  by  men 
of  admitted  intelligence,  and  to  the  facts  themselves  being 
often  of  such  a  nature  that  they  cannot  be  explained  away. 
He  has  doubtless  been  led  to  this  less  sceptical  frame  of 
mind  than  is  usual  in  philosophic  writers  by  his  acquain- 
tance with  cases  of  clairvoyance,  of  one  of  which  he  states 
his  experience  as  follows:  "  I  have  heard  a  young  girl  in 
the  mesmeric  state  minutely  describe  all  that  was  seen  by 
a  person  with  whom  she  was  en  rapport,  and  in  some  cases 
more  than  was  seen  or  could  be  seen,  such  as  the  initials 
in  a  watch  which  had  not  been  opened,  and  also  describe 
persons  and  scenes  at  a  distance,  which  I  afterwards  dis- 
covered were  correctly  described,  beyond  a  possibility  of 
doubt"  The  italics  in  this  sentence  are  his  own. 


THEORY  OF  SPIRITUALISM  113 

Judging  from  the  works  mentioned  in  his  book,  Mr. 
Bray  seems  to  have  but  a  limited  acquaintance  with  the 
literature  of  Spiritualism,  which  is  the  more  to  be  regretted 
as  he  has  so  little  personal  experience  of  the  phenomena, 
and  is  therefore  hardly  in  a  position  to  form  a  satisfactory 
hypothesis.  He  considers,  however,  that  he  has  formed 
one  which  "  will  account  for  such  facts  as  are  genuine," 
although  he  admits  that  he  has  not  made  that  searching 
examination  which  would  alone  entitle  him  to  decide 
which  facts  were  genuine,  and  which  were  due  to  fraud  or 
self-delusion.  The  theory  which  he  propounds  is  not  at 
all  easy  to  exhibit  in  a  few  words.  He  says  that  the 
force  which  produces  the  phenomena  of  Spiritualism  "is 
an  emanation  from  all  brains,  the  medium  increasing  its 
density  so  as  to  allow  others  present  to  come  into  com- 
munion with  it,  and  the  intelligence  new  to  every  person 
present  is  that  of  some  brain  in  the  distance  acting  through 
this  source  upon  the  mind  of  the  medium,  or  others  of  the 
circle  "  (p.  107).  Again,  he  speaks  of  "  a  mental  or  thought 
atmosphere  the  result  of  cerebration,  but  devoid  of  con- 
sciousness till  it  becomes  reflected  in  our  own  organisa- 
tions "(p.  98).  It  seems  to  me  that  this  theory  labours 
under  the  great  objection  of  being  unintelligible.  How  are 
we  to  understand  an  "emanation  from  all  brains,"  a 
"  thought  atmosphere,"  producing  force  and  motion,  visible 
and  tangible  forms,  intelligent  communications  by  sounds 
or  motions,  and  all  the  other  varied  phenomena  imperfectly 
sketched  in  these  pages  ?  How  does  this  "  unconscious 
thought  atmosphere  "  form  a  visible,  tangible,  force-exert- 
ing hand,  which  can  carry  flowers,  write  or  play  complete 
tunes  on  an  instrument?  Does  it  even  account  for  the 
simpler  yet  still  marvellous  phenomena  of  clairvoyance  ? 
Let  us  take  one  of  the  best  authenticated  cases  observed 
by  Dr.  Gregory.  Mottoes  enclosed  in  nutshells  are  pur- 

H 


114  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

chased  at  a  shop,  and  the  clairvoyant  reads  them  accurately. 
Now  we  may  safely  assume  that  in  this  case  no  human 
mind  knows  the  particular  nutshell  in  which  each  motto 
is  enclosed.  How  then  does  the  theory  of  an  "  emanation 
from  all  brains,"  or  that  the  clairvoyant  is  through  this 
emanation  acted  on  by  "some  mind  in  the  distance,"  explain 
the  reading  of  these  mottoes  ?  If  this  "  emanation  "  has 
the  power  of  reading  them  itself,  and  communicates  them 
to  the  clairvoyant,  how  can  we  deny  it  personality,  and  in 
what  does  it  differ  from  that  which  we  term  spirit?  If 
the  theory  of  "  spirit "  is,  as  Professor  De  Morgan  says, 
"  ponderously  difficult,"  is  not  this  theory  of  "  brain  emana- 
tion" still  more  so  ?  I  submit,  therefore,  that  Mr.  Bray's 
hypothesis  is  not  tenable,  and  that  nothing  but  the  sup- 
position of  personal  minds,  existing  without  as  well  as 
with  a  human  body,  and  capable,  under  certain  conditions 
only,  of  acting  on  us  and  on  matter,  is  able  to  account  for 
the  whole  range  of  the  phenomena.  And  this  supposition 
has,  I  maintain,  the  advantage  of  being  both  intelligible 
and  philosophically  probable. 

It  is,  however,  very  satisfactory  to  find  a  writer  of 
Mr.  Bray's  standing  recognising  the  subject  at  all,  as  one 
which  possesses  so  much  truth  in  it  as  to  require  an  ela- 
borate theory  to  account  for  the  phenomena.  This  alone  is 
a  proof  of  the  convincing  nature  of  the  evidence  for  those 
facts  which  our  men  of  science  neglect  to  investigate  as  it, 
priori  absurd  and  impossible.  The  appearance  of  Mr. 
Bray's  book  may  perhaps  indicate  that  a  change  was  then 
taking  place  in  public  opinion  on  the  subject  of  clairvoy- 
ance and  Spiritualism ;  and  it  may  do  good  service  in 
drawing  the  attention  of  thinkers  to  a  class  of  phenomena 
which,  above  all  others,  seem  calculated  to  lead  to  the 
partial  solution  of  the  most  difficult  of  all  problems — the 
origin  of  consciousness  and  the  nature  of  mind. 


MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  115 


IX 

THE  MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM 

We  have  now  to  consider  whether  this  vast  array  of 
phenomena  which  claims  to  put  us  into  communication 
with  beings  who  have  passed  into  another  phase  of  exist- 
ence, teaches  us  anything  which  may  make  us  wiser  and 
better  men.  I  myself  believe  that  it  does,  and  shall 
endeavour,  as  briefly  as  possible,  to  set  forth  what  the 
doctrines  of  modern  Spiritualism  really  are 

The  hypothesis  of  Spiritualism  not  only  accounts  for  all 
the  facts  (and  is  the  only  one  that  does  so),  but  it  is  further 
remarkable  as  being  associated  with  a  theory  of  a  future 
state  of  existence,  which  is  the  only  one  yet  given  to  the 
world  that  can  at  all  commend  itself  to  the  modern  philo- 
sophical mind.  There  is  a  general  agreement  and  tone  of 
harmony  in  the  mass  of  facts  and  communications  termed 
"  spiritual,"  which  has  led  to  the  growth  of  a  new  litera- 
ture and  to  the  establishment  of  a  new  religion.  The  main 
doctrines  of  this  religion  are  :  That  after  death  man's  spirit 
survives  in  an  ethereal  body,  gifted  with  new  powers,  but 
mentally  and  morally  the  same  individual  as  when  clothed 
in  flesh.  That  he  commences  from  that  moment  a  course 
of  apparently  endless  progression,  which  is  rapid  just  in 
proportion  as  his  mental  and  moral  faculties  have  been 
exercised  and  cultivated  while  on  earth.  That  his  com- 
parative happiness  or  misery  will  depend  entirely  on  him- 
self. Just  in  proportion  as  his  higher  human  faculties  have 
taken  part  in  all  his  pleasures  here,  will  he  find  himself 
contented  and  happy  in  a  state  of  existence  in  which  they 
will  have  the  fullest  exercise ;  while  he  who  has  depended 


116  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

more  on  the  body  than  on  the  mind  for  his  pleasures,  will, 
when  that  body  is  no  more,  feel  a  grievous  want,  and  must 
slowly  and  painfully  develop  his  intellectual  and  moral 
nature  till  its  exercise  shall  become  easy  and  pleasurable. 
Neither  punishments  nor  rewards  are  meted  out  by  an 
external  power,  but  each  one's  condition  is  the  natural  and 
inevitable  sequence  of  his  condition  here.  He  starts  again 
from  the  level  of  moral  and  intellectual  development  to 
which  he  had  raised  himself  while  on  earth. 

Now  here  again  we  have  a  striking  supplement  to  the 
doctrines  of  modern  science.  The  organic  world  has  been 
carried  on  to  a  high  state  of  development,  and  has  been 
ever  kept  in  harmony  with  the  forces  of  external  nature, 
by  the  grand  law  of  "  survival  of  the  fittest"  acting  upon 
ever-varying  organisations.  In  the  spiritual  world,  the 
law  of  the  "  progression  of  the  fittest "  takes  its  place,  and 
carries  on  in  unbroken  continuity  that  development  of  the 
human  mind  which  has  been  commenced  here. 

The  communion  of  spirit  with  spirit  is  said  to  be  by 
thought-reading  and  sympathy,  and  to  be  perfect  between 
those  whose  beings  are  in  harmony  with  each  other.  Those 
who  differ  widely  have  little  or  no  power  of  intercommunion 
and  thus  are  constituted  "  spheres,"  which  are  divisions, 
not  merely  of  space,  but  of  social  and  moral  sympathetic 
organisation.  Spirits  of  the  higher  "  spheres  "  can,  and  do 
sometimes  communicate  with  those  below ;  but  these  latter 
cannot  communicate  at  will  with  those  above.  But  there 
is  for  all  an  eternal  progress,  a  progress  solely  dependent 
on  the  power  of  will  in  the  development  of  spirit  nature. 
There  are  no  evil  spirits  but  the  spirits  of  bad  men,  and 
even  the  worst  are  surely  if  slowly  progressing.  Life  in  the 
higher  spheres  has  beauties  and  pleasures  of  which  we  have 
no  conception.  Ideas  of  beauty  and  power  become  realised 
by  the  will,  and  the  infinite  cosmos  becomes  a  field  where 


MOKAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  117 

the  highest  developments  of  intellect  may  range  in  the 
acquisition  of  boundless  knowledge. 

It  may  be  thought,  perhaps,  that  I  am  here  giving  merely 
my  own  ideal  of  a  future  state,  but  it  is  not  so.  Every 
statement  I  have  made  is  derived  from  those  despised 
sources,  the  rapping  table,  the  writing  hand,  or  the  en- 
tranced speaker.  And  to  show  that  I  have  not  done 
justice  either  to  the  ideas  themselves,  or  to  the  manner  in 
which  they  are  often  conveyed  to  us,  I  subjoin  a  few  ex- 
tracts from  the  spoken  addresses  of  one  of  the  most  gifted 
"  trance-mediums,"  Mrs  Emma  Hardinge,  now  Mrs.  Har- 
dinge  Britten. 

In  her  address  on  "  Hades,"  she  sums  up  in  this  passage 
her  account  of  our  progress  through  the  spheres : — "  Of  the 
nature  of  those  spheres  and  their  inhabitants  we  have 
spoken  from  the  knowledge  of  the  spirits,  dwellers  still  in 
Hades.  Would  you  receive  some  immediate  definition  of 
your  own  condition,  and  learn  how  you  shall  dwell,  and 
what  your  garments  shall  be,  what  your  mansion,  scenery, 
likeness,  occupations  ?  Turn  your  eyes  within,  and  ask 
what  have  you  learned,  and  what  you  have  done  in  this, 
the  school-house  for  the  spheres  of  spirit-land.  There — 
there  is  an  aristocracy,  and  even  royal  rank  and  varying 
degree,  but  the  aristocracy  is  one  of  merit,  and  the  royalty 
of  soul.  It  is  only  the  truly  wise  who  govern,  and  as  the 
wisest  soul  is  he  that  is  best,  as  the  truest  wisdom  is  the 
highest  love,  so  the  royalty  of  soul  is  truth  and  love.  And 
within  the  spirit-world  all  knowledge  of  this  earth,  all 
forms  of  science,  all  revelations  of  art,  all  mysteries  of 
space  must  be  understood.  The  exalted  soul  that  is  then 
fully  ready  for  his  departure  to  a  higher  state  than  Hades, 
must  know  all  that  earth  can  teach,  and  have  practised  all 
that  Heaven  requires.  The  spirit  never  quits  the  spheres 
of  earth  until  he  is  fully  possessed  of  all  the  life  and 


118  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

knowledge  of  this  planet  and  its  spheres.  And  though  the 
progress  may  be  here  commenced,  and  not  one  jot  of  what 
you  learn,  or  think,  or  strive  for  here  is  lost,  yet  all 
achievements  must  be  ultimated  there,  and  no  soul  can 
wing  its  flight  to  that  which  you  call,  in  view  of  its  per- 
fection, Heaven,  till  you  have  passed  through  Earth  and 
Hades,  and  stand  ready  in  your  fully  completed  pilgrimage 
to  enter  on  the  new  and  unspeakable  glories  of  the  celestial 
realms  beyond." 

Could  the  philosopher  or  the  man  of  science  picture  to 
himself  a  more  perfect  ideal  of  a  future  state  than  this  ? 
Does  it  not  commend  itself  to  him  as  what  he  could  wish, 
if  he  could  by  his  wish  form  the  future  for  himself  ?  Yet 
this  is  the  teaching  of  that  which  he  scouts  as  an  impos- 
ture or  a  delusion — as  the  trickery  of  knaves  or  the  ravings 
of  madmen — modern  Spiritualism.  I  quote  another  pas- 
sage from  the  same  address,  and  I  would  ask  my  readers 
to  compare  the  modesty  of  the  first  paragraph  with  the 
claims  of  infallibility  usually  put  forward  by  the  teachers 
of  new  creeds  or  new  philosophies : — "  It  is  true  that  man 
is  finite  and  imperfect ;  hence  his  utterances  are  too  fre- 
quently the  dictation  of  his  own  narrow  perceptions,  and 
his  views  are  limited  by  his  own  finite  capacity.  But  as 
you  judge  him,  so  also  '  ye  shall  judge  the  angels.'  Spirits 
only  present  you  with  the  testimony  of  those  who  have 
advanced  one  step  beyond  humanity,  and  ask  for  no  cre- 
dence from  man  without  the  sanction  of  man's  judgment 
and  reason.  Spirits,  then,  say  that  their  world  is  as  the 
soul  or  spiritual  and  sublimated  essence  of  this  human 
world  of  yours — that,  in  locality,  the  spirit  world  extends 
around  this  planet,  as  all  spirit  spheres  encircle  in  zones 
and  belts  all  other  planets,  earths,  and  bodies  in  space, 
until  the  sphere  of  each  impinges  upon  the  other,  and 
they  form  in  connection  one  vast  and  harmonious 


MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  119 

system  of  natural  and  spiritual  worlds  throughout  the 
universe." 

The  effects  of  vice  and  ungoverned  passions  are  thus  de- 
picted : — "  Those  spirits  have  engraved  themselves  with  a 
fatal  passion  for  vice,  but,  alas !  they  dwell  in  a  world 
where  there  is  no  means  for  its  gratification.  There  is  the 
gambler,  who  has  burnt  into  his  soul  the  fire  of  the  love  of 
gain  ;  he  hovers  around  earth's  gamblers,  and,  as  an  unseen 
tempter,  seeks  to  repeat  the  now  lost  joys  of  the  fatal  game. 
The  sensualist,  the  man  of  violence,  the  cruel  and  angry 
spirit ;  all  who  have  steeped  themselves  in  crime,  or  painted 
their  souls  with  those  dark  stain-spots  which  they  vainly 
think  are  of  the  body  only — all  these  are  there,  no  longer 
able  to  enact  their  lives  of  earthly  vice,  but  retaining  on 
their  souls  the  deadly  mark,  and  the  fatal  though  ungrati- 
fied  desire  for  habitual  sin ;  and  so  these  imprisoned  spirits, 
chained  by  their  own  fell  passions  in  the  slavery  of  hope- 
less criminal  desires,  hover  round  those  who  attract  them 
as  magnets  draw  the  needle,  by  vicious  inclinations  similar 
to  their  own.  But  you  say,  the  soul,  by  tempting  others, 
must  thus  sink  deeper  into  crime.  Ay,  but  remember  that 
another  point  of  the  spiritual  doctrine  is  the  universal 
teaching  of  eternal  progress."  And  then  she  goes  on  to 
depict  in  glowing  language  how  these  spirits  too,  in  time, 
lose  their  fierce  passions,  and  learn  how  to  begin  the  up- 
ward path  of  knowledge  and  virtue.  But  I  must  leave  the 
subject,  as  I  wish  to  give  one  extract  from  the  address 
of  the  same  gifted  lady  on  the  question,  "  What  is 
Spirit  ? "  as  an  example  of  the  high  eloquence  and  moral 
beauty  with  which  all  her  discourses  are  inspired: — 
"  Small,  and  to  some  of  us  even  insignificant,  as  seems 
the  witness  of  the  spirit-circle,  its  phenomenal  gleams  are 
lights  which  reveal,  in  their  aggregate,  these  solemn  truths 
to  us.  There  we  behold  foregleams  of  the  powers  of  soul. 


120  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

which  so  vastly  do  transcend  the  laws  of  matter.  That 
soul's  continued  existence  and  triumph  over  death;  our 
own  embodied  spirit's  power  of  communication  with  the 
invisible  world  around  us,  and  its  various  occult  forces. 
Clairvoyance,  clairaudience,  prophecy,  trance,  vision,  psy- 
chometry,  and  magnetic  healing ;  how  grand  and  wonder- 
ful appears  the  soul,  invested  even  in  its  earthly  prison 
house  with  all  these  gleams  of  powers  so  full  of  glorious 
promise  of  what  we  shall  be,  when  the  prison  gates  of 
matter  open  wide  and  set  the  spirit  free !  Oh  !  fair  young 
girls,  whose  forms  of  supremest  loveliness  are  nature's 
crowning  gems,  forget  not,  when  the  great  Creator's 
bounteous  hand  adorned  your  blooming  spring  with  the 
radiance  of  summer  flowers,  that  He  shrined  within  that 
casket  of  tinted  beauty  a  soul  whose  glory  shall  survive 
the  decay  of  all  earthly  things,  and  live  in  weal  or  woe  as 
your  generation  stamps  it  with  beauty  or  stains  it  with 
sinful  ugliness,  when  springs  shall  no  more  return,  nor 
summers  melt  in  the  vast  and  changeless  evermore.  Lift 
up  your  eyes  from  the  beautiful  dust  of  to-day,  which 
to-morrow  shall  be  foul  in  death's  corruption,  to  the  ever- 
living  soul  which  you,  not  destiny,  must  adorn  with  im- 
mortal beauty.  Remember  you  are  spirits,  and  that  the 
hours  of  your  earthly  life  are  only  granted  you  to  shape 
and  form  those  spirits  for  eternity.  Young  men,  who 
love  to  expand  the  muscles  of  mind,  and  wrestle  in  mental 
gladiatorial  combats  for  the  triumphant  crowns  of  science, 
what  are  all  these  to  the  eternal  conquests  to  be  won  in 
fields  of  illimitable  science  in  the  realms  of  immortality  ? 
Press  on  through  earth  as  a  means,  but  only  to  attain  to 
the  nobler,  higher  colleges  of  the  never-dying  life,  and 
use  mortal  aims  as  instruments  to  gild  your  souls  with  the 
splendour  that  never  fades,  but  which  yourselves  must 
win  here  or  hereafter,  ere  you  are  fit  to  pass  as  graduates 


MOKAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  121 

in  the  halls  of  eternal  science.  To  understand  that  we 
are  spirits,  and  that  we  live  for  immortality,  to  know  and 
ensure  its  issues ;  is  not  this,  to  Spiritualists,  the  noblest 
though  last  bright  page  which  God  has  revealed  to  us  ?  Is 
not  to  read  and  comprehend  this  page  the  true  mission  of 
modern  Spiritualism  ?  All  else  is  but  the  phenomenal 
basis  of  the  science  which  gives  us  the  assurance  that 
spirit  lives.  This  is  one  great  aim  and  purpose  of  modern 
Spiritualism,  to  know  what  the  spirit  is,  and  what  it  must 
do — how  best  to  live,  so  that  it  may  most  surely  array 
itself  in  the  pure  white  robes  of  an  immortality  which  is 
purged  of  all  mortal  sin  and  earthly  grossness." 

The  teachings  of  Mrs.  Hardinge  agree  in  substance  with 
those  of  all  the  more  developed  mediums,  and  I  would  ask 
whether  it  is  probable  that  these  teachings  have  been 
evolved  from  the  conflicting  dogmas  of  a  set  of  impostors  ? 
Neither  does  it  seem  a  more  probable  solution  that  they 
have  been  produced  "  unconsciously  "  from  the  minds  of 
self-deluded  men  and  weak  women,  since  it  is  palpable  to 
every  reader  that  these  doctrines  are  essentially  different 
in  every  detail  from  those  taught  and  believed  by  any 
school  of  modern  philosohers  or  any  sect  of  modern 
Christians. 

This  is  well  shown  by  their  opposing  statements  as  to 
the  condition  of  mankind  after  death.  In  the  accounts  of 
a  future  state  given  by  or  through  the  best  mediums,  and 
in  the  visions  of  deceased  persons  by  clairvoyants,  spirits 
are  uniformly  represented  in  the  form  of  human  beings, 
and  their  occupations  as  analogous  to  those  of  earth.  But 
in  most  religious  descriptions  or  pictures  of  heaven  they 
are  represented  as  winged  beings,  as  resting  on  or  sur- 
rounded by  clouds,  and  their  occupations  to  be  playing  on 
golden  harps,  or  perpetual  singing,  prayer,  and  adoration 
before  the  throne  of  God.  How  is  it,  if  these  visions  and 


122  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

communications  are  but  the  remodelling  of  pre-existing 
or  preconceived  ideas  by  a  diseased  imagination,  that  the 
popular  notions  are  never  reproduced?  How  is  it  that, 
whether  the  medium  be  man,  woman,  or  child,  whether 
ignorant  or  educated,  whether  English,  German,  or  Ameri- 
can, there  should  be  one  and  the  same  consistent  repre- 
sentation of  these  preterhuman  beings,  at  variance  with 
popular  notions  of  them,  but  such  as  strikingly  to  accord 
with  the  modern  scientific  doctrine  of  "  continuity  "  ?  I 
submit  that  this  little  fact  is  of  itself  a  strong  corroborative 
argument  that  there  is  some  objective  truth  in  these  com- 
munications. 

All  popular  religions,  all  received  notions  of  a  future 
state  of  existence,  alike  ignore  one  important  side  of  human 
nature,  and  one  which  has  a  large  share  in  the  happiness  of 
our  present  existence.  Laughter,  and  the  ideas  that  pro- 
duce it,  are  never  contemplated  as  continuing  to  exist  in 
the  spirit  world.  Every  form  of  jovial  merriment,  of 
sparkling  wit,  and  of  that  humour  which  is  often  akin  to 
pathos  and  many  of  the  higher  feelings  of  our  nature,  are 
alike  banished  from  the  Christian's  Heaven.  Yet  if  these 
and  all  the  allied  feelings  vanish  from  our  natures  when 
we  "  shuffle  off  this  mortal  coil,"  how  shall  we  know  our- 
selves, how  retain  our  identity  ?  A  poet,  writing  on  the 
death  of  Artemus  Ward  in  the  Spectator,  well  asks  : — 

"  Is  he  gone  to  the  land  of  no  laughter, 

This  man  who  made  mirth  for  us  all  ? 
Proves  death  but  a  silence  hereafter, 

From  the  sounds  that  delight  and  appal  ? 
Once  closed,  have  the  lips  no  more  duty, 

No  more  pleasure  the  exquisite  ears, 
Has  the  heart  done  o'erflowing  with  beauty, 

As  the  eyes  have  with  tears  ? " 

Now  it  is  noteworthy  that  the  communications  which  the 


MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  1  23 

spiritualist  believes  to  be  verily  the  words  of  our  departed 
friends  give  us  full  assurance  that  their  individual  charac- 
ters remain  unchanged  ;  that  mirth,  and  wit,  and  laughter, 
and  every  other  human  emotion  and  source  of  human  plea- 
sure are  still  retained  by  them ;  and  that  even  those  small 
incidents  of  the  domestic  circle  which  had  become  a  source 
of  innocent  mirth  when  they  were  with  us  in  the  body  are 
still  capable  of  exciting  pleasurable  feelings.  And  this  has 
been  held  by  some  to  be  an  objection  to  the  reality  of  these 
communications,  instead  of  being,  as  it  really  is,  a  striking 
confirmation  of  them.  Continuity  has  been  pre-eminently 
the  law  of  our  mental  development,  and  it  rests  with  those 
who  would  abruptly  sever  this  continuity  to  prove  their 
case.  They  have  never  even  attempted  to  show  that  it 
accords  with  the  facts  or  with  the  analogies  of  nature. 

Equally  at  variance  with  each  other  are  the  popular  and 
the  spiritualistic  doctrines  as  regards  the  Deity.  Our 
modern  religious  teachers  maintain  that  they  know  a  great 
deal  about  God.  They  define  minutely  and  critically  His 
various  attributes;  they  enter  into  His  motives,  His  feelings, 
and  His  opinions ;  they  explain  exactly  what  He  has  done, 
and  why  He  has  done  it ;  and  they  declare  that  after  death 
we  shall  be  with  Him,  and  shall  see  and  know  Him.  In 
the  teaching  of  the  "  spirits  "  there  is  not  a  word  of  all  this. 
They  tell  us  that  they  commune  with  higher  intelligences 
than  themselves,  but  of  God  they  really  know  no  more  than 
we  do.  They  say  that  above  these  higher  intelligences  are 
others  higher  and  higher  in  apparently  endless  gradation, 
but  as  far  as  they  know,  no  absolute  knowledge  of  the  Deity 
Himself  is  claimed  by  any  of  them.  Is  it  possible,  if  these 
"  spiritual "  communications  are  but  the  workings  of  the 
minds  of  weak,  superstitious,  or  deluded  human  beings, 
that  they  should  so  completely  contradict  one  of  the 
strongest  and  most  cherished  beliefs  both  of  the  super- 


124  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

stitious  and  the  religious,  and  should  agree  with  that 
highest  philosophy  (of  which  most  mediums  have  certainly 
never  heard),  which  maintains  that  we  can  know  nothing 
of  the  Almighty,  the  Eternal,  the  Infinite,  the  absolute 
Being,  who  must  necessarily  be  not  only  unknown  and  un- 
knowable, but  even  unthinkable  by  infinite  intelligences. 

It  is  often  asked,  "  What  has  Spiritualism  done — what 
new  facts,  or  what  useful  information  have  the  supposed 
spirits  ever  given  to  man?"  The  true  answer  to  this 
demand  probably  is,  that  it  is  no  part  of  their  mission  to 
give  knowledge  to  man  which  his  faculties  enable  him  to 
acquire  for  himself,  and  the  very  effort  to  acquire  which  is 
part  of  his  education  and  preparation  for  the  spiritual  life. 
Direct  information  on  matters  of  fact  is  however  occasion- 
ally given,  as  the  records  of  Spiritualism  abundantly  show. 
I  prefer,  however,  to  rest  the  claims  of  Spiritualism  on  its 
moral  uses.  I  would  point  to  the  thousands  it  has  con- 
vinced of  the  reality  of  another  world,  to  the  many  it  has 
led  to  devote  their  lives  to  works  of  philanthropy,  to  the 
eloquence  and  the  poetry  it  has  given  us,  and  to  the 
grand  doctrine  of  an  ever-progressive  future  state  which 
it  teaches.  Those  who  will  examine  its  literature  will 
acknowledge  these  facts.  Those  who  will  not  examine 
for  themselves  either  the  literature  or  the  phenomena  of 
Spiritualism,  should  at  least  refrain  from  passing  judg- 
ment on  a  matter  of  which  they  are  confessedly  and  will- 
fully ignorant. 

The  subject,  of  which  I  have  here  endeavoured  to  sketch 
the  outlines  in  a  few  pages  which  may  perhaps  be  read 
when  larger  volumes  would  lie  unopened,  is  far  too  wide 
and  too  important  for  this  mode  of  treatment  to  do  any 
justice  to  it.  I  have  been  obliged  entirely  to  leave  out  all 
mention  of  the  historical  proofs  of  similar  phenomena 
occurring  in  unbroken  succession  from  the  earliest  ages 


MORAL  TEACHINGS  OF  SPIRITUALISM  125 

to  the  present  day.  I  could  not  allude  to  the  spread  of 
Spiritualism  on  the  Continent  with  its  numbers  of  eminent 
converts.  I  could  not  refer  to  the  numbers  of  scientific 
and  medical  men  who  have  been  convinced  of  its  truth, 
but  have  not  made  public  their  belief.  But  I  claim  to 
have  shown  cause  for  investigation ;  to  have  proved  that 
it  is  not  a  subject  that  can  any  longer  be  contemptuously 
sneered  at  as  unworthy  of  a  moment's  inquiry.  I  feel 
myself  so  confident  of  the  truth  and  objective  reality  of 
many  of  the  facts  here  narrated,  that  I  would  stake  the 
whole  question  on  the  opinion  of  any  man  of  science  desir- 
ous of  arriving  at  the  truth,  if  he  would  only  devote  two  or 
three  hours  a  week  for  a  few  months  to  an  examination  of 
the  phenomena  before  pronouncing  an  opinion  •  for,  I  again 
repeat,  not  a  single  individual  that  I  have  heard  of  has 
done  this  without  becoming  convinced  of  the  reality  of 
these  phenomena.  I  maintain,  therefore,  finally — that  whe- 
ther we  consider  the  vast  number  and  the  high  character 
of  its  converts,  the  immense  accumulation  and  the  authen- 
ticity of  its  facts,  or  the  noble  doctrine  of  a  future  state 
which  it  has  elaborated — the  so-called  supernatural,  as 
developed  in  the  phenomena  of  animal  magnetism,  clair- 
voyance, and  modern  Spiritualism,  is  an  experimental 
science,  the  study  of  which  must  add  greatly  to  our  know- 
ledge of  man's  true  nature  and  highest  interests. 


126  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE 

In  the  first  edition  of  this  Essay  I  did  not  introduce 
any  of  my  own  observations,  because  I  had  not  then 
witnessed  any  such  facts  in  a  private  house,  and  without 
the  intervention  of  paid  mediums,  as  would  be  likely  to 
satisfy  my  readers.  Having  now  had  the  opportunity  of 
investigating  the  subject  under  more  favourable  condi- 
tions, I  will  give  some  account  of  my  early  personal 
experience,  which  many  of  my  friends  are  so  polite  and 
illogical  as  to  say  will  have  more  weight  with  them  than 
all  the  other  witnesses  whose  evidence  I  have  adduced.  1 
will  begin  with  what  first  led  me  to  inquiries  outside  the 
pale  of  what  is  generally  recognised  as  science. 

My  earliest  experiences  on  any  of  the  matters  treated 
of  in  this  little  work  was  in  1844,  at  which  time  I  was 
teaching  in  a  school  in  one  of  the  Midland  Counties. 
Mr.  Spencer  Hall  was  then  lecturing  on  Mesmerism,  and 
visited  our  town,  and  I  and  many  of  my  pupils  attended 
his  lectures.  We  were  all  greatly  interested.  Some  of 
the  elder  boys  tried  to  mesmerise  the  younger  ones,  and 
succeeded ;  and  I  myself  found  several  who,  under  my 
influence,  exhibited  many  of  the  most  curious  phenomena 
we  had  witnessed  at  the  lectures.  I  was  intensely  inte- 
rested in  the  subject,  and  pursued  it  with  ardour,  carrying 
out  a  number  of  experiments  to  guard  against  deception 
and  to  test  the  nature  of  the  influence.  Many  of  the 
details  of  these  experiments  are  now  stamped  as  vividly 
on  my  memory  as  if  they  were  events  of  yesterday  ;  and 
I  will  briefly  give  the  substance  of  a  few  of  the  more 
remarkable. 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  127 

1.  Phenomena  during  the  Mesmeric  Trance. — I  produced 
the  trance  state  in  two  or  three  boys,  of  twelve  to  sixteen 
years  of  age,  with  great  ease,  and  could  always  be  sure 
that  it  was  genuine,  first,  by  the  turning  of  the  eyeball  in 
the  orbit,  so  that  the  pupil  was  not  visible  when  the  eye- 
lid was  raised  ;  secondly,  by  the  characteristic  change  of 
countenance  ;  and,  thirdly,  by  the  readiness  with  which  I 
could  produce  catalepsy  and  loss  of  sensation  in  any  part 
of  the  body.  The  most  remarkable  observations  during 
this  state  were  on  phreno-mesmerism  and  sympathetic 
sensation.  By  placing  my  finger  on  the  part  of  the  head 
corresponding  to  any  given  phrenological  organ,  the  cor- 
responding faculty  was  manifested  with  wonderful  and 
amusing  perfection.  For  a  long  time  I  thought  that  the 
effects  produced  on  the  patient  were  caused  by  my  wishing 
the  particular  manifestation ;  but  I  found  by  accident  that 
when,  by  ignorance  of  the  position  of  the  organs,  I  placed 
my  finger  on  a  wrong  part,  the  manifestation  which  fol- 
lowed was  not  that  which  I  expected,  but  that  which  was 
due  to  the  position  touched.  I  was  particularly  interested 
in  phenomena  of  this  kind,  and  by  experiments  made  alone 
and  silently,  completely  satisfied  myself  that  the  effects 
were  not  due  to  suggestion  or  to  the  influence  of  my  own 
mind.  I  had  to  buy  a  little  phrenological  bust  for  my 
own  use,  and  none  of  the  boys  had  the  least  knowledge  of 
or  taste  for  phrenology ;  yet,  from  the  very  first,  almost 
all  the  organs  touched,  in  however  varied  order  and  in 
perfect  silence,  were  followed  by  manifestations  too  strik- 
ing to  be  mistaken,  and  presenting  more  wonderful  repre- 
sentations of  varied  phases  of  human  feeling  than  the 
greatest  actors  are  able  to  exhibit. 

The  sympathy  of  sensation  between  my  patient  and 
myself  was  to  me  the  most  mysterious  phenomenon  I  had 
ever  witnessed.  I  found  that  when  I  laid  hold  of  his  hand 


128  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

he  felt,  tasted,  or  smelt  exactly  the  same  as  I  did.  I  had 
already  produced  all  the  phenomena  of  suggestion,  and 
could  make  him  tipsy  with  a  glass  of  water  by  calling  it 
brandy,  and  cause  him  strip  off  all  his  clothes  by  telling 
him  he  was  on  fire  ;  but  this  was  quite  another  thing.  I 
formed  a  chain  of  several  persons,  at  one  end  of  which  was 
the  patient,  at  the  other  myself.  And  when,  in  perfect 
silence,  I  was  pinched  or  pricked,  he  would  immediately 
put  his  hand  to  the  corresponding  part  of  his  own  body, 
and  complain  of  being  pinched  or  pricked  too.  If  I  put  a 
lump  of  sugar  or  salt  in  my  mouth,  he  immediately  went 
through  the  action  of  sucking,  and  soon  showed  by  gestures 
and  words  of  the  most  expressive  nature  what  it  was  I 
was  tasting.  I  have  never  to  this  day  been  satisfied  with 
any  of  the  explanations  given  of  this  fact  by  our  physiolo- 
gists— for  they  resolve  themselves  into  this,  that  the  boy 
neither  felt  nor  tasted  anything,  but  acquired  a  know- 
ledge of  what  I  was  feeling  and  tasting  by  a  preternatural 
acuteness  of  hearing.  That  he  had  any  such  preternatural 
acuteness  was,  however,  contrary  to  all  my  experience, 
and  the  experiment  was  tried  so  as  expressly  to  prevent 
his  gaining  any  knowledge  of  what  I  felt  or  touched  by 
means  of  the  ordinary  senses. 

2.  PJienomena  during  the  Waking  State. — After  I  had 
induced  the  state  of  coma  several  times,  some  of  the  boys 
became  very  susceptible  during  their  ordinary  waking 
condition.  I  could  induce  catalepsy  of  any  of  the  limbs 
with  great  ease ;  and  some  curious  little  facts  showed 
that  it  was  real,  not  imaginary,  rigidity  that  was  produced. 
Once  a  boy  was  in  my  room  in  a  state  of  complete  rigidity 
when  the  dinner-bell  rang.  I  hastily  made  passes  to  relax 
the  body  and  limbs,  and  we  went  down  together.  When 
his  plate  was  before  him,  however,  he  found  that  he  could 
not  bend  one  of  his  arms,  and,  not  liking  to  say  anything, 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  129 

sat  some  time  trying  to  catch  my  eye.  I  then  had  to  go 
to  him,  and  by  two  or  three  passes  rendered  him  able  to 
eat  his  dinner.  This  is  a  curious  and  important  fact, 
because  the  boy  went  down  thinking  he  was  all  right. 
The  rigidity  was  therefore  in  no  way  caused  by  his  "  ex- 
pectation," since  it  existed  in  opposition  to  it.  In  this 
boy  and  another  one  I  could  readily  produce  the  temporary 
loss  of  any  of  the  senses,  as  hearing  or  smelling ;  and 
could  even  so  completely  take  away  the  memory  that  the 
patient  could  not  tell  his  own  name,  greatly  to  his  disgust 
and  confusion,  and  this  by  nothing  more  than  a  simple 
pass  across  the  face,  and  saying  in  an  ordinary  tone  of 
voice,  "  Now,  you  can't  tell  me  your  name."  And  after 
he  had  remained  utterly  puzzled  for  some  minutes,  if  I 
made  a  reverse  pass,  and  said,  "  Now,  you  know  your 
name  again,"  his  whole  countenance  would  change — a 
look  of  relief  coming  over  it  as  the  familiar  words  recurred 
suddenly  to  his  memory. 

Such  facts  as  these  were  at  that  period  generally  imputed 
to  acting  and  trick  on  the  part  of  the  patients.  Now,  most 
of  our  physiologists  admit  them  to  be  genuine  mental 
phenomena,  and  attempt  to  explain  them  by  "  abstraction" 
and  "suggestion" — denying  any  specific  action  of  the  opera- 
tor on  the  patient.  This  appears  to  me  to  be  really  no 
explanation  at  all ;  and  I  am  confirmed  in  this  view  when 
I  find  that  those  who  put  it  forward  deny  the  reality  of  all 
facts  that  do  not  square  with  it.  All  such  phenomena  as 
phreno-mesmerism,  and  sympathetic  sensation,  and  true 
clairvoyance,  which  have  been  elaborately  examined  and 
tested  by  a  score  of  good  observers,  are  nevertheless  denied 
a  place  in  the  repertory  of  established  scientific  facts  by 
those  who  profess  to  study  all  the  phenomena  of  the  organ- 
ism or  of  the  mind  of  man.  These  personal  experiences 
having  enabled  me  to  detect  the  more  subtle  indications 

i 


130  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

of  the  mesmeric  coma,  I  have  since  taken  every  opportu- 
nity of  witnessing  the  phenomena  in  public  and  private, 
and  am  quite  satisfied  that,  in  the  more  remarkable  mani- 
festations, there  is,  or  can  be,  very  rarely  any  deception 
practised. 

As  Dr.  Carpenter  and  other  men  of  science  still  main- 
tain the  view  that  all  the  higher  phenomena  of  Spiritualism 
which  are  not  imposture  are  due  to  subjective  impressions, 
analogous  to  those  produced  in  his  patients  by  the  mes- 
meriser,  I  will  here  point  out  certain  characteristic  differ- 
ences between  the  two  classes  of  facts,  which  I  first  adduced 
in  reply  to  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor  in  a  letter  in  Nature  (1872, 
p.  364). 

1.  The   mesmerised   patient  never   has  doiibts  of  the 
reality  of  what  he  sees  or  hears.     He  is  like  a  dreamer,  to 
whom  the  most  incongruous  circumstances  suggest  no  idea 
of  incongruity,  and  he  never  inquires  if  what  he  thinks  he 
perceives  harmonises  with  his  actual  surroundings.     He 
has,  moreover,  lost  his  memory  of  what  and  where  he  was 
a  few  moments  before ;  and  can  give  no  account,  for  in- 
stance, of  how  he  managed  to  get  from  a  lecture-room  in 
London,  to  which  he  came  as  a  spectator  half-an-hour 
ago,  on  to  an  Atlantic  steamer  in  a  hurricane,  or  into  the 
presence  of  a  tiger  in  a  tropical  jungle.     The  assistants 
at  the  stances  of  Mr.  Home  or  Mrs.  Guppy  are  not  in  this 
state,  as  even  our  opponents  will  admit,  and  as  the  almost 
invariable  suspicion  of  fraud  with  which  the  phenomena 
are  at  first  regarded  clearly  demonstrates.     They  do  not 
lose  all  memory  of  immediately  preceding  events  ;  they 
criticise  ;  they  examine ;  they  take  notes ;  they  suggest  tests 
— none  of  which  things  the  mesmerised  patient  ever  does. 

2.  The  mesmeriser  has  the  power  of  acting  on  certain 
sensitive  individuals  (not  on  assemblies  of  people,  as  Mr. 
Tylor  assumes),  and  all  experience  shows  that  those  who 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE          131 

are  thus  sensitive  to  any  one  operator  are  but  a  small 
proportion  of  any  body  of  people,  and  even  these  almost 
always  require  previous  manipulation,  with  an  almost  pas- 
sive submission  to  the  operator.  The  number  who  can  be 
acted  on  without  such  previous  manipulation  is  very  small, 
probably  less  than  one  per  cent.  But  there  is  no  such 
limitation  to  the  number  of  persons  who  simultaneously 
witness  most  of  the  mediumistic  phenomena.  The  visitors 
to  Mr.  Home  or  Mrs.  Guppy  all  see  whatever  occurs  of  a 
physical  nature,  as  the  records  of  hundreds  of  sittings, 
and  even  the  evidence  of  sceptics,  demonstrate. 

The  two  classes  of  phenomena,  therefore,  differ  funda- 
mentally; yet  there  is  a  connection  between  them,  but 
in  an  opposite  direction  to  that  suggested.  It  is  the 
mediums,  not  the  assistants,  who  are  "  sensitives."  They 
are  almost  always  persons  who  are  subject  to  the  mesmeric 
influence,  and  they  often  exhibit  all  the  characteristic 
phenomena  of  coma,  trance,  rigidity,  and  abnormal  sense- 
power.  Conversely,  the  most  sensitive  mesmeric  patients 
are  almost  always  mediums. 

The  differences  now  pointed  out  are  so  radical  and  so 
important  that  it  does  not  say  much  for  the  logical  clear- 
ness of  those  who  persist  in  classing  the  two  phenomena 
as  identical.  But  the  manner  in  which  men  of  great  emi- 
nence fail  to  see  the  bearing  of  facts  when  that  bearing  is 
against  their  pet  theories  will  be  further  illustrated  by  a 
few  examples  in  the  appendix  to  this  volume. 

3.  Experiences  and  Tests  of  Modern  Spiritual  Pheno- 
mena.— During  twelve  years  of  tropical  wanderings  be- 
tween the  years  1848  and  1862,  occupied  in  the  study  of 
natural  history,  I  heard  occasionally  of  the  strange  phe- 
nomena said  to  be  occurring  in  America  and  Europe 
under  the  general  names  of  "table-turning"  and  "spirit- 
rapping  ; "  and  being  aware,  from  my  own  knowledge  of 


132  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

Mesmerism,  that  there  were  mysteries  connected  with 
the  human  mind  which  modern  science  ignored  because 
it  could  not  explain,  I  determined  to  seize  the  first 
opportunity  on  my  return  home  to  examine  into  these 
matters.  It  is  true,  perhaps,  that  I  ought  to  state  that  for 
twenty-five  years  I  had  been  an  utter  sceptic  as  to  the 
existence  of  any  preter-human  or  super-human  intelli- 
gences, and  that  I  never  for  a  moment  contemplated  the 
possibility  that  the  marvels  related  by  Spiritualists  could 
be  literally  true.  If  I  have  now  changed  my  opinion,  it 
is  simply  by  the  force  of  evidence.  It  is  from  no  dread 
of  annihilation  that  I  have  gone  into  this  subject ;  it  is 
from  no  inordinate  longing  for  eternal  existence  that  I 
have  come  to  believe  in  facts  which  render  this  highly 
probable,  if  they  do  not  actually  prove  it.  At  least  three 
times  during  my  travels  I  have  had  to  face  death  as  im- 
minent or  probable  within  a  few  hours,  and  what  I  felt 
on  those  occasions  was  at  most  a  gentle  melancholy  at  the 
thought  of  quitting  this  wonderful  and  beautiful  earth  to 
enter  on  a  sleep  which  might  know  no  waking.  In  a  state 
of  ordinary  health  I  did  not  feel  even  this.  I  knew  that 
the  great  problem  of  conscious  existence  was  one  beyond 
man's  grasp,  and  this  fact  alone  gave  some  hope  that 
existence  might  be  independent  of  the  organised  body.  I 
came  to  the  inquiry,  therefore,  utterly  unbiassed  by  hopes 
or  fears,  because  I  knew  that  my  belief  could  not  affect  the 
reality,  and  with  an  ingrained  prejudice  against  even  such 
a  word  as  "  spirit,"  which  I  have  hardly  yet  overcome. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1865  that  I  first  witnessd  any 
of  the  phenomena  of  what  is  called  Spiritualism,  in  the 
house  of  a  friend — a  sceptic,  a  man  of  science,  and  a  lawyer, 
with  none  but  members  of  his  own  family  present.  Sitting 
at  a  good-sized  round  table,  with  our  hands  placed  upon 
it,  after  a  short  time  slight  movements  would  commence — 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE          133 

not  often  "  turnings  or  "  tiltings,"  but  a  gentle  intermittent 
movement,  like  steps,  which  after  a  time  would  bring  the 
table  quite  across  the  room.  Slight  but  distinct  tapping 
sounds  were  also  heard.  The  following  notes  made  at  the 
time  were  intended  to  describe  exactly  what  took  place  : — 
"  July  22nd,  1865. — Sat  with  my  friend,  his  wife,  and  two 
daughters,  at  a  large  loo  table,  by  daylight.  In  about  half- 
an-hour  some  faint  motions  were  perceived,  and  some  faint 
taps  heard.  They  gradually  increased ;  the  taps  became 
very  distinct,  and  the  table  moved  considerably,  obliging 
us  all  to  shift  our  chairs.  Then  a  curious  vibratory  motion 
of  the  table  commenced,  almost  like  the  shivering  of  a 
living  animal.  I  could  feel  it  up  to  my  elbows.  These 
phenomena  were  variously  repeated  for  two  hours.  On 
trying  afterwards,  we  found  the  table  could  not  be  volun- 
tarily moved  in  the  same  manner  without  a  great  exertion 
of  force,  and  we  could  discover  no  possible  way  of  produc- 
ing the  taps  when  our  hands  were  upon  the  table." 

On  other  occasions  we  tried  the  experiment  of  each 
person  in  succession  leaving  the  table,  and  found  that  the 
phenomena  continued  -the  same  as  before,  both  taps  and 
the  table  movement.  Once  I  requested  one  after  another 
to  leave  the  table  ;  the  phenomena  continued,  but  as  the 
number  of  sitters  diminished  with  decreasing  vigour,  and 
just  after  the  last  person  had  drawn  back  leaving  me  alone 
at  the  table,  there  were  two  dull  taps  or  blows,  as  with 
a  fist  on  the  pillar  or  foot  of  the  table,  the  vibration  of 
which  I  could  feel  as  well  as  hear.  No  one  present  but 
myself  could  have  made  these,  and  I  certainly  did  not 
make  them.  These  experiments  clearly  indicated  that 
all  were  concerned  in  producing  the  sounds  and  move- 
ments, and  that  if  there  was  any  wilful  deception  the 
whole  party  were  engaged  in  deceiving  me.  Another  time 
we  sat  half-an-hour  at  the  large  table,  but  had  no  mani- 


131  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

festations  whatever.  We  then  removed  to  the  small  table, 
where  taps  immediately  commenced  and  the  table  moved. 
After  some  time  we  returned  to  the  large  table,  and  after 
a  few  minutes  the  taps  and  movements  took  place  as  at 
the  small  one. 

The  movement  of  the  table  was  almost  always  in  curves, 
as  if  turning  on  one  of  the  claws,  so  as  to  give  a  progres- 
sive motion.  This  was  frequently  reversed,  and  sometimes 
regularly  alternate,  so  that  the  table  would  travel  across 
the  room  in  a  zigzag  manner.  This  gives  an  idea  of  what 
took  place  with  more  or  less  regularity  during  more  than  a 
dozen  sittings.  Now  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  whole 
of  the  movements  of  the  table  could  have  been  produced  by 
any  of  the  persons  present  if  not  counteracted  by  the  others, 
but  our  experiments  showed  that  this  could  not  always  be 
the  case,  and  we  have  therefore  no  right  to  conclude  that 
it  was  ever  the  case.  The  taps,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
could  not  make  at  all.  They  were  of  about  the  quality 
that  would  be  produced  by  a  long  finger-nail  tapping  un- 
derneath the  leaf  of  the  table.  As  all  hands  were  on  the 
table,  and  my  eyes  at  least  always  open,  I  know  they  were 
not  produced  by  the  hands  of  any  one  present.  They 
might  possibly  have  been  produced  by  the  feet  if  properly 
armed  with  some  small  hard  point  to  strike  with  ;  but  if  so, 
the  experiments  already  related  show  that  all  must  have 
practised  the  deception.  And  the  fact  that  we  often  sat 
half  an  hour  in  one  position  without  a  single  sound,  and 
that  the  phenomena  never  progressed  further  than  I  have 
related,  weighs  I  think  very  strongly  against  the  sup- 
position that  a  family  of  four  highly  intelligent  and  well- 
educated  persons  should  occupy  themselves  for  so  many 
weary  hours  in  carrying  out  what  would  be  so  poor  and 
unmeaning  a  deception.  The  following  remark  occurs  at 
the  end  of  my  notes  made  at  the  time :  "  These  experi- 


NOTES  OP  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  135 

ments  have  satisfied  me  that  there  is  an  unknown  power 
developed  from  the  bodies  of  a  number  of  persons  placed 
in  connection  by  sitting  round  a  table  with  all  their  hands 
upon  it." 

Some  time  before  these  observations  I  had  met  a  gen- 
tleman who  had  told  me  of  most  wonderful  phenomena 
occurring  in  his  own  family — among  them  the  palpable 
motion  of  solid  bodies  when  no  person  was  touching  them 
or  near  them;  and  he  had  recommended  me  to  go  to  a 
public  medium  in  London  (Mrs.  Marshall),  where  I  might 
see  things  equally  wonderful.  Accordingly,  in  September 
1865,  I  began  a  series  of  visits  to  Mrs.  Marshall,  generally 
accompanied  by  a  friend — a  good  chemist  and  mechanic, 
and  of  a  thoroughly  sceptical  mind.  What  we  witnessed 
may  be  divided  into  two  classes  of  phenomena — physical 
and  mental.  Both  were  very  numerous  and  varied ;  but  I 
shall  only  select  from  each  a  few  which  are  of  a  clear  and 
definite  nature. 

1st.  A  small  table,  on  which  the  hands  of  four  persons 
were  placed  (including  my  own  and  Mrs.  Marshall's),  rose 
up  vertically  about  a  foot  from  the  floor,  and  remained 
suspended  for  about  twenty  seconds,  while  my  friend,  who 
was  sitting  looking  on,  could  see  the  lower  part  of  the 
table  with  the  feet  freely  suspended  above  the  floor. 

2nd.  While  sitting  at  a  large  table,  with  Miss  T.  on  my 
left  and  Mr.  R.  on  my  right,  a  guitar  which  had  been 
placed  in  Miss  T.'s  hand  slid  down  on  to  the  floor,  passed 
over  my  feet,  and  came  to  Mr.  R.,  against  whose  legs  it 
raised  itself  up  till  it  appeared  above  the  table.  I  and 
Mr.  R.  were  watching  it  carefully  the  whole  time,  and  it 
behaved  as  if  alive  itself,  or  rather  as  if  a  small  invisible 
child  were  by  great  exertions  moving  it  and  raising  it  up. 
These  two  phenomena  were  witnessed  in  bright  gaslight. 

3rd.  A  chair,  on  which  a  relation  of  Mr.  R.'s  sat,  was 


136  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

lifted  up  with  her  on  it.  Afterwards,  when  she  returned 
to  the  table  from  the  piano,  where  she  had  been  playing, 
her  chair  moved  away  just  as  she  was  going  to  sit  down ; 
on  drawing  it  up,  it  moved  away  again.  After  this  had 
happened  three  times,  it  became  apparently  fixed  to  the 
floor,  so  that  she  could  not  raise  it.  Mr.  E.  then  took 
hold  of  it,  and  found  that  it  was  only  by  a  great  exertion 
he  could  lift  it  off  the  floor.  This  sitting  took  place  in 
broad  daylight,  on  a  bright  day,  and  in  a  room  on  the  first 
floor  with  two  windows. 

However  strange  and  unreal  these  few  phenomena  may 
seem  to  readers  who  have  seen  nothing  of  the  kind,  I 
positively  affirm  that  they  are  facts  which  really  happened 
just  as  I  have  narrated  them,  and  that  there  was  no  room 
for  any  possible  trick  or  deception.  In  each  case,  before 
we  began,  we  turned  up  the  tables  and  chairs,  and  saw  that 
they  were  ordinary  pieces  of  furniture,  and  that  there  was 
no  connection  between  them  and  the  floor,  and  we  placed 
them  where  we  pleased  before  we  sat  down.  Several  of  the 
phenomena  occurred  entirely  under  our  own  hands,  and 
quite  disconnected  from  the  "  medium."  They  were  as 
much  realities  as  the  motion  of  nails  towards  a  magnet, 
and,  it  may  be  added,  not  in  themselves  more  improbable 
or  more  incomprehensible. 

The  mental  phenomena  which  most  frequently  occur 
are  the  spelling  out  of  the  names  of  relations  of  persons 
present,  their  ages,  or  any  other  particulars  about  them. 
They  are  especially  uncertain  in  their  manifestation, 
though  when  they  do  succeed  they  are  very  conclusive  to 
the  persons  who  witness  them.  The  general  opinion  of 
sceptics  as  to  these  phenomena  is,  that  they  depend  simply 
on  the  acuteness  and  talent  of  the  medium  in  hitting  on 
the  letters  which  form  the  name,  by  the  manner  in  which 
persons  dwell  upon  or  hurry  over  them — the  ordinary 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  137 

mode  of  receiving  these  communications  being  for  the 
person  interested  to  go  over  a  printed  alphabet,  letter  by 
letter — loud  taps  indicating  the  letters  which  form  the 
required  names.  I  shall  select  a  few  of  our  experiences, 
which  will  show  how  far  this  explanation  is  likely  to  be  a 
true  one. 

When  I  first  received  a  communication  myself,  I  was 
particularly  careful  to  avoid  giving  any  indication,  by 
going  with  steady  regularity  over  the  letters;  yet  there 
was  spelt  out  correctly,  first,  the  place  where  my  brother 
died,  Para  ;  then  his  Christian  name,  Herbert ;  and  lastly, 
at  my  request,  the  name  of  the  mutual  friend  who  last 
saw  him,  Henry  Walter  Bates.  On  this  occasion  our  party 
of  six  visited  Mrs.  Marshall  for  the  first  time,  and  my 
name,  as  well  as  those  of  the  rest  of  the  party,  except  one, 
were  unknown  to  her.  That  one  was  my  married  sister, 
whose  name  was  no  clue  to  mine. 

On  the  same  occasion  a  young  lady,  a  connection  of  Mr. 
K.'s,  was  told  that  a  communication  was  to  be  made  to 
her.  She  took  the  alphabet,  and  instead  of  pointing  to 
the  letters  one  by  one,  she  moved  the  pencil  smoothly 
over  the  lines  with  the  greatest  steadiness.  I  watched 
her,  and  wrote  down  the  letters  which  the  taps  indicated. 
The  name  produced  was  an  extraordinary  one,  the  letters 
making  Thomas  Doe  Thacker.  I  thought  there  must  be  an 
error  in  the  latter  part ;  but  the  names  were  really  Thomas 
Doe  Thacker,  the  lady's  father,  every  letter  being  correct. 
A  number  of  other  names,  places,  and  dates  were  spelt 
out  on  this  occasion  with  equal  accuracy ;  but  I  give  only 
these  two,  because  in  these  I  am  sure  that  no  clue  was 
given  by  which  the  names  could  have  been  guessed  by  the 
most  preternatu  rally  acute  intellect. 

On  another  occasion,  I  accompanied  my  sister  and  a 
lady  (who  had  never  been  there  before)  to  Mrs.  Marshall's, 


138  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

and  we  had  a  very  curious  illustration  of  the  absurdity  of 
imputing  the  spelling  of  names  to  the  receiver's  hesitation 
and  the  medium's  acuteness.  She  wished  the  name  of  a 
particular  deceased  relation  to  be  spelled  out  to  her,  and 
pointed  to  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  in  the  usual  way, 
while  I  wrote  down  those  indicated.  The  first  three 
letters  were  y  r  n.  "  Oh  ! "  said  she,  "  that's  nonsense  ; 
we  had  better  begin  again."  Just  then  an  e  came,  and 
thinking  I  saw  what  it  was,  I  said — "  Please  go  on,  I 
understand  it."  The  whole  was  then  spelt  out  thus — 
yrnehkcocffej.  The  lady  even  then  did  not  see  it,  till  I 
separated  it  thus — yrneh  kcocffej,  or  Henry  Jeffcock, 
the  name  of  the  relation  she  had  wanted  accurately  spelt 
backwards. 

Another  phenomenon,  necessitating  the  exertion  both 
of  force  and  intellect,  is  the  following : — The  table  having 
been  previously  examined,  a  sheet  of  note-paper  was 
marked  privately  by  me,  and  placed  with  a  lead  pencil 
under  the  centre  foot  of  the  table,  all  present  having  their 
hands  upon  the  table.  After  a  few  minutes  taps  were 
heard,  and  on  taking  up  the  paper  I  found  written  on  it 
in  a  free  hand — William.  On  another  occasion,  a  friend 
from  the  country — a  total  stranger  to  the  medium,  and 
whose  name  was  never  mentioned — accompanied  me  ;  and, 
after  receiving  what  purported  to  be  a  communication 
from  his  son,  a  paper  was  put  under  the  table,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  there  was  found  written  on  it  Charley  T. 
Dodd,  the  correct  name.  In  these  cases  it  is  certain  there 
was  no  machinery  under  the  table ;  and  it  simply  remains 
to  ask,  if  it  were  possible  for  Mrs.  Marshall  to  slip  off  her 
boots,  seize  the  pencil  and  paper  with  her  toes,  and  write 
on  it  a  name  she  had  to  guess  at,  and  again  put  on  her 
boots  without  removing  her  hands  from  the  table,  or 
giving  any  indication  whatever  of  her  exertions  ? 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE         139 

I  now  for  some  months  left  off  going  to  Mrs.  Marshall's, 
and  endeavoured  to  produce  the  phenomena  at  home.  My 
friend  Mr.  K.  soon  found  he  had  the  power  to  produce 
slight  movements  of  the  table,  but  they  were  never  of  such 
a  nature  as  to  satisfy  an  observer  that  they  were  not  pro- 
duced consciously  or  unconsciously  by  our  own  muscles. 
The  style  and  character  of  the  communications  obtained 
through  these  movements  were,  however,  such  as  to  satisfy 
me  that  our  own  minds  had  no  part  in  producing  them. 

We  tried  among  all  our  friends  to  find  one  who  had 
power  to  produce  distinct  taps,  a  class  of  phenomena  that 
appeared  to  us  much  more  satisfactory,  because  we  could 
not  produce  them  ourselves,  either  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, under  the  same  conditions.  It  was  in  November 
1866  that  my  sister  discovered  that  a  lady  living  with 
her  had  the  power  of  inducing  loud  and  distinct  taps  and 
other  curious  phenomena,  and  I  now  began  a  series  of 
observations  in  my  own  house,  the  most  important  of 
which  I  shall  briefly  narrate. 

When  we  sat  at  a  large  loo  table  without  a  cloth,  with 
all  our  hands  upon  it,  the  taps  would  generally  commence 
in  a  few  minutes.  They  sounded  as  if  made  on  the  under 
side  of  the  leaf  of  the  table,  in  various  parts  of  it.  They 
changed  in  tone  and  loudness,  from  a  sound  like  that  pro- 
duced by  tapping  with  a  needle  or  a  long  finger-nail,  to 
others  like  blows  with  a  fist  or  slaps  with  the  fingers  of  a 
hand.  Sounds  were  produced  also  like  scraping  with  a 
finger-nail,  or  like  the  rubbing  of  a  damp  finger  pressed 
very  hard  on  the  table.  The  rapidity  with  which  these 
sounds  are  produced  and  are  changed  is  very  remarkable. 
They  will  imitate,  more  or  less  exactly,  sounds  which  we 
make  with  our  fingers  above  the  table ;  they  will  keep 
good  time  to  a  tune  whistled  by  one  of  the  party ;  they 
will  sometimes,  at  request,  play  a  very  fair  tune  them- 


140          SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATUKAL 

selves,  or  will  follow  accurately  a  hand  tapping  a  tune 
upon  the  table.  When  these  sounds  are  heard  repeatedly 
in  one's  own  well-lighted  room,  upon  one's  own  table,  and 
with  every  hand  in  the  room  visible,  the  ordinary  explana- 
tions given  of  them  seem  utterly  untenable.  Of  course 
the  first  impression  on  hearing  a  few  taps  only  is,  that 
some  one  is  making  them  with  the  feet.  To  set  this 
doubt  at  rest,  we  have  on  several  occasions  all  knelt  down 
round  the  table,  and  yet  the  taps  have  continued,  and 
have  not  only  been  heard  as  if  on  the  leaf  of  the  table, 
but  have  been  felt  vibrating  through  it.  Another  view  is, 
that  the  sounds  are  produced  by  the  slipping  of  tendons 
or  the  cracking  of  joints  in  some  parts  of  the  medium's 
body ;  and  this  explanation  is,  I  believe,  the  one  most 
commonly  accepted  by  scientific  men.  But  surely,  if  this 
be  so,  some  one  case  can  be  brought  forward  in  which  a 
person's  bones  or  tendons  can  make  sounds  like  tapping, 
rapping,  thumping,  slapping,  scratching,  and  rubbing,  and 
can  repeat  some  of  these  so  rapidly  as  to  follow  every  tap 
of  an  observer's  fingers,  or  to  keep  time  to  music ;  and 
further,  that  all  these  sounds  shall  appear  to  every  one 
present  not  to  come  from  the  individual's  body,  but  from 
the  table  at  which  he  is  sitting,  and  "which  shall  often 
vibrate  when  the  sounds  are  heard.  Until  such  a  case 
is  produced  I  must  be  excused  for  marvelling  at  the 
credulity  of  those  who  accept  so  absurd  and  inadequate 
an  explanation. 

A  still  more  remarkable  phenomenon,  and  one  which  I 
have  observed  with  the  greatest  care  and  the  most  pro- 
found interest,  is  the  exhibition  of  considerable  force  under 
conditions  which  preclude  the  muscular  action  of  any  of 
the  party.  We  stood  round  a  small  work-table,  whose 
leaf  was  about  twenty  inches  across,  placing  our  hands 
all  close  together  near  the  centre.  After  a  short  time 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  141 

the  table  would  rock  about  from  side  to  side,  and  then, 
appearing  to  steady  itself,  would  rise  vertically  from  six 
inches  to  a  foot,  and  remain  suspended  often  fifteen  or 
twenty  seconds.  During  this  time  any  one  or  two  of  the 
party  could  strike  it  or  press  on  it,  as  it  resisted  a  very 
considerable  force.  Of  course,  the  first  impression  is  that 
some  one's  foot  is  lifting  up  the  table.  To  answer  this 
objection,  I  prepared  the  table  before  our  second  trial 
without  telling  any  one,  by  stretching  some  thin  tissue 
paper  between  the  feet  an  inch  or  two  from  the  bottom  of 
the  pillar,  in  such  a  manner  that  any  attempt  to  insert  the 
foot  must  crush  and  tear  the  paper.  The  table  rose  up  as 
before,  resisted  pressure  downwards,  as  if  it  were  resting 
on  the  back  of  some  animal,  sunk  to  the  floor,  and  in  a 
short  time  rose  again,  and  then  dropped  suddenly  down. 
I  now  with  some  anxiety  turned  up  the  table,  and,  to  the 
surprise  of  all  present,  showed  them  the  delicate  tissue 
stretched  across  altogether  uninjured !  Finding  that  this 
kind  of  test  was  troublesome,  as  the  paper  or  threads  had 
to  be  renewed  every  time,  and  were  liable  to  be  broken 
accidentally  before  the  experiment  began,  I  constructed  a 
cylinder  of  hoops  and  laths,  covered  with  canvas.  The 
table  was  placed  within  this  as  in  a  well,  and,  as  it  was 
about  eighteen  inches  high,  it  effectually  kept  feet  and 
ladies'  dresses  from  the  table.  This  apparatus  in  no  way 
checked  the  table's  upward  motion,  and  as  the  hands  of 
the  medium  were  always  close  under  the  eyes  of  all 
present,  and  simply  resting  on  the  top  of  the  table,  it 
would  appear  that  there  was  some  new  and  unknown  power 
here  at  work.  These  experiments  have  been  many  times 
repeated  by  me,  and  I  am  satisfied  of  the  correctness  of 
my  statement  of  the  facts. 

On  two  or  three  occasions  only,  when  the  conditions 
appear  to  have  been  unusually  favourable,  I  have  witnessed 


142  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

a  still  more  marvellous  phenomenon.  While  sitting  at  the 
large  table  in  our  usual  manner,  I  placed  the  small  table 
about  four  feet  from  it,  on  the  side  next  the  medium  and 
my  sister.  After  some  time,  while  we  were  talking,  we 
heard  a  slight  sound  from  the  table,  and  looking  towards  it, 
found  that  it  moved  slightly  at  short  intervals,  and  after  a 
little  time  it  moved  suddenly  up  to  the  table  by  the  side  of 
the  medium,  as  if  it  had  gradually  got  within  the  sphere 
of  a  strong  attractive  force.  Afterwards,  at  our  request,  it 
was  thrown  down  on  the  floor  without  any  person  touching 
it,  and  it  then  moved  about  in  a  strange  life-like  manner, 
as  if  seeking  some  means  of  getting  up  again,  turning  its 
claws  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the  other.  On 
another  occasion  a  very  large  leather  arm-chair  which 
stood  at  least  four  or  five  feet  from  the  medium,  suddenly 
wheeled  up  to  her  after  a  few  slight  preliminary  move- 
ments. It  is,  of  course,  easy  to  say  that  what  I  relate  is 
impossible.  I  maintain  that  it  is  accurately  true ;  and 
that  no  man,  whatever  be  his  attainments,  has  such  an 
exhaustive  knowledge  of  the  powers  of  nature  as  to  justify 
him  in  using  the  word  impossible  with  regard  to  facts 
which  I  and  many  others  have  repeatedly  witnessed. 

On  Wednesday  evening,  February  27,  1867,  some  very 
remarkable  phenomena  occurred.  The  parties  present 
were  my  sister  and  Miss  Nichol  (now  Mrs.  Volckman),  her 
father,  Mr.  H.  T.  Humphreys,  and  two  young  friends  of 
mine,  Mr.  and  Miss  M.  My  wife  and  her  sister  also  sat  in 
the  room  at  some  distance  from  the  table  looking  on.  There 
was  no  fire,  and  we  lowered  the  gas  so  as  to  give  a  subdued 
light,  which  enabled  everything  to  be  seen.  The  moment 
we  were  all  in  our  places,  taps  were  heard  indicating  that 
the  conditions  were  favourable.  We  now  sent  for  a  single 
wine-glass,  which  was  placed  on  the  floor  between  Miss 
Nichol  and  her  father,  and  we  requested  it  might  be 


NOTES  OF  PERSONAL  EVIDENCE  143 

struck.  After  a  short  time  it  was  gently  tapped,  producing 
a  clear  ringing  sound.  This  soon  changed  to  a  sound  as  if 
two  glasses  were  gently  struck  together ;  and  now  we  were 
all  astonished  by  hearing  in  succession  almost  every  possible 
sound  that  could  be  produced  by  two  glasses  one  inside 
the  other,  even  to  the  clang  of  one  dropped  into  another. 
They  were  in  every  respect  identical  with  such  sounds  as 
we  could  produce  with  two  glasses,  and  with  two  only, 
manipulated  in  a  variety  of  ways,  and  yet  I  was  quite  sure 
that  only  one  wine-glass  was  in  the  room,  and  every  per- 
son's hands  were  distinctly  visible  on  the  table. 

We  now  took  up  the  glass  again  and  put  it  on  the  table, 
where  it  was  held  by  both  Miss  N.  and  Mr.  Humphreys, 
so  as  to  prevent  any  vibration  it  might  produce.  After  a 
short  interval  of  silence  an  exquisitely  delicate  sound  as  of 
tapping  a  glass  was  heard,  which  increased  to  clear  silvery 
notes  like  the  tinkling  of  a  glass  bell.  These  continued  in 
varying  degrees  for  some  minutes,  and  then  became  fainter 
and  gradually  died  away.  We  afterwards  placed  a  rude 
bamboo  harp  from  the  Malay  Archipelago  under  the  table, 
and,  after  several  alterations  of  position,  the  strings  were 
twanged  as  clearly  and  loudly  as  any  of  us  could  do  it 
with  our  fingers.  Having  had  such  success  with  the  glass, 
we  asked  if  the  harp  could  also  be  imitated,  and  having 
received  permission  to  try,  placed  it  also  on  the  table. 
After  a  little  time  faint  vibrating  taps  were  heard,  and 
these  soon  changed  into  very  faint  twangs  which  formed 
a  distinct  imitation  of  the  harp  strings,  although  by  no 
means  so  successfully  as  in  the  case  of  the  wine-glass. 

We  were  informed  by  taps  in  the  ordinary  way  that  it 
was  through  the  peculiar  influence  of  Mr.  Nichol  that  this 
extraordinary  production  of  imitative  musical  sounds  with- 
out any  material  object  was  effected.  I  may  add  that  the 
imitation  of  the  sound  produced  by  two  glasses  was  so 


144  SCIENTIFIC  ASPECT  OF  THE  SUPERNATURAL 

perfect  that  some  of  the  party  turned  up  the  table  imme- 
diately after  we  left  it,  under  the  impression  that  the 
unseen  power  had  brought  in  a  second  glass,  but  none 
could  be  found. 

It  has  been  objected  that  we  too  often  use  the  expression 
that  the  phenomena  we  witness  "  could  not  possibly  have 
been  produced  by  any  of  the  persons  present."  I  maintain 
that  in  this  instance  they  could  not,  and  I  shall  continue 
in  that  conviction  until  they  are  produced  under  similar 
conditions  and  the  modus  operandi  explained. 

I  have  since  witnessed  a  great  variety  of  phenomena, 
both  in  this  country  and  in  America,  some  of  which  are 
alluded  to  in  other  parts  of  this  volume ;  but  I  attach 
most  importance  to  those  which  I  have  carefully  and  re- 
peatedly tested,  and  which  give  me  a  solid  basis  of  fact 
by  which  to  judge  of  what  others  relate  or  of  what  I  have 
myself  seen  under  less  favourable  conditions. 


A    DEFENCE    OF    MODERN 
SPIRITUALISM.1 

(Reprinted  with  Notes  and  Additions  from  the  "Fortnightly  JReiieio,"  1874.) 

IT  is  with  great  diffidence,  but  under  an  imperative  sense 
of  duty,  that  the  present  writer  accepts  the  opportunity 
afforded  him  of  submitting  to  the  readers  of  the  Fort- 
nightly Review  some  general  account  of  a  wide-spread 
movement,  which,  though  for  the  most  part  treated  with 
ridicule  or  contempt,  he  believes  to  embody  truths  of  the 
most  vital  importance  to  human  progress.  The  subject  to 
be  treated  is  of  such  vast  extent ;  the  evidence  concerning 
it  is  so  varied  and  so  extraordinary ;  the  prejudices  that 
surround  it  are  so  inveterate,  that  it  is  not  possible  to  do 
it  justice  without  entering  into  considerable  detail.  The 
reader  who  ventures  on  the  perusal  of  the  succeeding 
pages  may  therefore  have  his  patience  tried ;  but  if  he  is 
able  to  throw  aside  his  preconceived  ideas  of  what  is  pos- 

1  The  following  are  the  more  important  works  which  have  been  used  in 
the  preparation  of  this  article  ; — Judge  Edmond's  Spiritual  Tracts,  New 
York,  1858-1860.  Robert  Dale  Owen's  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of 
Another  World,  Triibner  &  Co.,  1861.  E.  Hardinge's  Modern  American 
Spiritualism,  New  York,  1870.  Robert  Dale  Owen's  Debateable  Land 
between  this  World  and  the  Next,  Triibner  &  Co.,  1871.  Report  on  Spiri- 
tualism of  the  Committee  of  the  London  Dialectical  Society,  Longmans  & 
Co.,  1871.  Year  Book  of  Spiritualism,  Boston  and  London,  1871.  Hud- 
son Tuttle's  Arcana  of  Spiritualism,  Boston,  1871.  The  Spiritual  Maga- 
zine, 1861-1874.  The  Spiritualist  Newspaper,  1872-1874.  The  Medium 
and  Daybreak,  1869-1874. 


146  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

sible  and  what  is  impossible,  and  in  the  acceptance  or  re- 
jection of  what  is  submitted  to  him  will  carefully  weigh 
and  be  solely  guided  by  the  nature  of  the  concurrent  testi- 
mony, the  writer  ventures  to  believe  that  he  will  not  find 
his  time  and  patience  ill-bestowed. 

Few  men,  in  this  busy  age,  have  leisure  to  read  massive 
volumes  devoted  to  special  subjects.  They  gain  much  of 
their  general  knowledge,  outside  the  limits  of  their  pro- 
fession or  of  any  peculiar  study,  by  means  of  periodical 
literature,  and,  as  a  rule,  they  are  supplied  with  copious 
and  accurate,  though  general  information.  Some  of  our 
best  thinkers  and  workers  make  known  the  results  of  their 
researches  to  the  readers  of  magazines  and  reviews ;  and 
it  is  seldom  that  a  writer  whose  information  is  meagre  or 
obtained  at  second-hand  is  permitted  to  come  before  the 
public  in  their  pages  as  an  authoritative  teacher.  But  as 
regards  the  subject  we  are  now  about  to  consider,  this  rule 
has  not  hitherto  been  followed.  Those  who  have  devoted 
many  years  to  an  examination  of  its  phenomena  have 
been,  in  most  cases,  refused  a  hearing ;  while  men  who 
have  bestowed  on  it  no  adequate  attention,  and  are  almost 
wholly  ignorant  of  the  researches  of  others,  have  alone 
supplied  the  information  to  which  a  large  proportion  of 
the  public  have  had  access.  In  support  of  this  statement 
it  is  necessary  to  refer,  with  brief  comments,  to  some  of 
the  more  prominent  articles  in  which  the  phenomena  and 
pretensions  of  Spiritualism  have  been  recently  discussed. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  present  year  (1874)  the  readers 
of  the  Fortnightly  Review  were  treated  to  "  Experiences  of 
Spiritualism  "  by  a  noble  Lord  of  no  mean  ability  and  of 
thoroughly  advanced  views.  He  assures  his  readers  that  he 
"  conscientiously  endeavoured  to  qualify  himself  for  speak- 
ing on  this  subject"  by  attending  five  seances,  the  details 
of  several  of  which  he  narrates ;  and  he  comes  to  the  con- 


LORD  AMBERLEY  ON  MEDIUMS  147 

elusion  that  mediums  are  by  no  means  ingenious  deceivers, 
but  "  jugglers  of  the  most  vulgar  order ;  "  that  the  "  spiri- 
tualistic mind  falls  a  victim  to  the  most  patent  frauds," 
and  greedily  "  accepts  jugglery  as  manifestations  of 
spirits ; "  and,  lastly,  that  the  mediums  are  as  credulous 
as  their  dupes,  and  fall  straightway  into  any  trap  that  is 
laid  for  them.  Now,  on  the  evidence  before  him,  and  on 
the  assumption  that  no  more  or  better  evidence  would 
have  been  forthcoming  had  he  devoted  sixty  instead  of  five 
evenings  to  the  inquiry,  the  conclusions  of  Lord  Amberley 
are  perfectly  logical ;  but,  so  far  from  what  he  witnessed 
being  a  "  specimen  of  the  kind  of  manifestations  by  which 
spiritualists  are  convinced,"  a  very  little  acquaintance  with 
the  literature  of  the  subject  would  have  shown  him  that 
no  spiritualist  of  any  mark  was  ever  convinced  by  any  quan- 
tity of  such  evidence.  In  an  article  published  since  Lord 
Amberley's — in  London  Society  for  February  1874 — the 
author,  a  barrister  and  well-known  literary  man,  says : — 

"  It  was  difficult  for  me  to  give  in  to  the  idea  that  solid  objects 
could  be  conveyed,  invisibly,  through  closed  doors,  or  that  heavy 
furniture  could  be  moved  without  the  interposition  of  hands.  Philo- 
sophers will  say  these  things  are  absolutely  impossible  ;  neverthe- 
less it  is  absolutely  certain  that  they  do  occur.  I  have  met  in  the 
houses  of  private  friends,  as  witnesses  of  these  phenomena,  persons 
whose  testimony  would  go  for  a  good  deal  in  a  court  of  justice.  They 
have  included  peers,  members  of  Parliament,  diplomatists  of  the 
highest  rank,  judges,  barristers,  physicians,  clergymen,  members  of 
learned  societies,  chemists,  engineers,  journalists,  and  thinkers  of  all 
sorts  and  degrees.  They  have  suggested  and  carried  into  effect  tests 
of  the  most  rigid  and  satisfactory  character.  The  media  (all  non- 
professional)  have  been  searched  before  and  after  seances.  The  pre- 
caution has  even  been  taken  of  providing  them  unexpectedly  with 
other  apparel.  They  have  been  tied  ;  they  have  been  sealed  ;  they 
have  been  secured  in  every  cunning  and  dexterous  manner  that 
ingenuity  could  devise,  but  no  deception  has  been  discovered  and  no 


148  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

imposture  brought  to  light  Neither  was  there  any  motive  for  im- 
posture. No  fee  or  reward  of  any  kind  depended  upon  the  success 
or  non-success  of  the  manifestations." 

Now  here  we  have  a  nice  question  of  probabilities.  We 
must  either  believe  that  Lord  Amberley  is  almost  infinitely 
more  acute  than  Mr.  Dunphy  and  his  host  of  eminent 
friends — so  that  after  five  stances  (most  of  them  failures) 
he  has  got  to  the  bottom  of  a  mystery  in  which  they,  not- 
withstanding their  utmost  endeavours,  still  hopelessly 
flounder — or  that  the  noble  lord's  acuteness  does  not  sur- 
pass the  combined  acuteness  of  all  these  persons ;  in  which 
case  their  much  larger  experience,  and  their  having  wit- 
nessed many  things  Lord  Amberley  has  not  witnessed,  must 
be  held  to  have  the  greater  weight,  and  to  show  at  all  events 
that  all  mediums  are  not  "jugglers  of  the  most  vulgar 
order." 

In  October  1873  the  New  Quarterly  Magazine,  in  its 
opening  number,  had  an  article  entitled  "  A  Spiritualistic 
Stance,"  but  which  proved  to  be  an  account  of  certain 
ingenious  contrivances  by  which  some  of  the  phenomena 
usual  at  seances  were  imitated,  and  both  spiritualists  and 
sceptics  deceived  and  confounded.  This  appears  at  first 
sight  to  be  an  exposure  of  Spiritualism,  but  it  is  really 
very  favourable  to  its  pretensions ;  for  it  goes  on  the 
assumption  that  the  marvellous  phenomena  witnessed  do 
really  occur,  but  are  produced  by  various  mechanical  con- 
trivances. In  this  case  the  rooms  above,  below,  and  at  the 
side  of  that  in  which  the  stance  was  held  had  to  be  pre- 
pared with  specially-constructed  machinery,  with  assistants 
to  work  it.  The  apparatus,  as  described,  would  cost  at 
least  £100,  and  would  then  only  serve  to  produce  a  few 
fixed  phenomena,  such  as  happen  frequently  in  private 
houses  and  at  the  lodgings  of  mediums  who  have  not 
exclusive  possession  of  any  of  the  adjoining  rooms,  or  the 


THE  QUARTERLY  REVIEWER'S  STAND-POINT  149 

means  of  obtaining  expensive  machinery  and  hired  assist- 
ants. The  article  bears  internal  evidence  of  being  alto- 
gether a  fictitious  narrative ;  but  it  helps  to  demonstrate, 
if  any  demonstration  is  required,  that  the  phenomena  which 
occur  under  such  protean  forms  and  varied  conditions, 
and  in  private  houses  quite  as  often  as  at  the  apartments 
of  the  mediums,  are  in  no  way  produced  by  machinery. 

Perhaps  the  most  prominent  recent  attack  on  Spiri- 
tualism was  that  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  October  1871, 
which  is  known  to  have  been  written  by  an  eminent 
physiologist  (the  late  Dr.  W.  B.  Carpenter),  and  did  much 
to  blind  the  public  to  the  real  nature  of  the  movement. 
This  article,  after  giving  a  light  sketch  of  the  reported 
phenomena,  entered  into  some  details  as  to  planchette 
writing  and  table-tilting, — facts  on  which  no  spiritualist 
depends  as  evidence  to  a  third  party,  and  then  proceeded 
to  define  its  stand-point  as  follows  : — 

"  Our  position,  then,  is  that  the  so-called  spiritual  communications 
come  from  within,  not  from  without,  the  individuals  who  suppose 
themselves  to  be  the  recipients  of  them ;  that  they  belong  to  the 
class  termed  'subjective'  by  physiologists  and  psychologists,  and 
that  the  movements  by  which  they  are  expressed,  whether  the 
tilting  of  tables  or  the  writing  of  planchettes,  are  really  produced 
by  their  own  muscular  action  exerted  independently  of  their  own 
wills  and  quite  unconsciously  to  themselves." 

Several  pages  are  then  devoted  to  accounts  of  stances 
which,  like  Lord  Amberley's,  were  mostly  failures ;  and 
to  the  experiences  of  a  Bath  clergyman  who  believed  that 
the  communications  came  from  devils ;  and,  generally, 
such  weak  and  inconclusive  phenomena  only  are  adduced 
as  can  be  easily  explained  by  the  well-worn  formulae  of 
"unconscious  cerebration,"  "expectant  attention,"  and 
"  unconscious  muscular  action."  A  few  of  the  more  start- 
ling physical  phenomena  are  mentioned  merely  to  be 


150  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

discredited  and  the  judgment  of  the  witnesses  impugned  ; 
but  no  attempt  is  made  to  place  before  the  reader  any 
information  as  to  the  amount  or  the  weight  of  the  testi- 
mony to  such  phenomena,  or  to  the  long  series  of  diverse 
phenomena  which  lead  up  to  and  confirm  them.  Some  of 
the  experiments  of  Professor  Hare  and  Mr.  Crookes  are 
quoted,  and  criticised  in  the  spirit  of  assuming  that  these 
experienced  physicists  were  ignorant  of  the  simplest  prin- 
ciples of  mechanics,  and  failed  to  use  the  most  ordinary 
precautions.  Of  the  numerous  and  varied  cases  on  record 
of  heavy  bodies  being  moved  without  direct  or  indirect 
contact  by  any  human  being,  no  notice  is  taken,  except  so 
far  as  quoting  Mr.  C.  F.  Varley's  statement,  that  he  had 
seen,  in  broad  daylight,  a  small  table  moved  ten  feet,  with 
no  one  near  it  but  himself,  and  not  touched  by  him,  "as 
an  example  of  the  manner  in  which  minds  of  this  limited 
order  are  apt  to  become  the  dupes  of  their  own  imaginings." 

This  article,  like  the  others  here  referred  to,  shows  in 
the  writer  an  utter  forgetfulness  of  the  maxim,  that  an 
argument  is  not  answered  till  it  is  answered  at  its  best. 
Amid  the  vast  mass  of  recorded  facts  now  accumulated 
by  spiritualists  there  is,  of  course,  much  that  is  weak  and 
inconclusive,  much  that  is  of  no  value  as  evidence,  except 
to  those  who  have  independent  reasons  for  faith  in  them. 
From  this  undigested  mass  it  is  the  easiest  thing  in  the 
world  to  pick  out  arguments  that  can  be  refuted  and 
facts  that  can  be  explained  away ;  but  what  is  that  to  the 
purpose  ?  It  is  not  these  that  have  convinced  any  one, 
but  those  weightier,  oft-repeated,  and  oft-tested  facts 
which  the  writers  referred  to  invariably  ignore. 

The  late  Professor  Tyndall  has  also  given  the  world 
(in  his  Fragments  of  Science,  published  in  1871)  some 
account  of  his  attempt  to  investigate  these  phenomena. 
Again  we  have  a  minute  record  of  a  stance  which  was  a 


ATTITUDE  OF  MEN  OF  SCIENCE  151 

failure ;  and  in  which  the  Professor,  like  Lord  Amberley, 
easily  imposed  on  some  too  credulous  spiritualists  by  im- 
provising a  few  manifestations  of  his  own.  The  article  in 
question  is  dated  as  far  back  as  1864;  we  may  therefore  con- 
clude that  the  Professor  has  not  seen  much  of  the  subject ; 
nor  can  he  have  made  himself  acquainted  with  what  others 
have  seen  and  carefully  verified,  or  he  would  hardly  have 
thought  his  communication  worthy  of  the  place  it  occupies 
among  original  researches  and  positive  additions  to  human 
knowledge.  Both  its  facts  and  its  reasonings  have  been 
well  replied  to  by  Mr.  Patrick  Fraser  Alexander,  in  his 
little  work  entitled,  Spiritualism  ;  a  Narrative  and  a  Dis- 
cussion, which  we  recommend  to  those  who  care  to  see  how 
a  very  acute  yet  unprejudiced  mind  looks  at  the  pheno- 
mena, and  how  inconclusive,  even  from  a  scientific  stand- 
point, are  the  experiences  adduced  by  Professor  Tyndall. 

The  discussion  in  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  in  1868,  and  a 
considerable  private  correspondence,  indicates  that  scien- 
tific men  almost  invariably  assume  that  in  this  inquiry 
they  should  be  permitted  at  the  very  outset  to  impose 
conditions ;  and  if,  under  such  conditions,  nothing  happens, 
they  consider  it  a  proof  of  imposture  or  delusion.  But 
they  well  know  that,  in  all  other  branches  of  research, 
Nature,  not  they,  determines  the  essential  conditions,  with- 
out a  compliance  with  which  no  experiment  will  succeed. 
These  conditions  have  to  be  learnt  by  a  patient  questioning 
of  Nature,  and  they  are  different  for  each  branch  of  science. 
How  much  more  may  they  be  expected  to  differ  in  an 
inquiry  which  deals  with  subtle  forces  of  the  nature  of 
which  the  physicist  is  wholly  and  absolutely  ignorant ! 
To  ask  to  be  allowed  to  deal  with  these  unknown  pheno- 
mena as  he  has  hitherto  dealt  with  known  phenomena,  is 
practically  to  prejudge  the  question,  since  it  assumes  that 
both  are  governed  by  the  same  laws. 


152  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

From  the  sketch  which  has  now  been  given  of  the  recent 
treatment  of  the  subject  by  popular  and  scientific  writers, 
we  can  summarise  pretty  accurately  their  mental  attitude 
in  regard  to  it.  They  have  seen  very  little  of  the  pheno- 
mena themselves,  and  they  cannot  believe  that  others  have 
seen  much  more.  They  have  encountered  people  who  are 
easily  deceived  by  a  little  unexpected  trickery,  and  they 
conclude  that  the  convictions  of  spiritualists  generally  are 
founded  on  phenomena  produced,  either  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  in  a  similar  way.  They  are  so  firmly  con- 
vinced, on  &  priori  grounds,  that  the  more  remarkable 
phenomena  said  to  happen  do  not  really  happen,  that  they 
will  back  their  conviction  against  the  direct  testimony  of 
any  body  of  men,  preferring  to  believe  that  they  are  all 
the  victims  of  some  mysterious  delusion  whenever  impos- 
ture is  out  of  the  question.  To  influence  persons  in  this 
frame  of  mind,  it  is  evident  that  more  personal  testimony 
to  isolated  facts  is  utterly  useless.  They  have,  to  use  the 
admirable  expression  of  Dr.  Carpenter,  "no  place  in  the 
existing  fabric  of  their  thought  into  which  such  facts  can 
be  fitted."  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  modify  the  "  fabric 
of  thought "  itself ;  and  it  appears  to  the  present  writer 
that  this  can  best  be  done  by  a  general  historic  sketch  of 
the  subject,  and  by  showing,  by  separate  lines  of  inquiry, 
how  wide  and  varied  is  the  evidence,  and  how  remarkably 
these  lines  converge  towards  one  uniform  conclusion.  The 
endeavour  will  be  made  to  indicate,  by  typical  examples 
of  each  class  of  evidence  and  without  unnecessary  detail, 
the  cumulative  force  of  the  argument. 

HISTORICAL  SKETCH. 

Modern  Spiritualism  dates  from  March  1848 ;  it  being 
then  that,  for  the  first  time,  intelligent  communications 
were  held  with  the  unknown  cause  of  the  mysterious 


EA.RLY  INTELLIGENT  COMMUNICATIONS  153 

knockings  and  other  sounds  similar  to  those  which  had 
disturbed  the  Mompesson  and  Wesley  families  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  This  discovery  was 
made  by  Miss  Kate  Fox,  a  girl  of  nine  years  old,1  and  the 
first  recognised  example  of  an  extensive  class  now  known 
as  mediums.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  this  very  first 
"  modern  spiritual  manifestation  "  was  subjected  to  the 
test  of  unlimited  examination  by  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
village  of  Hydesville,  New  York.  Though  all  were  utter 
sceptics,  no  one  could  discover  any  cause  for  the  noises, 
which  continued,  though  with  less  violence,  when  all  the 
children  had  left  the  house.  Nothing  is  more  common 
than  the  remark,  that  it  is  absurd  and  illogical  to  impute 
noises,  of  which  we  cannot  discover  the  cause,  to  the 
agency  of  spirits.  So  it  undoubtedly  is  when  the  noises 
are  merely  noises  ;  but  is  it  so  illogical  when  these  noises 
turn  out  to  be  signals,  and  signals  which  spell  out  a  fact, 
which  fact,  though  wholly  unknown  to  all  present,  turns 
out  to  be  true  ?  Yet,  on  this  very  first  occasion,  forty-six 
years  ago,  the  signals  declared  that  a  murdered  man  was 
buried  in  the  cellar  of  the  house ;  it  indicated  the  exact 
spot  in  the  cellar  under  which  the  body  lay;  and  upon 
digging  there,  at  a  depth  of  six  or  seven  feet,  considerable 
portions  of  a  human  skeleton  were  found.  Yet  more,  the 
name  of  the  murdered  man  was  given,  and  it  was  ascer- 
tained that  such  a  person  had  visited  that  very  house  and 
had  disappeared  five  years  before,  and  had  never  been 
heard  of  since.  The  signals  further  declared  that  he,  the 
murdered  man,  was  the  signaller ;  and  as  all  the  witnesses 
had  satisfied  themselves  that  the  signals  were  not  made  by 
any  living  person,  or  by  any  assignable  cause,  the  logical 

1  Miss  K.  Fox  (now  Mrs.  Jencken)  states  that  she  was  only  five  years 
old  at  this  time.  Her  parents,  however,  appear  to  have  given  the  age  as 
nine  to  several  inquirers. 


154  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

conclusion  from  the  facts  was,  that  it  was  the  spirit1  of 
the  murdered  man ;  although  such  a  conclusion  might  be 
to  some  in  the  highest  degree  improbable,  and  to  others 
in  the  highest  degree  absurd. 

The  Misses  Fox  now  became  involuntary  mediums,  and 
the  family  (which  had  removed  to  the  city  of  Rochester) 
were  accused  of  imposture,  and  offered  to  submit  the 
children  to  examination  by  a  committee  of  townsmen 
appointed  in  public  meeting.  Three  committees  were  suc- 
cessively appointed ;  the  last,  composed  of  violent  sceptics 
who  had  accused  the  previous  committees  of  stupidity  or 
connivance.  But  all  three,  after  unlimited  investigation, 
were  forced  to  declare  that  the  cause  of  the  phenomena 
was  undiscoverable.  The  sounds  occurred  on  the  wall  and 
floor  while  the  mediums,  after  being  thoroughly  searched 
by  ladies,  "stood  on  pillows,  barefooted,  and  with  their 
clothes  tied  round  their  ankles."  The  last  and  most  scep- 
tical committee  reported  that  "  they  had  heard  sounds, 
and  failed  utterly  to  discover  their  origin.  They  had 
proved  that  neither  machinery  nor  imposture  had  been 
used ;  and  their  questions,  many  of  them  being  mental, 
were  answered  correctly."  When  we  consider  that  the 
mediums  were  two  children  under  twelve  years  of  age, 
and  the  examiners  utterly  sceptical  American  citizens, 
thoroughly  resolved  to  detect  imposture,  and  urged  on  by 
excited  public  meetings,  it  may  perhaps  be  considered 
that  even  at  this  early  stage  the  question  of  imposture  or 
delusion  was  pretty  well  settled  in  the  negative. 

In  a  short  time  persons  who  sat  with  the  Misses  Fox 

1  It  may  be  as  well  here  to  explain  that  the  word  "spirit,"  which  is 
often  considered  to  be  so  objectionable  by  scientific  men,  is  used  through- 
out this  article  (or,  at  all  events,  in  the  earlier  portions  of  it),  merely  to 
avoid  circumlocution,  in  the  sense  of  the  "  intelligent  cause  of  the  pheno- 
mena," and  not  as  implying  "  the  spirits  of  the  dead,"  unless  so  expressly 
stated. 


RAPID  SPREAD  OF  THE  MOVEMENT  155 

found  themselves  to  have  similar  powers  in  a  greater  or 
less  degree ;  and  in  two  or  three  years  the  movement  had 
spread  over  a  large  part  of  the  United  States,  developing 
into  a  variety  of  strange  forms,  encountering  the  most 
violent  scepticism  and  the  most  rancorous  hostility,  yet 
always  progressing,  and  making  converts  even  among  the 
most  enlightened  and  best  educated  classes.  In  1851 
some  of  the  most  intelligent  men  in  New  York — -judges, 
senators,  doctors,  lawyers,  merchants,  clergymen,  and 
authors — formed  themselves  into  a  society  for  investiga- 
tion. Judge  Edmonds  was  one  of  these ;  and  a  sketch  of 
the  kind  and  amount  of  evidence  that  was  required  to 
convince  him  will  be  given  farther  on.  In  1854  a  second 
spiritual  society  was  formed  in  New  York.  It  had  the 
names  of  four  judges  and  two  physicians  among  its  vice- 
presidents,  showing  that  the  movement  had  by  this  time 
become  respectable,  and  that  men  in.  high  social  positions 
were  not  afraid  of  identifying  themselves  with  it.  A  little 
later  Professor  Mapes,  an  eminent  agricultural  chemist, 
was  led  to  undertake  the  investigation  of  Spiritualism. 
He  formed  a  circle  of  twelve  friends,  most  of  them  men 
of  talent  and  sceptics,  who  bound  themselves  to  sit  to- 
gether weekly,  with  a  medium,  twenty  times.  For  the 
first  eighteen  evenings  the  phenomena  were  so  trivial  and 
unsatisfactory,  that  most  of  the  party  felt  disgusted  at  the 
loss  of  time ;  but  the  last  two  sittings  produced  pheno- 
mena of  so  startling  a  character,  that  the  investigation 
was  continued  by  the  same  circle  for  four  years,  and  all 
became  spiritualists. 

By  this  time  the  movement  had  spread  into  every  part 
of  the  Union,  and,  notwithstanding  that  its  adherents 
were  abused  as  impostors  or  dupes,  that  they  were  in 
several  cases  expelled  from  colleges  and  churches,  were 
confined  as  lunatics,  and  that  the  whole  thing  was  "  ex- 


156  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

plained  "  over  and  over  again,  it  has  continued  to  spread 
up  to  the  present  hour.  The  secret  of  this  appears  to 
have  been,  that  the  explanations  given  never  applied  to 
the  phenomena  continually  occurring,  and  of  which  there 
were  numerous  witnesses.  A  medium  was  raised  in  the 
air  in  a  crowded  room  in  full  daylight  {Modern  Ameri- 
can Spiritualism,  p.  279).  A  scientific  sceptic  prepared  a 
small  portable  apparatus,  by  which  he  could  produce  an 
instantaneous  illumination ;  and,  taking  it  to  a  dark  stance 
at  which  numerous  musical  instruments  were  played,  sud- 
denly lighted  up  the  room  while  a  large  drum  was  being 
violently  beaten,  in  the  certain  expectation  of  revealing 
the  impostor  to  the  whole  company.  But  what  they  all 
saw  was  the  drumstick  itself  beating  the  drum,  with  no 
human  being  near  it.  It  struck  a  few  more  blows,  then 
rose  into  the  air  and  descended  gently  on  to  the  shoulder 
of  a  lady  (same  work,  p.  337).  At  Toronto,  Canada, 
in  a  well-lighted  room,  an  accompaniment  to  a  song 
was  played  on  a  closed  and  locked  piano  (same  work,  p. 
463).  Communications  were  given  in  raised  letters  on 
the  arm  of  an  ignorant  servant-girl,  who  often  could  not 
read  them.  They  sometimes  appeared  while  she  was  at 
her  household  work,  and  after  being  read  by  her  master 
or  mistress,]  would  disappear  (same  work,  p.  196). 
Letters  closed  in  any  number  of  envelopes,  sealed  up 
or  even  pasted  together  over  the  whole  of  the  written 
surface,  were  read  and  answered  by  certain  mediums  in 
whom  this  special  power  was  developed.  It  mattered  not 
what  language  the  letters  were  written  in  ;  and  it  is  upon 
record  that  letters  in  German,  Greek,  Hebrew,  Arabic, 
Chinese,  French,  Welsh,  and  Mexican  have  been  correctly 
answered  in  the  corresponding  languages  by  a  medium 
who  knew  none  of  them  (Judge  Edmonds'  Lettres  on 
Spiritualism,  pp.  59-103,  Appendix).  Other  mediums 


ESTIMATED  NUMBER  OF  SPIRITUALISTS  157 

drew  portraits  of  deceased  persons  whom  they  had 
never  known  or  heard  of.  Others  healed  diseases.  But 
those  who  helped  most  to  spread  the  belief  were  per- 
haps the  trance  speakers,  who,  in  eloquent  and  power- 
ful language,  developed  the  principles  and  the  uses  of 
Spiritualism,  answered  objections,  spread  abroad  a  know- 
ledge of  the  phenomena,  and  thus  induced  sceptics  to 
inquire  into  the  facts ;  and  inquiry  was  almost  invariably 
followed  by  conversion.  Having  repeatedly  listened  to 
three  of  these  speakers  who  have  visited  this  country,  I 
can  bear  witness  that  they  fully  equal,  and  not  unfrequently 
surpass,  our  best  orators  and  preachers,  whether  in  finished 
eloquence,  in  close  and  logical  argument,  or  in  the  readiness 
with  which  appropriate  and  convincing  replies  are  made 
to  all  objectors.  They  are  also  remarkable  for  the  perfect 
courtesy  and  suavity  of  their  manner,  and  for  the  extreme 
patience  and  gentleness  with  which  they  meet  the  most 
violent  opposition  and  the  most  unjust  accusations. 

Men  of  the  highest  rank  and  greatest  ability  became 
convinced  by  these  varied  phenomena.  No  amount  of 
education,  of  legal,  medical,  or  scientific  training,  was 
proof  against  the  overwhelming  force  of  the  facts,  whenever 
these  facts  were  systematically  and  perseveringly  inquired 
into.  The  number  of  spiritualists  in  the  Union  is,  accord- 
ing to  those  who  have  the  best  means  of  judging,  from 
eight  to  eleven  millions.1  This  was  the  estimate  of  Judge 

1  Mr.  Wm.  Tebb  has  called  my  attention  to  his  objections  to  the  esti- 
mate of  eight  to  eleven  millions  of  Spiritualists  in  the  United  States,  pub- 
lished.in  Human  Nature,  November  1871.  After  a  careful  and  extensive 
inquiry  in  America,  he  thinks  about  one-tenth  of  the  amount  nearer  the 
truth.  Judge  Edmonds'  letter  on  the  subject  (Spiritual  Magazine,  1867, 
p.  327)  enables  us  to  some  extent  to  understand  how  such  divergent  esti- 
mates could  be  made  ;  and  although  he  may  be  too  high,  it  seems  probable 
that  Mr.  Tebb  is  very  much  too  low.  "  Spiritualists "  is  such  a  vague 
term  that  no  approach  to  accuracy  can  be  expected.  The  confirmed  and 


158  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

Edmonds,  who  carried  on  an  extensive  correspondence  on 
the  subject  with  every  part  of  the  United  States.  The  Hon. 
R.  D.  Owen,  who  also  had  great  opportunities  of  know- 
ing the  facts,  considered  it  to  be  approximately  correct ; 
and  it  was  affirmed  by  the  editors  of  the  Year  Book  of 
Spiritualism  for  1871.  These  numbers  have  been  held  to 
be  absurdly  exaggerated  by  persons  having  less  informa- 
tion, especially  by  strangers  who  have  made  superficial 
inquiries  in  America ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the 
spiritualists  are  to  a  very  limited  extent  an  organised 
body,  and  that  the  mass  of  them  make  no  public  profes- 
sion of  their  belief,  but  still  remain  members  of  some 
denominational  church — circumstances  that  would  greatly 
deceive  an  outsider.  Nevertheless  the  organisation  is  of 
considerable  extent.  There  were  in  America,  in  1870, 
20  State  associations  and  105  societies  of  spiritualists, 
207  lecturers,  and  about  the  same  number  of  public 
mediums. 

In  other  parts  of  the  world  the  movement  has  progressed 
more  or  less  rapidly.  Several  of  the  more  celebrated 
American  mediums  have  visited  this  country,  and  not 
only  made  converts  in  all  classes  of  society,  but  led  to  the 
formation  of  private  circles  and  the  discovery  of  medium- 
istic  power  in  hundreds  of  families.  There  is  scarcely  a 
city  or  a  considerable  town  in  Continental  Europe  at  the 
present  moment  where  spiritualists  are  not  reckoned  by 
hundreds,  if  not  by  thousands.  There  are  said,  on  good 
authority,  to  be  fifty  thousand  avowed  spiritualists  in 
Paris  and  ten  thousand  in  Lyons;  and  the  numbers  in 

acknowledged  spiritualists  may  be  only  about  one  million,  while  Judge 
Edmonds'  estimate  may  include  all  who  acknowledge  that  the  phenomena 
are  realities.  Taken  in  this  sense,  several  authorities  I  have  consulted, 
including  Mr.  Epes  Sargent,  do  not  think  Judge  Edmonds'  estimate  to  be 
much  exaggerated. 


NATURE  OF  THE  BELIEF  159 

this  country  may  be  roughly  estimated  by  the  fact  that 
there  are  four  exclusively  spiritual  periodicals,  one  of 
which  has  a  circulation  of  five  thousand  weekly.1 

DEDUCTIONS  FROM  THE  PRECEDING   SKETCH. 

Before  proceeding  to  a  statement  of  the  evidence  which 
has  convinced  the  more  educated  and  more  sceptical  con- 
verts, let  us  consider  briefly  the  bearing  of  the  undoubted 
fact  that  (to  keep  within  bounds)  many  thousands  of  well- 
informed  men,  belonging  to  all  classes  of  society  and  all 
professions,  have,  in  each  of  the  great  civilised  nations 
of  the  world,  acknowledged  the  objective  reality  of  these 
phenomena;  although,  almost  without  exception,  they  at 
first  viewed  them  with  dislike  or  contempt,  as  impostures 
or  delusions.  There  is  nothing  parallel  to  it  in  the 
history  of  human  thought;  because  there  never  before 
existed  so  strong,  and  apparently  so  well-founded,  a  con- 
viction that  phenomena  of  this  kind  never  have  happened 
and  never  can  happen.  It  is  often  said  that  the  number 
of  adherents  to  a  belief  is  no  proof  of  its  truth.  This 
remark  justly  applies  to  most  religions  whose  arguments 
appeal  to  the  emotions  and  the  intellect  but  not  the  evi- 
dence of  the  senses.  It  is  equally  just  as  applied  to  a 
great  part  of  modern  science.  The  almost  universal  belief 
in  gravitation  and  the  undulatory  theory  of  light  does 
not  render  them  in  any  degree  more  probable,  because 
very  few  indeed  of  the  believers  have  tested  the  facts 
which  most  convincingly  demonstrate  those  theories,  or  are 
able  to  follow  out  the  reasoning  by  which  they  are  demon- 
strated. It  is  for  the  most  part  a  blind  belief  accepted 
upon  authority.  But  with  these  spiritual  phenomena  the 
case  is  very  different.  They  are  to  most  men  so  new,  so 

1  These  estimates  are  approximately  correct  at  the  present  day. 


160  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

strange,  so  incredible,  so  opposed  to  their  whole  habit  of 
thought,  so  apparently  opposed  to  the  pervading  scientific 
spirit  of  the  age,  that  they  cannot  and  do  not  accept  them 
on  second-hand  evidence,  as  they  do  almost  every  other 
kind  of  knowledge.  The  thousands  or  millions  of  spiri- 
tualists, therefore,  represent  to  a  very  large  extent  men 
who  have  witnessed,  examined,  and  tested  the  evidence  for 
themselves  over  and  over  and  over  again,  till  that  which 
they  had  at  first  been  unable  to  admit  could  be  true,  they 
have  at  last  been  compelled  to  acknowledge  is  true.  This 
accounts  for  the  utter  failure  of  all  the  attempted  "  expo- 
sures" and  "explanations  "  to  convince  one  solitary  believer 
of  his  error.  The  exposers  and  explainers  have  never  got 
beyond  those  first  difficulties  which  constitute  the  pons 
asinorum  of  Spiritualism,  which  every  believer  has  to  get 
over,  but  at  which  early  stage  of  investigation  no  converts 
are  ever  made.  By  explaining  table-turning,  or  table- 
tilting,  or  raps,  you  do  not  influence  a  man  who  was  never 
convinced  by  these,  but  who,  in  broad  daylight,  sees  objects 
move  without  contact,  and  behave  as  if  guided  by  intelligent 
beings  ;  and  who  sees  this  in  a  variety  of  forms,  in  a  variety 
of  places,  and  under  such  varied  and  stringent  conditions 
as  to  make  the  fact  to  him  just  as  real  as  the  movement 
of  iron  to  the  magnet.  By  explaining  automatic  writing 
(which  itself  convinces  no  one  but  the  writer,  and  not 
always  even  him),  you  do  not  affect  the  belief  of  the  man 
who  has  obtained  writing  when  neither  pencil  nor  paper 
were  touched  by  any  one,  as  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Andrew 
Leighton  of  Liverpool,  in  whose  presence  the  following 
pertinent  sentence  was  written  under  strictly  test  condi- 
tions— "  And  is  this  world  of  strife  to  end  in  dust  at  last  ?  " 
—or  has  seen  a  hand  not  attached  to  a  human  body  take 
up  a  pen  and  write, — as  many  persons  in  London  have 
seen  in  the  presence  of  Mr.  Home.  Thus  it  is  that  there 


THE  FACTS  INCONTROVERTIBLE  161 

are  so  few  recantations  or  perverts  in  Spiritualism;  so 
few,  that  it  may  be  truly  said  there  are  none.  After 
much  inquiry  and  reading,  I  can  find  no  example  of  a  man 
who,  having  acquired  a  good  personal  knowledge  of  all  the 
chief  phases  of  the  phenomena,  has  subsequently  come  to 
disbelieve  in  their  reality.  If  the  "  explanations  "  and  "  ex- 
posures "  were  good  for  anything,  or  if  it  were  an  imposture 
to  expose,  or  a  delusion  to  explain,  this  could  not  be  the  case, 
because  there  are  numbers  of  men  who  have  become  con- 
vinced of  the  facts,  but  who  have  not  accepted  the  spiritual 
theory.  These  are,  for  the  most  part,  in  an  uncomfortable 
and  unsettled  frame  of  mind,  and  would  gladly  welcome  an 
explanation  which  really  explained  anything — but  theyfind 
it  not.  As  an  eminent  example  of  this  class,  I  may  men- 
tion Dr.  J.  Lockhart  Robertson,  long  one  of  the  editors  of 
the  Journal  of  Mental  Science,  a  physician  who,  having 
made  mental  disease  his  special  study,  would  not  be  easily 
taken  in  by  any  psychological  delusions.  The  pheno- 
mena he  witnessed  thirty-four  years  ago  were  of  a  violent 
character ;  a  very  strong  table  being,  at  his  own  request 
and  in  his  own  house,  broken  to  pieces  while  he  held  the 
medium's  hands.  He  afterwards  himself  tried  to  break  a 
remaining  leg  of  the  table,  but  failed  to  do  so  after  exert- 
ing all  his  strength.  Another  table  was  tilted  over  while 
all  the  party  sat  on  it.  He  subsequently  had  a  sitting 
with  Mr.  Home,  and  witnessed  the  usual  phenomena 
occurring  with  that  extraordinary  medium, — such  as  the 
accordion  playing  "  most  wonderful  music  without  any 
human  agency,"  "a  shadow  hand,  not  that  of  any  one 
present,  which  lifts  a  pencil  and  writes  with  it,"  &c.,  &c.; 
and  he  says  that  he  can  "no  more  doubt  the  physical 
manifestations  of  (so-called)  Spiritualism  than  he  would 
any  other  fact — as,  for  example,  the  fall  of  an  apple  to  the 
ground  of  which  his  senses  informed  him."  His  record  of 

L 


162  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

these  phenomena,  with  the  confirmation  by  a  friend  who 
was  present,  is  published  in  the  Dialectical  Society 's  Report 
on  Spiritualism,  p.  247  ;  and,  at  a  meeting  of  spiritualists 
in  1870,  he  reasserted  the  facts,  but  denied  their  spiritual 
origin.  To  such  a  man  the  Quarterly  Reviewer's  explana- 
tions are  worthless ;  yet  it  may  be  safely  said  that  every 
advanced  spiritualist  has  seen  more  remarkable,  more 
varied,  and  even  more  inexplicable  phenomena  than  those 
recorded  by  Dr.  Robertson,  and  are  therefore  still  farther 
out  of  reach  of  the  arguments  referred  to,  which  are  in- 
deed only  calculated  to  convince  those  who  know  little  or 
nothing  of  the  matter. 


EVIDENCE   OF  THE   FACTS. 

The  subject  of  the  evidences  of  the  objective  phenomena 
of  Spiritualism  is  such  a  large  one  that  it  will  be  only 
possible  here  to  give  a  few  typical  examples,  calculated  to 
show  how  wide  is  their  range,  and  how  conclusively  they 
reach  every  objection  that  the  most  sceptical  have  brought 
against  them.  This  may  perhaps  be  best  done  by  giving, 
in  the  first  place,  an  outline  of  the  career  of  two  or  three 
well-known  mediums ;  and,  in  the  second,  a  sketch  of  the 
experiences  and  investigations  of  a  few  of  the  more  re- 
markable converts  to  Spiritualism. 

Career  of  Remarkable  Mediums. — Miss  Kate  Fox,  the 
little  girl  of  nine  years  old,  who,  as  already  stated,  was 
the  first  "  medium  "  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  term,  con- 
tinued to  possess  the  same  power  in  varying  degrees  till 
her  death  a  few  years  ago.  At  the  very  earliest  stages 
of  the  movement,  sceptic  after  sceptic,  committee  after 
committee,  endeavoured  to  discover  "  the  trick ; "  but  if 
it  was  a  trick,  this  little  girl  baffled  them  all,  and  the 
proverbial  acuteness  of  the  Yankee  was  of  no  avail.  In 


EXPERIMENTS  WITH  MISS  FOX  163 

1860,  when  Dr.  Robert  Chambers  visited  America,  he 
suggested  to  his  friend,  Robert  Dale  Owen,  the  use  of  a 
balance  to  test  the  lifting  power.  They  accordingly,  with- 
out pre-arrangement  with  the  medium,  took  with  them  a 
powerful  steelyard,  and  suspended  from  it  a  dining-table 
weighing  121  pounds.  Then,  under  a  bright  gaslight,  the 
feet  of  the  two  mediums  (Miss  Fox  and  her  sister)  being 
both  touched  by  the  feet  of  the  gentlemen,  and  the  hands 
of  all  present  being  held  over,  but  not  touching  the  table, 
it  was  made  lighter  or  heavier  at  request,  so  as  to  weigh  at 
one  time  only  60,  at  another  134  pounds.  This  experi- 
ment, be  it  remembered,  was  identical  with  one  proposed 
by  Faraday  himself  as  being  conclusive.  Mr.  Owen  had 
many  sittings  with  Miss  Fox  for  the  purpose  of  tests  ;  and 
the  precautions  he  took  were  extraordinary.  He  sat  with 
her  alone ;  he  frequently  changed  the  room  without  notice ; 
he  examined  every  article  of  furniture ;  he  locked  the 
doors  and  fastened  them  with  strips  of  paper  privately 
sealed ;  he  held  both  the  hands  of  the  medium.  Under 
these  conditions  various  phenomena  occurred,  the  most 
remarkable  being  the  illumination  of  a  piece  of  paper 
(which  he  had  brought  himself,  cut  of  a  peculiar  size,  and 
privately  marked),  showing  a  dark  hand  writing  on  the 
floor.  The  paper  afterwards  rose  up  on  to  the  table  with 
legible  writing  upon  it,  containing  a  promise  which  was 
subsequently  verified.  (Debateable  Land,  p.  293.) 

But  Miss  Fox's  powers  were  most  remarkably  shown  in 
the  stances  at  Mr.  Livermore's,  a  well-known  New  York 
banker  and  an  entire  sceptic  before  commencing  these  ex- 
periments. These  sittings  were  more  than  three  hundred 
in  number,  extending  over  five  years.  They  took  place  in 
four  different  houses  (Mr.  Livermore's  and  the  medium's 
being  both  changed  during  this  period),  under  tests  of  the 
most  rigid  description.  The  chief  phenomenon  was  the 


161  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

appearance  of  a  tangible,  visible,  and  audible  figure  of 
Mr.  Livermore's  deceased  wife,  sometimes  accompanied  by 
a  male  figure,  purporting  to  be  Dr.  Franklin.  The  former 
figure  was  often  most  distinct  and  absolutely  like-like.  It 
moved  various  objects  in  the  room.  It  wrote  messages  on 
cards.  It  was  sometimes  formed  out  of  a  luminous  cloud, 
and  again  vanished  before  the  eyes  of  the  witnesses.  It 
allowed  a  portion  of  its  dress  to  be  cut  off,  which,  though 
at  first  of  strong  and  apparently  material  gauzy  texture, 
yet  in  a  short  time  melted  away  and  became  invisible. 
Flowers  which  melted  away  were  also  given.  These 
phenomena  occurred  best  when  Mr.  L.  and  the  medium 
were  alone  ;  but  two  witnesses  were  occasionally  admitted 
who  tested  everything  and  confirmed  Mr.  L.'s  testimony. 
One  of  these  was  Mr.  Livermore's  physician,  the  other  his 
brother-in-law  ;  the  latter  previously  a  sceptic.  The  details 
of  these  wonderful  stances  were  published  in  the  Spiritual 
Magazine  in  1862  and  1863 ;  and  the  more  remarkable 
are  given  in  Owen's  Debateable  Land,  from  which  work  a 
good  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  great  variety  of  the  phe- 
nomena that  occurred  and  the  stringent  character  of  the 
tests  employed. 

Miss  Fox  recently  came  to  England,  and  here  also  her 
powers  have  been  tested  by  a  competent  man  of  science, 
and  found  to  be  all  that  has  been  stated.  She  married 
an  English  barrister,  and  some  of  the  strange  phenomena 
which  so  long  accompanied  her  attached  themselves  to 
her  infant  child,  even  when  its  mother  was  away,  to  the 
great  alarm  of  the  nurse.  We  have  here,  therefore,  a 
life-long  career  of  mediumship  of  the  most  varied  and 
remarkable  character ;  mediumship  which  has  been  scruti- 
nised and  tested  from  the  first  hour  of  its  manifestation, 
and  with  one  invariable  result — that  no  imposture  or 
attempt  at  imposture  has  ever  been  discovered,  and  no 


SIR  DAVID  BREWSTER'S  EVIDENCE  165 

cause  ever  been  suggested  that  will  account  for  the  phe- 
nomena except  that  advanced  by  spiritualists. 

Mr.  Daniel  D.  Home  was  perhaps  the  best  known 
medium  in  the  world,  and  his  powers  were  open  to  exami- 
nation for  about  thirty  years.  Thirty-nine  years  ago  Sir 
David  Brewster  and  Lord  Brougham  had  a  sitting  with 
him — sufficiently  acute  and  eminent  observers,  and  both, 
of  course,  thorough  sceptics.  In  the  Home  Life  of  Sir 
David  Brewster,  we  have,  fortunately,  his  own  record  of 
this  sitting,  made  at  the  time.  He  says :  "  The  table 
actually  rose  from  the  ground  when  no  hand  was  upon 
it ; "  and  "  a  small  hand-bell  was  laid  down  with  its 
mouth  upon  the  carpet,  and  it  actually  rang  when  nothing 
could  have  touched  it.  The  bell  was  then  placed  on  the 
other  side,  still  upon  the  carpet,  and  it  came  over  to  me 
and  placed  itself  in  my  hand.  It  did  the  same  to  Lord 
Brougham."  And  he  adds,  speaking  for  both,  "  We  could 
give  no  explanation  of  them,  and  could  not  conjecture 
how  they  could  be  produced  by  any  kind  of  mechanism." 
Coming  from  the  author  of  Letters  on  Natural  Magic,  this 
is  pretty  good  testimony,  although  six  months  later,  in  a 
letter  to  the  Morning  Advertiser,  he  made  the  contradic- 
tory statement — "I  saw  enough  to  satisfy  myself  they 
could  all  be  produced  by  human  hands  and  feet." 

These  and  far  more  marvellous  phenomena  have  been 
since  repeated  many  thousands  of  times,  and  almost 
always  in  private  houses  at  which  Mr.  Home  was  a  visitor. 
Everybody  testifies  to  the  fact  that  he  offered  the  most 
ample  facilities  for  investigation ;  and  to  this  I  can  myself 
bear  witness,  having  been  invited  by  him  to  examine,  as 
closely  as  I  pleased,  an  accordion,  held  by  his  one  hand, 
keys  downward,  and  in  that  position  playing  very  sweetly. 
But  perhaps  the  best  attested  and  most  extraordinary 
phenomenon  connected  with  Mr.  Home's  mediumship  was 


166  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIKITUALISM 

what  is  called  the  fire-test.  In  a  state  of  trance  he  took 
a  glowing  coal  from  the  hottest  part  of  a  bright  fire,  and 
carried  it  round  the  room,  so  that  every  one  might  see  and 
feel  that  it  was  a  real  one.  This  is  testified  by  Mr.  H.  D. 
Jencken,  Lord  Lindsay,  Lord  Adare,  Miss  Douglas,  Mr. 
S.  C.  Hall,  and  many  others.  But,  more  strange  still, 
when  in  this  state  he  could  detect  the  same  power  in  other 
persons,  or  convey  it  to  them.  A  lump  of  red-hot  coal 
was  once  placed  on  Mr.  S.  C.  Hall's  head  in  the  presence 
of  Lord  Lindsay  and  four  other  persons.  Mrs.  Hall  in 
a  communication  to  the  Earl  of  Dunraven  (given  in  the 
Spiritual  Magazine,  1870,  p.  178)  says : — 

"  Mr.  Hall  was  seated  nearly  opposite  to  where  I  sat ;  and  I  saw 
Mr.  Home,  after  standing  about  half  a  minute  at  the  back  of  Mr. 
Hall's  chair,  deliberately  place  the  lump  of  burning  coal  on  his  head  ! 
I  have  often  wondered  that  I  was  not  frightened,  but  I  was  not ;  I 
had  perfect  faith  that  he  would  not  be  injured.  Some  one  said, '  Is 
it  not  hot  ? '  Mr.  Hall  answered,  '  Warm,  but  not  hot.'  Mr.  Home 
had  moved  a  little  way,  but  returned,  still  in  a  trance  ;  he  smiled, 
and  seemed  quite  pleased,  and  then  proceeded  to  draw  up  Mr.  Hall's 
white  hair  over  the  red  coal.  The  white  hair  had  the  appearance  of 
silver  thread  over  the  red  coaL  Mr.  Home  drew  the  hair  into  a  sort 
of  pyramid,  the  coal,  still  red,  showing  beneath  the  hair." 

When  taken  off  the  head,  without  in  the  slightest  degree 
injuring  it  or  singing  the  hair,  others  attempted  to  touch 
the  coal  and  were  burnt.  Lord  Lindsay  and  Miss  Douglas 
have  also  had  hot  coals  placed  in  their  hands,  and  describe 
them  as  feeling  rather  cold  than  hot ;  though,  at  the  same 
time,  they  burn  any  one  else,  and  even  scorch  the  face  of 
the  holder  if  approached  too  closely.  The  same  witnesses 
also  testify  that  Mr.  Home  has  placed  red-hot  coals  inside 
his  waistcoat  without  scorching  his  clothes,  and  has  put 
his  face  into  the  middle  of  the  fire,  his  hair  falling  into 
the  flames,  yet  not  being  the  least  singed.  The  same 


THE  FIRE- TEST  167 

power  of  resisting  fire  can  be  temporarily  given  to  inani- 
mate objects.  Mr.  H.  Nisbet,  of  Glasgow,  states  (Human 
Nature,  Feb.  1870)  that  in  his  own  house,  in  January  1870, 
Mr.  Home  placed  a  red-hot  coal  in  the  hands  of  a  lady 
and  gentleman,  which  they  only  felt  warm ;  and  then 
placed  the  same  piece  on  a  folded  newspaper,  burning  a 
hole  through  eight  layers  of  paper.  He  then  took  a  fresh 
and  blazing  coal  and  laid  it  on  the  same  newspaper,  carry- 
ing it  about  the  room  for  three  minutes,  when  the  paper 
was  found,  this  time,  not  to  have  been  the  least  burnt. 
Lord  Lindsay  (the  present  Earl  Crawford)  further  declares 
— and  as  one  of  the  few  noblemen  who  do  real  scientific 
work,  his  evidence  must  be  of  some  value — that  on  eight 
occasions  he  has  had  red-hot  coals  placed  on  his  own  hand 
by  Home  without  injury.  Mr.  W.  H.  Harrison  (Spiri- 
tualist, March  15,  1870)  saw  him  take  a  large  coal,  which 
covered  the  palm  of  his  hand,  and  stood  six  or  seven 
inches  high.  As  he  walked  about  the  room,  it  threw  a 
ruddy  glow  on  the  walls,  and  when  he  came  to  the  table 
with  it,  the  heat  was  felt  in  the  faces  of  all  present.  The 
coal  was  thus  held  for  five  minutes.  These  phenomena 
have  now  happened  scores  of  times  in  the  presence  of 
scores  of  witnesses.  They  are  facts  of  the  reality  of 
which  there  can  be  no  doubt,  and  they  are  altogether 
inexplicable  by  the  known  laws  of  physiology  and  heat. 

The  powers  of  Mr.  Home  were  afterwards  indepen- 
dently tested  by  Serjeant  Cox  and  Mr.  Crookes,  and  both 
these  gentlemen  emphatically  proclaimed  that  he  invited 
tests  and  courted  examination.  Serjeant  Cox,  in  his  own 
house,  has  had  a  new  accordion  (purchased  by  himself  that 
very  day)  play  by  itself,  in  his  own  hand,  while  Mr.  Home 
was  playing  the  piano.  Mr.  Home  then  took  the  accordion 
in  his  left  hand,  holding  it  with  the  keys  downwards,  while 
playing  the  piano  with  his  right  hand,  "and  it  played 


168  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

beautifully  in  accompaniment  to  the  piano  for  at  least  a 
quarter  of  an  hour."  (  What  am  I?  vol.  ii.  p.  388.) 

As  to  the  possibility  of  these  things  being  produced  by 
trick,  if  further  evidence  than  their  mere  statement  be 
required,  we  have  the  following  by  Mr.  Adolphus  Trol- 
lope,  who  says :  "  I  may  also  mention  that  Bosco,  one  of 
the  greatest  professors  of  legerdemain  ever  known,  in  a 
conversation  with  me  upon  the  subject,  utterly  scouted 
the  idea  of  the  possibility  of  such  phenomena  as  I  saw 
produced  by  Mr.  Home  being  performed  by  any  of  the 
resources  of  his  art." 

Mr.  Home's  life  was  to  a  great  extent  a  public  one. 
He  spent  much  of  his  time  as  a  guest  in  the  houses  of 
people  of  rank  and  talent.  He  numbered  among  his  friends 
many  who  are  eminent  in  science,  art,  and  literature, — 
men  certainly  not  inferior  in  perceptive  or  reasoning 
power  to  those  who,  not  having  witnessed  the  phenomena, 
disbelieve  in  their  occurrence.  During  thirty  years  he 
was  exposed  to  the  keen  scrutiny  and  never-ceasing  sus- 
picion of  innumerable  inquirers;  yet  no  proof  has  ever 
been  given  of  trickery,  no  particle  of  machinery  or  ap- 
paratus ever  been  detected.  But  the  phenomena  are  so 
stupendous  that,  if  impostures,  they  could  only  be  per- 
formed by  machinery  of  the  most  elaborate,  varied,  and 
cumbrous  nature,  requiring  the  aid  of  several  assistants 
and  confederates.  The  theory  that  they  are  delusions  is 
equally  untenable,  unless  it  is  admitted  that  there  is  no 
possible  means  of  distinguishing  delusion  from  reality. 

The  last  medium  to  whose  career  I  shall  call  attention 
is  Mrs.  Guppy  (formerly  Miss  Nichol),  and  in  this  case  I 
can  give  some  personal  testimony.  I  knew  Miss  Nichol 
before  she  had  ever  heard  of  spiritualism,  table-rapping,  or 
anything  of  the  kind,  and  we  first  discovered  her  powers 


MISS  NICHOL'S  MEDIUMSHIP  169 

on  asking  her  to  sit  for  experiment  in  my  house.     This 
was  in  November  I860,  and  for  some  months  we  had  con- 
stant sittings,  and  I  was  able  to  watch  and  test  the  pro- 
gress of  her  development.     I  first  satisfied  myself  of  the 
rising  of  a  small  table  completely  off  the  floor  when  three 
or  four  persons  (including  Miss  N.)  placed  their  hands  on  it. 
I  tested  this  by  secretly  attaching  threads  or  thin  strips  of 
paper  beneath  the  claws,  so  that  they  must  be  broken  if 
any  one  attempted  to  raise  the  table  with  their  feet — the 
only  available  means  of  doing  so.     The  table  still  rose  a 
fullToot  off  the  floor  in  broad  daylight.     In  order  to  show 
this  to  friends  with  less  trouble,  I  made  a  cylinder  of  hoops 
and  brown  paper,  in  which  I  placed  the  table  so  as  to  keep 
feet  and  dresses  away  from  it  while  it  rose,  which  it  did 
as  freely  as  before.     Perhaps  more  marvellous  was  the 
placing  of  Miss  N.  herself  on  the  table ;  for  although  this 
always  happened  in  the  dark,  yet,  under  the  conditions 
to  be  named,  deception  was  impossible.     I  will  relate  one 
sitting  of  which  I  have  notes.     We  sat  in  a  friend's  house 
round  a  centre  table  under  a  glass  chandelier.     A  friend 
of  mine,  but  a  perfect  stranger  to  all  the  rest,  the  late  Mr. 
Smith  of  Malton,  sat  next  to  Miss  Nichol  and  held  both 
her  hands.     Another  person  had  matches  ready  to  strike 
a  light  when  required.     What  occurred  was  as  follows : — 
First,  Miss  Nichol's  chair  was  drawn  away  from  under  her, 
and  she  was  obliged  to  stand  up,  my  friend  still  holding 
both  her  hands.    In  a  minute  or  two  more  I  heard  a  slight 
sound,  such  as  might  be  produced  by  a  person  placing  a 
wine-glass  on  the  table,  and  at  the  same  time  a  very  slight 
rustling  of  clothes  and  tinkling  of  the  glass  pendants  of 
the  chandelier.    Immediately  my  friend  said,  "  She  is  gone 
from  me."     A  light  was  at  once  struck,  and  we  found 
Miss  N.  quietly  seated  in  her  chair  on  the  centre  of  the 
table,  her  head  just  touching  the  chandelier.     My  friend 


170  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

declared  that  Miss  N.  seemed  to  glide  noiselessly  out  of 
his  hands.  She  was  very  stout  and  heavy,  and,  to  get 
her  chair  on  the  table,  to  get  upon  it  herself,  in  the  dark, 
noiselessly,  and  almost  instantaneously,  with  five  or  six 
persons  close  around  her,  appeared,  and  still  appears  to 
me,  knowing  her  intimately,  to  be  physically  impossible. 

Another  very  curious  and  beautiful  phenomenon  was 
the  production  of  delicate  musical  sounds,  without  any 
object  calculated  to  produce  them  being  in  the  room.  On 
one  occasion  a  German  lady,  who  was  a  perfect  stranger 
to  Miss  Nichol,  and  had  never  been  at  a  stance  before, 
was  present.  She  sang  several  German  songs,  and  most 
delicate  music,  like  a  fairy  music-box,  accompanied  her 
throughout.  She  sang  four  or  five  different  songs  of  her 
own  choice,  and  all  were  so  accompanied.  This  was  in 
the  dark,  but  hands  were  joined  all  the  time. 

The  most  remarkable  feature  of  this  lady's  mediumship 
was  the  production  of  flowers  and  fruits  in  closed  rooms. 
The  first  time  this  occurred  was  at  my  own  house,  at  a 
very  early  stage  of  her  development.  All  present  were 
my  own  friends.  Miss  N.  had  come  early  to  tea,  it  being 
mid- winter,  and  she  had  been  with  us  in  a  very  warm 
gas-lighted  room  four  hours  before  the  flowers  appeared. 
The  essential  fact  is,  that  upon  a  bare  table  in  a  small 
room  closed  and  dark  (the  adjoining  room  and  passage 
being  well  lighted),  a  quantity  of  flowers  appeared,  which 
were  not  there  when  we  put  out  the  gas  a  few  minutes 
before.  They  consisted  of  anemones,  tulips,  chrysanthe- 
mums, Chinese  primroses,  and  several  ferns.  All  were 
absolutely  fresh,  as  if  just  gathered  from  a  conservatory. 
They  were  covered  with  a  fine  cold  dew.  Not  a  petal  was 
crumpled  or  broken,  not  the  most  delicate  point  or  pinnule 
of  the  ferns  was  out  of  place.  I  dried  and  preserved  the 
whole,  and  have  attached  to  them  the  attestation  of  all 


MR.  TROT.LOPE'S  EVIDENCE  171 

present  that  they  had  no  share,  as  far  as  they  knew,  in 
bringing  the  flowers  into  the  room.  I  believed  at  the 
time,  and  still  believe  that  it  was  absolutely  impossible 
for  Miss  N.  to  have  concealed  them  so  long,  to  have  kept 
them  so  perfect,  and,  above  all,  to  produce  them  covered 
throughout  with  a  most  beautiful  coating  of  dew,  just  like 
that  which  collects  on  the  outside  of  a  tumbler  when  filled 
with  very  cold  water  on  a  hot  day. 

Similar  phenomena  have  occurred  hundreds  of  times 
since,  in  many  houses  and  under  various  conditions.  Some- 
times the  flowers  have  been  in  vast  quantities,  heaped  upon 
the  table.  Often  flowers  or  fruits  asked  for  are  brought. 
A  friend  of  mine  asked  for  a  sunflower,  and  one  six  feet 
high  fell  upon  the  table,  having  a  large  mass  of  earth 
about  its  roots.  One  of  the  most  striking  tests  was  at 
Florence,  with  Mr.  T.  Adolphus  Trollope,  Mrs.  Trollope, 
Miss  Blagden,  and  Colonel  Harvey.  The  room  was 
searched  by  the  gentlemen ;  Mrs.  Guppy  was  undressed 
and  redressed  by  Mrs.  Trollope,  every  article  of  her  cloth- 
ing being  examined.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Guppy  were  both 
firmly  held  while  at  the  table.  In  about  ten  minutes  all 
the  party  exclaimed  that  they  smelt  flowers,  and,  on 
lighting  a  candle,  both  Mrs.  Guppy's  and  Mr.  Trollope's 
arms  were  found  covered  with  jonquils,  which  filled  the 
room  with  their  odour.  Mr.  Guppy  and  Mr.  Trollope  both 
relate  this  in  substantially  the  same  terms.  (Dialectical 
Society's  Report  on  Spiritualism,  pp.  277  and  372.) 

Surely  these  are  phenomena  about  which  there  can  be 
no  mistake.  What  theories  have  ever  been  proposed  by 
our  scientific  teachers  which  even  attempt  to  account  for 
them  ?  Delusion  it  cannot  be,  for  the  flowers  are  real 
and  can  be  preserved,  and  imposture  under  the  conditions 
described  is  even  less  credible.  If  the  gentlemen  who 
come  forward  to  enlighten  the  public  on  the  subject  of 


172  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

"  so-called  spiritual  manifestations  "  do  not  know  of  the 
various  classes  of  phenomena  that  have  now  been  indi- 
cated, and  the  weight  of  the  testimony  in  support  of 
them,  they  are  palpably  unqualified  for  the  task  they  have 
undertaken.  That  they  do  know  of  them,  but  keep  back 
their  knowledge,  while  putting  forward  trivialities  easy  to 
laugh  at  or  expose,  is  a  supposition  I  cannot  for  a  moment 
entertain.  Before  leaving  this  part  of  the  subject,  it  is 
well  to  note  the  fact  of  the  marked  individuality  of  each 
medium.  They  are  not  copies  of  each  other,  but  each 
one  develops  a  characteristic  set  of  phenomena — a  fact 
highly  suggestive  of  some  unconscious  occult  power  in 
the  individual,  and  wholly  opposed  to  the  idea  of  either 
imposture  or  delusion,  both  of  which  almost  invariably 
copy  pre-existing  models. 

Investigations  by  some  Notable  Sceptics. — In  giving  some 
account  of  how  a  few  of  the  more  important  converts  to 
Spiritualism  became  convinced,  we  are  of  course  limited 
to  those  who  have  given  their  experience  to  the  public.  I 
will  first  take  the  case  of  the  eminent  American  lawyer, 
the  Honourable  J.  W.  Edmonds,  commonly  called  Judge 
Edmonds ;  and  it  may  be  as  well  to  let  English  sceptics 
know  what  he  is  thought  of  by  his  countrymen.  When 
he  first  became  a  Spiritualist  he  was  greatly  abused,  and 
it  was  even  declared  that  he  consulted  the  spirits  as  to  his 
judicial  decisions.  To  defend  himself,  he  published  an 
Appeal  to  the  Public,  giving  a  full  account  of  the  inquiries 
which  resulted  in  his  conversion.  In  noticing  this,  the 
New  York  Evening  Mirror  said,  "  John  W.  Edmonds,  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  this  District,  is 
an  able  lawyer,  an  industrious  judge,  and  a  good  citizen. 
For  the  last  eight  years  occupying  without  interruption 
the  highest  judicial  stations,  whatever  may  be  his  faults, 
no  one  can  justly  accuse  him  of  a  lack  of  ability,  industry, 


EXAMINATION  BY  JUDGE  EDMONDS        173 

honesty  or  fearlessnes.  No  one  can  doubt  his  general 
saneness,  or  can  believe  for  a  moment  that  the  ordinary 
operations  of  his  mind  are  not  as  rapid,  accurate,  and  re- 
liable as  ever.  Both  by  the  practitioners  and  suitors  at  his 
bar  he  is  recognised  as  the  head,  in  fact  and  in  merit,  of 
the  Supreme  Court  for  this  District."  A  few  years  later 
he  published  a  series  of  letters  on  Spiritualism  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  and  in  the  first  of  these  he  gives  a  com- 
pact summary  of  his  mode  of  investigation,  from  which 
the  following  passages  are  extracted.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  at  the  time  he  commenced  the  inquiry  he  was 
in  the  prime  and  vigour  of  intellectual  life,  being  fifty-two 
years  of  age. 

"It  was  in  January  1851  that  I  first  began  my  investigations, 
and  it  was  not  until  April  1853  that  I  became  a  firm  believer  in 
the  reality  of  spiritual  intercourse.  During  twenty-three  months 
of  those  twenty-seven,  I  witnessed  several  hundred  manifestations  in 
various  forms.  I  kept  very  minute  and  careful  records  of  many  of 
them.  My  practice  was,  whenever  I  attended  a  circle,  to  keep  in 
pencil  a  memorandum  of  all  that  took  place,  so  far  as  I  could,  and, 
as  soon  as  I  returned  home,  to  write  out  a  full  account  of  what  I  had 
witnessed.  I  did  all  this  with  as  much  minuteness  and  particularity 
as  I  had  ever  kept  any  record  of  a  trial  before  me  in  court.  In  this 
way,  during  that  period,  I  preserved  the  record  of  nearly  two  hundred 
interviews,  running  through  some  one  thousand  six  hundred  pages  of 
manuscript.  I  had  these  interviews  with  many  different  mediums, 
and  under  an  infinite  variety  of  circumstances.  No  two  interviews 
were  alike.  There  was  always  something  new  or  something  different 
from  what  had  previously  occurred,  and  it  very  seldom  happened 
that  only  the  same  persons  were  present.  The  manifestations  were 
of  almost  every  known  form,  physical  or  mental ;  sometimes  only 
one,  and  sometimes  both  combined. 

"  I  resorted  to  every  expedient  I  could  devise  to  detect  imposture 
and  to  guard  against  delusion.  I  felt  in  myself,  and  saw  in  others, 
how  exciting  was  the  idea  that  we  were  actually  communing  with 
the  dead,  and  I  laboured  to  prevent  any  undue  bias  of  my  judgment. 
I  was  at  times  critical  and  captious  to  an  unreasonable  extreme  ;  and 


1  74  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

when  my  belief  was  challenged,  as  it  was  over  and  over  again,  I 
refused  to  yield,  except  to  evidence  that  would  leave  no  possible 
room  for  cavil. 

"I  was  severely  exacting  in  my  demands,  and  this  would  fre- 
quently happen.  I  would  go  to  a  circle  with  some  doubt  on  my 
mind  as  to  the  manifestations  at  the  previous  circle,  and  something 
would  happen  aimed  directly  at  that  doubt,  and  completely  over- 
throwing it  as  it  then  seemed,  so  that  I  had  no  longer  any  reason  to 
doubt.  But  I  would  go  home  and  write  out  carefully  my  minutes 
of  the  evening,  cogitate  over  them  for  several  days,  compare  them 
with  previous  records,  and  finally  find  some  loophole — some  pos- 
sibility that  it  might  have  been  something  else  than  spiritual  influ- 
ence, and  I  could  go  to  the  next  circle  with  a  new  doubt,  and  a  new 
set  of  queries. 

"  I  look  back  sometimes  now  with  a  smile  at  the  ingenuity  I 
wasted  in  devising  ways  and  means  to  avoid  the  possibility  of 
deception. 

"  It  was  a  remarkable  feature  of  my  investigations  that  every  con- 
ceivable objection  I  could  raise  was,  first  or  last,  met  and  answered." 

The  following  extracts  are  from  the  Appeal : — 

"  I  have  seen  a  mahogany  table,  having  a  centre  leg,  and  with  a 
lamp  burning  upon  it,  lifted  from  the  floor  at  least  a  foot,  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  of  those  present,  and  shaken  backward  and  forward  as 
one  would  shake  a  goblet  in  his  hand,  and  the  lamp  retain  its  place, 
though  its  glass  pendants  rang  again." 

"  I  have  known  a  mahogany  chair  thrown  on  its  side  and  moved 
swiftly  back  and  forth  on  the  floor,  no  one  touching  it,  through  a 
room  where  there  were  at  least  a  dozen  people  sitting,  yet  no  one 
touched  ;  and  it  was  repeatedly  stopped  within  a  few  inches  of  me, 
when  it  was  coming  with  a  violence  which,  if  not  arrested,  must 
have  broken  my  legs." 

Having  satisfied  himself  of  the  reality  of  the  physical 
phenomena,  he  came  to  the  question  of  whence  comes  the 
intelligence  that  was  so  remarkably  connected  with  them. 
He  says : — 

"  Preparatory  to  meeting  a  circle,  I  have  sat  down  alone  in  my 
room  and  carefully  prepared  a  series  of  questions  to  be  propounded, 


EXPERIENCES  OF  JUDGE  EDMONDS  1  75 

and  I  have  been  surprised  to  find  my  questions  answered,  and  in 
the  precise  order  in  which  I  wrote  them,  without  my  even  taking 
my  memorandum  out  of  my  pocket,  and  when  not  a  person  present 
knew  that  I  had  prepared  questions,  much  less  what  they  were.  My 
most  sacred  thoughts,  those  which  I  have  never  uttered  to  mortal 
man  or  woman,  have  been  freely  spoken  to,  as  if  I  had  uttered 
them  ;  and  I  have  been  admonished  that  my  every  thought  was 
known  to,  and  could  be  disclosed  by,  the  intelligence  which  was  thus 
manifesting  itself. 

"  Still  the  question  occurred,  '  May  not  all  this  have  been,  by 
some  mysterious  operation,  the  mere  reflex  of  the  mind  of  some  one 
present?'  The  answer  was,  that  facts  were  communicated  which 
were  unknown  then,  but  afterwards  found  to  be  true  ;  like  this,  for 
instance  :  when  I  was  absent  last  winter  in  Central  America,  my 
friends  in  town  heard  of  my  whereabouts  and  the  state  of  my  health 
several  times  ;  and  on  my  return,  by  comparing  their  information 
with  the  entries  in  my  journal,  it  was  found  to  be  invariably  correct. 
So  thoughts  have  been  uttered  on  subjects  not  then  in  my  mind  and 
utterly  at  variance  with  my  own  notions.  This  has  often  happened 
to  me  and  to  others,  so  as  fully  to  establish  the  fact  that  it  was  not 
our  minds  that  gave  forth  or  affected  the  communication." 

These  few  extracts  sufficiently  show  that  the  writer  was 
aware  of  the  possible  sources  of  error  in  such  an  inquiry  ; 
and  the  details  given  in  the  letters  prove  that  he  was  con- 
stantly on  his  guard  against  them.  He  himself  and  his 
daughter  became  mediums,  so  that  he  afterwards  obtained 
personal  confirmation  of  many  of  the  phenomena  by  him- 
self alone.  But  all  the  phenomena  referred  to  in  the 
letters  and  Appeal  occurred  to  him  in  the  presence  of 
others,  who  testified  to  them  as  well,  and  thus  removed 
the  possibility  that  the  phenomena  were  subjective. 

We  have  yet  to  add  a  notice  of  what  will  be  perhaps,  to 
many  persons,  the  most  startling  and  convincing  of  all  the 
Judge's  experiences.  His  own  daughter  became  a  medium 
for  speaking  foreign  languages  of  which  she  was  totally 
ignorant.  He  says,  "  She  knows  no  language  but  her  own, 


1  76  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

and  a  little  smattering  of  boarding-school  French  ;  yet 
she  has  spoken  in  nine  or  ten  different  tongues,  often  for 
an  hour  at  a  time,  with  the  ease  and  fluency  of  a  native. 
It  is  not  unfrequent  that  foreigners  converse  with  their 
spirit- friends  through  her  in  their  own  language."  One 
of  these  cases  must  be  given. 

"One  evening,  when  some  twelve  or  fifteen  persons  were  in  my 
parlour,  Mr.  E.  D.  Green,  an  artist  of  this  city,  was  shown  in  accom- 
panied by  a  gentleman  whom  he  introduced  as  Mr.  Evangelides  of 
Greece.  Ere  long  a  spirit  spoke  to  him  through  Laura  in  English, 
and  said  so  many  things  to  him  that  he  identified  him  as  a  friend 
who  had  died  at  his  house  a  few  years  before,  but  of  whom  none  of 
us  had  ever  heard.  Occasionally,  through  Laura,  the  spirit  would 
speak  a  word  or  a  sentence  in  Greek,  until  Mr.  E.  inquired  if  he 
could  be  understood  if  he  spoke  Greek1?  The  residue  of  the  con- 
versation for  more  than  an  hour  was  on  his  part  entirely  in  Greek, 
and  on  hers  sometimes  in  Greek  and  sometimes  in  English.  At 
times  Laura  would  not  understand  what  was  the  idea  conveyed 
either  by  her  or  him.  At  other  times  she  would  understand  him, 
though  he  spoke  in  Greek,  and  herself  while  uttering  Greek  words." 

Several  other  cases  are  mentioned,  and  it  is  stated  that 
this  lady  has  spoken  Spanish,  French,  Greek,  Italian, 
Portuguese,  Latin,  Hungarian,  and  Indian,  and  other  lan- 
guages which  were  unknown  to  any  person  present. 

This  is  by  no  means  an  isolated  case,  but  it  is  given  as 
being  on  most  unexceptionable  authority.  A  man  must 
know  whether  his  own  daughter  has  learnt,  so  as  to  speak 
fluently,  eight  languages  besides  her  own,  or  not.  Those 
who  carry  on  the  conversation  must  know  whether  the 
language  is  spoken  or  not ;  and  in  several  cases — as  the 
Latin,  Spanish,  and  Indian — the  Judge  himself  understood 
the  language.  And  the  phenomenon  is  connected  with 
Spiritualism  by  the  speaking  being  in  the  name  of,  and 
purporting  to  come  from  some  deceased  person,  and  the 
subject-matter  being  characteristic  of  that  person.  Such  a 


THE  BROTHERS  DAVENPORT  177 

case  as  this,  which  has  been  published  thirty-six  years,  ought 
to  have  been  noticed  and  explained  by  those  who  profess 
to  enlighten  the  public  on  the  subject  of  Spiritualism. 

Our  next  example  is  one  of  the  most  striking,  and  at 
the  same  time  one  of  the  most  useful,  converts  to  the 
truths  of  Spiritualism.  Dr.  George  Sexton,  M.D.,  M.A., 
LL.D.,  was  for  many  years  the  coadjutor  of  Mr.  Bradlaugh, 
and  one  of  the  most  earnest  and  energetic  of  the  secularist 
teachers.  The  celebrated  Robert  Owen  first  called  his 
attention  to  the  subject  of  Spiritualism  about  forty  years 
ago.  He  read  books ;  he  saw  a  good  deal  of  the  ordinary 
physical  manifestations,  but  he  always  "  suspected  that 
the  mediums  played  tricks,  and  that  the  whole  affair  was 
nothing  but  clever  conjuring  by  means  of  concealed  ma- 
chinery." He  gave  several  lectures  against  Spiritualism 
in  the  usual  style  of  non-believers,  dwelling  much  on  the 
absurdity  and  triviality  of  the  phenomena,  and  ridiculing 
the  idea  that  they  were  the  work  of  spirits.  Then  came 
another  old  friend  and  fellow-secularist,  Mr.  Turley,  who, 
after  investigating  the  subject  for  the  purpose  of  exposing 
it,  became  a  firm  believer.  Dr.  Sexton  laughed  at  this 
conversion,  yet  it  made  a  deep  impression  on  his  mind. 
Ten  years  passed  away,  and  his  next  important  investiga- 
tion was  with  the  Davenport  Brothers  ;  and  it  will  be  well 
for  those  who  sneer  at  these  much-abused  young  men  to 
take  note  of  the  following  account  of  Dr.  Sexton's  pro- 
ceedings with  them,  and  especially  of  the  fact  that  they 
cheerfully  submitted  to  every  test  the  Doctor  suggested. 
He  tells  us  (in  his  lecture  "  Plow  I  became  a  Spiritualist") 
that  he  visited  them  again  and  again,  trying  in  vain  to 
find  out  the  trick.  Then  he  says — 

"  My  partner — Dr.  Barker — and  I  invited  the  Brothers  to  our 
houses,  and,  in  order  to  guard  against  anything  like  trickery,  we 

M 


178  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

requested  them  not  to  bring  any  ropes,  instruments,  or  other  appa- 
ratus ;  all  these  we  ourselves  had  determined  to  supply.  Moreover, 
as  there  were  four  of  them,  viz.,  the  two  Brothers  Davenport,  Mr. 
Fay,  and  Dr.  Ferguson,  we  suspected  that  the  two  who  were  not  tied 
might  really  do  all  that  was  dune.  We  therefore  requested  only  two 
to  come.  They  unhesitatingly  complied  with  all  these  requests. 
We  formed  a  circle,  consisting  entirely  of  members  of  our  own 
families  and  a  few  private  friends,  with  the  one  bare  exception  of 
Mrs.  Fay.  In  the  circle  we  all  joined  hands,  and  as  Mrs.  Fay  sat  at 
one  end,  she  had  one  of  her  hands  free,  while  I  had  hold  of  the 
other.  Thinking  that  she  might  be  able  to  assist  with  the  hand  that 
was  thus  free,  I  asked  as  a  favour  that  I  might  be  allowed  to  hold 
both  her  hands — a  proposition  which  she  at  once  agreed  to.  Now, 
without  entering  here  at  all  into  what  took  place,  suffice  it  to  say 
that  we  bound  the  mediums  with  our  own  ropes,  placed  their  feet 
upon  sheets  of  writing  paper  and  drew  lines  round  their  boots,  so 
that  if  they  moved  their  feet  it  should  be  impossible  for  them  to 
place  them  again  in  the  same  position  ;  we  laid  pence  on  their  toes, 
sealed  the  ropes,  and  in  every  way  took  precautions  against  their 
moving.  On  the  occasion  to  which  I  now  refer,  Mr.  Bradlaugh  and 
Mr.  Charles  Watts  were  present ;  and  when  Mr.  Fay's  coat  had 
been  taken  off,  the  ropes  still  remaining  on  his  hands,  Mr.  Brad- 
laugh  requested  that  his  coat  might  be  placed  on  Mr.  Fay,  which 
was  immediately  done,  the  ropes  still  remaining  fastened.  We  got 
on  this  occasion  all  the  phenomena  that  usually  occurred  in  the 
presence  of  these  extraordinary  men,  particulars  of  which  I  shall 
probably  give  on  another  occasion.  Dr.  Barker  became  a  believer 
in  Spiritxtalism  from  the  time  that  the  Brothers  visited  at  his  house. 
I  did  not  see  that  any  proof  had  been  given  that  disembodied  spirits 
had  any  hand  in  producing  the  phenomena,  but  I  was  convinced 
that  no  tricks  had  been  played,  and  that  therefore  these  extraordi- 
nary physical  manifestations  were  the  result  of  some  occult  force  in 
nature  which  I  had  no  means  of  explaining  in  the  present  state  of 
my  knowledge.  All  the  physical  phenomena  that  I  had  seen  now 
became  clear  to  me  ;  they  were  not  accomplished  by  trickery,  as  I 
had  formerly  supposed,  but  were  the  result  of  some  undiscovered 
law  of  nature  which  it  was  the  business  of  the  man  of  science  to  use 
his  utmost  endeavours  to  discover." 

While  he   was   maintaining  this  ground,  Spiritualists 


DR.  SEXTON'S  FINAL  CONVERSION 

often  asked  him  how  he  explained  the  intelligence  that  was 
manifested ;  and  he  invariably  replied  that  he  had  not  yet 
seen  proofs  of  any  intelligence  other  than  what  might  be 
that  of  the  medium  or  of  some  other  persons  present  in 
the  circle,  adding,  that  as  soon  as  he  did  see  proofs  of  such 
intelligence  he  should  become  a  spiritualist.  In  this  posi- 
tion he  stood  for  many  years,  till  he  naturally  believed  he 
should  never  see  cause  to  change  his  opinion.  He  con- 
tinued the  inquiry,  however,  and  in  1865  began  to  hold 
stances  at  home  ;  but  it  was  years  before  any  mental 
phenomena  occurred  which  were  absolutely  conclusive, 
although  they  were  often  of  so  startling  a  nature  as  would 
have  satisfied  any  one  less  sceptical.  At  length,  after 
fifteen  years  of  enlightened  scepticism — a  scepticism  not 
founded  upon  ignorance,  but  which  refused  to  go  one  step 
beyond  what  the  facts  so  diligently  pursued  absolutely 
demonstrated — the  needful  evidence  came  : — 

"  The  proofs  that  I  did  ultimately  receive  are,  many  of  them,  of 
a  character  that  I  cannot  describe  minutely  to  a  public  audience, 
nor,  indeed,  have  I  time  to  do  so.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  I  got  in  my 
own  house,  in  the  absence  of  all  mediums  other  than  members  of 
my  own  family  and  intimate  private  friends  in  whom  mediumistic 
powers  became  developed,  evidence  of  an  irresistible  character  that 
the  communications  came  from  deceased  friends  and  relatives. 
Intelligence  was  again  and  again  displayed  which  could  not  possibly 
have  had  any  other  origin  than  that  which  it  professed  to  have. 
Facts  were  named  known  to  no  one  in  the  circle,  and  left  to  be 
verified  afterwards.  The  identity  of  the  spirits  communicating  was 
proved  in  a  hundred  different  ways.  Our  dear  departed  ones  made 
themselves  palpable  both  to  feeling  and  to  sight,  and  the  doctrine 
of  spirit-communion  was  proved  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt.  I 
soon  found  myself  in  the  position  of  Dr.  Fen  wick  in  Lord  Lytton's 
Strange  Story.  'Do  you  believe,'  asked  the  female  attendant  of 
Margrave,  ' in  that  which  you  seek ? '  'I  have  no  belief,'  was  the 
answer.  '  True  science  has  none  ;  true  science  questions  all  things, 
and  takes  nothing  on  credit.  It  knows  but  three  states  of  mind — 


180  A  DEFENCE  OP  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

denial,  conviction,  and  the  vast  interval  between  the  two,  which  is 
not  belief,  but  the  suspension  of  judgment.'  This  describes  exactly 
the  phases  through  which  my  mind  has  passed." 

Since  Dr.  Sexton  has  become  a  spiritualist  he  has  been 
as  energetic  an  advocate  for  its  truths  as  he  had  been 
before  for  the  negations  of  secularism.  His  experience 
and  ability  as  a  lecturer,  with  his  long  schooling  in  every 
form  of  manifestation,  render  him  one  of  the  most  valuable 
promulgators  of  its  teachings.  He  has  also  done  excellent 
service  in  exposing  the  pretensions  of  those  conjurors  who 
profess  to  expose  Spiritualism.  This  he  does  in  the  most 
practical  way,  not  only  by  explaining  how  the  professed 
imitations  of  spiritual  manifestations  are  performed,  but 
by  actually  performing  them  before  his  audience ;  and  at 
the  same  time  pointing  out  the  important  differences 
between  what  these  people  do  and  what  occurs  at  good 
seances.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  comprehend  how  Dr. 
Lynn,  Messrs.  Maskelyne  and  Cook,  and  Herr  Dobler  per- 
form some  of  their  most  curious  feats  have  only  to  read  his 
lecture  entitled,  "  Spirit  Mediums  and  Conjurors,"  before 
going  to  witness  their  entertainments.  We  can  hardly 
believe  that  the  man  who  does  this,  and  who  during  fifteen 
years  of  observation  and  experiment  held  out  against  the 
spiritual  theory,  is  one  of  those  who,  as  Lord  Amberley 
tells  us,  "  fall  a  victim  to  the  most  patent  frauds,  and  are 
imposed  upon  by  jugglery  of  the  most  vulgar  order ; "  or 
who,  as  viewed  from  Professor  Tyndall's  high  scientific 
stand-point,  are  in  a  frame  of  mind  before  which  science  is 
utterly  powerless — "  dupes  beyond  the  reach  of  proof,  who 
like  to  believe,  and  do  not  like  to  be  undeceived."  These 
be  brave  words  ;  but  we  leave  our  readers  to  judge  whether 
they  come  with  a  very  good  grace  from  men  who  have  the 
most  slender  and  inadequate  knowledge  of  the  subject 
they  are  criticising,  and  no  knowledge  at  all  of  the  long- 


MR.  CROOKES'  RESEARCHES  181 

continued  and  conscientious  investigations  of  many  who 
are  included  in  their  wholesale  animadversions. 

Yet  one  more  witness  to  these  marvellous  phenomena 
we  must  bring  before  our  readers — a  trained  and  experi- 
enced physicist,  who  has  experimented  in  his  own  labora- 
tory, and  has  applied  tests  and  measurements  of  the  most 
rigid  and  conclusive  character.  When  Mr.  Crookes,  the 
discoverer  of  the  metal  thallium  and  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  first  announced  that  he  was  going  to  investigate 
so-called  spiritual  phenomena,  many  public  writers  were 
all  approval ;  for  the  complaint  had  long  been  that  men 
of  science  were  not  permitted  by  mediums  to  inquire  too 
scrupulously  into  the  facts.  One  expressed  "profound 
satisfaction  that  the  subject  was  about  to  be  investigated 
by  a  man  so  well  qualified ;  "  another  was  "  gratified  to 
learn  that  the  matter  is  now  receiving  the  attention  of  cool 
and  clear-headed  men  of  recognised  position  in  science ;  " 
while  a  third  declared  that  "no  one  could  doubt  Mr. 
Crookes'  ability  to  conduct  the  investigation  with  rigid 
philosophical  impartiality."  But  these  expressions  were 
evidently  insincere — were  only  meant  to  apply,  in  case  the 
result  was  in  accordance  with  the  writers'  notions  of  what 
it  ought  to  be.  Of  course,  a  "  scientific  investigation  " 
would  explode  the  whole  thing.  Had  not  Faraday  ex- 
ploded table-turning?  They  hailed  Mr.  Crookes  as  the 
Daniel  come  to  judgment,  as  the  prophet  who  would 
curse  their  enemy,  Spiritualism,  by  detecting  imposture 
and  illusion.  But  when  the  judge,  after  a  patient  trial 
lasting  several  years,  decided  against  them,  and  their 
accepted  prophet  blessed  the  hated  thing  as  an  un- 
doubted truth,  their  tone  changed ;  and  they  began  to 
suspect  the  judge's  ability,  and  to  pick  holes  in  the  evi- 
dence on  which  he  founded  his  judgment. 


182  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

In  Mr.  Crookes'  paper  published  in  the  Quarterly 
Journal  of  Science  for  January  1874,  we  are  informed  that 
he  had  then  pursued  the  inquiry  for  four  years,  and  be- 
sides attending  stances  elsewhere,  had  had  the  opportu- 
nity of  making  numerous  experiments  in  his  own  house 
with  the  two  remarkable  mediums  already  referred  to, 
Mr.  D.  D.  Home  and  Miss  Kate  Fox.  These  experiments 
were  almost  exclusively  made  in  the  light,  under  con- 
ditions of  his  own  arranging,  and  with  his  own  friends  as 
witnesses.  Such  phenomena  as  percussive  sounds  ;  altera- 
tions of  the  weight  of  bodies ;  the  rising  of  heavy  bodies 
in  the  air  without  contact  by  any  one ;  the  levitation  of 
human  beings ;  luminous  appearances  of  various  kinds ; 
the  appearance  of  hands  which  lift  small  objects,  yet  are 
not  the  hands  of  any  one  present;  direct  writing  by  a 
luminous  detached  hand  or  by  the  pencil  alone;  phan- 
tom forms  and  faces ;  and  various  mental  phenomena, — 
have  all  been  tested  so  variously  and  so  repeatedly  that 
Mr.  Crookes  was  thoroughly  satisfied  of  their  objective 
reality. 

These  phenomena  are  given  in  outline  in  the  paper  above 
referred  to,  and  are  detailed  in  full  in  a  volume  subse- 
quently issued.  I  will  not,  therefore  weary  my  readers 
by  repeating  them  here,  but  will  remark  that  these  ex- 
periments have  a  weight  as  evidence  vastly  greater  than 
would  be  due  to  them  as  resting  on  the  testimony  of  any 
one  man  of  science,  however  distinguished,  because  they 
are,  in  almost  every  case,  confirmations  of  what  previous 
witnesses  in  immense  numbers  had  testified  to,  in  various 
places  and  under  various  conditions,  during  the  preced- 
ing twenty  years.  In  every  other  experimental  inquiry 
without  exception,  confirmation  of  the  facts  of  an  earlier 
observer  is  held  to  add  so  greatly  to  their  value,  that  no 
one  treats  them  with  the  same  incredulity  with  which  he 


UNSWERVING  POSITION  OF  SPIRITUALISTS  183 

might  have  received  them  the  first  time  they  were  an- 
nounced. And  when  the  confirmation  has  been  repeated 
by  three  or  four  independent  observers  under  favourable 
conditions,  and  there  is  nothing  but  theory  or  negative 
evidence  against  them,  the  facts  are  admitted — at  least 
provisionally — until  disproved  by  a  greater  weight  of  evi- 
dence or  by  discovering  the  exact  source  of  the  fallacy  of 
preceding  observers. 

But  here  a  totally  different — a  most  unreasonable  and 
a  most  unphilosophical  course  is  pursued.  Each  fresh 
observation,  confirming  previous  evidence,  is  treated  as 
though  it  were  now  put  forth  for  the  first  time,  and  fresh 
confirmation  is  asked  for  it.  And  when  the  fresh  and 
independent  confirmation  comes,  yet  more  confirmation  is 
asked  for,  and  so  on  without  end.  This  is  a  very  clever 
way  to  ignore  and  stifle  a  new  truth ;  but  the  facts  of 
Spiritualism  are  ubiquitous  in  their  occurrence,  and  of  so 
indisputable  a  nature  as  to  compel  conviction  in  every 
earnest  inquirer.  It  thus  happens  that  although  every 
fresh  convert  requires  a  large  proportion  of  the  series  of 
demonstrative  facts  to  be  reproduced  before  he  will  give 
his  assent  to  them,  the  number  of  such  converts  has  gone 
on  steadily  increasing  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Clergy- 
men of  all  sects,  literary  men  and  lawyers,  physicians 
in  large  numbers,  men  of  science  not  a  few,  secularists, 
philosophical  sceptics,  pure  materialists,  all  have  become 
converts  through  the  overwhelming  logic  of  the  pheno- 
mena which  Spiritualism  has  brought  before  them.  And 
what  have  we  per  contra  ?  Neither  science  nor  philosophy, 
neither  scepticism  nor  religion,  has  ever  yet  in  this  quarter 
of  a  century  made  one  single  convert  from  the  ranks  of 
Spiritualism !  This  being  the  case,  and  fully  appreciating 
the  amount  of  candour  and  fairness,  and  knowledge  of  the 
subject  that  has  been  exhibited  by  their  opponents,  is  it 


184  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

to  be  wondered  at  that  a  large  proportion  of  spiritualists 
are  now  profoundly  indifferent  to  the  opinion  of  men  of 
science,  and  would  not  go  one  step  out  of  their  way  to 
convince  them  ?  They  say  that  the  movement  is  going 
on  quite  fast  enough.  That  it  is  spreading  by  its  own  in- 
herent force  of  truth,  and  slowly  permeating  all  classes  of 
society.  It  has  thriven  in  spite  of  abuse  and  persecution, 
ridicule  and  argument,  and  will  continue  to  thrive  whether 
endorsed  by  great  names  or  not.  Men  of  science,  like  all 
others,  are  welcome  to  enter  its  ranks;  but  they  must 
satisfy  themselves  by  their  own  persevering  researches, 
not  expect  to  have  its  proofs  laid  before  them.  Their 
rejection  of  its  truth  is  their  own  loss,  but  cannot  in 
the  slightest  degree  affect  the  progress  of  Spiritualism. 
The  attacks  and  criticisms  of  the  press  are  borne  good- 
humouredly,  and  seldom  excite  other  feelings  than  pity  for 
the  wilful  ignorance  and  contempt  for  the  overwhelming 
presumption  of  their  writers.  Such  are  the  sentiments 
that  are  continually  expressed  by  spiritualists;  and  it  is 
as  well,  perhaps,  that  the  outer  world,  to  whom  the  litera- 
ture of  the  movement  is  as  much  unknown  as  the  Vedas, 
should  be  made  acquainted  with  them. 

Investigation  by  the  Dialectical  Committee. — There  are 
many  other  investigators  who  ought  to  be  noticed  in  any 
complete  sketch  of  the  subject,  but  we  have  now  only 
space  to  allude  briefly  to  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of 
the  Dialectical  Society.  Of  this  committee,  consisting  of 
thirty-three  acting  members,  only  eight  were,  at  the  com- 
mencement, believers  in  the  reality  of  the  phenomena, 
while  not  more  than  four  accepted  the  spiritual  theory. 
During  the  course  of  the  inquiry  at  least  twelve  of  the 
complete  sceptics  became  convinced  of  the  reality  of  many 
of  the  physical  phenomena  through  attending  the  experi- 
mental sub-committees,  and  almost  wholly  by  means  of 


THE  DIALECTICAL  COMMITTEE  185 

the  mediumship  of  members  of  the  committee.  At  least 
three  members  who  were  previously  sceptics  pursued  their 
investigations  outside  the  committee  meetings,  and  in  con- 
sequence have  become  thorough  spiritualists.  My  own 
observation,  as  a  member  of  the  committee  and  of  the 
largest  and  most  active  sub-committee,  enables  me  to  state 
that  the  degree  of  conviction  produced  in  the  minds  of 
the  various  members  was,  allowing  for  marked  differences 
of  character,  approximately  proportionate  to  the  amount 
of  time  and  care  bestowed  on  the  investigation.  This  fact, 
which  is  what  occurs  in  all  investigation  into  these  phe- 
nomena, is  a  characteristic  result  of  the  examination  into 
any  natural  phenomena.  The  examination  into  an  impos- 
ture or  delusion  has  invariably  exactly  opposite  results ; 
those  who  have  slender  experience  being  deceived,  while 
those  who  perseveringly  continue  the  inquiry  inevitably 
find  out  the  source  of  the  deception  or  the  delusion.  If 
this  were  not  so,  the  discovery  of  truth  and  the  detection 
of  error  would  be  alike  impossible.  The  result  of  this 
inquiry  on  the  members  of  the  committee  themselves  is, 
therefore,  of  more  importance  than  the  actual  phenomena 
they  witnessed,  since  these  were  far  less  striking  than 
many  of  the  facts  already  mentioned.  But  they  are  also 
of  importance  as  confirming,  by  a  body  of  intelligent  and 
unprejudiced  men,  the  results  obtained  by  previous  indi- 
vidual inquirers. 

Before  leaving  this  report,  I  must  call  attention  to  the 
evidence  it  furnishes  of  the  state  of  opinion  among  men  of 
education  in  France.  M.  Camille  Flammarion,  the  well- 
known  astronomer,  sent  a  communication  to  the  committee 
which  is  well  worth  consideration.  Besides  declaring  his 
own  acceptance  of  the  objective  reality  of  the  phenomena 
after  ten  years  of  investigation,  he  makes  the  following 
statement : — 


186  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

"  My  learned  teacher  and  friend,  M.  Babinet,  of  the  Institute,  who 
has  endeavoured,  with  M.  E.  Liais  (now  Director  of  the  Observatory 
of  Brazil),  and  several  others  of  my  colleagues  of  the  Observatory  of 
Paris,  to  ascertain  their  nature  and  cause,  is  not  fully  convinced  of 
the  intervention  of  spirits  in  their  production  ;  though  this  hypo- 
thesis, by  which  alone  certain  categories  of  these  phenomena  would 
seem  to  be  explicable,  has  been  adopted  by  many  of  our  most 
esteemed  savants,  among  others  by  Dr.  Hoeffle,  the  learned  author  of 
the  History  of  Chemistry  and  the  General  Encyclopaedia,  and  by  the 
diligent  labourer  in  the  field  of  astronomic  discovery  whose  death 
we  have  recently  had  to  deplore,  M.  Hermann  Goldschmidt,  the  dis- 
coverer of  fourteen  planets." 

It  thus  appears  that  in  France,  as  well  as  in  America 
and  in  this  country,  men  of  science  of  no  mean  rank  have 
investigated  these  phenomena  and  have  found  them  to  be 
realities,  while  some  of  the  most  eminent  hold  the  spiritual 
theory  to  be  the  only  one  that  will  explain  them.1 

This  seems  the  proper  place  to  notice  the  astounding 
assertion  of  some  writers,  that  there  is  not  "  a  particle  of 
evidence  "  to  support  the  spiritual  theory, — that  those  who 
accept  it  betray  "hopeless  inability  to  discriminate  be- 
tween adequate  and  inadequate  proof  of  facts," — that  the 
theory  is  "  formed  apart  from  facts," — and  that  those  who 
accept  it  are  so  unable  to  reason  as  to  "jump  to  the  con- 

1  That  the  names  we  are  able  to  quote  of  men  who  have  publicly 
acknowledged  their  conviction  of  the  reality  of  the  phenomena  of  modern 
Spiritualism  form  only  a  small  portion  of  those  who  are  really  convinced, 
but  who,  for  social,  religious,  or  other  reasons  do  not  make  public  their 
belief,  every  spiritualist  knows.  As  an  example  of  the  latter  class,  we 
may  refer  to  the  late  Dr.  Robert  Chambers,  a  man  as  remarkable  for  his 
powers  of  observation,  scientific  knowledge,  and  literary  ability  as  for  his 
caution  in  forming  and  expressing  his  opinions.  I  am  glad  to  be  now 
able  to  give  the  following  extract  from  a  letter  received  from  him  in 
February  1867  : — "  I  have  for  many  years  known  that  these  phenomena 
are  real,  as  distinguished  from  impostures  ;  and  it  is  not  of  yesterday  that 
I  concluded  they  were  calculated  to  explain  much  that  has  been  doubtful 
in  the  past ;  and,  when  fully  accepted,  revolutionise  the  whole  frame  of 
human  opinion  on  many  important  matters." 


THE  SPIRITUAL  THEORY  187 

elusion  "  that  it  must  be  spirits  that  move  tables,  merely 
because  they  do  not  know  how  else  they  can  be  moved. 
The  preceding  account  of  how  converts  to  Spiritualism 
have  4been  made  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  all  this  ignorant 
assertion.  The  spiritual  theory,  as  a  rule,  has  only  been 
adopted  as  a  last  resource,  when  all  other  theories  have 
hopelessly  broken  down,  and  when  fact  after  fact,  pheno- 
menon after  phenomenon,  has  presented  itself,  giving  direct 
proof  that  the  so-called  dead  are  still  alive.  The  spiritual 
theory  is  the  logical  outcome  of  the  whole  of  the  facts. 
Those  who  deny  it,  in  every  instance  with  which  I  am 
acquainted,  either  from  ignorance  or  disbelief,  leave  half 
the  facts  out  of  view.  Take  the  one  case  (out  of  many 
almost  equally  conclusive)  of  Mr.  Livermore,  who  during 
five  years,  on  hundreds  of  occasions,  saw,  felt,  and  heard 
the  movements  of  the  figure  of  his  dead  wife  in  absolute, 
unmistakable,  living  form  —  a  form  which  could  move 
objects,  and  which  repeatedly  wrote  to  him  in  her  own 
handwriting  and  her  own  language,  on  cards  which  re- 
mained after  the  figure  had  disappeared — a  form  which 
was  equally  visible  and  tangible  to  two  friends,  which 
appeared  in  his  own  house,  in  a  room  absolutely  secured, 
with  the  presence  of  only  a  young  girl,  the  medium.  Had 
these  three  men  "  not  a  particle  of  evidence  "  for  the  spiri- 
tual theory  ?  Is  it,  in  fact,  possible  to  conceive  or  suggest 
any  more  complete  proof  ?  The  facts  must  be  got  rid  of 
before  you  can  abolish  the  theory ;  and  simple  denial  or 
disbelief  does  not  get  rid  of  facts  testified  during  a  space 
of  five  years  by  three  witnesses,  all  men  in  responsible 
positions,  and  carrying  on  their  affairs  during  the  whole 
period  in  a  manner  to  win  the  respect  and  confidence  of 
their  fellow-citizens.1 

1  The   objection    will   here   inevitably  be  made :—"  These  wonderful 
thiugs  always  happen  in  America.     When  they  occur  in  England,  it  will 


188  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS. 

We  now  approach  a  subject  which  cannot  be  omitted  in 
any  impartial  sketch  of  the  evidences  of  Spiritualism,  since 
it  is  that  which  furnishes  perhaps  the  most  unassailable 
demonstration  it  is  possible  to  obtain  of  the  objective 
reality  of  spiritual  forms,  and  also  of  the  truthful  nature 

be  time  enough  to  inquire  into  them."  Fortunately  for  these  objectors, 
after  this  article  was  in  the  press,  the  final  test  was  obtained  which  de- 
monstrated the  occurrence  of  similar  phenomena  in  London.  A  short 
statement  may,  therefore,  be  interesting  for  those  who  cannot  digest 
American  evidence.  For  some  years  a  young  lady,  Miss  Florence  Cook, 
had  exhibited  remarkable  mediumship,  which  latterly  culminated  in  the 
production  of  an  entire  female  form  purporting  to  be  of  spiritual  origin, 
and  which  appeared  barefooted  and  in  white  flowing  robes  while  she  lay 
entranced,  in  dark  clothing,  and  securely  bound  in  a  cabinet  or  adjoining 
room.  Notwithstanding  that  tests  of  an  apparently  conclusive  character 
were  employed,  many  visitors,  spiritualists  as  well  as  sceptics,  got  the 
impression  that  all  was  not  as  it  should  be,  owing  in  part  to  the  resem- 
blance of  the  supposed  spirit  to  Miss  Cook,  and  also  to  the  fact  that  the 
two  could  not  be  seen  at  the  same  time.  Some  supposed  that  Miss  C. 
was  an  impostor,  who  managed  to  conceal  a  white  robe  about  her  (although 
she  was  often  searched),  and  who,  although  she  was  securely  tied  with 
tapes  and  seals,  was  able  to  get  out  of  her  bonds,  dress  and  undress 
herself,  and  get  into  them  again,  all  in  the  dark,  and  in  so  complete  and 
skilful  a  manner  as  to  defy  detection.  Others  thought  that  the  spirit 
released  her,  provided  her  with  a  white  dress,  and  sent  her  forth  to  per- 
sonate a  ghost.  The  belief  that  there  was  something  wrong  led  one 
gentleman — an  ardent  spiritualist,  be  it  remembered — to  seize  the  supposed 
spirit  and  endeavour  to  hold  it,  in  the  hope  that  some  other  person  would 
open  the  cabinet  door  and  see  if  Miss  Cook  was  really  there.  This  was, 
unfortunately,  not  done  ;  but  the  great  resemblance  of  the  being  he  seized 
to  Miss  Cook,  its  perfect  solidity,  and  the  vigorous  struggles  it  made  to 
escape  from  him,  convinced  that  gentleman  that  it  was  Miss  Cook  herself, 
although  the  rest  of  the  company  a  few  minutes  afterwards  found  her 
bound  and  sealed  just  as  she  had  been  left  an  hour  before.  To  determine 
the  question  conclusively,  experiments  were  made  by  two  scientific  men. 
Mr.  C.  F.  Varley,  F.R.S.,  the  eminent  electrician,  made  use  of  a  galvanic 
battery  and  cable-testing  apparatus,  and  passed  a  current  through  Miss 
Cook's  body  (by  fastening  sovereigns  soldered  to  wires  to  her  arms).  The 
apparatus  was  so  delicate  that  any  movement  whatever  was  instantly 


SPIRIT-PHOTOGRAPHS  189 

of  the  evidence  furnished  by  seers  when  they  describe 
figures  visible  to  themselves  alone.  It  has  been  already 
indicated — and  it  is  a  fact  of  which  the  records  of  Spiri- 
tualism furnish  ample  proof — that  different  individuals 
possess  the  power  of  seeing  such  forms  and  figures  in  very 

indicated,  while  it  was  impossible  for  the  young  lady  to  dress  and  act  the 
ghost  without  breaking  the  circuit.  Yet,  under  these  conditions,  the 
spirit-form  did  appear,  exhibited  its  arms,  spoke,  wrote,  and  touched 
several  persons ;  and  this  happened,  not  in  the  medium's  own  house,  but 
in  that  of  a  private  gentleman  in  the  West  End  of  London.  For  nearly 
an  hour  the  circuit  was  never  broken,  and  at  the  conclusion  of  the  experi- 
ment Miss  Cook  was  found  in  a  deep  trance.  Subsequently  Mr.  Crookes, 
F.R.  S.,  obtained  even  more  satisfactory  evidence.  He  contrived  a  phos- 
phorus lamp,  and,  armed  with  this,  was  allowed  to  go  into  the  dark  room 
accompanied  by  the  spirit,  and  there  both  saw  and  felt  Miss  Cook,  dressed 
in  black  velvet,  lying  in  a  trance  on  the  floor,  while  the  spirit-form,  in  white 
robes,  stood  close  beside  her.  During  the  evening  this  spirit-form  had 
been  for  nearly  an  hour  walking  and  talking  with  the  company  ;  and  Mr. 
Crookes,  by  permission,  did  what  the  sceptical  gentleman  had  done  without 
— clasped  the  figure  in  his  arms,  and  found  it  to  be  apparently  that  of  a  real 
living  woman.  Yet  this  figure  is  not  that  of  Miss  Cook  nor  of  any  other 
living  human  being,  since  it  appeared  and  disappeared  in  closed  and  care- 
fully guarded  rooms  in  Mr.  Crookes'  cwn  house  as  readily  and  completely 
as  in  that  of  the  medium  herself.  The  full  statements  of  Messrs.  Crookes 
and  Varley,  with  a  mass  of  interesting  details  on  the  subject,  appeared  in 
the  Spiritualist  newspaper  in  March  and  April  1874  ;  and  they  serve  to 
show  that  whatever  marvels  occur  in  America  can  be  reproduced  here,  and 
that  men  of  science  are  not  (as  it  is  continually  asserted  they  are)  pre- 
cluded from  investigating  these  phenomena  with  scientific  instruments 
and  by  scientific  methods. 

The  preceding  remarks  formed  a  note  to  the  article  as  it  appeared  in 
the  Fortnifjhtly  Review ;  but  since  that  article  appeared  the  demonstra- 
tion has  been  carried  still  further.  Miss  Cook  came  to  Mr.  Crookes'  house 
alone,  with  a  small  bag  as  her  only  luggage,  and  stayed  there  about  a 
week.  She  slept  with  one  of  the  ladies  of  the  house,  and  was  constantly 
under  the  observation  of  one  or  other  of  the  family.  Yet  the  spirit-form 
appeared  constantly  :  Mr.  Crookes  both  saw  and  felt  it  and  Miss  Cook  at 
the  same  time ;  and  he  obtained  a  series  of  photographs  of  the  spirit-form, 
and  a  comparative  series  of  Miss  Cook,  showing  it  to  be  that  of  a  woman 
at  least  half  a  head  taller,  just  as  it  appeared  to  be  to  all  observers.  The 
photographs  (which  I  have  had  the  opportunity  of  examining)  are  to  all 


190  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

variable  degrees.  Thus,  it  often  happens  at  a  stance,  that 
some  will  see  distinct  lights  of  which  they  will  describe 
the  form,  appearance,  and  position,  while  others  will  see 
nothing  at  all.  If  only  one  or  two  persons  see  the  lights, 
the  rest  will  naturally  impute  it  to  their  imagination  ;  but 

appearance  those  of  a  human  being,  whose  features  are  like  those  of  Miss 
Cook,  as  a  sister  might  be  like,  but  by  no  means  identical ;  dressed  in 
flowing  white  robes,  while  Miss  Cook  was  always  dressed  in  ordinary  dark 
clothes ;  and  by  measurement,  as  well  as  by  comparison  with  Mr.  Crookes, 
who  is  photographed  by  the  side  of  both,  very  much  taller.  This  figure, 
after  being  seen,  felt,  conversed  with,  and  photographed,  absolutely  dis- 
appeared from  a  small  room,  out  of  which  there  was  no  means  of  exit 
but  through  the  adjoining  room  filled  with  spectators.  We  must  also 
remember  that  the  photographs  are  so  clear  and  distinct,  and  the  form 
and  features  of  the  spirit  are  so  well  known  to  a  considerable  number  of 
people,  that  if  it  were  a  human  being  who,  in  different  houses  in  various 
parts  of  London  always  manages  to  accompany  Miss  Cook  and  act  the 
spirit,  that  person  could  hardly  maintain  a  perpetual  incognito,  and  for 
years  avoid  detection.  But  any  such  supposition  is  even  more  incredible 
than  the  fact  of  a  "  spiritual  manifestation  "  when  we  consider  that  this 
unknown  person  would  have  had  to  obtain  entrance,  and  to  live  for  a 
week  in  a  private  house  without  once  being  seen,  except  in  a  room  where 
concealment  is  impossible  and  which  is  carefully  secured  before  each 
seance.  During  this  week  she  must  either  live  without  food,  or  get  in  and 
out  of  the  house  continually  without  ever  being  perceived,  and  this  in  a 
house  fully  occupied  by  a  rather  large  family  !  Since  these  manifestations 
have  ceased  with  Miss  Cook,  they  have  occurred  with  other  mediums  in 
Manchester,  in  Newcastle,  in  Melbourne,  and  especially  in  America,  under 
conditions,  if  possible,  still  more  stringent.  Mr.  Robert  Dale  Owen  testi- 
fies'to  having  seen  the  spirit-form  come  out  of  an  empty  cabinet  when 
the  mediums  were  visible  and  sitting  among  the  spectators.  And  on  several 
occasions  he  and  others  have  seen  this  apparently  living,  solid,  moving, 
speaking  form  actually  vanish  before  their  eyes,  and  after  a  time  be  re- 
produced. The  figure  faded  out  from  the  head  downwards.  On  another 
occasion,  on  a  bare  floor  of  polished  boards,  the  form  appeared  rising  out 
of  the  floor,  first  the  head  and  shoulders,  then  the  entire  body,  which 
afterwards  walked  out  among  the  spectators.  Yet  another  time,  three 
distinct  figures  appeared  from  the  cabinet,  spoke  to  the  witnesses,  and 
were  touched  by  them.  Those  who  know  nothing  of  the  subject,  of 
course,  cannot  believe  this  ;  but  to  all  who  know  that  many  spiritual 
phenomena  are  facts,  the  evidence  must  be  conclusive. 


A  CONCLUSIVE  TEST  SUGGESTED         191 

there  are  cases  in  which  only  one  or  two  of  those  present 
are  unable  to  see  them.  There  are  also  cases  in  which  all 
see  them,  but  in  very  different  degrees  of  distinctness; 
yet  that  they  see  the  same  objects  is  proved  by  their  all 
agreeing  as  to  the  position  and  the  movement  of  the 
lights.  Again,  what  some  see  as  merely  luminous  clouds, 
others  will  see  as  distinct  human  forms,  either  partial  or 
entire.  In  other  cases  all  present  see  the  form — whether 
hand,  face,  or  entire  figure — with  equal  distinctness. 
Again,  the  objective  reality  of  these  appearances  is  some- 
times proved  by  their  being  touched,  or  by  their  being 
seen  to  move  objects, — in  some  cases  heard  to  speak,  in 
others  seen  to  write,  by  several  persons  at  one  and  the 
same  time  ;  the  figure  seen  or  the  writing  produced  being 
sometimes  unmistakably  recognisable  as  that  of  some 
deceased  friend.  A  volume  could  easily  be  filled  with  re- 
cords of  this  class  of  appearances,  authenticated  by  place, 
date,  and  names  of  witnesses  ;  and  a  considerable  selection 
is  to  be  found  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Robert  Dale  Owen. 

Now,  at  this  point,  an  inquirer,  who  had  not  prejudged 
the  question,  and  who  did  not  believe  his  own  knowledge 
of  the  universe  to  be  so  complete  as  to  justify  him  in 
rejecting  all  evidence  for  facts  which  he  had  hitherto 
considered  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  improbable,  might 
fairly  say,  "Your  evidence  for  the  appearance  of  visible, 
tangible,  spiritual  forms  is  very  strong ;  but  I  should  like 
to  have  them  submitted  to  a  crucial  test,  which  would 
quite  settle  the  question  of  the  possibility  of  their  being 
due  to  a  coincident  delusion  of  several  senses  of  several 
persons  at  the  same  time ;  and,  if  satisfactory,  would  de- 
monstrate their  objective  reality  in  a  way  nothing  else  can 
do.  If  they  really  reflect  or  emit  light  which  makes  them 
visible  to  human  eyes,  they  can  lie  photographed.  Photo- 
graph them,  and  you  will  have  an  unanswerable  proof 


192  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

that  your  human  witnesses  are  trustworthy."  Two  years 
ago  we  could  only  have  replied  to  this  very  proper  sug- 
gestion, that  we  believed  it  had  been  done  and  could  be 
again  done,  but  that  we  had  no  satisfactory  evidence  to 
offer.  Now,  however,  we  are  in  a  position  to  state,  not 
only  that  it  has  been  frequently  done,  but  that  the  evi- 
dence is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  satisfy  any  one  who 
will  take  the  trouble  carefully  to  examine  it.  This 
evidence  we  will  now  lay  before  our  readers,  and  we 
venture  to  think  they  will  acknowledge  it  to  be  most 
remarkable. 

Before  doing  so,  it  may  be  as  well  to  clear  away  a  popu- 
lar misconception.  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes  advised  the  Dialec- 
tical Committee  to  distinguish  carefully  between  "facts 
and  inferences  from  facts."  This  is  especially  necessary 
in  the  case  of  what  are  called  spirit-photographs.  The 
figures  which  occur  in  these,  when  not  produced  by  any 
human  agency,  may  be  of  "  spiritual  "  origin  without  being 
figures  "of  spirits."  There  is  much  evidence  to  show 
that  they  are,  in  some  cases,  forms  produced  by  invisible 
intelligences,  but  distinct  from  them.  In  other  cases  the 
intelligence  appears  to  clothe  itself  with  matter  capable  of 
being  perceived  by  us ;  but  even  then  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  form  produced  is  the  actual  image  of  the  spiritual 
form.  It  may  be  but  a  reproduction  of  the  former  mortal 
form  with  its  terrestrial  accompaniments,  for  purposes  of 
recognition. 

Most  persons  have  heard  of  these  "ghost-pictures,"  and 
how  easily  they  can  be  made  to  order  by  any  photo- 
grapher, and  are  therefore  disposed  to  think  they  can  be 
of  no  use  as  evidence.  But  a  little  consideration  will 
show  that  the  means  by  which  sham  ghosts  can  be  manu- 
factured being  so  well  known  to  all  photographers,  it 
becomes  easy  to  apply  tests  or  arrange  conditions  so  as  to 


SPIRIT  PHOTOGRAPHS  193 

prevent  imposition.  The  following  are  some  of  the  more 
obvious  : — 

1.  If  a  person  with  a  knowledge  of  photography  takes 
his  own  glass  plates,  examines  the  camera  used  and  all 
the  accessories,  and  watches  the  whole  process  of  taking  a 
picture,  then,  if  any  definite  form  appears  on  the  nega- 
tive besides  the  sitter,  it  is  a  proof  that  some  object  was 
present  capable  of  reflecting  or  emitting  the  actinic  rays, 
although  invisible  to  those  present.  2.  If  an  unmistak- 
able likeness  appears  of  a  deceased  person  totally  unknown 
to  the  phographer.  3.  If  figures  appear  on  the  negative 
having  a  definite  relation  to  the  figure  of  the  sitter,  who 
chooses  his  own  position,  attitude,  and  accompaniments, 
it  is  a  proof  that  invisible  figures  were  really  there.  4. 
If  a  figure  appears  draped  in  white,  and  partly  behind 
the  dark  body  of  the  sitter  without  in  the  least  showing 
through,  it  is  a  proof  that  the  white  figure  was  there  at 
the  same  time,  because  the  dark  parts  of  the  negative  are 
transparent,  and  any  white  picture  in  any  way  super- 
posed would  show  through.  5.  Even  should  none  of 
these  tests  be  applied,  yet  if  a  medium,  quite  inde- 
pendent of  the  photographer,  sees  and  describes  a 
figure  during  the  sitting,  and  an  exactly  corresponding 
figure  appears  on  the  plate,  it  is  a  proof  that  such  a 
figure  was  there. 

Every  one  of  these  tests  have  now  been  successfully 
applied  in  our  own  country,  as  the  following  outline  of  the 
facts  will  show. 

The  accounts  of  spirit-photography  in  several  parts  of 
the  United  States  caused  many  spiritualists  in  this  country 
to  make  experiments,  but  for  a  long  time  without  success. 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Guppy,  who  were  both  amateur  photographers, 
tried  at  their  own  house,  and  failed.  In  March  1872,  they 
went  one  day  to  Mr.  Hudson's,  a  photographer  living  near 

N 


194  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

them  (not  a  spiritualist)  to  get  some  cartes  de  visite  of  Mrs. 
Guppy.  After  the  sitting  the  idea  suddenly  struck  Mr. 
Guppy  that  he  would  try  for  a  spirit-photograph.  He  sat 
down,  told  Mrs.  G.  to  go  behind  the  background,  and  had 
a  picture  taken.  There  came  out  behind  him  a  large,  inde- 
finite, oval,  white  patch,  somewhat  resembling  the  outline 
of  a  draped  figure.  Mrs.  Guppy,  behind  the  background, 
was  dressed  in  black  This  is  the  first  spirit-photograph 
taken  in  England,  and  it  is  perhaps  more  satisfactory  on 
account  of  the  suddenness  of  the  impulse  under  which  it 
was  taken,  and  the  great  white  patch  which  no  impostor 
would  have  attempted  to  produce,  and  which,  taken  by 
itself,  utterly  spoils  the  picture.  Some  days  afterwards, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Guppy  and  their  little  boy  went  without  any 
notice.  Mrs.  G.  sat  on  the  ground  holding  the  boy  on  a 
stool.  Mr.  Guppy  stood  behind  looking  on.  The  picture 
thus  produced  is  most  remarkable.  A  tall  female  figure, 
finely  draped  in  white  gauzy  robes,  stands  directly  behind 
and  above  the  sitters,  looking  down  on  them  and  holding 
its  open  hands  over  their  heads,  as  if  giving  a  benedic- 
tion. The  face  is  somewhat  Eastern,  and,  with  the  hands, 
is  beautifully  defined.  The  white  robes  pass  behind  the 
sitters'  dark  figures  without  in  the  least  showing  through. 
A  second  picture  was  then  taken  as  soon  as  a  plate  could 
be  prepared,  and  it  was  fortunate  it  was  so,  for  it  resulted 
in  a  most  remarkable  test.  Mrs.  G.  again  knelt  with  the 
boy ;  but  this  time  she  did  not  stoop  so  much,  and  her  head 
was  higher.  The  same  white  figure  comes  out  equally  well 
defined,  but  it  has  changed  its  position  in  a  manner  exactly 
corresponding  to  the  slight  change  of  Mrs.  G.'s  position.  The 
hands  were  before  on  a  level ;  now  one  is  raised  consider- 
ably higher  than  the  other,  so  as  to  keep  it  about  the  same 
distance  from  Mrs.  G.'s  head  as  it  was  before.  The  folds 
of  the  drapery  all  correspondingly  differ,  and  the  head  is 


RECOGNISED  LIKENESSES  195 

slightly  turned.  Here,  then,  one  of  two  things  is  abso- 
lutely certain.  Either  there  was  a  living,  intelligent,  but 
invisible  being  present,  or  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Guppy,  the  photo- 
grapher, and  some  fourth  person,  planned  a  wicked  impos- 
ture, and  have  maintained  it  ever  since.  Knowing  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Guppy  so  well  as  I  do,  I  feel  an  absolute  con- 
viction that  they  are  as  incapable  of  an  imposture  of  this 
kind  as  any  earnest  inquirer  after  truth  in  the  department 
of  natural  science.1 

The  report  of  these  pictures  soon  spread.  Spiritualists 
in  great  numbers  came  to  try  for  similar  results,  with 
varying  degrees  of  success ;  till  after  a  time  rumours  of 
imposture  arose,  and  it  is  now  firmly  believed  by  many, 
from  suspicious  appearances  on  the  pictures  and  from  other 
circumstances,  that  a  large  number  of  shams  have  been 
produced.  It  is  certainly  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  it  were 
so.  The  photographer,  remember,  was  not  a  spiritualist, 
and  was  utterly  puzzled  at  the  pictures  above  described. 
Scores  of  persons  came  to  him,  and  he  saw  that  they  were 
satisfied  if  they  got  a  second  figure  with  themselves,  and 
dissatisfied  if  they  did  not.  He  may  have  made  arrange- 
ments by  which  to  satisfy  everybody.  One  thing  is  clear ; 
that  if  there  has  been  imposture,  it  was  at  once  detected 
by  spiritualists  themselves ;  if  not,  then  spiritualists  have 
been  quick  in  noticing  what  appeared  to  indicate  it.  Those, 
however,  who  most  strongly  assert  imposture  allow  that  a 
large  number  of  genuine  pictures  have  been  taken.  But, 
true  or  not,  the  cry  of  imposture  did  good,  since  it  showed 

1  It  is  an  important  circumstance  that  the  face  of  the  spirit  form  is 
well  defined,  and  as  recognisable  as  the  portrait  of  any  living  person. 
Had  an  imposture  been  attempted,  this  would  have  been  carefully  avoided, 
since  it  would  almost  certainly  lead  to  the  discovery  of  the  person  who 
was  dressed  up  for  the  occasion.  Yet  no  such  person  has  been  found, 
although,  during  the  discussions  that  subsequently  arose,  many  were  eager 
to  find  proofs  of  imposture. 


196  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

the  necessity  for  tests  and  for  independent  confirmation  of 
the  facts. 

The  test  of  clearly  recognisable  likenesses  of  deceased 
friends  has  often  been  obtained.  Mr.  William  Howitt, 
who  went  without  previous  notice,  obtained  likenesses  of 
two  sons,  many  years  dead,  and  of  the  very  existence  of 
one  of  which  even  the  friend  who  accompanied  Mr.  Howitt 
was  ignorant.  The  likenesses  were  instantly  recognised 
by  Mrs.  Howitt,  and  Mr.  H.  declares  them  to  be  "  perfect 
and  unmistakable  "  (Spiritual  Magazine,  Oct.  1872).  Dr. 
Thomson  of  Clifton  obtained  a  photograph  of  himself, 
accompanied  by  that  of  a  lady  he  did  not  know.  He  sent 
it  to  his  uncle  in  Scotland,  simply  asking  if  he  recognised 
a  resemblance  to  any  of  the  family  deceased.  The  reply 
was  that  it  was  the  likeness  of  Dr.  Thomson's  own  mother, 
who  died  at  his  birth ;  and  there  being  no  picture  of  her 
in  existence,  he  had  no  idea  what  she  was  like.  The  uncle 
very  naturally  remarked  that  he  "  could  not  understand 
how  it  was  done  "  (Spiritual  Magazine,  Oct.  1873).  Many 
other  instances  of  recognition  have  since  occurred,  but  I 
will  only  add  my  personal  testimony.  A  few  weeks  back 
(in  1874)  I  myself  went  to  the  same  photographer's  for 
the  first  time,  and  obtained  a  most  unmistakable  likeness 
of  a  deceased  relative.1  We  will  now  pass  to  a  better 
class  of  evidence,  the  private  experiments  of  amateurs. 

1  The  particulars  of  this  case  are  as  follows.  On  March  14th,  1874, 
I  went  to  Hudson's  by  appointment,  for  the  first  and  only  time, 
accompanied  by  Mrs.  Guppy,  as  medium.  I  expected  that  if  I  got 
any  spirit  picture  it  would  be  that  of  my  eldest  brother,  in  whose  name 
messages  had  frequently  been  received  through  Mrs.  Guppy.  Before 
going  to  Hudson's  I  sat  with  Mrs.  G.,  and  had  a  communication  by 
raps  to  the  effect  that  my  mother  would  appear  on  the  plate  if  she 
could.  I  sat  three  times,  always  choosing  my  own  position.  Each 
time  a  second  figure  appeared  in  the  negative  with  me.  The  first  was 
a  male  figure  with  a  short  sword  ;  the  second  a  full-length  figure,  stand- 
ing apparently  a  few  feet  on  one  side  and  rather  behind  me,  looking 


AUTHOR'S  EXPERIENCES  197 

Mr.  Thomas  Slater,  an  old-established  optician  in  the 
Euston  Eoad,  and  an  amateur  photographer,  took  with  him 
to  Mr.  Hudson's  a  new  camera  of  his  own  manufacture  and 
his  own  glasses,  saw  everything  done,  and  obtained  a  por- 
trait with  a  second  figure  on  it.  He  then  began  experi- 

down  at  me  and  holding  a  bunch  of  flowers.  At  the  third  sitting,  after 
placing  myself,  and  after  the  prepared  plate  was  in  the  camera,  I  asked 
that  the  figure  would  come  close  to  me.  The  third  plate  exhibited  a 
female  figure  standing  close  in  front  of  me,  so  that  the  drapery  covers 
the  lower  part  of  my  body.  I  saw  all  the  plates  developed,  and  in  each 
case  the  additional  figure  started  out  the  moment  the  developing  fluid 
was  poured  on,  while  my  portrait  did  not  become  visible  till,  perhaps, 
twenty  seconds  later.  I  recognised  none  of  these  figures  in  the  nega- 
tives ;  but  the  moment  I  got  the  proofs,  the  first  glance  showed  me 
that  the  third  plate  contained  an  unmistakable  portrait  of  my  mother, 
— like  her  both  in  features  and  expression ;  not  such  a  likeness  as  a 
portrait  taken  during  life,  but  a  somewhat  pensive,  idealised  likeness — 
yet  still,  to  me,  an  unmistakable  likeness.  The  second  figure  is  much 
less  distinct ;  the  face  is  looking  down  ;  it  has  a  different  expression  from 
the  other,  so  that  I  at  first  concluded  it  was  a  different  person.  The 
male  figure  I  know  nothing  of.  On  sending  the  two  female  portraits  to 
my  sister,  she  thought  that  the  second  was  much  more  like  my  mother 
than  the  third, — was,  in  fact,  a  good  likeness,  though  indistinct,  while 
the  third  seemed  to  her  to  be  like  in  expression,  but  with  something 
wrong  about  the  mouth  and  chin.  This  was  found  to  be  due,  in  part, 
to  the  filling  up  of  spots  by  the  photographer ;  for  when  the  picture 
was  washed  it  became  thickly  covered  with  whitish  spots,  but  a  letter 
likeness  of  my  mother.  Still  I  did  not  see  the  likeness  in  the  second 
picture  till  a  few  weeks  back,  when  I  looked  at  it  with  a  magnifying-glass, 
and  I  at  once  saw  a  remarkable  special  feature  of  my  mother's  natural 
face,  an  unusually  projecting  lower  lip  and  jaw.  This  was  most  conspicuous 
some  years  ago,  as  latterly  the  mouth  was  somewhat  contracted.  A  photo- 
graph taken  twenty-two  years  before  shows  this  peculiarity  very  strongly, 
and  corresponds  well  with  the  second  picture,  in  which  the  mouth  is 
partly  open  and  the  lower  lip  projects  greatly.  This  figure  had  always 
given  me  the  impression  of  a  younger  person  than  that  in  the  third 
picture,  and  it  is  remarkable  that  they  correspond  respectively  with  the 
character  of  the  face  as  seen  in  photographs  taken  at  intervals  of  about 
twelve  years,  yet  without  the  least  resemblance  to  these  photographs 
either  in  attitude  or  expression.  Both  figures  carry  a  bunch  of  flowers 
exactly  in  the  same  way  ;  and  it  is  worthy  of  notice  that,  while  I  was 


198  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

menting  in  his  own  private  house,  and  during  last  summer 
obtained  some  remarkable  results.  The  first  of  his  suc- 
cesses contained  two  heads  by  the  side  of  a  portrait  of  his 
sister.  One  of  these  heads  is  unmistakably  the  late  Lord 
Brougham's ;  the  other,  much  less  distinct,  is  recognised 
by  Mr.  Slater  as  that  of  Robert  Owen,  whom  he  knew 
intimately  up  to  the  time  of  his  death.  He  afterwards  ob- 
tained several  excellent  pictures  of  the  same  class.  One 
in  particular  shows  a  female  in  black  and  white  flowing 
robes,  standing  by  the  side  of  Mr.  Slater.  In  another  the 

sitting  for  the  second  picture,  the  medium  said,  "  I  see  some  one,  and  it 
has  flowers  " — intimating  that  she  saw  the  flowers  distinctly,  the  figure 
only  very  faintly.  Here,  then,  are  two  different  faces  representing  the 
aspect  of  a  deceased  person's  countenance  at  two  periods  of  her  life  ;  yet 
both  the  figures  are  utterly  unlike  any  photograph  ever  taken  of  her 
during  her  life.  How  these  two  figures,  with  these  special  peculiarities 
of  a  person  totally  unknown  to  Mr.  Hudson  could  appear  on  his  plates, 
I  should  be  glad  to  have  explained.  Even  if  he  had  by  some  means 
obtained  possession  of  all  the  photographs  ever  taken  of  my  mother,  they 
would  not  have  been  of  the  slightest  use  to  him  in  the  manufacture  of 
these  pictures.  I  see  no  escape  from  the  conclusion  that  some  spiritual 
being,  acquainted  with  my  mother's  various  aspects  during  life,  produced 
these  recognisable  impressions  on  the  plate.  That  she  herself  still  lives 
and  produced  these  figures  may  not  be  proved  ;  but  it  is  a  more  simple 
and  natural  explanation  to  think  that  she  did  so,  than  to  suppose  that  we 
are  surrounded  by  beings  who  carry  out  an  elaborate  series  of  impostures 
for  no  other  apparent  purpose  than  to  dupe  us  into  a  belief  in  a  continued 
existence  after  death.  While  these  sheets  were  passing  through  the  press, 
I  received  a  letter  from  my  brother  in  California,  to  whom  I  had  sent  a 
proof  of  the  third  picture.  He  wrote — "  As  soon  as  I  opened  the  letter, 
I  looked  at  the  photograph  attentively,  and  recognised  your  face,  and 
remarked  that  the  other  one  was  something  like  Fanny  (my  sister).  I 
then  handed  it  across  the  table  to  Mrs.  W.,  and  she  exclaimed  at  once, 
'  Why,  it's  your  mother  ! '  We  then  compared  it  with  a  photograph  of  her 
we  had  here,  and  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  general  resemblance,  but 
it  has  an  appearance  of  sickness  or  weariness."  Neither  my  brother  nor 
his  wife  knew  anything  of  Spiritualism,  and  both  were  prejudiced  against 
it.  We  may  therefore  accept  their  testimony  as  to  the  resemblance  to  my 
mother  in  confirmation  of  myself  and  my  sister,  as  conclusive. 


MR.  BEATTIE'S  EXPERIMENTS  199 

head  and  bust  appear,  leaning  over  his  shoulder.  The  faces 
of  these  two  are  much  alike,  and  other  members  of  the 
family  recognised  them  as  likenesses  of  Mr.  Slater's  mother, 
who  died  when  he  was  an  infant.  In  another  a  pretty 
child  figure,  also  draped,  stands  beside  Mr.  Slater's  little 
boy.  Now,  whether  these  figures  are  correctly  identified 
or  not  is  not  the  essential  point.  The  fact  that  any  figures, 
so  clear  and  unmistakably  human  in  appearance  as  these, 
should  appear  on  plates  taken  in  his  own  private  studio  by 
an  experienced  optician  and  amateur  photographer,  who 
makes  all  his  apparatus  himself,  and  with  no  one  present 
but  the  members  of  his  own  family,  is  the  real  marvel. 
In  one  case  a  second  figure  appeared  on  a  plate  with  him- 
self, taken  by  Mr.  Slater  when  he  was  absolutely  alone, 
by  the  simple  process  of  occupying  the  sitter's  chair  after 
uncapping  the  camera.  He  and  his  family  being  them- 
selves mediums,  they  require  no  extraneous  assistance  ;  and 
this  may,  perhaps,  be  the  reason  why  he  has  succeeded  so 
well.  One  of  the  most  extraordinary  pictures  obtained  by 
Mr.  Slater  is  a  full-length  portrait  of  his  sister,  in  which 
there  is  no  second  figure,  but  the  sister  appears  covered 
all  over  with  a  kind  of  transparent  lace  drapery,  which 
on  examination  is  seen  to  be  wholly  made  up  of  shaded 
circles  of  different  sizes,  quite  unlike  any  material  fabric 
I  have  seen  or  heard  of. 

Mr.  Slater  himself  showed  me  all  these  pictures  and 
explained  the  conditions  under  which  they  were  produced. 
That  they  are  not  impostures  is  certain ;  and  as  the  first 
independent  confirmations  of  what  had  been  previously 
obtained  only  through  professional  photographers,  their 
value  is  inestimable. 

A  less  successful,  but  not  perhaps  on  that  account  less 
satisfactory,  confirmation  has  been  obtained  by  another 
amateur,  who,  after  eighteen  months  of  experiments, 


200  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODEllN  SHUlTUALlSM 

obtained  a  partial  success.  Mr.  R.  Wiams,  M.A.,  Ph.D., 
of  Hayward's  Heath,  succeeded  in  obtaining  three  photo- 
graphs, each  with  part  of  a  human  form  besides  the 
sitter,  one  having  the  features  distinctly  marked.  Sub- 
sequently another  was  obtained  with  a  well-formed  figure 
of  a  man  standing  at  the  side  of  the  sitter,  but  while 
being  developed,  this  figure  faded  away  entirely.  Mr. 
Williams  assured  me  (in  a  letter)  that  in  these  experi- 
ments there  was  "  no  room  for  trick  or  for  the  production 
of  these  figures  by  any  known  means." 

The  editor  of  the  British  Journal  of  Photography  made 
experiments  at  Mr.  Hudson's  studio,  taking  his  own 
collodion  and  new  plates,  and  doing  everything  himself, 
yet  there  were  "  abnormal  appearances  "  on  the  pictures 
although  no  distinct  figures. 

We  now  come  to  the  valuable  and  conclusive  experi- 
ments of  Mr.  John  Beattie  of  Clifton,  a  retired  photo- 
grapher of  twenty  years'  experience,  and  of  whom  the 
above-mentioned  editor  says :  "  Every  one  who  knows  Mr. 
Beattie  will  give  him  credit  for  being  a  thoughtful,  skil- 
ful, and  intelligent  photographer,  one  of  the  last  men  in 
the  world  to  be  deceived,  at  least  in  matters  relating  to 
photography,  and  one  quite  incapable  of  deceiving  others." 

Mr.  Beattie  was  assisted  in  his  researches  by  Dr.  Thom- 
son, an  Edinburgh  M.D.,  who  had  practised  photography, 
as  an  amateur,  for  twenty-five  years.  They  experimented 
at  the  studio  of  a  friend,  who  was  not  a  spiritualist  (but 
who  became  a  medium  during  the  experiments),  and  had 
the  services  of  a  tradesman  with  whom  they  were  well 
acquainted  as  a  medium.  The  whole  of  the  photographic 
work  was  done  by  Messrs.  Beattie  and  Thomson,  the  other 
two  sitting  at  a  small  table.  The  pictures  were  taken  in 
series  of  three  or  four,  within  a  few  seconds  of  each  other, 
and  several  of  these  series  were  taken  at  each  sitting. 


MR.  BEATTIE'S  EXPERIMENTS  201 

The  figures  produced  are  for  the  most  part  not  human, 
but  white  shaded  patches,  variously  formed,  and  which  in 
successive  pictures  are  seen  to  change  and  develop  as  it 
were  into  a  more  perfect  or  complete  type.  Thus,  one  set 
of  five  begins  with  two  white  somewhat  angular  patches 
over  the  middle  sitter,  and  ends  with  a  rude  but  unmis- 
takable white  female  figure,  covering  the  larger  part  of 
the  plate.  The  other  three  show  intermediate  states,  indi- 
cating a  continuous  change  of  form  from  the  first  figure 
to  the  last.  Another  set  (of  four  pictures)  begins  with  a 
white  vertical  cylinder  over  the  body  of  the  medium,  and 
a  shorter  one  on  his  head.  These  change  their  form  in  the 
second  and  third,  and  in  the  last  become  laterally  spread 
out  into  luminous  masses  resembling  nebulae.  Another 
set  of  three  is  very  curious.  The  first  has  an  oblique  flow- 
ing luminous  patch  from  the  table  to  the  ground ;  in  the 
second  this  has  changed  to  a  white  serpentine  column, 
ending  in  a  point  above  the  medium's  head  ;  in  the  third 
the  column  has  become  broader  and  somewhat  double,  with 
the  curve  in  an  opposite  direction,  and  with  a  head-like 
termination.  The  change  of  the  curvature  may  have  some 
connection  with  a  change  in  the  position  of  the  sitters, 
which  is  seen  to  have  taken  place  between  the  second  and 
the  third  of  this  set.  There  are  two  others,  taken,  like  all 
the  preceding,  in  1872,  but  which  the  medium  described 
during  the  exposure.  The  first,  he  said,  was  a  thick  white 
fog;  and  the  picture  came  out  all  shaded  white,  with  not 
a  trace  of  any  of  the  sitters.  The  other  was  described  as  a 
fog  with  a  figure  standing  in  it ;  and  here  a  white  human 
figure  is  alone  seen  in  the  almost  uniform  foggy  surface. 
During  the  experiments  made  in  1873,  the  medium,  in 
every  case,  minutely  and  correctly  described  the  appearances 
which  afterwards  came  out  on  the  plate.  In  one  there  is 
a  luminous  rayed  star  of  large  size,  with  a  human  face 


202  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

faintly  visible  in  the  centre.  This  is  the  last  of  three  in 
which  the  star  developed,  and  the  whole  were  accurately 
described  by  the  medium.  In  another  set  of  three,  the 
medium  first  described  "A  light  behind  him,  coming  from 
the  floor."  The  next — "  A  light  rising  over  another  per- 
son's arms, coming  from  his  own  boot."  The  third — "There 
is  the  same  light,  but  now  a  column  comes  up  through  the 
table,  and  it  is  hot  to  my  hands."  Then  he  suddenly  ex- 
claimed, "  What  a  bright  light  up  there !  Can  you  not 
see  it  ?  "  pointing  to  it  with  his  hand.  All  this  most 
accurately  describes  the  three  pictures,  and  in  the  last,  the 
medium's  hand  is  seen  pointing  to  a  white  patch  which 
appears  overhead.  There  are  other  curious  developments, 
the  nature  of  which  is  already  sufficiently  indicated ;  but 
one  very  startling  single  picture  must  be  mentioned.  Dur- 
ing the  exposure  one  medium  said  he  saw  on  the  back- 
ground a  black  figure,  the  other  medium  saw  a  light  figure 
by  the  side  of  the  black  one.  In  the  picture  both  these 
figures  appear,  the  light  one  very  faintly,  the  black  one 
much  more  distinctly,  of  a  gigantic  size,  with  a  massive 
coarse-featured  face  and  long  hair. 

Mr.  Beattie  was  so  good  as  to  send  me  for  examination 
a  complete  set  of  these  most  extraordinary  photographs, 
thirty-two  in  number,  and  furnished  me  with  any  par- 
ticulars I  desired.  I  have  described  them  as  correctly  as 
I  am  able ;  and  Dr.  Thomson  authorised  me  to  use  his 
name  as  confirming  Mr.  Beattie's  account  of  the  conditions 
under  which  they  appeared.  These  experiments  were  not 
made  without  labour  and  perseverance.  Sometimes  twenty 
consecutive  pictures  produced  absolutely  nothing  unusual. 
Hundreds  have  been  taken,  and  more  than  half  have  been 
complete  failures.  But  the  successes  have  been  well  worth 
the  labour.  They  demonstrate  the  fact  that  what  a  medium 
or  sensitive  sees  (even  where  no  once  else  sees  anything) 


MR.  G.  H.  LEWES  CRITICISED  203 

may  often  have  an  objective  existence.  They  teach  us 
that  perhaps  the  bookseller  Nicolai  of  Berlin — whose  case 
has  been  quoted  ad  nauseam  as  the  type  of  a  "  spectral 
illusion  " — saw  real  beings  after  all ;  and  that,  had  photo- 
graphy been  then  discovered  and  properly  applied,  we  might 
now  have  the  portraits  of  the  invisible  men  and  women 
who  crowded  his  room.1  They  give  us  hints  of  a  process 

1  The  efforts  men  of  science  have  to  make  in  order  to  avoid  recognising 
the  possibility  of  such  forms  being  actual  beings,  visible  only  during  the 
peculiar  state  induced  by  disease  or  insanity,  is  well  shown  by  the  follow- 
ing curious  passage  from  the  work  of  Mr.  G.  H.  Lewes,  Problems  of  Life 
and  Mind  (vol.  i.  p.  255): — "In  the  course  of  my  observations  in 
English  and  German  asylums,  I  have  been  forcibly  impressed  with  the 
fact,  abundantly  illustrated  in  the  records  of  insanity,  that  patients  be- 
longing to  very  different  classes  of  society,  and  to  different  nations,  have 
precisely  similar  hallucinations,  which  they  express  in  terms  so  closely 
alike,  that  the  one  might  have  been  a  free  translation  of  the  other.  The 
pauper  lunatic  in  England  will  often  have  the  same  illusion  as  the  insane 
German  merchant ;  and  the  insane  soldier  in  Bohemia  will  seem  to  be 
repeating  the  absurdities  of  the  insane  farmer  in  Sussex.  Not  only  does 
the  fact  of  cerebral  congestion  determine  hallucination  in  the  Englishman 
as  in  the  German,  but  determines  the  precise  form  which  that  hallucina- 
tion will  take.  Twenty  different  patients,  of  both  sexes,  and  of  different 
age,  country,  and  states,  will  be  found  having  similar  morbid  sensations ; 
and  will  all  form  a  similar  hypothesis  to  explain  what  they  feel.  Not 
only  will  they  agree  in  attributing  their  distressing  sensations  to  the 
malevolent  action  of  invisible  enemies  ;  but  will  also  agree  in  describing 
how  these  enemies  molest  them  ;  even  when  such  imaginary  explanations 
take  peculiar  shapes — for  example,  that  the  enemy  blows  poisonous  vapours 
through  the  keyhole  or  chinks  in  the  wall,  strikes  them  with  galvanic 
batteries  hidden  under  the  table,  roars  and  threatens  them  from  under- 
ground cellars,  &c.  To  hear  in  Germany  a  narrative  which  one  has 
already  heard  in  England,  gravely  particularising  the  same  preposterous 
details,  almost  as  if  the  thoughts  of  the  one  were  the  echo  of  the  thoughts 
of  the  other,  has  a  startling  effect.  I  do  not  refer  simply  to  the  well- 
known  general  types  of  hallucination,  in  which  patients  fancy  themselves 
emperors,  Christs,  great  actors,  or  great  statesmen,  or  fancy  themselves 
doomed  to  perdition,  made  of  glass  and  liable  to  break  in  pieces  if  they 
move — I  refer  to  the  singular  resemblance  noticeable  in  the  expression  of 
these  forms,  so  that  one  patient  has  the  same  irrational  conceptions 


204  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

by  which  the  figures  seen  at  stances  may  have  to  be 
gradually  formed  or  developed,  and  enable  us  better  to 
understand  the  statements  repeatedly  made  by  the  com- 
municating intelligences — that  it  is  very  difficult  to  produce 
definite,  visible,  and  tangible  forms,  and  that  it  can  only 
be  done  under  a  rare  combination  of  favourable  conditions. 
We  find,  then,  that  three  amateur  photographers,  working 
independently  in  different  parts  of  England,  separately  con- 
firm the  fact  of  spirit-photography,  already  demonstrated 
to  the  satisfaction  of  many  who  had  tested  it  through  pro- 
fessional photographers.  The  experiments  of  Mr.  Beattie 
and  Dr.  Thomson  are  alone  absolutely  conclusive ;  and, 
taken  in  connection  with  those  of  Mr.  Slater  and  Dr. 
Williams,  and  the  test  photographs  like  those  of  Mrs. 
Guppy,  establish  as  a  scientific  fact  the  objective  existence 
of  invisible  human  forms  and  definite  invisible  actinic 
images.  Before  leaving  the  photographic  phenomena  we 
have  to  notice  two  curious  points  in  connection  with  them. 
The  actinic  action  of  the  spirit-forms  is  peculiar,  and  much 
more  rapid  than  that  of  the  light  reflected  from  ordinary 
material  forms  ;  for  the  figures  start  out  the  moment  the 

as  another.  This  identity  of  conception  rests  on  identity  of  congestion. 
Remove  the  congestion  and  the  hallucination  vanishes."  Now  this  explana- 
tion is  so  untenable,  and  so  contrary  to  the  laws  of  physiological  pyscho- 
logy,  that  we  venture  to  say  Mr.  Lewes'  friend,  Herbert  Spencer,  will  not 
endorse  it.  For  it  asserts  that  the  product  of  two  factors  can  be  con- 
stantly identical  with  the  product  of  two  other  factors,  one  of  which  is 
widely  different  from  the  corresponding  one.  It  asserts  that  race,  nation, 
education,  life-long  habits  and  associations  and  ideas,  being  all  different 
in  two  individuals,  a  similar  or  identical  cerebral  disease  will  produce  an 
identical  mental  result,  and  that  the  radical  differences  in  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  two  factors  go  absolutely  for  nothing !  There  could  hardly 
be  a  more  striking  proof  of  the  theory  that  so-called  spectral  illusions  are 
often  actual  objective  forms  than  the  facts  adduced  by  Mr.  Lewes ;  and  if 
his  explanation  is  satisfactory  to  himself,  we  can  hardly  have  a  stronger 
case  of  the  blinding  influence  of  preconceived  ideas,  even  on  the  most 
powerful  intellects. 


SUMMARY  OF  PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  205 

developing  fluid  touches  them,  while  the  figure  of  the  sitter 
appears  much  later.  Mr.  Beattie  noticed  this  throughout 
his  experiments,  and  I  was  myself  much  struck  with  it 
when  watching  the  development  of  three  pictures  recently- 
taken  at  Mr.  Hudson's.  The  second  figure,  though  by  no 
means  bright,  always  came  out  long  before  any  other  part 
of  the  picture.  The  other  singular  thing  is  the  copious 
drapery  in  which  these  forms  are  almost  always  enveloped, 
so  as  to  show  only  just  what  is  necessary  for  recognition  of 
the  face  and  figure.  The  explanation  given  of  this  is  that 
the  human  form  is  more  difficult  to  materialise  [than  drapery. 
The  conventional  "  white-sheeted  ghost "  was  not  then  all 
fancy,  but  had  a  foundation  in  fact — a  fact,  too,  of  deep 
significance,  dependent  on  the  laws  of  a  yet  unknown 
chemistry. 


SUMMARY   OF  THE  MORE   IMPORTANT  MANIFESTATIONS, 
PHYSICAL   AND   MENTAL. 

As  we  have  not  been  able  to  give  an  account  of  many 
curious  facts  which  occur  with  the  various  classes  of 
mediums,  the  following  catalogue  of  the  more  important 
and  well-characterised  phenomena  may  be  useful.  They 
may  be  grouped  provisionally,  as  Physical,  or  those  in 
which  material  objects  are  acted  on,  or  apparently  material 
bodies  produced ;  and  Mental,  or  those  which  consist  in 
the  exhibition  by  the  medium  of  powers  or  faculties  not 
possessed  in  the  normal  state. 

The  principal  physical  phenomena  are  the  following : — 
1.  Simple  Physical  Phenomena. — Producing  sounds  of  all 
kinds,  from  a  delicate  tick  to  blows  like  those  of  a  heavy 
sledge-hammer.  Altering  the  weight  of  bodies.  Moving 
bodies  without  human  agency.  Raising  bodies  into  the  air. 
Conveying  bodies  to  a  distance  out  of  and  into  closed  rooms. 


206  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

Releasing  mediums  from  every  description  of  bonds,  even 
from  welded  iron  rings,  as  has  happened  in  America. 

2.  Chemical. — Preserving  from  the  effects  of  fire,  as 
already  detailed. 

3.  Direct  Writing  and  Drawing. — Producing  writing  or 
drawing  on  marked  papers,  placed  in  such  positions  that  no 
human  hand  (or  foot)  can  touch  them.     Sometimes,  visibly 
to  the  spectators,  a  pencil  rising  up  and  writing  or  drawing 
apparently  by  itself.    Some  of  the  drawings  in  many  colours 
have  been  produced  on  marked  paper  in  from  ten  to  twenty 
seconds,  and  the  colours  found  wet  (see  Mr.  Coleman's 
evidence  in  Dialectical  Report,  p.  143,  confirmed  by  Lord 
Borthwick,  p.  150).     Mr.  Thomas  Slater,  of  136  Euston 
Road,   has   obtained    communications   in   the   following 
manner : — A  bit  of  slate-pencil  an  eighth  of  an  inch  long 
is  laid  on  a  table  ;  a  clean  slate  is  laid  over  this,  in  a  well- 
lighted  room  ;  the  sound  of  writing  is  then  heard,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  a  communication  of  considerable  length  is 
found  distinctly  written.     At  other  times  the  slate  is  held 
between  himself  and  another  person,  their  other  hands 
being  joined.     Some  of  these  communications  are  philoso- 
phical discussions  on   the  nature  of  spirit  and  matter, 
supporting  the  usual  spiritual  theory  on  this  subject. 

4.  Musical  Phenomena. — Musical  instruments,  of  various 
kinds,  played  without  human  agency,  from  a  hand-bell  to  a 
closed  piano.     With  some  mediums,  and  where  the  con- 
ditions are  favourable,  original  musical  compositions  of  a 
very  high  character  are  produced.      This  occurred  with 
Mr.  Home. 

5.  Spiritual  Forms. — These  are  either  luminous  appear- 
ances, sparks,  stars,  globes  of  light,  luminous  clouds,  &c. ; 
or,  hands,  faces,  or  entire  human  figures,  generally  covered 
with  flowing  drapery,  except  a  portion  of  the  face  and 
hands.     The  human  forms  are  often  capable  of  moving 


SUMMARY  OF  MENTAL  PHENOMENA  207 

solid  objects,  and  are  both  visible  and  tangible  to  all  present. 
In  other  cases  they  are  only  visible  to  seers,  but  when  this 
is  the  case  it  sometimes  happens  that  the  seer  describes 
the  figure  as  lifting  a  flower  or  a  pen,  and  others  present  see 
the  flower  or  the  pen  apparently  move  by  itself.  In  some 
cases  they  speak  distinctly ;  in  others  the  voice  is  heard 
by  all,  the  form  only  seen  by  the  medium.  The  flowing 
robes  of  these  forms  have  in  some  cases  been  examined, 
and  pieces  cut  off,  which  have  in  a  short  time  melted  away. 
Flowers  are  also  brought,  some  of  which  fade  away  and 
vanish ;  others  are  real,  and  can  be  kept  indefinitely.  It 
must  not  be  concluded  that  any  of  these  forms  are  actual 
spirits  ;  they  are  probably  only  temporary  images  produced 
by  spirits  for  purposes  of  test,  or  of  recognition  by  their 
friends.  This  is  the  account  invariably  given  of  them  by 
communications  obtained  in  various  ways;  so  that  the 
objection  once  thought  to  be  so  crushing — that  there  can 
be  no  "  ghosts  "  of  clothes,  armour,  or  walking-sticks — 
ceases  to  have  any  weight. 

6.  Spiritual  Photographs, — These,  as  just  detailed,  de- 
monstrate by  a  purely  physical  experiment  the  trust- 
worthiness of  the  preceding  class  of  observations. 

We  now  come  to  the  mental  phenomena,  of  which  the 
following  are  the  chief : — 

1.  Automatic  Writing. — The  medium  writes  involun- 
tarily, sometimes  in  a  state  of  trance,  and  often  on  sub- 
jects which  he  is  not  thinking  about,  does  not  expect,  and 
does  not  like.  Occasionally  definite  and  correct  informa- 
tion is  given  of  facts  of  which  the  medium  has  not,  nor 
ever  had,  any  knowledge.  Sometimes  future  events  are 
accurately  predicted.  The  writing  takes  place  either  by 
the  hand  or  through  a  planchette.  Often  the  handwriting 
changes.  Sometimes  it  is  written  backwards  ;  sometimes 
n  languages  which  the  medium  does  not  understand, 


208  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

2.  Seeing  or  Clairvoyance,  and  Clairaudience. — This  is  of 
various  kinds.     Some  mediums  see  the  forms  of  deceased 
persons  unknown  to  them,  and  describe  their  peculiarities 
so  minutely  that  their  friends  at  once  recognise  them. 
They  often  hear  voices,  through  which  they  obtain  names, 
date,  and  place,  connected  with  the  individuals  so  de- 
scribed.    Others  read  sealed  letters  in  any  language,  and 
write  appropriate  answers. 

3.  Trance-speaking. — The  medium  goes  into  a  more  or 
less  unconscious  state,  and  then  speaks,  often  on  matters 
and  in  a  style  far  beyond  his  own  capacities.     Thus,  Ser- 
jeant Cox — no  mean  judge  on  a  matter  of  literary  style — 
says,  "  I  have  heard  an  uneducated  barman,  when  in  a  state 
of  trance,  maintain  a  dialogue  with  a  party  of  philosophers 
on  '  Keason  and  Foreknowledge,  Will  and  Fate,'  and  hold 
his  own  against  them.     I  have  put  to  him  the  most  diffi- 
cult questions  in  psychology,  and  received  answers,  always 
thoughtful,  often  full  of  wisdom,  and  invariably  conveyed 
in  choice  and  elegant  language.     Nevertheless  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  afterwards,  when  released  from  the  trance,  he  was 
unable  to  answer  the  simplest  query  on  a  philosophical 
subject,  and  was  even  at  a  loss  for  sufficient  language  to 
express  a  commonplace  idea "  ( What  am  I  ?  vol.  ii.  p. 
242).     That  this  is  not  overstated  I  can  myself  testify, 
from  repeated  observation  of  the  same  medium.     And 
from  other  trance-speakers — such  as  Mrs.  Hardinge,  Mrs. 
Tappan,  and  Mr.  Peebles — I  have  heard  discourses  which, 
for  high  and  sustained  eloquence,  noble  thoughts,  and 
high  moral  purpose,   surpassed  the  best  efforts  of  any 
preacher  or  lecturer  within  my  experience. 

4.  Impersonation. — This  occurs   during   trance.      The 
medium   seems   taken   possession  of  by  another  being; 
speaks,  looks,  and  acts  the  character  in  a  most  marvellous 
manner ;  in  some  cases  speaks  foreign  languages  never 


MENTAL  AND  PHYSICAL  PHENOMENA  209 

even  heard  in  the  normal  state ;  as  in  the  case  of  Miss 
Edmonds,  already  given.  When  the  influence  is  violent 
or  painful,  the  effects  are  such  as  have  been  in  all  ages 
imputed  to  possession  by  evil  spirits. 

5.  Healing. — There  are  various  forms  of  this.  Some- 
times by  mere  laying  on  of  hands,  an  exalted  form  of 
simple  mesmeric  healing.  Sometimes,  in  the  trance  state, 
the  medium  at  once  discovers  the  hidden  malady,  and 
prescribes  for  it,  often  describing  very  exactly  the  morbid 
appearance  of  internal  organs. 

The  purely  mental  phenomena  are  generally  of  no  use 
as  evidence  to  non-spiritualists,  except  in  those  few  cases 
where  rigid  tests  can  be  applied ;  but  they  are  so  inti- 
mately connected  with  the  physical  series,  and  often  so 
interwoven  with  them,  that  no  one  who  has  sufficient 
experience  to  satisfy  him  of  the  reality  of  the  former, 
fails  to  see  that  the  latter  form  part  of  the  general  system, 
and  are  dependent  on  the  same  agencies. 

With  the  physical  series  the  case  is  very  different.  They 
form  a  connected  body  of  evidence,  from  the  simplest  to 
the  most  complex  and  astounding,  every  single  component 
fact  of  which  can  be,  and  has  been,  repeatedly  demon- 
strated by  itself ;  while  each  gives  weight  and  confirmation 
to  all  the  rest.  They  have  all,  or  nearly  all,  been  before 
the  world  for  forty  years ;  the  theories  and  explanations 
of  reviewers  and  critics  do  not  touch  them,  or  in  any  way 
satisfy  any  sane  man  who  has  repeatedly  witnessed  them  ; 
they  have  been  tested  and  examined  by  sceptics  of  every 
grade  of  incredulity,  men  in  every  way  qualified  to 
detect  imposture  or  to  discover  natural  causes — trained 
physicists,  medical  men,  lawyers,  and  men  of  business — 
but  in  every  case  the  investigators  have  either  retired 
baffled  or  become  converts. 

There  have,  it  is  true,  been  some  impostors  who  have 

0 


210  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

attempted  to  imitate  the  phenomena ;  but  such  cases  are 
few  in  number,  and  have  been  discovered  by  tests  far  less 
severe  than  those  to  which  the  genuine  phenomena  have 
been  submitted  over  and  over  again ;  and  a  large  propor- 
tion of  these  phenomena  have  never  been  imitated,  because 
they  are  beyond  successful  imitation. 

Now  what  do  our  leaders  of  public  opinion  say  when 
a  scientific  man  of  proved  ability  again  observes  a  large 
portion  of  the  more  extraordinary  phenomena,  in  his  own 
house,  under  test  conditions,  and  affirms  their  objective 
reality ;  and  this  not  after  a  hasty  examination,  but  after 
four  years  of  research  ?  Men  "  with  heavy  scientific  ap- 
pendages to  their  names  "  refuse  to  examine  them  when 
invited ;  the  eminent  society  of  which  he  is  a  fellow  re- 
fuses to  record  them  ;  and  the  press  cries  out  that  it  wants 
better  witnesses  than  Mr.  Crookes,  and  that  such  facts 
want  "  confirmation  "  before  they  can  be  believed.  But 
why  more  confirmation  ?  And  when  again  "  confirmed," 
who  is  to  confirm  the  confirmer  ?  After  the  whole  range 
of  the  phenomena  had  been  before  the  world  ten  years,  and 
had  convinced  sceptics  by  tens  of  thousands — sceptics,  be 
it  remembered,  of  common-sense  and  more  than  common 
acuteness,  Americans  of  all  classes — they  were  confirmed 
by  the  first  chemist  in  America,  Professor  Robert  Hare. 
Two  years  later  they  were  again  confirmed  by  the  elabo- 
rate and  persevering  inquiries  of  one  of  the  first  American 
lawyers,  Judge  Edmonds.  Then  by  another  good  chemist, 
Professor  Mapes.  In  France  the  truth  of  the  simpler 
physical  phenomena  was  confirmed  by  Count  A.  de  Gasparin 
in  1854;  and  since  then  French  astronomers,  mathema- 
ticians, and  chemists  of  high  rank  have  confirmed  them. 
Professor  Thury  of  Geneva  again  confirmed  them  in 
1855.  In  our  own  country  such  men  as  Professor  De 
Morgan,  Dr.  Lockhart  Robertson,  T.  Adolphus  Trollope, 


FURTHER  CONFIRMATION  NOT  REQUIRED  211 

Dr.  Eobert  Chambers,  Serjeant  Cox,  Mr.  C.  F.  Varley,  as 
well  as  the  sceptical  Dialectical  Committee,  have  indepen- 
dently confirmed  large  portions  of  them ;  and  lastly  conies 
Mr.  William  Crookes,  F.E.S.,  with  four  years  of  research 
and  unrestricted  experiment  with  the  two  oldest  and  most 
remarkable  mediums  in  the  world,  and  again  confirms 
almost  the  whole  series !  But  even  this  is  not  all.  Through 
an  independent  set  of  most  competent  observers  we  have 
the  crucial  test  of  photography ;  a  witness  which  cannot 
be  deceived,  which  has  no  preconceived  opinions,  which 
cannot  register  "subjective"  impressions;  a  thoroughly 
scientific  witness,  who  is  admitted  into  our  law  courts,  and 
whose  testimony  is  good  as  against  any  number  of  recol- 
lections of  what  did  happen  or  opinions  as  to  what  ought 
to  and  must  have  happened.  And  what  have  the  other 
side  brought  against  this  overwhelming  array  of  consistent 
and  unimpeachable  evidence  ?  They  have  merely  made 
absurd  and  inadequate  suppositions,  but  have  not  disproved 
or  explained  away  one  weighty  fact ! 

My  position,  therefore,  is  that  the  phenomena  of  Spiri- 
tualism in  their  entirety  do  not  require  further  confirmation. 
They  are  proved  quite  as  well  as  any  facts  are  proved  in 
other  sciences  ;  and  it  is  not  denial  or  quibbling  that  can 
disprove  any  of  them,  but  only  fresh  facts  and  accurate 
deductions  from  those  facts.  When  the  opponents  of 
Spiritualism  can  give  a  record  of  their  researches  approach- 
ing in  duration  and  completeness  to  those  of  its  advocates, 
and  when  they  can  discover  and  show  in  detail  either  how 
the  phenomena  are  produced  or  how  the  many  sane  and 
able  men  here  referred  to  have  been  deluded  into  a  coin- 
cident belief  that  they  have  witnessed  them,  and  when 
they  can  prove  the  correctness  of  their  theory  by  pro- 
ducing a  like  belief  in  a  body  of  equally  sane  and  able 
unbelievers — then,  and  not  till  then,  will  it  be  necessary 


212  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

for  spiritualists  to  produce  fresh  confirmation  of  facts  which 
are,  and  always  have  been,  sufficiently  real  and  indisput- 
able to  satisfy  any  honest  and  persevering  inquirer. 

This  being  the  state  of  the  case  as  regards  evidence  and 
proof,  we  are  fully  justified  in  taking  the  facts  of  modern 
Spiritualism  (and  with  them  the  spiritual  theory  as  the 
only  tenable  one)  as  being  fully  established.  It  only  re- 
mains to  give  a  brief  account  of  the  more  important  uses 
and  teachings  of  Spiritualism. 


HISTORICAL  TEACHINGS   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

The  lessons  which  modern  Spiritualism  teaches  may  be 
classed  under  two  heads.  In  the  first  place,  we  find  that 
it  gives  a  rational  account  of  various  phenomena  in  human 
history  which  physical  science  has  been  unable  to  explain, 
and  has  therefore  rejected  or  ignored  ;  and,  in  the  second, 
we  derive  from  it  some  definite  information  as  to  man's 
nature  and  destiny,  and,  founded  on  this,  an  ethical 
system  of  great  practical  efficacy.  The  following  are 
some  of  the  more  important  phenomena  of  history  and 
of  human  nature  which  science  cannot  deal  with,  but 
which  Spiritualism  explains. 

1.  It  is  no  small  thing  that  the  spiritualist  finds  him- 
self able  to  rehabilitate  Socrates  as  a  sane  man,  and  his 
"demon"  as  an  intelligent  spiritual  being  who  accom- 
panied him  through  life,  in  other  words,  a  guardian  spirit. 
The  non-spiritualist  is  obliged  to  look  upon  one  of  the 
greatest  men  in  human  history,  not  only  as  subject  all  his 
life  to  a  mental  illusion,  but  as  being  so  weak,  foolish,  or 
superstitious  as  never  to  discover  that  it  was  an  illusion. 
He  is  obliged  to  disbelieve  the  fact  asserted  by  contem- 
poraries and  by  Socrates  himself,  that  it  forewarned  him 
truly  of  dangers,  and  to  hold  that  this  noble  man,  this 


THE  ORACLES  OF  ANTIQUITY  213 

subtle  reasoner,  this  religious  sceptic,  who  was  looked  up 
to  with  veneration  and  love  by  the  great  men  who  were 
his  pupils,  was  imposed  upon  by  his  own  fancies,  and 
never  during  a  long  life  found  out  that  they  were  fancies, 
and  that  their  supposed  monitions  were  as  often  wrong  as 
right.  It  is  a  positive  mental  relief  not  to  have  to  think 
thus  of  Socrates. 

2.  Spiritualism  allows  us  to  believe  that  the  oracles  of 
antiquity  were  not  all  impostures ;  that  a  whole  people, 
perhaps  the  most  intellectually  acute  who  ever  existed, 
were  not  all  dupes.  In  discussing  the  question,  "Why 
the  Prophetess  Pythia  giveth  no  answers  now  from  the 
oracle  in  verse,"  Plutarch  tells  us  that  when  kings  and 
states  consulted  the  oracle  on  weighty  matters  that  might 
do  harm  if  made  public,  the  replies  were  couched  in  enig- 
matical language ;  but  when  private  persons  asked  about 
their  own  affairs,  they  got  direct  answers  in  the  plainest 
terms,  so  that  some  people  even  complained  of  their  sim- 
plicity and  directness  as  being  unworthy  of  a  divine  origin. 
And  he  adds  this  positive  testimony  :  "  Her  answers, 
though  submitted  to  the  severest  scrutiny,  have  never 
proved  false  or  incorrect.  On  the  contrary,  the  verifica- 
tion of  them  has  filled  the  temple  with  gifts  from  all 
parts  of  Greece  and  foreign  countries."  And  again,  "  The 
answer  of  the  Pythoness  proceeds  to  the  very  truth,  without 
any  diversion,  circuit,  fraud,  or  ambiguity.  It  has  never 
yet,  in  a  single  instance,  been  convicted  of  falsehood." 
Would  such  statements  be  made  by  such  a  writer  if  these 
oracles  were  all  the  mere  guesses  of  impostors  ?  The 
fact  that  they  declined  and  ultimately  failed  is  wholly  in 
their  favour  ;  for  why  should  imposture  cease  as  the  world 
became  less  enlightened  and  more  superstitious  ?  Neither 
does  the  fact  that  the  priests  could  sometimes  be  bribed 
to  give  out  false  oracles  prove  anything,  against  such 


214  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

statements  as  that  of  Plutarch,  and  the  belief  during  many 
generations,  supported  by  ever-recurring  experiences,  of 
the  greatest  men  of  antiquity.  That  belief  could  only 
have  been  formed  by  demonstrative  facts,  and  modern 
Spiritualism  enables  us  to  understand  the  nature  of  those 
facts. 

3.  Both   the   Old   and   New   Testaments   are  full   of 
Spiritualism,  and  spiritualists  alone  can  read  the  record 
with  an  enlightened  belief.     The  hand  that  wrote  upon 
the  wall  at  Belshazzar's  feast,  and  the  three  men  unhurt 
in  Nebuchadnezzar's  fiery  furnace,  are  for  them  actual  facts 
which  they  need  not  explain  away.     St.  Paul's  language 
about  "  spiritual  gifts "  and   "  trying  the  spirits "  is  to 
them  intelligible  language,  and  the  "  gift  of  tongues  "  a 
simple  fact.     When  Christ  cast  out  "  devils "  or  "  evil 
spirits,"  He  really  did  so,  not  merely  startle  a  madman 
into  momentary  quiescence ;  and  the  water  changed  into 
wine,  as  well  as  the  bread  and  fishes  continually  renewed 
till  five  thousand  men  were  fed,  are  credible  as  extreme 
manifestations  of  a  power  which  is  still  daily  at  work 
among  us. 

4.  The  miracles  of  the  saints,  when  well  attested,  come 
into  the  same  category.    Those  of  St.  Bernard,  for  instance, 
were  often  performed  in  broad  day  before  thousands  of 
spectators,  and  were  recorded  by  eye-witnesses.     He  was 
himself  greatly  troubled  by  them,  wondering  why  this 
power  was  bestowed  upon  him,  and  fearing  lest  it  should 
make  him  less  humble.     This  was  not  the  frame  of  mind, 
nor  was  St.  Bernard's  the  character,  of  a  deluded  enthu- 
siast.     The  spiritualists  need  not  believe  that  all   this 
never    happened,   or  that  St.  Francis  d'Asisi  and   Sta. 
Theresa  were  not  raised  into  the  air,  as  eye-witnesses 
declared  they  were. 

5.  Witchcraft  and  witchcraft  trials  have  a  new  interest 


WITCHCRAFT  215 

for  the  spiritualist.  He  is  able  to  detect  hundreds  of 
curious  and  minute  coincidences  with  phenomena  he  has 
himself  witnessed  ; 1  he  is  able  to  separate  the  facts  from 
the  absurd  inferences,  which  people  imbued  with  the 
frightful  superstition  of  diabolism  drew  from  them,  and 
from  which  false  inferences  all  the  horrors  of  the  witch- 
craft mania  arose.  Spiritualism,  and  Spiritualism  alone, 
gives  a  rational  explanation  of  witchcraft,  and  determines 
how  much  of  it  was  objective  fact,  how  much  subjective 
illusion. 

6.  Modern  Eomau  Catholic  miracles  become  intelligible 

1  At  a  trial  for  witchcraft  at  Cork  in  1661,  a  young  girl  was  believed 
to  be  bewitched.  She  had  violent  fits,  and  during  these  several  wit- 
nesses declared  that,  while  they  were  present,  she  was  "removed 
strangely,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  out  of  the  bed,  sometimes  into  the 
bottom  of  a  chest  with  linen,  under  all  the  linen,  and  the  linen  not  at  all 
disordered,  sometimes  betwixt  the  two  beds  she  lay  on,  sometimes  under 
a  parcel  of  wool ;  and  once  she  was  laid  on  a  small  deal  board,  which  lay 
on  the  top  of  the  house  between  two  sollar  beams,  where  it  was  necessary 
to  rear  up  ladders  to  have  her  fetched  down."  At  the  same  trial  it  was 
declared  that  little  stones  were  thrown  at  her  wherever  she  went,  and  the 
witnesses  saw  great  quantities  of  these  come  and  hit  her,  and  fall  to  the 
ground,  and  then  vanish,  so  that  none  of  them  could  be  found.  But  once 
the  girl  caught  one,  and  the  witness  another,  and  she  tied  them  in  her 
purse,  but  they  vanished  in  a  little  time  although  the  knot  remained 
unopened. 

These  facts  are  very  analogous  to  some  of  the  more  powerful  manifesta- 
tions of  modern  Spiritualism.  Such  occurrences  as  these  are  to  be  met 
with  in  the  record  of  witchcraft  trials  by  thousands,  generally  witnessed 
by  numbers  of  persons,  educated  and  uneducated ;  and  if  any  one  will 
take  the  trouble  to  read  the  reports  of  these  trials,  they  will  see  that  the 
testimony  of  single  witnesses  to  extraordinary  phenomena  was  not  ac- 
cepted unless  corroborated  by  similar  facts  witnessed  by  several  persons. 
It  is  generally  the  fashion  to  pass  over  these  testimonies  as  not  worthy  of 
a  moment's  notice  ;  but  this  is  surely  not  satisfactory  ;  and  when  we  find 
that  phenomena  of  an  exactly  similar  nature  are  witnessed  in  our  own 
day  by  men  of  talent  and  education,  whose  prepossessions  are  all  against 
them,  this  concurrence  of  ancient  and  modern  testimony  must  be  held  to 
prove  that  some,  at  least,  of  the  facts  witnessed  were  realities. 


216  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

facts.  Spirits  whose  affections  and  passions  are  strongly 
excited  in  favour  of  Catholicism  produce  those  appear- 
ances of  the  Virgin  and  of  saints  which  they  know  will 
tend  to  increase  religious  fervour.  The  appearance  itself 
may  be  an  objective  reality,  while  it  is  only  an  inference 
that  it  is  the  Virgin  Mary — an  inference  which  every 
intelligent  spiritualist  would  repudiate  as  in  the  highest 
degree  improbable. 

7.  Second-sight,  and  many  of  the  so-called  superstitions 
of  savages,  may  be  realities.     It  is  well  known  that  me- 
diumistic  power  is  more  frequent  and  more  energetic  in 
mountainous  countries,  and  as  these  are  generally  inha- 
bited by  the  less  civilised  races,  the  beliefs  that  are  more 
prevalent  there  may  be   due   to   facts  which   are  more 
prevalent,  and   be   wrongly  imputed   to  the   coincident 
ignorance.     It  is  known  to  spiritualists  that  the  pure  dry 
air  of  California  led  to  more  powerful  and  more  startling 
manifestations   than   in  any  other   part   of  the   United 
States. 

8.  The  often  discussed  question  of  the  efficacy  of  prayer 
receives  a  perfect  solution  by  Spiritualism.     Prayer  may 
be  often  answered,  though  not  directly,   by  the  Deity. 
Nor  does  the  answer  depend  wholly  on  the  morality  or  the 
religion  of  the  petitioner ;  but  as  men  who  are  both  moral 
and  religious,  and  are  firm  believers  in  a  Divine  response 
to  prayer,  will  pray  more  frequently,  more  earnestly,  and 
more  disinterestedly,  they  will  attract  towards  them  a 
number  of  spiritual  beings  who  sympathise  with  them, 
and  who,  when  the  necessary  mediumistic  power  is  pre- 
sent, will  be  able,  as  they  are  often  willing,  to  answer  the 
prayer.     A  striking  case  is  that  of   George   Miiller,   of 
Bristol,  who  for  more  than  fifty  years  depended  wholly 
for  his  own  support,  and  that  of  his  wonderful  charities, 
on  answer  to  prayer.     His  Narrative  of  Some  of  the  Lord's 


EFFICACY  OF  PKAYER  217 

Dealings  with  George  Mulltr  (sixth  edit.,  1860),   should 
have  been  referred  to  in  this  discussion,  since  it  furnishes 
a  better  demonstration  that  prayer  is  sometimes  really 
answered  than  the  hospital  experiment  proposed  by  Sir 
Henry  Thomson  could  possibly  have  done.     In  this  work 
we  have  a  precise  yearly  statement  of  Miiller's  receipts 
and  expenditure  for  many  years.     He  never  asked  any 
one,  or  allowed  any  one  to  be  asked,  directly  or  indirectly, 
for  a  penny.     No  subscriptions  or  collections  were  ever 
made;   yet  from   1830  (when  he  married  without  any 
income  whatever),  he  has  lived,  brought  up  a  family,  and 
established  institutions  which  have  steadily  increased,  till 
now  four  thousand  orphan  children  are  educated  and  in 
part  supported.     It  has  happened  hundreds  of  times  that 
there  has  been  no  food  in  his  house  and  no  money  to  buy 
any,  or  no  bread  or  milk  or  sugar  for  the  children ;  yet 
he  never  bought  a  loaf  or  any  other  article  on  credit  even 
for  a  day  ;  and  during  the  thirty  years  over  which  his 
narrative  extends,  neither  he  nor  the  hundreds  of  children 
dependent  upon  him  for  their  daily  bread  have  ever  been 
without  a  regular  meal !     They  have  lived  literally  from 
hand  to  mouth,  and  his  one  and  only  resource  has  been 
secret  prayer.     Here  is  a  case  which  has  been  going  on 
in  the  midst  of  us  for  more  than  fifty  years,  and  is,  I 
believe,  still  going  on ;  it  has  been  published  to  the  world 
many  years  ago,  yet  a  warm  discussion  is  carried  on  by 
eminent  men  as  to  the  fact  of  whether  prayer  is  or  is 
not  answered,  and  not  one  of  them  exhibits  the  least 
knowledge  of  this  most  pertinent  and  illustrative  pheno- 
menon !     The  spiritualist  explains  all  this  as  a  personal 
influence.     The  perfect  simplicity,  faith,  boundless  cha- 
rity, and  goodness  of  George  Miiller  have  enlisted  in  his 
cause   beings   of  a   like   nature ;    and    his   mediumistic 
powers  have  enabled  them  to  work  for  him  by  influencing 


218  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

others  to  send  him  money,  food,  clothes,  &c.,  all  arriv- 
ing, as  we  should  say,  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  The 
numerous  letters  he  received  with  these  gifts,  describing 
the  sudden  and  uncontrollable  impulse  the  donors  felt  to 
send  him  a  certain  definite  sum  at  a  certain  fixed  time,  such 
being  the  exact  sum  he  was  in  want  of  and  had  prayed  for, 
strikingly  illustrates  the  nature  of  the  power  at  work.  All 
this  might  be  explained  away  if  it  were  partial  and  discon- 
tinuous ;  but  when  it  continued  to  supply  the  daily  wants 
of  a  long  life  of  unexampled  charity,  for  which  no  provision 
in  advance  was  ever  made  (for  that  Miiller  considered  would 
show  want  of  trust  in  God),  no  such  explanation  can  cover 
the  facts. 

9.  Spiritualism  enables  us  to  comprehend  and  find  a 
place  for  that  long  series  of  disturbances  and  occult  pheno- 
mena of  various  kinds  which  occurred  previous  to  what  are 
termed  the  modern  spiritual  manifestations.  Eobert  Dale 
Owen's  works  give  a  rather  full  account  of  this  class  of 
phenomena,  which  are  most  accurately  recorded  and  philo- 
sophically treated  by  him.  This  is  not  the  place  to  refer 
to  them  in  detail ;  but  one  of  them  may  be  mentioned  as 
showing  how  large  an  amount  of  unexplained  mystery  there 
was,  even  in  our  own  country,  before  the  world  heard  any- 
thing of  modern  Spiritualism.  In  1841  Major  Edward 
Moor,  F.R.S.,  published  a  little  book  called  Healings  Bells, 
giving  an  account  of  mysterious  bell-ringing  in  his  house 
at  Great  Bealings,  Suffolk,  and  which  continued  for  fifty- 
three  days.  Every  attempt  to  discover  the  cause,  by  him- 
self, friends,  and  bell-hangers,  was  fruitless ;  and  by  no 
efforts,  however  violent,  could  the  same  clamorous  and 
rapid  ringing  be  produced.  He  wrote  an  account  to  the 
newspapers,  requesting  information  bearing  on  the  subject, 
when,  in  addition  to  certain  wise  suggestions — of  rats  or 
a  monkey  as  efficient  causes — he  received  fourteen  com- 


SPIRITUALISM  EXPLAINS  ANTECEDEDENT  PHENOMENA       219 

munications  all  relating  cases  of  mysterious  bell -ringing  in 
different  parts  of  England,  many  of  them  lasting  much 
longer  than  Major  Moor's,  and  all  remaining  equally  un- 
explained. One  lasted  eighteen  months ;  another  was  in 
Greenwich  Hospital,  where  neither  clerk-of -the- works,  bell- 
hanger,  nor  men  of  science  could  discover  the  cause.  One 
clergyman  wrote  of  disturbances  of  a  most  serious  kind 
continued  in  his  parsonage  for  nine  years,  and  he  was  able 
to  trace  back  their  existence  in  the  same  house  for  sixty 
years.  Another  case  had  lasted  twenty  years,  and  could  be 
traced  back  for  a  century.  Some  of  the  details  of  these  cases 
are  most  instructive.  Trick  is  absolutely  the  most  incredible 
of  all  explanations.  Spiritualism  furnishes  the  explanation 
by  means  of  analogous  facts  occurring  every  day,  and  form- 
ing part  of  the  great  system  of  phenomena  which  demon- 
strates the  spiritual  theory.  Major  Moor's  book  is  very 
rare ;  but  a  good  abstract  of  it  is  given  in  Owen's  Debate- 
able  Land,  pp.  239-258. 

1 10.  Spiritualism,  if  true,  furnishes  such  proofs  of  the 
existence  of  ethereal  beings,  and  of  their  power  to  act  upon 
matter,  as  must  revolutionise  philosophy.  It  demonstrates 
the  actuality  of  forms  of  matter  and  modes  of  being  before 
inconceivable ;  it  demonstrates  mind  without  brain,  and 
intelligencedisconnected  from  what  we  know  as  the  material 
body ;  and  it  thus  cuts  away  all  presumption  against  our 
continued  existence  after  the  physical  body  is  disorganised 
and  dissolved.  Yet  more,  it  demonstrates,  as  completely 
as  the  fact  can  be  demonstrated,  that  the  so-called  dead 
are  still  alive ;  that  our  friends  are  still  with  us,  though 
unseen,  and  guide  and  strengthen  us  when,  owing  to 
absence  of  proper  conditions,  they  cannot  make  their 

1  This  paragraph  did  not  appear  in  the  article  as  published  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  but  its  omission  was  a  great  oversight,  as  it  is 
essential  to  a  complete  sketch  of  the  "  teachings"  of  Spiritualism. 


220  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

presence  known.  It  thus  fnrnishes  that  proof  of  a  future 
life  which  so  many  crave,  and  for  want  of  which  so  many 
live  and  die  in  anxious  doubt,  so  many  in  positive  disbelief. 
How  valuable  is  the  certainty  gained  by  spiritual  com- 
munications may  be  gathered  from  what  was  said  to  a  friend 
of  mine  by  a  clergyman  who  had  witnessed  the  modern 
phenomena : — "  Death  is  a  different  thing  to  me  now  from 
what  it  ever  has  been ;  from  the  greatest  depression  because 
of  the  death  of  my  sons  I  am  full  of  confidence  and  cheer- 
fulness; I  am  a  changed  man."  This  is  the  effect  of 
modern  Spiritualism  on  a  man  who  had  all  that  a  belief 
in  Christianity  could  give  him  before ;  and  this  is  the  an- 
swer to  those  who  ask,  "What  use  is  it? "  It  substitutes 
a  definite,  real,  and  practical  conviction  for  a  vague,  theo- 
retical, and  unsatisfying  faith.  It  furnishes  actual  know- 
ledge on  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  all  men,  and  as  to 
which  the  wisest  men  and  most  advanced  thinkers  have 
held,  and  still  hold,  that  no  knowledge  was  attainable. 


MORAL  TEACHINGS   OF   SPIRITUALISM. 

We  have  now  to  explain  the  Theory  of  Human  Nature, 
which  is  the  outcome  of  the  phenomena  taken  in  their 
entirety,  and  which  is  also  more  or  less  explicitly  taught 
by  the  communications  which  purport  to  come  from  spirits. 
It  may  be  briefly  outlined  as  follows : — 

1.  Man  is  a  duality,  consisting  of  an  organised  spiri- 
tual form,  evolved  coincidently  with  and  permeating  the 
physical  body,  and  having  corresponding  organs  and  de- 
velopment. 

2.  Death  is  the  separation  of  this  duality,  and  effects 
no  change  in  the  spirit,  morally  or  intellectually. 

3.  Progressive  evolution  of  the  intellectual  and  moral 
nature   is  the   destiny   of    individuals ;    the   knowledge, 


THE  THEORY  OF  HUMAN  NATURE         221 

attainments,  and  experience  of  earth-life  forming  the  basis 
of  spirit-life. 

4.  Spirits  can  communicate  through  properly-endowed 
mediums.  They  are  attracted  to  those  they  love  or  sympa- 
thise with,  and  strive  to  warn,  protect,  and  influence  them 
for  good,  by  mental  impression,  when  they  cannot  effect 
any  more  direct  communication ;  but,  as  follows  from 
clause  2,  their  communications  will  be  fallible,  and  must 
be  judged  and  tested  just  as  we  do  those  of  our  fellow- 
men. 

The  foregoing  outline  propositions  will  suggest  a  number 
of  questions  and  difficulties,  for  the  answers  to  which 
readers  are  referred  to  the  works  of  R.  D.  Owen,  Hudson 
Tuttle,  Professor  Hare,  and  the  records  of  Spiritualism 
passim.  Here  I  must  pass  on  to  explain  with  some  amount 
of  detail  how  the  theory  leads  to  a  pure  system  of  morality, 
with  sanctions  far  more  powerful  and  effective  than  any 
which  either  religious  systems  or  philosophy  have  put  forth. 

This  part  of  the  subject  cannot,  perhaps,  be  better 
introduced  than  by  referring  to  some  remarks  of  the  late 
Professor  Huxley  in  a  letter  to  the  Committee  of  the  Dia- 
lectical Society.  He  says  :  "  But  supposing  the  phenomena 
to  be  genuine — they  do  not  interest  me.  If  anybody  would 
endow  me  with  the  faculty  of  listening  to  the  chatter  of 
old  women  and  curates  at  the  nearest  cathedral  town,  I 
should  decline  the  privilege,  having  better  things  to  do. 
And  if  the  folk  in  the  spiritual  world  do  not  talk  more 
wisely  and  sensibly  than  their  friends  report  them  to  do,  I 
put  them  in  the  same  category."  This  passage,  written  with 
the  caustic  satire  in  which  the  kind-hearted  Professor  occa- 
sionally indulged,  can  hardly  mean,  that  if  it  were  proved 
that  men  live  after  the  death  of  the  body,  that  fact  would  not 
interest  him,  merely  because  some  of  them  talked  twaddle. 
Many  scientific  men  deny  the  spiritual  source  of  the  mani- 


222  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

festations,  on  the  ground  that  real  genuine  spirits  might 
reasonably  be  expected  not  to  indulge  in  the  common- 
place trivialities  which  do  undoubtedly  form  the  staple  of 
ordinary  spiritual  communications.  But  surely  Professor 
Huxley,  as  a  naturalist  and  philosopher,  would  not  admit 
this  to  be  a  reasonable  expectation.  Did  he  not  hold  the 
doctrine  that  there  can  be  no  effect,  mental  or  physical, 
without  an  adequate  cause ;  and  that  mental  states,  facul- 
ties, and  idiosyncrasies,  that  are  the  result  of  gradual 
development  and  life-long — or  even  ancestral — habit, 
cannot  be  suddenly  changed  by  any  known  or  imaginable 
cause?  And  if  (as  the  Professor  would  probably  have 
admitted)  a  very  large  majority  of  those  who  daily  depart 
this  life  are  persons  addicted  to  twaddle,  persons  whose 
pleasures  are  sensual  rather  than  intellectual — whence  is 
to  come  the  transforming  power  which  is  suddenly,  at  the 
mere  throwing  off  of  the  physical  body,  to  change  these 
into  beings  able  to  appreciate  and  delight  in  high  and  in- 
tellectual pursuits?  The  thing  would  be  a  miracle,  the 
greatest  of  miracles,  and  surely  Professor  Huxley  was  the 
last  man  to  contemplate  innumerable  miracles  as  part  of 
the  order  of  nature  ;  and  all  for  what  ?  Merely  to  save 
these  people  from  the  necessary  consequences  of  their  misspent 
lives.  For  the  essential  teaching  of  Spiritualism  is,  that  we 
are  all  of  us,  in  every  act  and  thought,  helping  to  build 
up  a  "  mental  fabric,"  which  will  be  and  will  constitute 
ourselves,  more  completely  after  the  death  of  the  body 
than  it  does  now.  Just  as  this  fabric  is  well  or  ill  built, 
so  will  our  progress  and  happiness  be  aided  or  retarded. 
Just  in  proportion  as  we  have  developed  our  higher 
intellectual  and  moral  nature,  or  starved  it  by  disuse  and 
by  giving  undue  prominence  to  those  faculties  which 
secure  us  mere  physical  or  selfish  enjoyment,  shall  we  be 
well  or  ill  fitted  for  the  new  life  we  enter  on.  The  noble 


ANSWER  TO  PROFESSOR  HUXLEY'S  REMARK  223 

teaching  of  Herbert  Spencer,  that  men  are  best  educated 
by  being  left  to  suffer  the  natural  consequences  of  their 
actions,  is  the  teaching  of  Spiritualism  as  regards  the 
transition  to  another  phase  of  life.  There  will  be  no  im- 
posed rewards  or  punishments ;  but  every  one  will  suffer 
the  natural  and  inevitable  consequences  of  a  well  or  ill 
spent  life.  The  well-spent  life  is  that  in  which  those 
faculties  which  regard  our  personal  physical  well-being 
are  subordinate  to  those  which  regard  our  social  and  intel- 
lectual well-being,  and  the  well-being  of  others ;  and  that 
inherent  feeling — which  is  so  universal  and  so  difficult 
to  account  for — that  these  latter  constitute  our  higher 
nature,  seems  also  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  we  are 
intended  for  a  condition  in  which  the  former  will  be 
almost  wholly  unnecessary,  and  will  gradually  become 
rudimentary  through  disuse,  while  the  latter  will  receive 
a  corresponding  development. 

Although,  therefore,  the  twaddle  and  triviality  of  so 
many  of  the  communications  is  not  one  whit  more  inter- 
esting to  sensible  spiritualists  than  it  was  to  Professor 
Huxley,  and  is  never  voluntarily  listened  to,  yet  the  fact 
that  such  poor  stuff  is  talked  (supposing  it  to  come  from 
spirits)  is  both  a  fact  that  might  have  been  anticipated 
and  a  lesson  of  deep  import.  We  must  remember,  too, 
the  character  of  the  seances  at  which  these  common-place 
communications  are  received.  A  miscellaneous  assem- 
blage of  believers  of  various  grades  and  tastes,  but  mostly 
in  search  of  an  evening's  amusement,  and  of  sceptics  who 
look  upon  all  the  others  as  either  fools  or  knaves,  is  not 
likely  to  attract  to  itself  the  more  elevated  and  refined 
denizens  of  the  higher  spheres,  who  may  well  be  supposed 
to  feel  too  much  interest  in  their  own  new  and  grand 
intellectual  existence  to  waste  their  energies  on  either 
class.  If  the  fact  is  proved  that  people  continue  to  talk 


224  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

after  they  are  dead  with  just  as  little  sense  as  when  alive, 
but  that,  being  in  a  state  in  which  sense,  both  common 
and  uncommon,  is  of  far  greater  importance  to  happiness 
than  it  is  here  (where  fools  pass  very  comfortable  lives), 
they  suffer  the  penalty  of  having  neglected  to  cultivate 
their  minds ;  and  being  so  much  out  of  their  element  in 
a  world  where  all  pleasures  are  mental,  they  endeavour  to 
recall  old  times  by  gossiping  with  their  former  associates 
whenever  they  can — Professor  Huxley  could  not  fail  to 
see  its  vast  importance  as  an  incentive  to  that  higher  edu- 
cation which  he  is  never  weary  of  advocating.  He  would 
assuredly  be  interested  in  anything  having  a  really  prac- 
tical bearing  on  the  present  as  well  as  on  the  future 
condition  of  men ;  and  it  is  evident  that  even  these  low 
and  despised  phenomena  of  Spiritualism,  "if  true,"  have 
this  bearing,  and,  combined  with  its  higher  teachings, 
constitute  a  great  moral  agency  which  may  yet  regenerate 
the  world. 

For  the  spiritualist  who,  by  daily  experience,  gets  abso- 
lute knowledge  of  these  facts  regarding  the  future  state 
— who  knows  that,  just  in  proportion  as  he  indulges  in 
passion,  or  selfishness,  or  the  exclusive  pursuit  of  wealth, 
and  neglects  to  cultivate  the  affections  and  the  varied 
powers  of  his  mind,  so  does  he  inevitably  prepare  for 
himself  misery  in  a  world  in  which  there  are  no  physical 
wants  to  be  provided  for,  no  sensual  enjoyments  except 
those  directly  associated  with  the  affections  and  sympa- 
thies, no  occupations  but  those  having  for  their  object 
social  and  intellectual  progress— is  impelled  towards  a 
pure,  a  sympathetic,  and  an  intellectual  life  by  motives 
far  stronger  than  any  which  either  religion  or  philosophy 
can  supply.  He  dreads  to  give  way  to  passion  or  to  false- 
hood, to  selfishness  or  to  a  life  of  luxurious  physical  enjoy- 
ment, because  he  knows  that  the  natural  and  inevitable 


PHILOSOPHY  OF  SPIRITUALISM  225 

consequences  of  such  habits  are  future  misery,  necessitat- 
ing a  long  and  arduous  struggle  in  order  to  develop  anew 
the  faculties  whose  exercise  long  disuse  has  rendered 
painful  to  him.  He  will  be  deterred  from  crime  by  the 
knowledge  that  its  unforeseen  consequences  may  cause 
him  ages  of  remorse;  while  the  bad  passions  which  it 
encourages  will  be  a  perpetual  torment  to  himself  in  a 
state  of  being  in  which  mental  emotions  cannot  be  laid 
aside  or  forgotten  amid  the  fierce  struggles  and  sensual 
pleasures  of  a  physical  existence.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  these  beliefs  (unlike  those  of  theology)  will 
have  a  living  efficacy,  because  they  depend  on  facts  oc- 
curring again  and  again  in  the  family  circle,  constantly 
reiterating  the  same  truths  as  the  result  of  personal 
knowledge,  and  thus  bringing  home  to  the  mind  even  of 
the  most  obtuse  the  absolute  reality  of  that  future  exist- 
ence in  which  our  degree  of  happiness  or  misery  will  be 
directly  dependent  on  the  "mental  fabric"  we  construct 
by  our  daily  thoughts  and  words  and  actions  here. 

Contrast  this  system  of  natural  and  inevitable  reward 
and  retribution,  dependent  wholly  on  the  proportionate 
development  of  our  higher  mental  and  moral  nature,  with 
the  arbitrary  system  of  rewards  and  punishments  depen- 
dent on  stated  acts  and  beliefs  only,  as  set  forth  by  all 
dogmatic  religions,  and  who  can  fail  to  see  that  the  former 
is  in  harmony  with  the  whole  order  of  nature — the  latter 
opposed  to  it.  Yet  it  is  actually  said  that  Spiritualism  is 
altogether  either  imposture  or  delusion,  and  all  its  teach- 
ings but  the  product  of  "  expectant  attention  "  and  "  un- 
conscious cerebration."  If  none  of  the  long  series  of 
demonstrative  facts  which  have  been  here  sketched  out 
existed,  and  its  only  product  were  this  theory  of  a  future 
state,  that  alone  would  negative  such  a  supposition.  And 
when  it  is  considered  that  mediums  of  all  grades,  whether 

p 


226  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

intelligent  or  ignorant,  and  having  communications  given 
through  them  in  various  direct  and  indirect  ways,  are 
absolutely  in  accord  as  to  the  main  features  of  this  theory, 
what  becomes  of  the  gross  misstatement  that  nothing  is 
given  through  mediums  but  what  they  know  and  believe 
themselves?  The  mediums  have  almost  all  been  brought 
up  in  some  of  the  usual  orthodox  beliefs.  How  is  it,  then, 
that  the  usual  orthodox  notions  of  heaven  are  never  con- 
firmed through  them?  In  the  scores  of  volumes  and 
pamphlets  of  spiritual  literature  I  have  read  I  have  found 
no  statement  of  a  spirit  describing  "  winged  angels,"  or 
"  golden  harps,"  or  the  "  throne  of  God  " — to  which  the 
humblest  orthodox  Christian  thinks  he  will  be  introduced 
if  he  goes  to  heaven  at  all.  There  is  no  more  startling  and 
radical  opposition  to  be  found  between  the  most  diverse 
religious  creeds  than  that  between  the  beliefs  in  which 
the  majority  of  mediums  have  been  brought  up  and  the 
doctrines  as  to  a  future  life  that  are  delivered  through 
them ;  there  is  nothing  more  marvellous  in  the  history  of 
the  human  mind  than  the  fact  that,  whether  in  the  back- 
woods of  America  or  in  country  towns  in  England,  ignorant 
men  and  women,  having  almost  all  been  brought  up  in  the 
usual  sectarian  notions  of  heaven  and  hell,  should,  the 
moment  they  become  seized  by  the  strange  power  of  me- 
diumship,  give  forth  teachings  on  this  subject  which  are 
philosophical  rather  than  religious,  and  which  differ  wholly 
from  what  had  been  so  deeply  ingrained  into  their  minds. 
And  this  statement  is  not  affected  by  the  fact  that  com- 
munications purport  to  come  from  Catholic  or  Protestant, 
Mahomedan  or  Hindoo  spirits.  Because,  while  such  com- 
munications maintain  special  dogmas  and  doctrines,  yet  they 
confirm  the  very  facts  which  really  constitute  the  spiritual 
theory,  and  which  in  themselves  contradict  the  theory  of  the 
sectarian  spirits.  The  Roman  Catholic  spirit,  for  instance, 


DOCTKINE  OF  A  FUTUEE  STATE  227 

does  not  describe  himself  as  being  in  either  the  orthodox 
purgatory,  heaven,  or  hell ;  the  Evangelical  Dissenter 
who  died  in  the  firm  conviction  that  he  should  certainly 
"go  to  Jesus"  never  describes  himself  as  being  with 
Christ,  or  as  ever  having  seen  Him ;  and  so  on  through- 
out. Nothing  is  more  common  than  for  religious  people 
at  stances  to  ask  questions  about  God  and  Christ.  In 
reply  they  never  get  more  than  opinions,  or  more  fre- 
quently the  statement  that  they,  the  spirits,  have  no 
more  direct  knowledge  of  those  subjects  than  they  had 
while  on  earth.  So  that  the  facts  are  all  harmonious; 
and  the  very  circumstance  of  there  being  sectarian  spirits 
bears  witness  in  two  ways  to  the  truth  of  the  spiritual 
theory :  it  shows  that  the  mind,  with  its  ingrained 
beliefs,  is  not  suddenly  changed  at  death ;  and  it  shows 
that  the  communications  are  not  the  reflection  of  the 
mind  of  the  medium,  who  is  often  of  the  same  religion 
as  the  communicating  spirit,  and,  because  he  does  not 
get  his  own  ideas  confirmed,  is  obliged  to  call  in  the  aid 
of  " Satanic  influence"  to  account  for  the  anomaly. 

The  doctrine  of  a  future  state,  and  of  the  proper  prepara- 
tion for  it  as  here  developed,  is  to  be  found  in  the  works 
of  all  spiritualists,  in  the  utterances  of  all  trance-speakers, 
in  the  communications  through  all  mediums;  and  this 
could  be  proved,  did  space  permit,  by  copious  quotations. 
But  it  varies  in  form  and  detail  in  each ;  and  just  as  the 
historian  arrives  at  the  opinions  or  beliefs  of  any  age  or 
nation  by  collating  the  individual  opinions  of  its  best 
and  most  popular  writers,  so  do  spiritualists  collate  the 
communications  on  this  subject.  They  know  well  that 
absolute  dependence  is  to  be  placed  on  no  individual  com- 
munications. They  know  that  these  are  received  by  a 
complex  physical  and  mental  process,  both  communicator 
and  recipient  influencing  the  result ;  and  they  accept  the 


228  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

teachings  as  to  the  future  state  of  man  only  so  far  as  they 
are  repeatedly  confirmed  in  substance  (though  they  may 
differ  in  detail)  by  communications  obtained  under  the 
most  varied  circumstances,  through  mediums  of  the  most 
different  characters  and  acquirements,  at  different  times, 
and  in  distant  places.  Fresh  converts  are  apt  to  think 
that,  once  satisfied  the  communications  come  from  their 
deceased  friends,  they  may  implicitly  trust  to  them,  and 
apply  them  universally  ;  as  if  the  vast  spiritual  world  were 
all  moulded  to  one  pattern,  instead  of  being,  as  it  almost 
certainly  is,  a  thousand  times  more  varied  than  human 
society  on  the  earth  is,  or  ever  has  been.  The  fact  that  the 
communications  do  not  agree  as  to  the  condition,  occupa- 
tions, pleasures,  and  capacities  of  individual  spirits,  so  far 
from  being  a  difficulty,  as  has  been  absurdly  supposed,  is 
what  ought  to  have  been  expected ;  while  the  agreement 
on  the  essential  features  of  what  we  have  stated  to  be  the 
spiritual  theory  of  a  future  state  of  existence  is  all  the 
more  striking,  and  tends  to  establish  that  theory  as  a 
fundamental  truth. 

The  assertion  so  often  made,  that  Spiritualism  is  the 
survival  or  revival  of  old  superstitions,  is  so  utterly  un- 
founded as  to  be  hardly  worth  notice.  A  science  of  human 
nature  which  is  founded  on  observed  facts  ;  which  appeals 
only  to  facts  and  experiment ;  which  takes  no  beliefs  on 
trust ;  which  inculcates  investigation  and  self-reliance  as 
the  first  duties  of  intelligent  beings  ;  which  teaches  that 
happiness  in  a  future  life  can  be  secured  by  cultivating  and 
developing  to  the  utmost  the  higher  faculties  of  our  intel- 
lectual and  moral  nature  and  by  no  other  method, — is  and 
must  be  the  natural  enemy  of  all  superstition.  Spiritualism 
is  an  experimental  science,  and  affords  the  only  sure 
foundation  for  a  true  philosophy  and  a  pure  religion.  It 
abolishes  the  terms  "  supernatural  "  and  "  miracle  "  by  an 


CONCLUSION  229 

extension  of  the  sphere  of  law  and  the  realm  of  nature  ;  and 
in  doing  so  it  takes  up  and  explains  whatever  is  true  in 
the  superstitions  and  so-called  miracles  of  all  ages.  It, 
and  it  alone,  is  able  to  harmonise  conflicting  creeds ;  it 
must  ultimately  lead  to  concord  among  mankind  in  the 
matter  of  religion,  which  has  for  so  many  ages  been  the 
source  of  unceasing  discord  and  incalculable  evil ; — and  it 
will  be  able  to  do  this  because  it  appeals  to  evidence  in- 
stead of  faith,  and  substitutes  facts  for  opinions ;  and  is 
thus  able  to  demonstrate  the  source  of  much  of  the  teach- 
ing that  men  have  so  often  held  to  be  divine. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  those  who  can  form  no  higher 
conception  of  the  uses  of  spiritualism,  "even  if  true,"  than 
to  detect  crime  or  to  name  in  advance  the  winner  of  the 
Derby,  not  only  prove  their  own  ignorance  of  the  whole 
subject,  but  exhibit  in  a  marked  degree  that  partial  mental 
paralysis,  the  result  of  a  century  of  materialistic  thought, 
which  renders  so  many  men  unable  seriously  to  conceive 
the  possibility  of  a  natural  continuation  of  human  life  after 
the  death  of  the  body.  It  will  be  seen  also  that  Spiritual- 
ism is  no  mere  "psychological"  curiosity,no  mere  indication 
of  some  hitherto  unknown  "  law  of  nature  ; "  but  that  it  is 
a  science  of  vast  extent,  having  the  widest,  the  most  im- 
portant, and  the  most  practical  issues,  and  as  such  should 
enlist  the  sympathies  alike  of  moralists,  philosophers,  and 
politicians,  and  of  all  who  have  at  heart  the  improvement 
of  society  and  the  permanent  elevation  of  human  nature. 

In  concluding  this  necessarily  imperfect,  though  some- 
what lengthy,  account  of  a  subject  about  which  so  little  is 
probably  known  to  most  of  my  readers,  I  would  earnestly 
beg  them  not  to  satisfy  themselves  with  a  minute  criti- 
cism of  single  facts,  the  evidence  for  which  in  my  brief 
survey  may  be  imperfect,  but  to  weigh  carefully  the  mass 


230  A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM 

of  evidence  I  have  adduced,  considering  its  wide  range  and 
various  bearings.  I  would  ask  them  to  look  rather  at  the 
great  results  produced  by  the  evidence  than  at  the  evi- 
dence itself  as  imperfectly  stated  by  me ;  to  consider  the 
long  roll  of  men  of  ability  who,  commencing  the  inquiry  as 
sceptics,  left  it  as  believers,  and  to  give  these  men  credit 
for  not  having  overlooked,  during  years  of  patient  inquiry, 
difficulties  which  at  once  occur  to  themselves.  I  would 
ask  them  to  ponder  well  on  the  fact  that  no  earnest  and 
patient  inquirer  has  ever  come  to  a  conclusion  adverse 
to  the  reality  of  the  phenomena,  and  that  no  spiritualist 
has  ever  yet  given  them  up  as  false.  I  would  ask  them, 
finally,  to  dwell  upon  the  long  series  of  facts  in  human 
history  that  Spiritualism  explains,  and  on  the  noble  and 
satisfying  theory  of  a  future  life  that  it  unfolds.  If  they 
will  do  this,  I  feel  confident  that  the  result  I  have  alone 
aimed  at  will  be  attained,  which  is,  to  remove  the  pre- 
judices and  misconceptions  with  which  the  whole  subject 
has  been  surrounded,  and  to  incite  to  unbiassed  and  per- 
severing examination  of  the  facts.  For  the  cardinal  maxim 
of  Spiritualism  is,  that  every  one  must  find  out  the  truth 
for  himself.  It  makes  no  claim  to  be  received  on  hearsay 
evidence,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  it  demands  that  it  be  not 
rejected  without  patient,  honest,  and  fearless  inquiry. 


ARE   THERE   OBJECTIVE 
APPARITIONS? 

(Reprinted  from  "  The  Arena,"   January  1891.) 

EVERY  one  who  feels  an  interest  in  whatever  knowledge 
can  be  obtained  bearing  upon  the  nature  and  destiny  of 
man — and  what  intelligent  person  does  not  ? — should  be 
deeply  grateful  to  those  active  members  of  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Research  in  England  and  in  America  who 
have  devoted  themselves  for  many  years  to  the  collection 
of  authentic  cases  of  the  various  kinds  of  apparitions. 
These  cases  have  been  all  personally  investigated  so  far  as 
was  possible ;  the  evidence  has  been  obtained  either  from 
the  actual  witnesses,  or,  where  this  was  not  possible,  from 
those  who  received  their  personal  testimony ;  corroborative 
evidence,  in  contemporary  records  of  whatever  kind,  has 
been  sought  for,  often  at  great  cost  of  time  and  labour  ; 
and,  finally,  the  whole  body  of  facts  thus  accumulated  has 
been  systematically  arranged,  carefully  discussed,  and  pub- 
lished for  the  information  of  all  who  may  be  interested  in 
the  inquiry.1  If  we  add  to  this  the  evidence  collected 
and  recorded  with  equal  care  by  the  late  Robert  Dale 
Owen,  by  Dr.  Eugene  Crowell,  and  many  other  writers, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  in  possession  of  a  body  of  facts 
which  ought  to  be  sufficient  to  enable  us  to  arrive  at 

1  In  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  2  vols.  8vo,  and  the  Proceedings  of  the 
Society  from  1862  to  1890. 


231 


232  AHE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

some  definite  conclusions  as  to  the  nature,  origin,  and 
purport  of  those  puzzling  phenomena  usually  known  as 
ghosts  or  apparitions,  these  terms  being  held  to  include 
auditory  and  tactile  as  well  as  visual  impressions,  the 
appearances  termed  "  doubles  "  or  phantasms  of  the  living, 
as  well  as  those  purporting  to  represent  or  to  emanate 
from  the  dead. 

Before  proceeding  further  I  wish  to  point  out  the  in- 
estimable obligation  we  are  under  to  the  Psychical  Re- 
search Society  for  having  presented  the  evidence  in  such 
a  way  that  the  facts  to  be  interpreted  are  now  generally 
accepted  as  facts  by  all  who  have  taken  any  trouble  to 
inquire  into  the  amount  and  character  of  the  testimony 
for  them — the  opinion  of  those  who  have  not  taken  that 
trouble  being  altogether  worthless.  The  change  in  edu- 
cated public  opinion  appears  to  be  due  to  a  combination 
of  causes.  The  careful  preliminary  investigation  into  the 
phenomena  of  telepathy  has  seemed  to  furnish  a  scientific 
basis  for  an  interpretation  of  many  phantasms,  and  has 
thus  removed  one  of  the  chief  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
accepting  them  as  facts — the  supposed  impossibility  of 
correlating  them  with  any  other  phenomena.  The  num- 
ber of  men  eminent  in  literature,  art,  or  science  who  have 
joined  the  Society  and  have  contributed  to  its  Proceed- 
ings, has  given  the  objects  of  its  inquiry  a  position 
and  status  they  did  not  previously  possess;  while  the 
earnestness,  the  thoroughness,  the  literary  skill,  and 
philosophic  acumen  with  which  the  evidence  has  been 
presented  to  the  world,  has  compelled  assent  to  the  pro- 
position that  the  several  classes  of  apparitions  known  as 
doubles,  phantasms  of  the  living  or  the  dead,  spectral 
lights,  voices,  musical  sounds,  and  the  varied  physical 
effects  which  occur  in  haunted  houses,  are  real  and  not 
very  uncommon  phenomena,  well  worthy  of  earnest  study, 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  233 

and  only  doubtful  as  regards  the  interpretation  to  be  put 
upon  them. 

Some  of  the  best  workers  in  the  Society,  it  is  true,  still 
urge  that  the  evidence  is  very  deficient,  both  in  amount 
and  in  quality,  and  that  much  more  must  be  obtained 
before  it  can  be  treated  as  really  conclusive.  This  view, 
however,  appears  to  me  to  be  an  altogether  erroneous 
one.  On  looking  through  the  evidence  already  published, 
I  find  that  every  one  of  the  chief  groups  of  phenomena 
already  referred  to  is  established  by  a  considerable  num- 
ber of  cases  in  which  the  testimony  is  first-hand,  the 
witnesses  irreproachable,  and  in  which  the  evidence  of 
several  independent  witnesses  agrees  in  all  important  par- 
ticulars. And,  in  addition  to  these  unexceptionable  cases, 
there  is  a  whole  host  of  others  in  which  the  evidence  is 
not  quite  so  complete  individually,  but  which  are  so  com- 
pletely corroborative  in  their  general  character,  and  which 
fall  so  little  short  of  the  very  best  kind  of  evidence,  that 
the  cumulative  weight  of  the  whole  is  exceedingly  great. 
I  shall,  therefore,  waste  no  time  in  discussing  the  value  of 
the  evidence  itself,  but  shall  devote  my  attention  entirely 
to  a  consideration  of  what  the  facts  teach  as  to  the  real 
nature  of  the  phenomena. 

This  is  the  more  necessary  because,  up  to  the  present 
time,  the  only  explanation  of  the  various  classes  of  appari- 
tions suggested  by  the  more  prominent  working  members 
of  the  Society  is,  that  they  are  hallucinations  due  to  the 
telepathic  action  of  one  mind  upon  another.  These  writers 
have,  as  they  state  that  they  felt  bound  to  do,  strained  the 
theory  of  telepathy  to  its  utmost  limits  in  order  to  account 
for  the  more  important  of  the  phenomena  which  they  have 
themselves  set  forth ;  and  the  chief  difference  of  opinion 
now  seems  to  be,  whether  all  the  facts  can  be  explained 
as  primarily  due  to  telepathic  impressions  from  a  living 


234  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

agent — a  view  maintained  by  Mr.  Podmore — or  whether 
the  spirits  of  the  dead  are  in  some  cases  the  agents,  as 
Mr.  Myers  thinks  may  be  the  case  ?  But  in  order  to  give 
this  telepathic  theory  even  a  show  of  probability,  it  is 
necessary  to  exclude  or  to  explain  away  a  number  of  the 
most  interesting  and  suggestive  facts  collected  by  the 
Society,  and  also  to  leave  out  of  consideration  whole 
classes  of  phenomena  which  are  altogether  at  variance 
with  the  hypothesis  adopted.1  It  is  to  these  latter  cases 
that  I  now  wish  to  call  attention,  because  they  lead  us  to 
quite  different  conclusions  from  the  writers  above  referred 
to,  both  as  to  the  nature  of  apparitions  and  as  to  the 
agents  concerned  in  their  production. 

The  evidence  which  either  distinctly  suggests  or  affords 
direct  proof  of  the  objectivity  of  apparitions  is  of  five 
different  kinds :  ( I )  Collective  hallucinations,  or  the  per- 
ception of  the  same  phantasmal  sights  or  sounds  by  two 
or  more  persons  at  once.  (2)  Phantasms  seen  to  occupy 
different  points  in  space,  by  different  persons,  correspond- 
ing to  their  apparent  motion,  or  the  persistence  of  the 
phantasm  in  one  spot,  notwithstanding  the  observer 
changes  his  position.  (3)  The  effects  of  phantasms  upon 
domestic  animals.  (4)  The  physical  effects  apparently 
produced  by  phantasms,  or  connected  with  their  appear- 
ance. (5)  The  fact  that  phantasms,  whether  visible  or 
invisible  to  persons  present,  can  be  and  have  been  photo- 
graphed. Examples  of  each  of  these  groups  of  cases  will 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Dead  from  Another  Point  of  View,  by  F.  Podmore, 
and  A  Defence  of  Phantasms  of  the  Dead,  by  F.  W.  H.  Myers,  in  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  part  xvi.,  1890.  In  these 
papers  the  extreme  telepathic  theory  is  set  forth  by  Mr.  Podmore  with 
admirable  boldness  and  with  full  illustrations,  and  is  forcibly  combated 
by  Mr.  Myers,  whose  views  as  here  expressed  are,  however,  only  a  very 
little  in  advance  of  those  of  his  fellow-worker. 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  235 

now  be  given  and  their  bearing  on  the  question  at  issue 
briefly  discussed. 

I.  Collective  hallucinations  (so  called). — Cases  of  this 
kind  are  very  numerous,  and  some  of  them  perfectly 
attested.  Let  us  first  take  that  of  the  figure  of  a  man 

seen  repeatedly  by  Mrs.  W ,  her  son,  a  boy  of  nine, 

and  her  step-daughter.  It  was  seen  distinctly  at  the  most 
unexpected  times,  as  when  playing  the  piano,  when  play- 
ing at  cricket  in  the  garden,  and  by  two  at  once  when 
playing  at  battledore  and  shuttlecock.  A  voice  was  also 
distinctly  heard  by  both  the  ladies.  The  description  of 
the  figure  by  the  two  ladies  agreed  completely,  and 
the  appearance  occurred  in  a  house  reported  to  be 
haunted.1 

Such  an  appearance  as  this,  occurring  to  two  ladies  not 
at  all  nervous,  and  who  have  never  before  or  since  had 
any  similar  experiences,  and  also  to  a  boy  when  at  play, 
seems  almost  necessarily  to  imply  some  real  object  of 

vision  ;  yet  they  both,  as  well  as  Surgeon-Major  W , 

are  positive  that  the  form  could  not  have  been  that  of  any 
living  person. 

An  equally  remarkable  case  is  that  of  the  young  woman, 
draped  in  white,  which,  at  intervals  during  ten  years,  was 
seen  by  Mr.  John  D.  Harry,  his  three  daughters,  their 
servant,  and  partially  by  the  husband  of  one  of  the 
daughters.  Mr.  Harry  saw  it  on  seven  or  eight  occasions 
in  his  bedroom  and  library.  On  one  occasion  it  lifted  the 
mosquito  curtains  of  his  bed  (this  all  occurred  in  a  house 
in  the  South  of  Europe),  and  looked  closely  into  his  face. 
It  appeared  to  all  three  of  the  young  ladies  and  their 
maid  at  one  time,  but  apparently  in  a  more  shadowy  form. 
Here  again  it  seems  impossible  that  so  many  persons 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  part  viii.  (May 
1885),  pp.  102-106. 


236  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

could  have  a  similar  or  identical  vision  without  any  cor- 
responding reality.1 

Of  another  type  is  the  female  figure  in  white  which  was 
seen  on  a  summer  afternoon  floating  over  a  hedge  some 
ten  feet  above  the  ground  by  two  girls  of  thirteen  and  a 
boy.  They  watched  it  for  a  couple  of  minutes  passing 
over  a  field  till  they  lost  sight  of  it  in  a  plantation.  All 
were  in  good  health,  and  had  seen  no  apparition  before  or 
since.  They  were  driving  in  a  tax- cart  at  the  time,  and 
when  the  figure  appeared,  the  horse  stopped  and  shook 
with  fright,  so  much  so  that  they  could  not  get  it  on. 
This  last  fact,  which  will  be  referred  to  under  another 
head,  renders  it  almost  certain  that  the  figure  seen  was 
visually  objective.2 

As  a  type  of  the  auditory  phenomena,  we  may  take  the 
disturbances  in  the  house  of  a  clergyman,  which  continued 
almost  nightly  for  twenty  years.  The  sounds  were  loud 
knockings  or  hammerings,  often  heard  all  over  the  house 
and  by  every  inmate,  and  occurring  usually  from  twelve 
to  two  in  the  morning.  Sometimes  a  sound  was  heard 
like  that  produced  by  a  cart  heavily  laden  with  iron  bars 
passing  close  beneath  the  windows,  yet  on  immediate 
search  nothing  was  seen.  Lady  and  gentlemen  visitors 
heard  these  varied  sounds  as  well  as  the  residents  in  the 
house,  and,  notwithstanding  long-continued  search  and 
watching,  no  natural  cause  for  them  was  ever  discovered. 
In  such  a  case  as  this  it  is  impossible  to  doubt  that  the 
sounds  were  real  sounds.3 

Equally  remarkable  is  the  case  where  a  whole  family 
and  a  visitor,  in  an  isolated  country-house,  heard  a  loud 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research,  part  viii.   (May 
1885),  pp.  111-113. 

2  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  ii.  p.  197. 

3  R.  D.  Owen's  Debatable  Land,  pp.  251-255. 


ARE  THEKE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  237 

and  continuous  noise  at  the  front  door,  which  seemed  to 
shake  in  its  frame,  and  to  vibrate  under  some  tremendous 
blows.  The  servants,  who  were  asleep  in  the  back  part  of 
the  house  sixty  feet  away,  were  awoke  by  the  disturbance, 
and  came  running,  half-dressed,  to  see  what  the  terrific 
noise  meant.  Yet  the  house  was  enclosed  within  high 
railings  and  locked  gates,  and  on  an  immediate  search 
nothing  could  be  found  to  account  for  the  noise.  The 
visitor,  however,  Mr.  Garling,  of  Folkestone,  who  gives 
the  account,  had  that  afternoon  seen  a  phantasm  of  a 
friend  he  had  left  four  days  previously  with  his  family  all 
in  perfect  health  ;  and  at  the  time  of  the  knocking,  this 
friend's  wife  and  two  servants  had  died  of  cholera,  and 
he  himself  was  dying,  and  had  been  all  day  repeatedly 
begging  that  his  friend  Garling  should  be  sent  for.1  Here 
we  may  well  suppose  that  the  (perhaps  subjective)  phan- 
tasm, having  failed  to  bring  the  percipient  to  his  dying 
friend,  a  violent  objective  sound  was  resorted  to,  which 
should  compel  attention  by  its  being  audible  to  a  whole 
household. 

2.  Phantasms  whose  objectivity  is  indicated  by  definite 
space-relations, — We  now  pass  to  a  group  of  phenomena 
which  still  more  clearly  point  to  the  actual  objectivity  of 
phantasms,  namely,  their  definite  space-relations,  as  wit- 
nessed either  by  one  or  many  percipients.  Of  this  kind 
is  the  case,  given  in  outline  only,  of  a  weeping  lady  which 
appeared  to  five  persons,  and  on  many  occasions  to  two 
of  them  together.  The  interesting  point  is,  however,  that 
indicated  in  the  following  passage  : — "  They  went  after  it 
(the  figure)  together  into  the  drawing-room  ;  it  then  came 
out  and  went  down  a  passage  leading  to  the  kitchen,  but 

was  the  next  minute  seen  by  another  Miss  D to 

come  up  the  outside  steps  from  the  kitchen.     On  this 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  ii.  pp.  149-151. 


238  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

particular  day,  Captain  D 's  married  daughter  hap- 
pened to  be  at  an  upstairs  window,  and  independently 
saw  the  figure  continue  its  course  across  the  lawn  and 
into  the  orchard."1  Here  it  is  almost  impossible  to  con- 
ceive that  the  several  hallucinations  of  four  persons 
should  so  exactly  correspond  and  fit  into  each  other.  A 
something  objective,  even  if  unsubstantial,  seems  abso- 
lutely necessary  to  produce  the  observed  effects. 

In  the  next  case,  a  well-known  English  clergyman  and 
author  of  Boston,  Mass. — the  late  Eev.  W.  Mountford — 
was  visiting  some  friends  in  the  Norfolk  fens,  when  a 
carriage  containing  his  host's  brother  and  sister-in-law, 
who  lived  near,  was  seen  coming  along  the  straight  road 
between  the  two  houses.  The  horse  and  carriage  was 
recognised  as  well  as  the  occupants,  and  was  seen  by  the 
three  persons  looking  on  to  pass  in  front  of  the  house. 
But  no  knock  was  heard,  and  on  going  to  the  door  nothing 
was  to  be  seen.  Five  minutes  afterwards  a  young  lady, 
the  daughter  of  the  persons  in  the  carriage,  arrived  and 
informed  her  uncle  and  aunt  that  her  father  and  mother, 
in  their  chaise,  had  passed  her  on  the  road,  and,  greatly  to 
her  surprise,  without  speaking  to  her.  Ten  minutes  after- 
wards the  real  persons  arrived  just  as  they  had  been  seen 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  previously,  having  come  straight 
from  their  home.  None  of  the  four  percipients  had  any 
doubt  as  to  the  reality  of  the  phantom  carriage  and  its 
occupants  till  the  real  carriage  appeared.2  We  are  not 
now  concerned  with  the  cause  or  nature  of  this  extra- 
ordinary "  double  "  or  phantasm  of  the  living,  with  their 
horse  and  chaise  ;  that  will  be  discussed  in  another  article. 
It  is  adduced  here  only  in  evidence  of  the  objec- 
tivity of  the  appearance,  showing  that  something  capable 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  viii.  (May  1885),  pp.  117,  146. 

2  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  ii.  pp.  97-99. 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  239 

of  being  perceived  by  ordinary  vision  did  pass  along  the 
road  near  the  house  in  which  Mr.  Mountford  was  staying 
when  the  event  occurred. 

3.  Effects  of  phantasms  on  animals.  —  We  now  come 
to  a  group  of  phenomena  which,  although  frequently 
recorded  in  the  publications  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  have  received  no  special  attention  as  bearing 
on  the  theories  put  forth  by  members  of  the  Society,  but 
have  either  been  ignored  or  have  been  attempted  to  be 
explained  away  by  arbitrary  assumptions  of  the  most  im- 
probable kind.  It  will,  therefore,  be  necessary  to  refer  to 
the  evidence  for  these  facts  somewhat  more  fully  than  for 
those  hitherto  considered. 

I  have  already  mentioned  the  case  of  the  female  figure 
in  white,  seen  by  three  persons  floating  over  a  hedge  ten 
feet  above  the  ground,  when  the  horse  they  were  driving 
"  suddenly  stopped  and  shook  with  fright."  In  the  re- 
marks upon  this  case  in  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  no 
reference  is  made  to  this  fact,  yet  it  is  surely  the  crucial 
one,  since  we  can  hardly  suppose  that  a  wholly  subjective 
apparition,  seen  by  human  beings,  would  also  be  seen  by 
a  horse.  During  the  tremendous  knocking  recorded  by 
Mr.  Garling,  and  already  quoted,  it  is  stated  that  there 
was  a  large  dog  in  a  kennel  near  the  front  entrance, 
especially  to  warn  off  intruders,  and  a  little  terrier  inside 
that  barked  at  everybody ;  yet,  when  the  noise  occurred 
that  wakened  the  servants  sixty  feet  away,  "the  dogs 
gave  no  tongue  whatever ;  the  terrier,  contrary  to  its 
nature,  slunk  shivering  under  the  sofa,  and  would  not 
stop  even  at  the  door,  and  nothing  could  induce  him  to  go 
into  the  darkness." 

In  the  remarkable  account  of  a  haunted  house  during 
an  occupation  of  twelve  months  by  a  well-known  English 
Church  dignitary,  the  very  different  behaviour  of  dogs  in 


240  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

the  presence  of  real  and  of  phantasmal  disturbances  is 
pointed  out.  When  an  attempt  was  made  to  rob  the 
vicarage,  the  dogs  gave  prompt  alarm  and  the  clergy- 
man was  aroused  by  their  fierce  barking.  During  the 
mysterious  noises,  however,  though  these  were  much 
louder  and  more  disturbing,  they  never  barked  at  all, 
but  were  always  "found  cowering  in  a  state  of  pitiable 
terror."  They  are  said  to  have  been  more  perturbed 
than  any  other  members  of  the  establishment,  and  "  if  not 
shut  up  below,  would  make  their  way  to  our  bedroom  door 
and  lie  there,  crouching  and  whining,  as  long  as  we  would 
allow  them." l 

In  the  account  of  haunting  in  a  house  at  Hammersmith 
near  London,  which  went  on  for  five  years,  where  steps 
and  noises  were  heard  and  a  phantom  woman  seen,  "the 
dog  whined  incessantly  "  during  the  disturbances,  and 
"  the  dog  was  evidently  still  afraid  of  the  room  when  the 
morning  came.  I  called  to  him  to  go  into  it  with  me,  and 
he  crouched  down  with  his  tail  between  his  legs,  and 
seemed  to  fear  entering  it."  2 

On  the  occasion  of  a  "  wailing  cry "  heard  before  a 
death  in  a  rectory  in  Staffordshire,  a  house  standing  quite 
alone  in  open  country,  "  we  found  a  favourite  bulldog,  a 
very  courageous  animal,  trembling  with  terror,  with  his 
nose  thrust  into  some  billets  of  firewood  which  were  kept 
under  the  stairs."  On  another  occasion,  "  an  awful  howl- 
ing followed  by  shriek  upon  shriek,"  with  a  sound  like 
that  caused  by  a  strong  wind  was  heard,  although  every- 
thing out  of  doors  was  quite  still,  and  it  is  stated,  "  We 
had  three  dogs  sleeping  in  my  sisters'  and  my  bedrooms, 
and  they  were  all  cowering  down  with  affright,  their 
bristles  standing  straight  up ;  one — a  bulldog — was  under 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  vi.  p.  151. 

2  Ibid.,  part  viii.  p.  116. 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  241 

the  bed,  and  refused  to  come  out,  and  when  removed  was 
found  to  be  trembling  all  over.1  The  remark  of  Mrs. 
Sidgwick  on  these  and  other  cases  of  warning  sounds  is, 
that  "if  not  real  natural  sounds,  they  must  have  been  col- 
lective hallucinations."  But  it  has  not  been  shown  that 
"real  natural  sounds"  ever  produce  such  effects  upon 
dogs,  and  there  is  no  suggestion  that  "  collective  halluci- 
nation "  can  be  telepathetically  transferred  to  these  ani- 
mals. In  one  case,  however,  it  is  suggested  that  the  dog 
might  have  "  been  suddenly  taken  ill !  " 

In  the  remarkable  account  by  General  Barter,  C.B.,  of 
a  phantasmal  pony  and  rider  with  two  native  grooms  seen 
in  India,  two  dogs  which  immediately  before  were  hunt- 
ing about  in  the  brushwood  jungle  which  covered  the  hill, 
came  and  crouched  by  the  General's  side,  giving  low, 
frightened  whimpers  ;  and  when  he  pursued  the  phantasm 
the  dogs  returned  home,  though  on  all  other  occasions 
they  were  his  most  faithful  companions.2 

These  cases,  given  on  the  best  authority  by  the  Society 
for  Psychical  Eesearch,  can  be  supplemented  by  a  re- 
ference to  older  writers.  During  the  disturbances  at 
Mr.  Mompesson's  house  at  Tedworth,  recorded  by  the 
Rev.  Joseph  Glanvil,  from  personal  observation  and  in- 
quiry, in  his  work  Sadducismus  Triumphatus,  "it  was 
noted  that  when  the  noise  was  loudest,  and  came  with 
the  most  sudden  surprising  violence,  no  dog  about  the 
house  would  move,  though  the  knocking  was  oft  so  bois- 
terous and  rude  that  it  hath  been  heard  to  a  considerable 
distance  in  the  fields,  and  awakened  the  neighbours  in  the 
village,  none  of  which  live  very  near  this." 

So  in  the  disturbances  at  Epworth  Parsonage,  an 
account  of  which  is  given  by  the  eminent  John  Wesley, 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  xiii.  pp.  307-308. 

2  Ibid.,  part  xiv.  pp.  469,  470. 


242  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

after  describing  strange  noises  as  of  iron  and  glass 
thrown  down,  he  continues : — "  Soon  after  our  large 
mastiff  dog  came,  and  ran  to  shelter  himself  between 
them  (Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wesley).  While  the  disturbances 
continued,  he  used  to  bark  and  leap,  and  snap  on  one 
side  and  the  other,  and  that  frequently  before  any  person 
in  the  room  heard  any  noise  at  all.  But  after  two  or 
three  days  he  used  to  tremble,  and  creep  away  before  the 
noise  began.  And  by  this  the  family  knew  it  was  at 
hand  ;  nor  did  the  observation  ever  fail." l 

During  the  disturbances  at  the  Cemetery  of  Ahrens- 
burg,  in  the  island  of  Oesel,  where  coffins  were  overturned 
in  locked  vaults,  and  the  case  was  investigated  by  an 
official  commission,  the  horses  of  country  people  visiting 
the  cemetery  were  often  so  alarmed  and  excited  that  they 
became  covered  with  sweat  and  foam.  Sometimes  they 
threw  themselves  on  the  ground,  where  they  struggled  in 
apparent  agony,  and  notwithstanding  the  immediate  resort 
to  remedial  measures,  several  died  within  a  day  or  two. 
In  this  case,  as  in  so  many  others,  although  the  commis- 
sion made  a  most  rigid  investigation,  and  applied  the 
strictest  tests,  no  natural  cause  for  the  disturbances  was 
ever  discovered.2 

In  Dr.  Justinus  Kerner's  account  of  The  Seeress  of  Pre- 
vorst,  it  is  stated  of  an  apparition  that  appeared  to  her 
during  an  entire  year,  that  as  often  as  a  spirit  appeared 
a  black  terrier  that  was  kept  in  the  house  seemed  to  be 
sensible  of  its  presence  ;  for  no  sooner  was  the  figure  per- 
ceptible to  the  Seeress  than  the  dog  ran,  as  if  for  protec- 

1  The  account  of  these  disturbances  is  given  in  Dr.  Adam  Clarke's  Me- 
moirs of  the  Wesley  Family ;  in  Southey's  Life  of  Wesley ;  and  in  many 
other  works. 

1  R.  D.  Owen's  Footfalls  on  the  Boundary  of  Another  World,  pp.  186- 
192. 


AEE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  243 

tion,  to  some  one  present,  often  howling  loudly  ;  and  after 
his  first  sight  of  it  he  would  never  remain  alone  of  nights. 
In  this  case  no  one  saw  the  figure  but  the  Seeress,  showing 
that  this  circumstance  is  not  proof  of  the  subjectivity  of 
an  apparition. 

In  the  terrible  case  of  haunting  given  to  Mr.  R.  Dale 
Owen  by  Mrs.  S.  0.  Hall,  who  was  personally  cognisant  of 
the  main  facts,  the  haunted  man  had  not  been  able  to 
keep  a  dog  for  years.  One  which  he  brought  home  when 
Mrs.  Hall  became  acquainted  with  him  (he  being  the 
brother  of  her  bosom  friend)  could  not  be  induced  to  stay 
in  his  room  day  or  night  after  the  haunting  began,  and 
soon  afterwards  ran  away  and  was  lost.1 

In  the  wonderful  case  of  haunting  in  Pennsylvania 
given  by  Mr.  Hodgson  in  The  Arena  of  September  1890 
(p.  419),  when  the  apparition  of  the  white  lady  appeared 
to  the  informant's  brother,  we  find  it  stated : — "  The 
third  night  he  saw  the  dog  crouch  and  stare,  and  then 
act  as  if  driven  round  the  room.  Brother  saw  nothing, 
but  heard  a  sort  of  rustle,  and  the  poor  dog  howled  and 
tried  to  hide,  and  never  again  would  that  dog  go  to  that 
room." 

Now  this  series  of  cases  of  the  effect  of  phantasms  on 
animals  is  certainly  remarkable,  and  worthy  of  deep  con- 
sideration. The  facts  are  such  as,  on  the  theories  of 
telepathy  and  hallucination,  ought  not  to  happen,  and 
they  are  especially  trustworthy  facts  because  they  are 
almost  invariably  introduced  into  the  narratives  as  if 
unexpected ;  while  that  they  were  noticed  and  recorded 
shows  that  the  observers  were  in  no  degree  panicstruck 
with  terror.  They  show  us  unmistakably  that  large 
numbers  of  phantasms,  whether  visual  or  auditory,  and 
even  when  only  perceptible  to  one  of  the  persons  present, 
*  Footfalls  from  the  Boundary  of  Another  World,  pp.  326-329. 


244  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

are  objective  realities ;  while  the  terror  displayed  by  the 
animals  that  perceive  them,  and  their  behaviour,  so  unlike 
that  in  the  presence  of  natural  sights  and  sounds,  no  less 
clearly  proves  that,  though  objective,  the  phenomena  are 
not  normal,  and  are  not  to  be  explained  as  in  any  way 
due  to  trick  or  to  misinterpreted  natural  sounds.  Yet 
these  crucial  facts,  which  a  true  theory  must  take  account 
of,  have  hitherto  been  treated  as  unimportant,  and,  except 
for  a  few  casual  remarks  by  Mr.  Myers  and  Mrs.  Sidg- 
wick,  have  been  left  out  of  consideration  in  all  the  serious 
attempts  hitherto  made  to  account  for  the  phenomena  of 
phantasms.  . 

4.  Physical  effects  produced  try  phantasms  or  occurring 
in  connection  with  them. — There  can  be  no  more  convincing 
proof  of  the  objective  reality  of  a  phantasm  than  the  pro- 
duction of  real  motion  or  displacement  of  material  objects. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  of  such  effects ;  but,  owing  to 
the  method  hitherto  adopted  by  the  chief  members  of  the 
Psychical  Research  Society  of  breaking  up  the  phenomena 
into  groups,  and  discussing  each  group  separately  as  if 
it  stood  alone  and  had  no  relation  with  the  rest  of  the 
phenomena,  they  have  as  yet  received  no  attention.  The 
curious  circumstance  that  visual  phantoms  are  often  seen 
to  open  doors  in  order  to  enter  a  room,  which  doors  are 
afterwards  found  to  be  locked  and  bolted,  is  supposed  to 
throw  doubt  upon  other  cases  in  which  doors  really  open ; 
but  every  one  who  pays  close  attention  to  these  questions 
must  be  convinced  that  phantasms  are  of  many  kinds, 
ranging  from  mere  images  on  the  brain  of  a  single  person 
up  to  forms  which  are  not  only  visible  to  all  present,  but 
are  sometimes  tangible  also,  and  capable  of  acting  with 
considerable  effect  on  ordinary  matter.  Let  us  consider 
a  few  of  these  cases,  taking  first  those  recorded  in  the 
publications  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  245 

The  phantasm  described  by  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Gwynne  was 
seen  by  them  both  to  put  its  hand  toward  or  over  the 
nightlight  on  the  mantelpiece,  which  was  at  once  ex- 
tinguished. On  being  relighted  it  burned  for  the  rest 
of  the  night.  Of  course  it  is  possible  to  explain  this  as 
due  to  a  sudden  gust  of  wind  down  the  chimney,  but  why 
the  only  gust  during  the  night  occurred  at  the  moment 
the  phantom  was  seen  by  two  persons  to  place  its  hand 
toward  or  over  the  light  is  not  explained.1 

In  the  house  at  Hammersmith  where  a  figure  was  seen 
and  noises  heard  during  five  years,  Mrs.  R ,  who  de- 
scribes them,  says,  that  on  one  occasion  the  curtains  of 
her  bed  were  pulled  back,  and,  she  continues,  "Frequently 
I  had  doors  opened  for  me  before  entering  a  room,  as  if  a 
hand  had  hastily  turned  the  handle  and  thrown  it  open."  2 

In  another  case  of  a  haunted  house,  Mr.  K.  Z.,  said  to 
be  a  man  of  reputation,  stated  that  "  doors  opened  and 
shut  in  the  house  without  apparent  cause,"  and  "bells 
were  rung  in  the  middle  of  the  night,  causing  all  the 
household  to  turn  out  and  search  for  burglars."  3  Again, 
in  a  house  where  apparitions  were  seen  by  four  persons, 
three  persons  sitting  together  in  a  room  were  attracted  by 
the  door  creaking,  "  and  we  watched  it  slowly  open  about 
one-third,  and  it  remained  so."  No  such  opening  has 
been  seen  at  any  other  time.4 

Dr.  Eugene  Crowell  relates  that  in  a  house  in  Brooklyn 
a  relation  of  his  own  several  times  had  his  hat  struck  from 
his  head  while  descending  the  stairs  or  passing  through 
the  hall,  and  under  circumstances  which  rendered  the 
agency  of  any  living  person  impossible.5  In  the  case 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  ii.  p.  202. 

2  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  viii.  p.  115. 

3  Ibid.,  part  i.  p.  107.  4  Ibid.,  part  xiv.  p.  443. 

5  Primitive  Christianity  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  vol.  i.  p.  191. 


246  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

already  referred  to,  given  by  Mr.  Hodgson  in  the  Sep- 
tember Arena,  doors  frequently  opened  and  shut,  and 
pictures,  clocks,  and  other  articles  were  thrown  down 
with  a  great  crash  in  a  room  where  there  was  no  one  at 
the  time,  while  another  picture  fell  in  front  of  the  lady  as 
she  was  entering  the  room. 

But  all  these  cases  are  insignificant  as  compared  with 
the  evidence  afforded  by  the  bell-ringing  at  Great  Beal- 
ings,  Suffolk,  and  at  other  places,  an  account  of  which 
was  published  in  1841  by  Major  Moor,  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society,  in  whose  house  they  occurred.  The  ring- 
ing, in  a  violent,  clattering  manner,  went  on  almost  daily 
for  nearly  two  months,  during  which  time  every  effort 
was  made  to  discover  any  natural  cause  for  the  pheno- 
menon, but  in  vain.  Major  Moor  states: — "The  bells 
rang  scores  of  times  when  no  one  was  in  the  passage, 
or  back-building,  or  house,  or  grounds  unseen.  Neither 
I,  nor  the  servants,  nor  any  one,  could  or  can  work 
the  wonderment  that  I  and  more  than  half  a  score  of 
others  saw."  And  he  declares  finally:  "I  am  thor- 
oughly convinced  that  the  ringing  is  by  no  human 
agency." 

The  publication  of  his  statement  in  the  Ipswich  Jo-urnal 
brought  him  accounts  of  no  less  than  fourteen  similar 
disturbances  in  various  parts  of  England,  every  one  of 
them  equally  unexplained.  One  of  these  was  in  Green- 
wich Hospital,  and  the  account  of  this  was  given  to 
Major  Moor  by  Lieutenant  Rivers,  R.N.,  a  comrade  of 
Nelson.  The  bells  in  Lieutenant  Rivers'  apartments  in 
the  hospital  rang  for  four  days.  The  clerk  of  the  works, 
his  assistant,  a  bellhanger,  and  several  scientific  men  tried 
to  discover  the  cause,  but  all  in  vain.  They  made  every 
one  leave  the  house ;  they  watched  the  bells,  the  cranks, 
and  the  wires,  but,  just  as  in  Major  Moor's  case,  without 


ARE  THEKE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  247 

becoming  any  the  wiser.  In  another  case,  in  a  house 
near  Chesterfield,  long  and  repeated  bell-ringings  con- 
tinued for  eighteen  months.  Bellhangers  and  other 
persons  watched  and  experimented  in  vain.  The  wires 
were  cut,  but  still  the  bells  rang.  Neither  the  owner, 
Mr.  Ashwell,  nor  his  friend,  Mr.  Felkins  of  Nottingham, 
afterwards  mayor  of  that  town,  nor  any  other  person  was 
ever  able  to  discover,  or  even  to  conjecture,  any  adequate 
cause  for  the  phenomena.  In  many  of  these  cases  the 
ringing  occurred  in  the  daytime,  and  was  repeated  so 
often  that  ample  opportunity  was  given  for  discovering 
the  agency,  if  a  human  one.  And  the  thing  itself  is  so 
comparatively  simple  that  there  is  no  opportunity  for  a 
trick  to  be  played  without  almost  immediate  discovery. 
Yet  in  none  of  these  cases,  nor,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  in 
any  other  at  all  similar  to  them,  has  any  trick  been 
discovered.  They  must,  therefore,  be  classed  as  a  form 
of  haunting,  comparable  with  the  knockings  and  other 
disturbances  so  often  connected  with  phantasmal  ap- 
pearances, and  thus  affording  very  strong  evidence  of 
the  powers  of  phantasms  to  act  upon  matter.1 

5.  Phantasms  can  be  photographed,  and  are,  therefore, 
objective  realities. — It  is  common  to  sneer  at  what  are 
called  "spirit  photographs,"  because  imitations  of  some 
of  them  can  be  so  easily  produced ;  but  a  little  con- 
sideration will  show  that  this  very  facility  of  imitation 
renders  it  equally  easy  to  guard  against  imposture,  since 
the  modes  by  which  the  imitation  is  effected  are  so  well 
known.  At  all  events,  it  will  be  admitted  that  an  experi- 

1  An  account  of  all  these  fourteen  cases  of  bell-ringing  and  of  other 
disturbances,  with  names  and  dates,  is  given  in  a  small  volume,  now  rare, 
entitled  Healings  Bells.  A  brief  summary  of  them  is  given  in  R.  Dale 
Owen's  Debatable  Land,  and  in  William  Howitt's  History  of  the  Super- 
natural, vol.  ii.  p.  446. 


248  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

enced  photographer  who  supplies  the  plates  and  sees  the 
whole  of  the  operations  performed,  or  even  performs 
them  himself,  cannot  be  so  deceived.  This  test  has  been 
applied  over  and  over  again,  and  there  is  no  possible 
escape  from  the  conclusion  that  phantasms,  whether 
visible  or  invisible  to  those  present,  can  be  and  have 
been  photographed.  A  brief  statement  of  the  evidence 
in  support  of  this  assertion  will  now  be  given. 

The  first  person  through  whom  spirit  photographs  were 
obtained  was  a  New  York  photographer  named  Mumler, 
who  in  1869  was  arrested  and  tried  for  obtaining  money 
by  trickery  and  imposture,  but  who,  after  a  long  trial, 
was  acquitted  because  no  proof  of  imposture  or  attempt 
at  imposture  was  given ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  evi- 
dence of  extraordinary  tests  having  been  applied  was 
given.  A  professional  photographer,  Mr.  W.  H.  Slee, 
of  Poughkeepsie,  watched  the  whole  process  of  taking 
the  pictures,  and  though  there  was  nothing  unusual  in 
Mumler's  procedure,  shadowy  forms  appeared  on  the 
plates.  Mumler  afterwards  visited  this  witness's  gallery, 
bringing  with  him  no  materials  whatever,  yet  the  same 
results  were  produced.  Mr.  J.  Gurney,  a  New  York 
photographer  of  twenty- eight  years'  experience,  gave 
evidence  that,  after  close  examination,  no  trickery  what- 
ever could  be  detected  in  Mumler's  process.  Yet  a  third 
photographer,  Mr.  W.  W.  Silver,  of  Brooklyn,  gave  evi- 
dence to  the  same  effect.  He  frequently  went  through 
the  whole  process  himself,  using  his  own  camera  and 
materials,  yet  when  Mumler  was  present,  and  simply 
placed  his  hand  on  the  camera  during  the  exposure, 
additional  forms  besides  that  of  the  sitter  appeared  upon 
the  plates.  Here  we  have  the  sworn  testimony  in  a 
court  of  law  of  three  experts,  who  had  every  possible 
means  of  detecting  imposture  if  imposture  there  were ; 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  249 

yet  they  all  declared  that  there  was  and  could  be  no 
imposture.1 

It  would  be  easy  to  give  a  score  or  more  of  cases  in 
which  persons  of  reputation  have  stated  in  print  that  they 
have  obtained  recognisable  photographs  of  deceased  friends 
when  they  themselves  were  quite  unknown  to  the  photo- 
grapher, and  even  when  no  photograph  or  picture  of  the 
deceased  person  existed.  In  all  such  cases,  however,  the 
objection  is  made  that  the  figures  are  more  or  less  shadowy, 
and  that  the  supposed  likeness  may  be  imaginary.  I  there- 
fore prefer  to  give  only  the  evidence  of  experts  as  to  the 
appearance  on  photographic  plates  of  other  figures  besides 
those  of  the  visible  sitters.  Perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able series  of  experiments  ever  made  on  this  subject  were 
those  carried  on  during  three  years  by  the  late  Mr.  John 
Beattie  of  Clifton,  a  retired  photographer  of  twenty  years' 
experience,  and  Doctor  Thomson,  M.D.  (Edin.),  a  retired 
physician,  who  had  practised  photography  as  an  amateur 
for  twenty-five  years.  These  two  gentlemen  performed 
all  the  photographic  work  themselves,  sitting  with  a 
medium  who  was  not  a  photographer.  They  took  hun- 
dreds of  pictures,  in  series  of  three,  taken  consecutively 
at  intervals  of  a  few  seconds ;  and  the  results  are  the 
more  remarkable  and  the  less  open  to  any  possible  sus- 
picion, because  there  is  not  in  the  whole  series  what  is 
commonly  termed  a  spirit  photograph,  that  is,  the  shadowy 
likeness  of  any  deceased  person,  but  all  are  more  or  less 
rudimental,  exhibiting  various  patches  of  light  undergoing 
definite  changes  of  shape,  sometimes  culminating  in  unde- 
fined human  forms,  or  medallion-like  heads,  or  star-like 

1  A  report  of  the  trial  appeared  in  the  New  York  Times  of  April  22, 
1869,  and  in  many  other  papers.  An  abstract  of  the  evidence  is  given 
by  Dr.  Crowell  in  his  Primitive  Christianity  and  Modern  Spiritualism, 
vol.  i.  pp.  478-482. 


250  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

luminosities.  In  no  case  was  there  any  known  cause  for 
the  production  of  these  figures.  I  possess  a  set  of  these 
remarkable  photographs,  thirty-two  in  number,  given  me 
by  Mr.  Beattie,  and  I  was  personally  acquainted  with 
Doctor  Thomson,  who  confirmed  Mr.  Beattie's  statements 
as  to  the  conditions  and  circumstances  under  which  they 
were  taken.  Here  we  have  a  thorough  scientific  investiga- 
tion undertaken  by  two  well-trained  experts,  with  no 
possibility  of  their  being  imposed  upon  ;  and  they  demon- 
strate the  fact  that  phantasmal  figures  and  luminosities 
quite  invisible  to  ordinary  observers,  can  yet  reflect  or 
emit  actinic  rays  so  as  to  impress  their  forms  and  changes 
of  form  upon  an  ordinary  photographic  plate.  An  addi- 
tional proof  of  this  extraordinary  phenomenon  is,  that 
frequently,  and  in  the  later  experiments  always,  the 
medium  spontaneously  described  what  he  saw,  and  the 
picture  taken  at  that  moment  always  exhibited  the  same 
kind  of  figure.  In  one  of  the  pictures  the  medium  is 
shown  among  the  sitters  gazing  intently  and  pointing 
with  his  hand.  While  doing  so,  he  exclaimed,  "  What  a 
bright  light  up  there  !  Can  you  not  see  it  ?  "  And  the 
picture  shows  the  bright  light  in  the  place  to  which  his 
gaze  and  pointing  hand  are  directed.1 

Very  important,  as  confirming  these  results,  are  the 
experiments  of  the  late  Mr.  Thomas  Slater,  the  optician 
(of  Euston  Road,  London),  who  obtained  second  figures 
on  his  plates  when  only  his  own  family  were  present,  and 
in  one  case  when  he  was  perfectly  alone ;  of  Mr.  R. 
Williams,  MA.,  of  Haywards  Heath  ;  of  Mr.  Traill  Taylor, 

1  A  brief  account  of  these  experiments  from  notes  furnished  by  Mr. 
Beattie  and  confirmed  by  Dr.  Thomson,  is  given  in  the  present  volume, 
at  page  200.  Mr.  Beattie  published  his  own  account  in  the  Spiritual 
Mayazine,  September  1872,  January  1873,  and  in  the  British  Journal  of 
Photography  of  the  same  period. 


AEE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS        251 

the  editor  of  the  British  Journal  of  Photography  ;  and  of 
many  other  professional  or  amateur  photographers,  who 
all  agree  that,  with  everything  under  their  own  control, 
phantasmal  figures,  besides  those  of  the  sitter,  appeared 
on  the  plates  without  any  apparent  or  conceivable  mecha- 
nical or  chemical  cause. 

In  the  cases  hitherto  given,  the  phantasms  or  figures 
photographed  have  been  invisible  to  all  present  except  the 
mediums,  and  sometimes  even  to  them ;  but  we  have  also 
examples  of  the  photographing  of  a  visible  form  or  appari- 
tion occurring  in  the  presence  of  a  medium.  A  very  suc- 
cessful photograph  of  a  spirit  form  which  appeared  under 
strict  test  conditions,  with  Miss  Cook  as  the  medium,  was 
taken  by  Mr.  Harrison,  then  editor  of  the  Spiritualist 
newspaper.  An  engraving  from  this  photograph  appears 
as  a  frontispiece  to  Epes  Sargent's  Proof  Palpable  of  Im- 
mortality, with  an  account  of  the  conditions  under  which 
it  was  taken  signed  by  the  five  persons  present.  Later 
on,  Mr.  Orookes  obtained  numerous  photographs  (more 
than  forty  in  all)  in  his  own  laboratory,  with  the  same 
medium  ;  and  had  every  opportunity  of  ascertaining  that 
the  phantom  which  appeared  and  disappeared,  under  con- 
ditions which  rendered  doubt  impossible,  was  no  human 
being,  and  was  very  different  in  all  physical  characteristics 
from  the  medium.1 

This  long  series  of  photographic  experiments  and  tests, 
of  which  the  briefest  abstract  only  has  been  given,  has 
been  hitherto  not  even  alluded  to  by  the  investigators 
of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research.  But  they  cannot 

1  An  account  of  these  experiments,  and  of  those  which  preceded  them, 
is  given  in  a  small  volume  entitled  Researches  in  the  Phenomena  of 
Spiritualism,  by  William  Crookes,  F.R.S.,  London,  1874  ;  and  they  are 
summarised  in  Epes  Sargent's  Proof  Palpable,  of  Immortality,  pp. 
100-110. 


252  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

much  longer  continue  to  ignore  it,  because  they  have 
entered  on  the  task  of  collecting  the  whole  of  the  evidence 
for  psychical  phenomena,  and  of  fairly  estimating  the 
weight  of  each  of  the  groups  under  which  that  evidence 
falls.  Now  I  submit  that  this  photographic  evidence  is 
superior  in  quality  to  any  that  they  have  hitherto  collected, 
for  two  reasons.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  experimental 
evidence,  and  experiment  is  rarely  possible  in  the  higher 
psychical  phenomena ;  in  the  second  place,  it  is  the 
evidence  of  experts  in  an  operation  the  whole  details  of 
which  are  perfectly  familiar  to  them.  And,  I  further 
submit,  this  evidence  can  no  longer  be  ignored,  because  it 
is  evidence  that  goes  to  the  very  root  of  the  whole  inquiry, 
and  affords  the  most  complete  and  crucial  test  in  the 
problem  of  subjectivity  or  objectivity  of  apparitions. 
What  is  the  use  of  elaborate  arguments  to  show  that  all 
the  phenomena  are  to  be  explained  by  the  various  effects 
of  telepathy,  and  that  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  existence 
of  objective  apparitions  occupying  definite  positions  in 
space,  when  the  camera  and  the  sensitive  plate  have  again 
and  again  proved  that  such  objective  phantasms  do  exist  ? 
Such  arguments,  founded  on  a  small  portion  only  of  the 
facts,  remind  one  of  that  literary  jeu  d'esprit,  Historic 
Doubts  as  to  the  Existence  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte  ;  and,  to 
those  who  are  acquainted  with  the  whole  range  of  the 
phenomena  to  be  explained,  are  about  equally  convincing. 
I  have  now  very  briefly  summarised  and  discussed  the 
various  classes  of  evidence  which  demonstrate  the  objec- 
tivity of  many  apparitions.  The  several  groups  of  facts, 
while  strong  in  themselves,  gain  greatly  in  strength  by 
the  support  they  give  to  each  other.  On  the  theory  of 
objective  reality  all  are  harmonious  and  consistent.  On 
the  theory  of  hallucination  some  require  elaborate  and 
unsupported  theories  for  their  explanation,  while  the 


ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS  253 

great  bulk  are  totally  inexplicable,  and  have,  therefore,  to 
be  ignored,  or  set  aside,  or  explained  away.  Collective 
hallucinations  (so-called)  are  admitted  to  be  frequent. 
That  phantasms  often  behave  like  objective  realities  in 
relation  to  material  objects  and  to  different  persons  is  also 
admitted.  This  is  as  it  should  be  if  they  are  objective, 
but  is  hardly  explicable  on  the  subjective  or  telepathic 
theory.  The  behaviour  of  animals  in  the  presence  of 
phantasms,  the  evidence  for  which  is  as  good  as  that  for 
their  appearance  to  men  and  women,  is  what  we  might 
expect  if  they  are  abnormal  realities,  but  involve  enormous 
difficulties  on  any  other  theory.  The  physical  effects 
produced  by  phantasms  (visible  or  invisible)  afford  a 
crucial  test  of  objectivity,  and  are  far  too  numerous  and 
too  well  attested  to  be  ignored  or  explained  away.  And, 
finally,  comes  the  test  of  objectivity  afforded  by  the  pho- 
tographic camera  in  the  hands  of  experts  and  physicists 
of  the  first  rank,  rendering  any  escape  from  this  conclusion 
simply  impossible. 

I  have  confined  this  discussion  strictly  to  the  one 
question  of  objectivity,  a  term  that  does  not  necessarily 
imply  materiality.  We  do  not  know  whether  the  lumini- 
ferous  ether  is  material,  or  whether  electricity  is  material, 
but  both  are  certainly  objective.  Some  have  used  the 
term  "non-molecular  matter"  for  the  hypothetical  sub- 
stance of  which  visible  phantoms  are  composed — a  sub- 
stance that  seems  to  have  the  property  under  certain 
conditions  of  aggregating  to  itself  molecular  matter,  so 
that  tangible  or  force- exerting  phantasms  are  produced. 
But  this  is  all  theoretical,  and  we  do  not  yet  possess 
sufficient  knowledge  to  enable  us  to  theorise  on  what  may 
be  termed  the  anatomy  and  physiology  of  phantoms. 
There  is,  however,  a  broader  question  to  be  discussed,  one 
on  which  I  think  we  have  materials  for  arriving  at  some 


254  ARE  THERE  OBJECTIVE  APPARITIONS 

interesting  and  useful  conclusion.  I  refer  to  the  general 
nature  and  origin  of  various  classes  of  phantasmal 
appearances,  from  the  "  doubles  "  of  living  persons  to 
those  apparitions  which  bring  us  news  of  our  departed 
friends,  or  are  in  some  cases  able  to  warn  us  of  future 
events  which  more  or  less  deeply  affect  us.  This  inquiry 
forms  the  subject  of  the  following  essay. 


WHAT  ARE   PHANTASMS,  AND  WHY 
DO  THEY  APPEAR? 

(Reprinted  from  "  The  Arena,"  February  1891.) 

THE  theories  which  have  been  suggested  by  the  more 
prominent  members  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Ee- 
search  in  order  to  explain  the  phenomena  of  phantasms 
or  apparitions  of  various  kinds,  are  all  founded  on  tele- 
pathy or  thought-transference,  the  facts  of  which  have 
been  demonstrated  by  a  long  series  of  experiments.  It 
is  found  that  many  persons  are  more  or  less  sensitive  to 
the  thoughts  or  will-power  of  others,  and  are  able  to 
reproduce,  more  or  less  closely,  any  definite  mental 
images  sought  to  be  conveyed  to  them.  It  is  urged  that 
those  who  experience  phantasmal  sights  or  sounds  are  a 
kind  of  thought-readers,  and  are  so  powerfully  affected 
by  the  thoughts  of  friends  who  are  in  certain  excitable 
mental  states  or  physical  crises — especially  at  periods  of 
imminent  danger  or  when  at  the  point  of  death — as  to 
externalise  those  thoughts  in  visual  or  auditory  hallucina- 
tions either  in  the  waking  state  or  as  unusually  vivid 
dreams. 

This  telepathic  theory  is  held  to  receive  strong  support, 
and  in  fact  to  be  almost  proved,  by  the  curious  pheno- 
mena of  the  doubles  or  phantasms  of  living  persons  seen 
by  certain  sensitive  friends,  when  those  persons  strongly 
will  that  they  shall  be  so  seen.  Such  are  the  cases  of  a 

266 


256  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

friend  appearing  to  Mr.  Stainton  Moses  at  a  time  when 
this  friend  had  fixed  his  thoughts  upon  him  before  going 
to  bed ;  and  those  of  Mr.  B ,  who  several  times  ap- 
peared in  the  night  to  two  ladies,  on  occasions  when  he 
went  to  sleep  with  the  express  wish  and  intention  of 
appearing  to  them.1  There  are,  however,  difficulties  in 
these  cases.  The  supposed  agent  does  not  usually  decide 
exactly  how  he  will  appear  or  what  he  will  do.  In  one 
case  Mr.  B appeared,  not  to  the  ladies  he  was  think- 
ing of,  but  to  a  married  sister,  hardly  known  to  him,  who 
happened  to  be  occupying  their  room.  This  lady  saw  the 
phantasm  in  the  passage,  going  from  one  room  to  the 
other,  at  a  time  when  the  agent  wished  to  be  in  the 
house  ;  and  again,  the  same  night,  at  a  time  when  he 
wished  to  be  in  the  front  bedroom,  and  on  this  occasion 
the  phantasm  came  to  her  bedside  and  took  hold  of  her 
hair,  and  then  of  her  hand,  gazingly  intently  into  it. 
Now  it  is  an  assumption  hardly  warranted  by  the  facts, 
that  the  mere  wish  or  determination  to  be  in  a  certain 
part  of  a  house  at  a  certain  time  could  cause  a  phantasm 
to  appear  to  a  person  who  happened  unexpectedly  to  be 
there,  and  cause  that  phantasm  to  perform,  or  appear  to 
perform,  certain  acts  which  do  not  appear  to  have  been 
willed  by  the  supposed  agent.  This  is  certainly  not  tele- 
pathy in  the  usually  accepted  sense ;  it  is  not  the  trans- 
ference of  a  thought  to  an  individual,  but  the  production 
of  what  seems  to  be  an  objective  phantasm  in  a. definite 
locality.  It  is  altogether  inconceivable  that  a  mere 
wish  could  produce  such  a  phantasm,  unless,  indeed,  we 
suppose  the  spirit  of  the  sleeper  to  leave  the  body  in 
order  to  go  to  the  desired  place,  and  that  it  possesses  the 
power  to  render  itself  visible  to  any  one  who  happens  to 
be  there.  Let  us  then  see  whether  there  are  any  other  facts 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  i.  pp.  103-108. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  257 

concerning  doubles  which  may  throw  some  light  on  this 
question. 

Mr.  Fryer,  of  Bath,  heard  his  name  distinctly  called  in 
the  voice  of  a  brother  who  had  been  some  days  absent 
from  home.  At  the  same  moment,  as  near  as  could 
be  ascertained,  the  brother  missed  his  footing  and  fell 
on  a  railway  platform,  calling  out  his  brother's  name 
as  he  fell.1  Similar  in  character  is  the  case  of  Mrs. 
Severn,  who,  while  in  bed  one  morning,  felt  a  violent 
blow  on  her  lip,  so  real  that  she  put  her  handkerchief  to 
it,  expecting  to  find  it  bleeding.  At  the  same  time  Mr. 
Severn,  caught  by  a  squall  in  a  boat,  received  a  violent 
blow  on  the  same  part  of  his  mouth  from  the  tiller.  In 
the  first  case,  Mr.  Fryer's  brother  had  no  conscious  wish 
to  be  heard  by  him ;  and  in  the  other  case,  Mr.  Severn 
certainly  did  not  wish  his  wife  to  feel  the  blow,  but,  on 
the  contrary,  was  extremely  anxious  to  conceal  from  her 
that  he  had  had  a  blow  at  all.2  In  both  these  cases,  if 
the  supposed  agents  had  anything  to  do  with  the  actual 
production  of  the  phantasmal  voice  and  sensation,  it  was 
by  some  unconscious  or  automatic  process.  But  the  ex- 
perimental evidence  for  telepathy  shows  it  to  be  produced 
by  the  conscious  and  active  will-power  of  the  agent  or 
agents,  and  would  therefore  prove,  if  anything,  that  in 
both  these  cases  there  was  some  third  party  who  was 
really  the  agent  in  willing  and  producing  the  telepathic 
effect.  This  is  rendered  still  more  probable  by  other 
cases  of  "  doubles  "  and  of  warnings,  of  which  the  follow- 
ing is  one  of  the  most  remarkable. 

Mr.  Algernon  Joy,  an  engineer  employed  on  the  Penarth 
Docks,  at  Cardiff,  South  Wales,  was  walking  in  a  country 
lane  near  the  town,  absorbed  in  a  calculation  connected 

1  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  PsychicalmReseareh,  vol.  i.  p.  134. 
-  Ibid.,  vol.  vi.  p.  128. 

R 


258  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

with  the  Docks,  when  he  was  attacked  and  knocked  down 
by  two  young  colliers.  His  thoughts  were  then  imme- 
diately directed  to  the  possible  cause  of  the  attack,  to  the 
possibility  of  identifying  the  men  and  to  informing  the 
police.  He  is  positive  that  for  about  half  an  hour  previous 
to  the  attack  and  for  an  hour  or  two  after  it,  there  was 
no  connection  whatever,  direct  or  indirect,  between  his 
thoughts  and  a  friend  in  London.  Yet  at  almost  the 
precise  moment  of  the  assault  this  friend  recognised  Mr. 
Joy's  footstep  in  the  street  behind  him,  then  turned  and 
saw  Mr.  Joy  "as  distinctly  as  ever  he  saw  him  in  his 
life,"  saw  he  looked  distressed,  asked  what  was  the  matter, 
and  received  the  answer,  "  Go  home,  old  fellow ;  I've  been 
hurt."  All  this  was  communicated  in  a  letter  from  the 
friend  which  crossed  one  from  Mr.  Joy  giving  an  account 
of  the  accident.1  In  this  case,  whether  the  "  double " 
was  an  audible  and  visual  veridical  hallucination  or  an 
objective  phantasm,  it  could  not  have  been  produced  with- 
out some  adequate  cause.  To  assert  that  Mr.  Joy  was 
himself  the  unconscious  cause  cannot  be  looked  upon  as 
an  explanation,  or  as  in  any  way  helping  us  to  a  compre- 
hension of  how  such  things  can  happen.  We  imperatively 
need  a  producing  agent,  some  intellectual  being  having 
both  the  will  and  the  power  to  produce  such  a  veridical 
phantasm. 

The  next  case  still  more  clearly  demands  an  agent 
other  than  that  of  any  of  the  parties  immediately  con- 
cerned. Mr.  F.  Morgan,  of  Bristol,  a  young  man  who 
lived  with  his  mother,  was  attending  a  lecture  in  which 
he  was  much  interested.  On  entering  the  lecture-room 
he  saw  a  friend,  with  whom  he  determined  to  walk  home 
after  the  lecture.  About  the  middle  of  the  lecture  he 
noticed  a  door  at  the  side  of  the  platform  farthest  from 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  voL  ii.  p.  524. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  259 

the  entrance  to  the  hall,  and  he  suddenly,  without  know- 
ing why,  got  up  and  walked  half  the  length  of  the  hall 
to  see  if  the  door  would  open.  He  turned  the  handle, 
entered,  and  closed  the  door  behind  him,  finding  himself 
in  the  dark  under  the  platform.  Noticing  a  glimmer  of 
light,  he  went  towards  it,  got  into  a  passage  which  led 
again  into  the  hall,  the  end  of  which  he  crossed  to  the 
entrance  door,  without  any  thought  of  the  lecture,  which 
was  still  going  on,  or  of  the  friend  with  whom  he  had 
meant  to  return,  and  then  walked  home  quietly,  without 
any  excitement  or  impression  of  any  kind,  and  quite 
unconscious  till  long  after  that  he  had  done  anything 
unusual.  When  he  got  home,  however,  he  found  that 
the  house  next  to  his  was  on  fire  and  his  mother  in  great 
alarm.  He  instantly  removed  his  mother  to  a  place  of 
safety,  and  then  had  two  or  three  hours'  struggle  with 
the  flames.  The  adjoining  house  was  burnt  down,  and 
his  own  was  in  great  danger,  and  was  slightly  damaged. 

Mr.  Morgan  states  that  his  character  is  such  that  had 
he  felt  any  impression  that  there  was  a  fire,  or  that  his 
mother  was  in  danger,  he  should  probably  have  shaken 
it  off  as  mere  fancy  and  refused  to  obey  it.  His  mother 
simply  wished  for  his  presence,  but  exerted  no  will-power 
towards  him.  What  agency,  then,  was  it  that  acted  upon 
his  mental  organisation,  at  first  apparently  through  simple 
curiosity,  in  such  a  strange  yet  effectual  way,  bringing 
him  home  so  promply,  and  yet  without  his  feeling  that  he 
was  in  any  way  being  influenced  or  guided  in  his  actions, 
which  seemed  to  himself  to  be  perfectly  voluntary  and 
normal?  We  cannot  avoid  seeing  in  this  case  the  con- 
tinuous exercise  of  some  mental  influence,  guided  by 
accurate  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the  individual  and 
of  his  special  surroundings  at  the  moment,  and  directed 
with  such  care  and  judgment  as  to  avoid  exciting  in  him 


260  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

that  antagonism  which  would  have  been  fatal  to  the 
object  aimed  at.  We  see  then  that,  even  confining  our- 
selves to  undoubted  phantasms  of  the  living,  or  to  im- 
pressions not  connected  with  death,  the  facts  are  totally 
inexplicable  on  any  theory  of  telepathy  between  living 
persons,  but  clearly  point  to  the  agency  of  preter-human 
intelligences — in  other  words,  of  spirits.  The  prejudice 
against  such  a  conception  is  enormous,  but  the  work  of 
the  Psychical  Research  Society  has,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
somewhat  undermined  it.  They  have  established,  beyond 
further  dispute  for  all  who  study  the  evidence,  that  veri- 
dical phantasms  of  the  dead  do  exist ;  and  the  evidence 
itself — not  ignorant  or  even  scientific  prejudice — must 
decide  whether  these  phantasms  which,  as  we  have  seen 
in  my  last  article,  are  often  objective,  are  the  work  of 
men  or  of  spirits. 

Before  adducing  further  evidence  on  this  point,  it  will 
be  well  to  consider  briefly  the  extraordinary  theory  of  the 
"second  self"  or  "unconscious  ego"  which  is  appealed  to 
by  many  modern  writers  as  a  substitute  for  spirit  agency 
when  that  of  the  normal  human  being  is  plainly  in- 
adequate. This  theory  is  founded  on  the  phenomena  of 
dreams,  of  clairvoyance,  and  of  duplex  personality,  and 
has  been  elaborately  expounded  by  Du  Prel  in  two 
volumes  8vo,  translated  by  Mr.  C.  C.  Massey.  As  an 
example  of  the  kind  of  facts  this  theory  is  held  to 
explain,  we  may  refer  to  the  experiments  of  the  Rev. 
P.  H.  Newnham  and  Mrs.  Newnham  with  planchette. 
The  experiments  were  conducted  by  Mrs.  N.  sitting  at 
a  low  table  with  her  hand  on  the  planchette,  while 
Mr.  N.  sat  with  his  back  towards  her  at  another  table 
eight  feet  distant.  Mr.  N.  wrote  questions  on  paper, 
and  instantly,  sometimes  simultaneously,  the  planchette 
under  Mrs.  N.'s  hand  wrote  the  answers.  Experiments 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  261 

were  carried  on  for  eight  months,  during  which  time 
three  hundred  and  nine  questions  and  answers  were 
recorded.  All  kinds  of  questions  were  asked,  and  the 
answers  were  always  pertinent  to  the  questions,  though 
often  evasions  rather  than  direct  answers.  Great  num- 
bers of  the  answers  did  not  correspond  with  the 
opinions  or  expectations  of  either  Mr.  or  Mrs.  N.,  and 
were  sometimes  beyond  their  knowledge.  To  convince 
an  incredulous  visitor,  Mr.  N.  went  with  him  into  the 
hall,  where  he,  the  visitor,  wrote  down  the  question, 
"  What  is  the  Christian  name  of  my  eldest  sister  ? " 
Mr.  N.  saw  the  question  but  did  not  know  the  name, 
yet  on  returning  to  the  study  they  found  the  planchette 
had  already  written  "Mina,"  the  family  abbreviation  of 
Wilhelmina,  which  was  the  correct  name.  Mr.  N.  is  a 
Freemason,  and  asked  many  questions  as  to  the  Masonic 
ritual,  of  which  Mrs.  N.  knew  nothing.  The  answers 
were  partly  correct  and  partly  incorrect,  sometimes  quite 
original,  as  when  a  prayer  used  at  the  advancement  of 
a  Mark  Master  Mason  was  asked  for,  and  a  very  admir- 
able prayer  instantly  written  out,  using  Masonic  terms, 
but,  Mr.  N.  says,  quite  unlike  the  actual  prayer  he  was 
thinking  of,  and  also  unlike  any  prayer  used  by  Masons 
or  known  to  Mr.  N.  It  was,  in  fact,  as  Mr.  N.  says, 
"a  formula  composed  by  some  intelligence  totally  distinct 
from  the  conscious  intelligence  of  either  of  the  persons 
engaged  in  the  experiment." 

Now  all  this,  and  a  great  deal  more  equally  remarkable, 
is  imputed  to  the  agency  of  Mrs.  Newnham's  "unconscious 
self,"  a  second  independent,  intelligent  personality  of 
which  Mrs.  Newnham  knows  nothing  except  when  it 
"  emerges "  under  special  conditions,  such  as  those  here 
described.  In  the  same  way  Du  Prel  explains  all  the 
phenomena  of  clairvoyance,  of  premonitions,  of  apparent 


262  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

possession,  and  of  the  innumerable  cases  in  which  sensi- 
tives exhibit  knowledge  of  facts  which  in  their  normal 
state  they  do  not  possess,  and  have  had  no  possible  means 
of  acquiring. 

But  is  this  so-called  explanation  any  real  explanation, 
or  anything  more  than  a  juggle  of  words  which  creates 
more  difficulties  than  it  solves?  The  conception  of  such 
a  double  personality  in  each  of  us,  a  second-self,  which  in 
most  cases  remains  unknown  to  us  all  our  lives,  which  is 
said  to  live  an  independent  mental  life,  to  have  means  of 
acquiring  knowledge  our  normal  self  does  not  possess,  to 
exhibit  all  the  characteristics  of  a  distinct  individuality 
with  a  different  character  from  our  own,  is  surely  a  con- 
ception more  ponderously  difficult,  more  truly  super- 
natural than  that  of  a  spirit-world,  composed  of  beings 
who  have  lived,  and  learned,  and  suffered  on  earth,  and 
whose  mental  nature  still  subsists  after  its  separation 
from  the  earthly  body.  We  shall  find,  too,  that  this 
latter  theory  explains  all  the  facts  simply  and  directly, 
that  it  is  in  accordance  with  all  the  evidence,  and  that 
in  an  overwhelming  majority  of  cases  it  is  the  explana- 
tion given  by  the  communicating  intelligences  themselves. 
On  the  "  second  self  "  theory,  we  have  to  suppose  that 
this  recondite  but  worser  half  of  ourselves,  while  possess- 
ing some  knowledge  we  have  not,  does  not  know  that  it 
is  part  of  us,  or,  if  it  knows,  is  a  persistent  liar,  for  in 
most  cases  it  adopts  a  distinct  name,  and  persists  in 
speaking  of  us,  its  better  half,  in  the  third  person. 

But  there  is  yet  another,  and  I  think  a  more  funda- 
mental objection  to  this  view,  in  the  impossibility  of  con- 
ceiving how  or  why  this  second-self  was  developed  in  us 
under  the  law  of  survival  of  the  fittest.  The  theory  is 
upheld  to  avoid  recourse  to  any  "  spiritual "  explanation 
of  phenomena,  "  spirit  "  being  the  last  thing  our  modern 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  263 

men  of  science  "  will  give  in  to."  1  But  if  so — if  there  is 
no  spiritual  nature  in  man  that  survives  the  earthly  body, 
if  man  is  but  a  highly  intellectual  animal  developed  from 
a  lower  animal  form  under  the  law  of  the  survival  of  the 
fittest,  how  did  this  "  second-self,"  this  "  unconscious  ego," 
come  into  existence  ?  Have  the  mollusk  and  the  reptile, 
the  dog  and  the  ape  "unconscious  egos"?  And  if  so, 
why  ?  And  what  use  are  they  to  these  creatures,  so  that 
they  might  have  been  developed  by  means  of  the  struggle 
for  existence  ?  Darwin  detected  no  sign  of  such  "  second- 
selves  "  either  in  animals  or  men ;  and  if  they  do  not  per- 
tain to  animals  but  do  pertain  to  men,  then  we  are  involved 
in  the  same  difficulty  that  is  so  often  urged  against  spiri- 
tualists, that  we  require  some  break  in  the  law  of  continuous 
development,  and  some  exertion  of  a  higher  power  to  create 
and  bring  into  the  human  organism  this  strange  and  use- 
less "  unconscious  ego  " — useless  except  to  puzzle  us  with 
insoluble  problems,  and  make  our  whole  nature  and  exist- 
ence seem  more  mysterious  than  ever.  Of  course,  this 
unconscious  ego  is  supposed  to  die  with  the  conscious  man, 
for  if  not,  we  are  introduced  to  a  new  and  gratuitous 
difficulty,  of  the  relation  of  these  two  intelligences  and 
characters,  distinct,  yet  bound  indissolubly  together,  in 
the  after  life. 

Finding,  therefore,  that  the  theory  of  duplex  personality 
creates  more  difficulties  than  it  solves,  while  the  facts  it 
proposes  to  explain  can  be  dealt  with  far  more  thoroughly 
on  the  spiritual  hypothesis,  let  us  pass  on  to  consider  the 
further  evidence  we  possess  for  the  agency  of  the  spirits 
of  the  dead,  or  of  some  other  preter-human  intelligences. 

We  will  first  consider  the  case  of  Mrs.  Menneer,  who 
dreamed  twice  the  same  night  that  she  saw  her  headless 

1  This  was  Sir  David  Brewster's  expression  after  witnessing  Home's 
phenomena.  See  Home's  Incidents  of  my  Life,  Appendix,  p.  245. 


264  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

brother  standing  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  with  his  head  lying 
on  a  coffin  by  his  side.  She  did  not  at  the  time  know 
where  her  brother,  Mr.  Wellington,  was,  except  that  he 
was  abroad,  He  was,  however,  at  Sarawak,  with  Sir 
James  Brooke,  and  was  killed  during  the  Chinese  insur- 
rection there,  in  a  brave  attempt  to  defend  Mrs.  Middle- 
ton  and  her  children.  Being  taken  for  the  Rajah's  son, 
his  head  was  cut  off  and  carried  away  in  triumph,  his  body 
being  burned  with  the  Rajah's  house.  The  date  of  the 
dream  coincided  approximately  with  that  of  the  death.1 
Now  in  this  case  it  is  almost  certain  that  the  head  was 
cut  off  after  death,  since  these  Chinese  were  not  trained 
soldiers,  but  gold-miners,  who  would  strike,  and  stab,  and 
cut  with  any  weapons  they  possessed,  but  could  certainly 
not  kill  a  European  on  his  defence  by  cutting  off  his  head 
at  a  blow.  The  impression  on  the  sister's  brain  must, 
therefore,  have  been  made  either  by  the  dead  brother,  or 
by  some  other  intelligence,  probably  the  latter,  as  it  was 
clearly  a  symbolic  picture,  the  head  resting  on  the  coffin 
showing  that  the  head  alone  was  recovered  and  buried. 
In  a  published  letter  of  Sir  James  Brooke's  he  says — 
"  Poor  Wellington's  remains  were  likewise  consumed,  his 
head  borne  off  in  triumph  cdone  attesting  his  previous 
murder." 

Another  case,  recorded  in  the  same  volume,  is  still  more 
clear  against  the  theory  of  telepathy  between  living  per- 
sons. Mrs.  Storie,  of  Edinburgh,  living  at  the  time  in 
Hobart  Town,  Tasmania,  one  night  dreamed  a  strange  con- 
fused dream,  like  a  series  of  dissolving  views.  She  saw 
her  twin  brother  sitting  in  the  open  air,  in  the  moonlight, 
sideways,  on  a  raised  place.  Then  he  lifted  his  arm  say- 
ing, "  The  train,  the  train  !  "  Something  struck  him ;  he 
fell  down  fainting;  a  large  dark  object  came  by  with  a 

1  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  L  p.  365. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  265 

swish.  Then  she  saw  a  railway  compartment,  in  which 
sat  a  gentleman  she  knew,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Johnstone.  Then 
she  saw  her  brother  again.  He  put  his  right  hand  over 
his  face  as  if  in  grief.  Then  a  voice,  not  his  voice,  telling 
her  he  was  going  away.  The  same  night  her  brother  was 
killed  by  a  train,  having  sat  down  to  rest  on  the  side  of 
the  track  and  fallen  asleep.  The  details  in  the  dream,  of 
which  the  above  is  a  bare  abstract,  were  almost  exactly  as 
in  the  event,  and  the  Mr.  Johnstone  of  the  dream  was  in 
the  train  that  killed  her  brother.  Now,  this  last-mentioned 
fact  could  not  have  been  known  to  the  dead  man  during 
life,  and  the  dream-picture  of  the  event  must,  therefore, 
have  been  due  to  the  telepathic  power  of  the  dead  man, 
or  of  some  spirit-friend  acquainted  with  the  facts,  and 
wishing  to  give  a  proof  of  spirit-life. 

Take  next  the  case  of  the  Glasgow  manufacturer  settled 
in  London,  who  dreams  that  one  of  his  workmen  in  Glas- 
gow, whom  he  had  befriended  as  a  lad,  but  with  whom  he 
had  not  had  any  direct  relations  for  many  years,  comes 
to  speak  to  him,  begging. him  not  to  believe  what  he  is 
accused  of  doing.  On  being  asked  what  it  is,  he  repeats 
three  times  emphatically,  "  Ye'll  sune  ken."  The  dreamer 
also  notices  the  man  has  a  remarkable  appearance,  bluish 
pale  with  great  drops  of  sweat  on  his  face.  On  awaking, 
his  wife  brings  him  a  letter  from  his  manager  in  Glasgow, 
telling  him  that  this  man,  Robert  Mackenzie,  has  com- 
mitted suicide  by  drinking  aquafortis.  The  symptoms  of 
poisoning  by  aqua  fortis  are  those  observed  in  the  dream 
figure.1  Here  the  man  had  died  two  days  before  the 
dream,  which  was  just  in  time  to  correct  the  false  impres- 
sion of  suicide  that  would  have  been  produced  by  the 
letter.  The  whole  of  the  features  and  details  of  the 
dream  are  such  as  could  hardly  have  been  due  to  any 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  viii.  pp.  95-98. 


266  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

other  agent  than  the  dead  workman  himself,  who  was 
anxious  that  a  master  who  had  been  kind  to  him  when 
a  lad  should  not  be  led  to  credit  the  false  accusation 
against  him. 

Dreams  giving  the  details  of  funerals  at  a  distance  are 
not  uncommon.  As  an  example  we  have  one  in  which 
Mr.  Stainton  Moses  was  invited  to  the  funeral  of  a  friend 
in  Lincolnshire,  but  could  not  go.  About  the  time  of  the 
funeral,  however,  he  fell  into  a  trance,  and  appeared  to  be 
at  the  ceremony,  and  on  again  becoming  conscious,  wrote 
down  all  the  details,  describing  the  clergyman,  who  was 
not  the  one  who  had  been  expected  to  officiate,  the 
churchyard,  which  was  at  a  distance  in  Northamptonshire, 
with  a  particular  tree  near  the  grave.  He  then  sent  this 
description  to  a  friend  who  had  been  present,  and  who 
wrote  back  in  astonishment  as  to  how  he  could  have 
obtained  the  details.1  This  may  be  said  to  be  mere  clair- 
voyance ;  but  clairvoyance  is  a  term  that  explains  nothing, 
and  is  quite  as  mysterious  and  unintelligible  if  supposed 
to  occur  without  the  intervention  of  disembodied  intelli- 
gences as  if  with  their  help.  These  cases  also  merge  into 
others  which  are  of  a  symbolical  nature,  and  which  clair- 
voyance of  actual  scenes  at  a  distance  cannot  explain.  A 
well-attested  case  of  this  kind  is  the  following : — 

Philip  Weld,  a  student  at  a  Catholic  College,  was 
drowned  in  the  river  at  Ware,  Hertfordshire,  in  the  year 
1846.  About  the  same  hour  as  the  accident,  the  young 
man's  father  and  sister,  while  walking  on  the  turnpike 
road  near  Southampton,  saw  him  standing  on  the  cause- 
way with  another  young  man  in  a  black  robe.  The  sister 
said,  "Look,  papa,  there  is  Philip."  Mr.  Weld  replied, 
"  It  is  Philip  indeed,  but  he  has  the  look  of  an  angel." 
They  went  on  to  embrace  him,  but  before  reaching  him  a 

1  Harrison's  Spirits  before  our  Eyes,  p.  148. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  267 

labouring  man  seemed  to  walk  through  the  figures,  and 
then  with  a  smile  both  figures  vanished.  The  President 
of  the  College,  Dr.  Cox,  went  immediately  to  Southamp- 
ton, to  break  the  sad  news  to  the  father,  but  before  he 
could  speak,  Mr.  Weld  told  him  what  he  had  seen,  and 
said  he  knew  his  son  was  dead.  A  few  weeks  afterwards, 
Mr.  Weld  visited  the  Jesuit  College  of  Stonyhurst  in 
Lancashire,  and  in  the  guest-room  saw  a  picture  of  the 
very  same  young  man  he  had  seen  with  his  son,  similarly 
dressed,  and  in  the  same  attitude,  and  beneath  the  picture 
was  inscribed  "  St.  Stanislaus  Kotska,"  a  saint  of  the 
Jesuit  Order,  who  had  been  chosen  by  Philip  for  his[patron 
saint  at  his  confirmation.1 

Now,  here  is  a  case  in  which  phantasms  of  the  son  and 
of  another  person  appear  to  two  relatives,  and  the  pre- 
sence of  the  unknown  person  was  eminently  calculated, 
when  his  identity  was  discovered,  to  relieve  the  father's 
mind  of  all  fear  for  his  son's  future  happiness.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  have  a  clearer  case  of  a  true  phantasm 
of  the  dead,  not  necessarily  produced  either  by  the  dead 
son  or  the  Jesuit  saint,  but  most  probably  by  them,  or  by 
some  other  spirit  friend  who  had  the  power  to  produce 
such  phantasms,  and  so  relieve  the  anxiety  of  both  father 
and  sister.  It  is  not  conceivable  that  any  living  person's 
telepathic  action  could  have  produced  such  phantasms  in 
two  percipients,  the  only  possible  agent  being  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  College,  who  did  not  recognise  by  Mr.  Weld's 
description  the  dark-robed  young  man  who  appeared  with 
his  son. 

This  introduces  a  feature  rather  common  in  phantasms 
of  the  dead — some  indication  of  happiness,  something  to 
take  away  any  feeling  of  gloom  or  sorrow.  Thus,  a  young 

1  Harrison's  Spirits  before  our  Eyes,  p.  116,  extracted  from  Glimpses  of 
the  Supernatural,  by  the  Rev.  F.  G.  Lee. 


268  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

man  is  drowned  by  the  foundering  of  the  La  Plata  tele- 
graphic ship  in  December  1874 ;  and  just  before  the  news 
arrived,  his  brother  in  London  dreamed  that  he  was  at  a 
magnificent  fete  in  a  spacious  garden,  with  illuminated 
fountains  and  groups  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  when  he 
met  his  brother  in  evening  dress,  and  "  the  very  image  of 
buoyant  health."  He  was  surprised,  and  said,  "  Hallo ! 

D ,  how  are  you  here  ?  "  His  brother  shook  hands 

with  him,  and  said,  "  Did  you  not  know  I  have  been 
wrecked  again  ? "  The  next  morning  the  news  of  the 
loss  of  the  ship  was  in  the  papers.1  Here,  whether  the 
phantasm  was  caused  by  the  dead  man  himself,  or  by 
some  other  being,  it  was  apparently  intended  to  show 
that  the  deceased  was  as  cheerful  and  well  off  after  death 
as  during  life. 

So  when  the  voice  of  Miss  Gambier  Parry  was  heard 
twelve  hours  after  her  death  by  her  former  governess, 
Sister  Bertha,  at  the  House  of  Mercy,  Bovey  Tracey, 
Devonshire,  it  said,  "in  the  brightest  and  most  cheerful 
tone,  '  I  am  here  with  you.'  And  on  being  asked,  '  Who 
are  you  ?  '  the  voice  replied,  '  You  mustn't  know  yet.'  "  2 

And  again,  when  a  gentleman,  going  to  the  dining- 
room  for  an  evening  smoke,  sees  his  sister-in-law,  he 
says  :  "Maggie  suddenly  appeared  dressed  in  white,  with 
a  most  heavenly  expression  on  her  face.  She  fixed  her 
eyes  on  me,  walked  round  the  room,  and  disappeared 
through  the  door  that  leads  into  the  garden."3  This 
was  the  day  after  her  death.  Yet  one  more  instance : 
Mr.  J.  G.  Keulemans,  when  in  Paris,  was  awoke  one 
morning  by  the  voice  of  his  favourite  little  son  of  five 
years  old,  whom  he  had  left  quite  well  in*  London.  He 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  xiv.  p.  456. 

2  Phantasms  of  the  Living,  vol.  i.  p.  522. 
8  Ibid.,  vol.  ii.  p.  702. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  269 

also  saw  his  face  in  the  centre  of  a  bright  opaque  white 
mass,  his  eyes  bright,  his  mouth  smiling.  The  voice 
heard  was  that  of  extreme  delight,  such  as  only  a  happy 
child  can  utter.  Yet  the  child  had  then  just  died.1 
Whose  telepathic  influence  caused  this  phantasm  of  a 
happy,  smiling  child  to  appear  to  the  father?  Surely 
no  living  person,  but  rather  some  spirit  friend  or 
guardian  wishing  to  show  that  the  joyousness  of  life 
still  remained  with  the  child,  though  its  earthly  body 
was  cold  and  still. 

Another  characteristic  feature  of  many  of  these  dreams 
or  waking  phantasms  is  that  they  often  occur,  not  at  the 
moment  of  death,  but  just  before  the  news  of  the  death 
reaches  the  percipient ;  or  there  is  some  other  characteristic 
feature  that  seems  especially  calculated  to  cause  a  deep 
impression,  and  give  a  lasting  conviction  of  spiritual  exis- 
tence. Several  cases  of  this  kind  are  given  or  referred 
to  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research 
(Pt.  xv.  pp.  30,  31).  A  most  extraordinary  example  is 
that  of  Mr.  F.  G.  of  Boston,  then  of  St.  Louis,  Mo.,  who, 
when  in  St.  Joseph,  Mo.,  fully  occupied  with  business, 
saw  a  phantasm  of  his  only  sister,  who  had  been  dead  nine 
years.  It  was  at  noonday  while  he  was  writing,  and  she 
appeared  close  to  him  and  perfectly  life-like,  so  that  for  a 
moment  he  thought  it  was  really  herself,  and  called  her 
by  her  name.  He  saw  every  detail  of  her  dress  and  appear- 
ance, and  particularly  noticed  a  bright  red  line  or  scratch 
on  the  right  hand  side  of  her  face.  The  vision  so  impressed 
him  that  he  took  the  next  train  home,  and  told  what  he 
had  seen  to  his  father  and  mother.  His  father  was  in- 
clined to  ridicule  him  for  his  belief  in  its  being  anything 
supernatural ;  but  when  he  mentioned  the  scratch  on 
the  face  his  mother  nearly  fainted,  and  told  them  with 
1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  vol.  i.  p.  126. 


270  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

tears  in  her  eyes,  that  she  had  herself  made  that  scratch 
accidentally  after  her  daughter's  death,  but  had  carefully 
hidden  it  with  powder,  and  that  no  living  person  but 
herself  knew  of  it.  A  few  weeks  after  the  mother  died, 
happy  in  her  belief  that  she  would  rejoin  her  daughter  in 
a  better  world.1  Here  we  can  clearly  see  an  important 
purpose  in  the  appearance  of  the  phantasm — to  give 
comfort  to  a  mother  about  to  die,  in  the  assurance  that 
her  beloved  daughter,  though  mourned  as  dead,  was  still 
alive. 

A  case  which  illustrates  both  of  the  characteristics  just 
alluded  to  is  that  of  the  Rev.  C.  C.  Wambey  of  Salisbury, 
England,  who  one  Sunday  evening  was  walking  on  the 
downs,  engaged  in  composing  a  congratulatory  letter  to  a 
very  dear  friend,  so  that  he  might  have  it  on  his  birthday, 
when  he  heard  a  voice  saying,  "What!  write  to  a  dead 
man ! "  No  one  was  near  him,  and  he  tried  to  think  it 
was  an  illusion,  and  went  on  with  his  composition,  when 
again  he  heard  the  voice  saying  more  loudly  than  before, 
"  What !  write  to  a  dead  man ;  write  to  a  dead  man ! " 
He  now  understood  the  meaning  of  the  voice,  but,  never- 
theless, sent  the  letter,  and  in  reply  received  the  expec- 
ted intelligence  that  his  friend  was  dead.  Surely  in  this 
case  no  living  agent  could  have  produced  this  auditory 
phantasm,  which  was  strikingly  calculated  to  impress  the 
recipient  with  the  idea  that  his  friend  was,  though  dead  as 
regards  the  earthly  life,  in  reality  very  much  alive,  while 
the  spice  of  banter  in  the  words  would  tend  to  show  that 
death  was  by  no  means  a  melancholy  event  to  the  subject 
of  it. 

In  view  of  the  examples  now  given  of  phantasms 
appearing  for  a  very  definite  purpose,  and  being  in  most 
cases  perfectly  adapted  to  produce  the  desired  effect — 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Ps.  Res.,  part  xv.  pp.  17,  18. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  271 

examples  which  could  be  very  largely  increased  from  the 
rich  storehouse  of  the  publications  of  the  Society  for 
Psychical  Research — the  theory  put  forth  by  Mr.  Myers 
that  phantasms  of  the  dead  are  so  vague  and  purposeless 
as  to  suggest  mere  "dead  men's  dreams"  telepathically 
communicated  to  the  living,  seems  to  me  a  most  extra- 
ordinary one.  No  doubt  the  range  of  these  phenomena 
is  very  great,  and  in  some  cases  there  may  be  no  purpose 
in  the  appearance  so  far  as  the  percipient  is  concerned. 
But  these  are  certainly  not  typical  or  by  any  means  the 
best  attested  or  the  most  numerous ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
to  be  a  proof  of  the  weakness  of  the  telepathic  theory 
that  almost  all  the  cases  I  have  adduced,  and  many  more 
of  like  import,  have  been  passed  by  almost  or  quite  un- 
noticed by  those  who  support  that  view. 

We  have  one  more  class  of  evidence  to  notice — that  of 
premonitions.  These  are  of  all  kinds,  from  those  announc- 
ing very  trivial  events,  to  such  as  foretell  accidents  or 
death.  They  are  not  so  frequent  as  other  phantasms, 
but  some  of  them  are  thoroughly  well  attested,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  they  are  realities, 
and  that  they  are  due,  generally  speaking,  to  the  same 
agencies  as  objective  veridical  phantasms.  One  or  two 
examples  may  be  given. 

A  striking  case  is  that  of  Mrs.  Morrison,  who  was  living 
in  the  Province  of  Wellesley,  Malay  Peninsula,  in  1878, 
and  one  morning,  when  awake,  heard  a  voice  distinctly 
say,  "  If  there  is  darkness  at  the  eleventh  hour  there  will 
be  death."  On  starting  up  in  bed,  the  same  words  were 
slowly  and  deliberately  repeated.  A  week  afterwards  her 
little  girl  was  taken  seriously  ill,  and  some  days  later, 
after  a  week  of  cloudless  weather,  a  storm  came  on  a  few 
minutes  before  eleven  in  the  morning,  and  the  sky  became 
black  with  clouds.  At  one  o'clock  the  same  day  the  child 


272  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

died.1  The  unusual  character  of  the  warning  renders 
this  case  a  remarkable  one. 

In  another  case  Miss  R.  F.  Curtis  of  London  dreams 
that  she  sees  a  lady  in  black  who  passes  her,  and  is  then 
seen  lying  on  the  road  with  a  crowd  of  people  round  her. 
Some  think  she  is  dead,  some  that  she  is  not  dead ;  and 

on  asking  her  name,  the  dreamer  is  told  she  is  Mrs.  C , 

a  friend  living  on  Clapham  Common,  who  had  not  been 
heard  of  for  some  time.  In  the  morning  Miss  Curtis  tells 
her  sister  of  her  dream ;  and  about  a  week  afterwards 

they  hear  that  the  day  after  the  dream  Mrs.  C had 

stumbled  over  a  high  curbstone,  and  had  fallen  on  the 
road  very  much  hurt. 

Still  more  extraordinary  is  the  case  of  the  Yorkshire 
vicar,  who,  when  a  young  man  of  nineteen,  was  at  Inver- 
cargill,  in  New  Zealand,  and  there  met  a  man  he  knew  as 
a  sailor  on  the  ship  he  had  come  out  in,  and  agreed  to  go 
with  him  and  several  others  on  an  excursion  to  the  island 
of  Ruapuke  to  stay  a  day  or  two  for  fishing  and  shooting. 
They  were  to  start  at  four  the  next  morning,  in  order  to 
cross  the  bar  with  the  high  tide,  and  they  agreed  to  call 
the  vicar  in  time.  He  went  to  bed  early  with  the  fullest 
intention  to  go  with  them,  and  with  no  doubt  or  hesitation 
in  his  mind.  The  thing  was  settled.  On  his  way  up- 
stairs to  bed  he  seemed  to  hear  a  voice  saying,  "Don't  go 
with  those  men"  There  was  no  one  near,  but  he  asked, 
"  Why  not  ?  "  The  voice,  which  seemed  inside  him,  said 
with  emphasis,  "  You  are  not  to  go ; "  and  on  further 
question  these  words  were  repeated.  Then  he  asked, 
"  How  can  I  help  it  ?  They  will  call  me  up."  And,  most 
distinctly  and  emphatically,  the  same  voice  said,  "  You 
must  bolt  your  door"  When  he  got  to  the  room  he  found 
there  was  a  strong  bolt  to  the  door,  which  he  had  not 

1  Proc.  Soc.  Pa.  Res.,  part  xiii.  p.  305. 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  273 

remembered.  At  first  he  determined  he  would  go,  as  he 
was  accustomed  to  take  his  own  way  at  all  hazards.  But 
he  felt  staggered,  and  had  a  feeling  of  mysterious  peril, 
and  after  much  hesitation  finally  bolted  the  door  and  went 
to  sleep.  In  the  morning  about  three  he  was  called,  the 
door  violently  shaken  and  kicked,  but  though  awake  he 
did  not  speak,  and  finally  the  men  went  away  cursing  and 
shouting.  About  nine  o'clock  he  went  down  to  break- 
fast, and  was  at  once  asked  if  he  had  heard  what  had 
happened,  and  was  then  told  that  the  boat  with  the  party 
for  Euapuke  had  been  upset  on  the  bar,  and  every  one  of 
them  drowned.  Some  of  the  bodies  were  washed  up  on 
the  beach  that  day,  and  the  others  a  day  or  two  later,  and, 
he  adds,  "  If  I  had  been  with  them,  I  must  have  perished 
beyond  a  doubt." 

Now  what  are  we  to  say  of  this  determined  warning 
voice  that  insisted  on  being  heard  and  attended  to? 
Who  and  what  was  the  being  that  foresaw  the  catastrophe 
that  was  to  happen,  and  saved  the  one  that  it  could  save  ? 
Du  Prel  would  say  that  it  was  the  second-self,  the  un- 
conscious ego,  that  produced  this  inner  voice ;  but,  as  we 
have  shown,  this  purely  hypothetical  explanation  is  both 
unintelligible  and  inconceivable,  and  explains  nothing, 
since  the  suggested  cause  has  not  been  proved  to  exist, 
nor  can  it  be  shown  how  the  knowledge  exhibited  had 
been  acquired.  But  phantasms  of  the  dead,  manifesting 
themselves  in  a  way  to  prove  their  identity,  or  exhibiting 
knowledge  which  neither  the  percipient  nor  any  conceiv- 
able living  agent  possesses,  afford  strong  proof  that  the 
so-called  dead  still  live,  and  are  able  in  various  ways  to 
influence  their  friends  in  earth-life.  We  will,  therefore, 
briefly  summarise  the  evidence  now  adduced,  and  see 
how  the  spiritualistic  theory  gives  a  consistent  and  in- 
telligible explanation  of  it. 

S 


274  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

It  is  evident  that  any  general  theory  of  phantasms 
must  deal  also  with  the  various  cases  of  "  doubles,"  or 
undoubted  phantasms  of  the  living.  The  few  examples 
of  apparent  voluntary  production  of  these  by  a  living 
person  have  been  supposed  to  prove  the  actual  production 
by  them,  or  by  their  unconscious  egos  ;  but  the  difficulties 
in  the  way  of  this  view  have  been  already  pointed  out. 
In  many  cases  there  is  no  exercise  of  will,  sometimes  not 
even  a  thought  directed  to  the  place  or  person  where,  or 
to  whom,  the  phantasm  appears;  and  it  is  altogether 
irrational  to  ascribe  the  production  of  so  marvellous  an 
effect  as,  for  example,  a  perfectly  life-like  phantasm  of 
two  persons,  a  carriage,  and  a  horse,  visible  to  three 
persons  at  different  points  of  its  progress  through  space 
(as  described  in  my  first  article),  to  an  agent  who  is 
totally  unconscious  of  any  agency  in  the  matter.  What 
is  termed  the  agent,  that  is  the  person  whose  "double" 
is  produced,  may  be  a  condition  towards  the  production 
of  the  phantasm  without  being  the  cause.  I  write  a 
telegram  to  a  friend  a  thousand  miles  away,  and  that 
friend  receives  my  message  in  an  hour  or  two.  But  the 
possibility  of  sending  the  message  does  not  reside  in  me, 
but  in  a  whole  series  of  contributory  agencies  from  the 
earliest  inventors  of  the  telegraph  down  to  the  clerks 
who  transmit  and  receive  the  message. 

The  clue  to  a  true  explanation  of  these  very  puzzling 
"  doubles,"  as  of  all  the  other  varied  phenomena  of  phan- 
tasms and  hauntings,  is,  I  believe,  afforded  by  the  follow- 
ing passage  by  one  of  the  most  thoughtful  and  experienced 
of  modern  spiritualists,  Dr.  Eugene  Crowell : — 

"I  have  frequently  consulted  my  spirit  friends  upon 
this  question,  and  have  invariably  been  told  by  them  that 
a  spirit  while  in  mortal  form  cannot  for  an  instant  leave 
it ;  were  it  to  do  so,  death  would  at  once  ensue ;  and, 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  275 

that  the  appearance  of  one's  self  at  another  place  from 
that  in  which  the  body  at  the  moment  is,  is  simply  a 
personation  by  another  spirit,  who  thus  often  accom- 
plishes a  purpose  desired  by  his  mortal  friend,  or  some 
other  useful  purpose  is  accomplished  by  the  personation. 
I  am  informed  and  believe,  that  in  cases  of  trance,  where 
the  subjects  have  supposed  that  their  spirits  have  left 
their  bodies,  and  visited  the  spheres,  their  minds  have 
been  psychologically  impressed  with  views  representing 
spiritual  scenes,  objects,  and  sounds,  and  many  times  these 
impressions  are  so  apparently  real  and  truthful  that  the 
reality  itself  barely  exceeds  these  representations  of  it, 
but  these  are  all  subjective  impressions,  not  actual  expe- 
riences."1 

Accepting,  then,  as  proved  by  the  various  classes  of 
phantasms  and  the  information  conveyed  by  them,  that 
the  spirits  of  the  so-called  dead  still  live,  and  that  some 
of  them  can,  under  special  conditions,  and  in  various 
ways,  make  their  existence  known  to  us,  or  influence  us 
unconsciously  to  ourselves,  let  us  see  what  reasonable 
explanation  we  can  give  of  the  cause  and  purpose  of 
these  phenomena. 

In  every  case  that  passes  beyond  simple  transference 
of  a  thought  from  one  living  person  to  another,  it  seems 
probable  that  other  intelligences  co-operate.  There  is 
much  evidence  to  show  that  the  continued  association  of 
spirits  with  mortals  is  in  many  cases  beneficial  or  plea- 
surable to  the  former,  and  if  we  remember  the  number 
of  very  commonplace  people  who  are  daily  and  yearly 
dying  around  us,  we  shall  have  a  sufficient  explanation 
of  those  trivial  and  commonplace  yet  veridical  dreams 
and  impressions  which  at  first  sight  seem  so  unintel- 
ligible. The  production  of  these  dreams,  impressions, 

1  Primitive  Christianity  and  Modern  Spiritualism,  vol.  ii.  p.  109. 


276  WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS 

and  phantasms  may  be  a  pleasurable  exercise  of  the 
lower  spiritual  faculties,  as  agreeable  to  some  spirits  as 
billiards,  chemical  experiments,  or  practical  jokes  are  to 
some  mortals. 

Many  hauntings,  on  the  other  hand,  seem  to  show  one 
mode  of  the  inevitable  punishment  of  crime  in  the  spirit 
world.  The  criminal  is  drawn  by  remorse  or  by  some 
indefinable  attraction  to  haunt  the  place  of  his  crime, 
and  to  continually  reproduce  or  act  over  some  incidents 
connected  with  it.  It  is  true  that  the  victim  appears 
in  haunted  houses  as  often  as  the  criminal,  but  it  does 
not  at  all  follow  that  the  victim  is  always  there,  unless 
he  or  she  was  a  participator  in  the  crime,  or  continued  to 
indulge  feelings  of  revenge  against  the  actual  criminal. 

Again,  if  there  be  a  spiritual  world,  if  those  whose 
existence  on  earth  has  come  to  an  end  still  live,  what  is 
more  natural  than  that  many  spirits  should  be  distressed 
at  the  disbelief,  or  doubt,  or  misconception  that  so  widely 
prevail  with  respect  to  a  future  life,  and  should  use 
whatever  power  they  possess  to  convince  us  of  our  error  ? 
What  more  natural  than  that  they  should  wish,  whenever 
possible,  to  give  some  message  to  their  friends,  if  only 
to  assure  them  that  death  is  not  the  end,  that  they  still 
live,  and  are  not  unhappy?  Many  facts  seem  to  show 
us  that  the  beautiful  idea  of  guardian  spirits  is  not  a 
mere  dream,  but  a  frequent,  perhaps  universal  reality. 
Thus  will  be  explained  the  demon  of  Socrates,  which 
always  warned  him  against  danger,  and  the  various  forms 
of  advice,  information,  or  premonition  which  so  many 
persons  receive.  The  numerous  cases  in  which  messages 
are  given  from  those  recently  dead,  in  order  to  do  some 
trivial  act  of  justice  or  of  kindness,  are  surely  what  we 
should  expect ;  while  the  fact  that,  although  indications 
are  frequently  given  of  a  crime  having  been  committed, 


AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR  277 

it  is  but  rarely  that  the  criminal  is  denounced,  indicates 
either  that  the  feeling  of  revenge  does  not  long  persist, 
or  that  earthly  modes  of  punishment  are  not  approved  of 
by  the  denizens  of  the  spirit  world. 

The  powers  of  communication  of  spirits  with  us,  and 
ours  of  receiving  their  communications,  vary  greatly. 
Some  of  us  can  only  be  influenced  by  ideas  or  im- 
pressions which  we  think  are  altogether  the  product  of 
our  own  minds.  Others  can  be  so  strongly  acted  on  that 
they  feel  an  inexplicable  emotion,  leading  to  action 
beneficial  to  themselves  or  to  others.  In  some  cases, 
warning  or  information  can  be  given  through  dreams, 
in  others  by  waking  vision.  Some  spirits  have  the  power 
of  producing  visual,  others  audible  hallucinations  to 
certain  persons.  More  rarely,  and  needing  more  special 
conditions,  they  can  produce  phantasms,  which  are  audible 
or  visible  to  all  who  may  be  present — real  entities  which 
give  off  light  or  sound  waves,  and  thus  act  upon  our 
senses  like  living  beings  or  material  objects.  Still  more 
rarely  these  phantasms  are  tangible  as  well  as  visual — 
real  though  temporary  living  forms,  capable  of  acting 
like  human  beings,  and  of  exerting  considerable  force 
on  ordinary  matter. 

If  we  look  upon  these  phenomena,  not  as  anything 
supernatural  but  as  the  perfectly  natural  and  orderly 
exercise  of  the  faculties  and  powers  of  spiritual  beings 
for  the  purpose  of  communicating  with  those  still  in  the 
physical  body,  we  shall  find  every  objection  answered 
and  every  difficulty  disappear.  Nothing  is  more  common 
than  objections  to  the  triviality  or  the  partiality  of  the 
communications  alleged  to  be  from  spirits.  But  the  most 
trivial  message  or  act,  if  such  that  no  living  person  could 
have  given  or  performed  it,  may  give  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  other  intelligences  around  us.  And  the  partiality 


278       WHAT  ARE  PHANTASMS  AND  WHY  DO  THEY  APPEAR 

often  displayed,  one  person  being  warned  and  saved, 
while  others  are  left  to  die,  is  but  an  indication  of  the 
limited  power  of  spirits  to  act  upon  us,  combined  with 
the  limited  receptivity  of  spirit  influence  on  our  part. 
In  conclusion,  I  submit  that  the  brief  review  now  given 
of  the  various  classes  of  phantasms  of  the  living  and  of 
the  dead  demonstrates  the  inadequacy  of  all  the  ex- 
planations in  which  telepathy  between  living  persons 
or  the  agency  of  the  unconscious  ego  are  exclusively  con- 
cerned, since  these  explanations  are  only  capable  of  deal- 
ing with  a  small  proportion  of  the  cases  that  actually 
occur.  Furthermore,  I  urge  that  nothing  less  funda- 
mental and  far-reaching  than  the  agency  of  disembodied 
intelligences,  acting  in  co-operation  with  our  own  powers 
of  thought-transference  and  spiritual  insight,  can  afford 
a  rational  and  intelligible  explanation  of  the  whole  range 
of  the  phenomena. 


APPENDIX  TO  "A  DEFENCE  OF 
MODERN  SPIRITUALISM" 


i. 

SINCE  my  article  appeared  in  the  Fortnightly  Review,  I  have 
seen  Dr.  Carpenter's  important  work,  Tlie  Principles  of  Mental 
Physiology.  One  or  two  of  the  learned  Doctor's  statements  have 
been  noticed  in  foot-notes  to  this  book,  but  there  are  a  few  others 
calling  for  remark,  which  I  will  now  refer  to. 

At  p.  296  Dr.  Carpenter  says,  that  the  only  answer  spiritualists 
give  to  Faraday's  experiments  is,  that — "Faraday's  performers 
moved  the  tables  with  their  hand*,  whereas  we  know  that  we  do 
not ; " — and  he  then  continues — "  Those  who  make  this  assertion 
are  (of  course)  scientifically  bound  to  demonstrate  it,  by  showing 
that  in  their  case  the  table  does  go  round  without  any  deflection  of 
the  index  by  lateral  pressure,  but  they  have  uniformly  refused 
to  apply  this  test  to  their  own  performance,  although  repeatedly 
challenged  to  do  so."  But  Dr.  C.  omits  to  tell  us  who  are  the 
spiritualists  whose  "only  answer"  is  above  given,  and  who  are 
they  who  have  been  "  repeatedly  challenged "  and  have  "  uni- 
formly refused"  to  accept  the  challenge.  On  inquiry,  it  may  be 
found  that  it  is  the  men  of  science  who  have  "  uniformly  refused  " 
to  witness  the  proof  of  what  they  say  spiritualists  are  scientifically 
bound  to  demonstrate. 

In  the  spring  of  1867,  when  I  had  obtained  the  proofs  of  force 
in  lifting  (not  turning)  a  table  (as  detailed  at  p.  141),  I  invited 
Dr.  Carpenter  to  attend  some  sittings  with  every  probability  of 
being  able  to  show  the  phenomena.  He  came  once.  The  sitting 
was  not  very  successful,  raps  and  taps  of  varying  character  being 
alone  produced.  Although  strongly  pressed  to  do  so,  he  never 
came  again.  With  Professor  Tyndall  exactly  the  same  thing 
occurred.  He  came  once,  and  declined  to  come  again  ;  although 

informed  of  phenomena  which  had  repeatedly  occurred  in  my  own 

279 


280  APPENDIX  TO 

house,  which  he  could  not  explain,  and  which  I  had  every  reason 
to  believe  would  occur  in  his  presence  if  he  would  only  give  three 
or  four  short  sittings  to  these  investigations.  More  recently  Dr. 
Sharpey  and  Professor  Stokes,  Secretaries  of  the  Royal  Society, 
refused  the  invitation  of  one  of  their  own  Fellows,  Mr.  Crookes, 
to  witness  experiments  which  formed  the  subject  of  a  paper  offered 
to  the  Society.  Where  we  are  vaguely  and  generally  accused  of 
"uniformly  refusing"  to  produce  certain  proofs,  it  is  only  right 
that  the  public  should  know  how  our  scientific  opponents  receive 
our  offers  to  exhibit  even  more  conclusive  proofs.  We  must  also 
remember  that  Dr.  Carpenter  is  acquainted  with  the  evidence  of 
the  Dialectical  Committee,  of  Serjeant  Cox,  of  Mr.  Crookes,  of 
Mr.  Varley,  and  of  myself,  as  to  the  movement  of  heavy  objects 
entirely  without  contact  of  the  medium  or  any  other  person ; 
yet  in  1874  he  can  adduce  nothing  but  the  utterly  exploded  and 
almost  forgotten  "table-turning"  of  the  time  of  Faraday  as 
worthy  of  notice ! 

The  theory  of  "  unconscious  cerebration "  is  Dr.  Carpenter's 
special  hobby,  yet  in  his  application  of  it  to  explaining  the  phe- 
nomena of  dreams  we  find  a  remarkable  amount  of  contradiction 
and  false  reasoning. 

At  p.  586,  for  example,  he  notices  the  "  suspension  of  our  power 
to  form  common-sense  judgments,"  the  "suspension  of  our  moral 
sense,"  and  the  "  entire  want  of  coherence  between  the  ideas  that 
successively  present  themselves,"  as  characteristics  of  dreams, 
and  to  be  explained  as  the  normal  result  of  "unconscious  cere- 
bration." But  he  imputes  to  the  very  same  cause  an  exaltation  of 
the  imaginative  and  reasoning  powers  and  their  action  in  strict 
logical  succession,  so  as  to  produce  results  which  the  whole  work- 
ing powers  of  the  mind  were  unable  to  achieve,  and  in  many 
cases  the  committal  of  these  results  to  paper  without  a  single 
error.  And  all  this  is  still  to  be  accepted  as  explained  by  the 
magical  words  "  unconscious  cerebration." 

As  an  illustration  of  Dr.  Carpenter's  mode  of  reasoning  we 
give  the  narrative  of  a  student  at  an  Amsterdam  University,  ad- 
duced by  him  as  supporting  his  views.  The  Professor  having  to 
perform  a  laborious  and  difficult  mathematical  calculation,  found 
that  he  could  not  get  the  correct  result,  owing  to  errors  occurring 
in  some  of  numerous  figures  employed.  He  therefore  gave  the 
problem  to  ten  of  his  pupils.  The  narrator  worked  at  it  unsuc- 
cessfully for  three  evenings,  but  always  without  effect ;  and  after 


A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM  281 

sitting  up  to  one  in  the  morning  on  the  third  trial,  went  to  bed 
much  disappointed  at  not  having  been  able  to  do  the  work  cor- 
rectly, as  it  was  particularly  required  the  next  day.  On  getting 
up  in  the  morning,  he  found  to  his  astonishment,  on  his  writing- 
table,  the  problem  correctly  solved  in  his  own  handwriting,  not  a 
single  figure  being  wrong,  But  the  important  fact  is,  that  the 
work  was  done  by  a  shorter  and  better  method  than  the  student 
had  attempted  during  his  three  evenings'  work.  The  work  he 
had  already  done,  and  with  which  his  mind  must  have  been 
imbued,  was  not  done  over  again  without  error,  but  an  altogether 
new  and  better  class  of  work  was  performed  ;  and  the  Professor 
himself  was  astonished  at  it,  and  declared  that  he  "had  never 
once  thought  of  a  solution  so  simple  and  concise." 

Now  here  is  evidently  a  case  in  which  the  ordinary  rules  of 
unconscious  cerebration  do  not  apply.  For  something  is  done  in 
a  way  the  doer  had  never  thought  of  when  awake.  The  student 
had  been  trying  over  and  over  again  to  find  out  the  numerical 
error  in  his  calculation,  not  to  perform  the  calculation  itself  by 
any  other  method.  When  asleep,  he  does  not  find  out  this  error 
— which,  if  done,  might  have  been  imputed  to  the  repetition  of 
the  former  cerebral  action,  uninfluenced  by  the  disturbing  causes 
which  had  led  to  error — but  he  begins  de  novo,  in  a  way  he 
had  never  attempted  when  awake,  and  solves  the  problem  by  a 
process  which  even  his  mathematical  teacher  had  not  thought  of ! 
This  is  exactly  analogous  to  those  cases  of  trance  mediums  who 
do  in  trance  what  they  cannot  do  when  awake — speak  languages 
they  have  never  learnt,  for  example ;  and  to  impute  such  actions 
to  "unconscious  cerebration"  is  not  to  explain  them,  but  merely 
to  give  a  name,  and,  like  a  child  or  a  savage,  accept  the  name  as 
a  sufficient  explanation.  It  is  exactly  an  analogous  case  to  that 
of  Mr.  Lewes  (given  at  page  203),  in  which  preconceived  ideas 
completely  shut  out  the  plainest  logical  consequences  of  the  facts 
adduced. 

II. 

I  have  been  informed  by  some  of  my  correspondents  that, 
because  I  have  not  referred  to  any  cases  of  new  information  of 
practical  utility  having  been  derived  from  spiritual  communica- 
tions, I  am  supposed  to  admit  that  such  do  not  exist.  This  is 
an  error.  There  are  many  such  instances,  but  as  bearing  on  the 
question  whether  Spiritualism  is  a  reality  or  a  delusion,  I  did 
not  think  them  of  much  importance,  and  they  could  not  have 


282  APPENDIX  TO 

been  introduced,  with  the  necessary  evidence,  without  altering 
the  plan  and  much  increasing  the  length  of  my  article.  If 
Spiritualism  is  a  delusion — that  is,  if  it  is  a  product  of  known 
or  unknown  natural  forces  plus  the  minds  of  the  assistants — 
then  no  new  information  of  the  kind  referred  to  can  possibly  be 
derived  from  it.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  a  reality — that  is, 
if  it  proves  that  intelligent  beings  of  another  order  of  existence 
than  our  own  can  and  do  communicate  with  us  (whether  those 
beings  are  the  spirits  of  deceased  men  or  no)— this  fact  alone  is 
of  such  vast  and  overwhelming  importance,  and  involves  such 
tremendous  issues,  scientific,  philosophical,  and  religious,  that  the 
question  whether  these  beings  can  and  will  improve  our  tele- 
graphs or  our  steam-engines  is  an  altogether  subordinate  one. 
Since  the  question  of  what  is  called  practical  results  implies  the 
truth  and  reality  of  the  spiritual  theory,  it  appears  to  me  to 
be  out  of  place  to  bring  up  that  question  while  the  primary 
question  remains  unsettled  ;  for  I  can  no  more  imagine  a  rational 
man  being  influenced  in  his  acceptance  of  Spiritualism  by  the 
probability  of  his  getting  out  of  it  such  practical  results,  than  I 
can  imagine  an  earnest  inquirer  after  religious  truth  being  influ- 
enced in  his  acceptance  of  Christianity  by  the  probability  of  its 
ministers  being  able  to  affect  the  weather  by  their  prayers. 
When  once  a  man  is  satisfied  of  the  reality  of  spiritual  communi- 
cations, he  will  meet  with  abundant  practical  results.  So  long 
as  he  is  not  satisfied,  such  results,  like  all  the  other  evidence, 
will  be  ignored  or  explained  away. 


III. 

The  Spectator,  the  Academy,  and  Pall  Mall  Gazette  thought  my 
paper  in  the  Fortnightly  Review  worthy  of  more  or  less  lengthy 
notice,  but  they  all  declined  to  discuss  the  nature  and  bear- 
ing of  the  evidence  I  have  adduced  and  referred  to  for  the 
reality  of  the  phenomena,  while  they  made  various  objections  to 
the  moral  and  historical  teachings  deduced  therefrom.  Here  I 
must  decline  to  join  issue  with  them.  I  hold  that  spiritualists 
alone  are  as  yet  competent  to  decide  what  theory  best  explains 
the  facts,  and  what  are  the  teachings  which  arise  out  of  them, 
for  the  sufficient  reason  that  they  alone  know  these  facts  in  their 
wide  range  and  countless  details.  I  could  only  sketch  generally 
the  nature  of  the  phenomena,  and  was  obliged  to  omit  all  the 
infinitude  of  characteristic  mental  details  which  constitute  their 


A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM  283 

chief  value.  My  critics  also  expressed  their  views  as  to  the  con- 
temptible and  unsatisfactory  nature  of  the  phenomena  and  of  the 
communications,  even  if  true ;  but  here  again  they  are  evidently 
too  ignorant  of  what  they  criticise  to  be  enabled  to  form  an  opinion. 
I  felt  it  my  duty  to  give  some  idea  of  the  teachings  which  are 
satisfying  to  most  spiritualists,  whatever  may  have  been  their 
previous  opinions.  Whether  those  teachings  are  agreeable  to  scep- 
tics is  of  little  importance ;  the  facts  of  Spiritualism  remain,  and 
must  be  dealt  with  before  the  critics  are  in  a  position  to  give  any 
opinion  worth  listening  to  as  to  the  truth  of  the  theory. 


IV. 

I  here  give  a  few  extracts  strikingly  illustrative  of  our  subject. 
In  the  following  passage  from  Jamblichus  on  Divination,  quoted 
in  Maurice's  Moral  an  I  Metaphysical  Philosophy,  we  find  mention 
in  a  short  space  of  a  number  of  the  most  startling  phenomena  of 
modern  Spiritualism  : — 

"  Often  at  the  moment  of  inspiration,  or  when  the  afflatus  has 
subsided,  a  fiery  appearance  is  seen — the  entering  or  departing 
power.  Those  who  are  skilled  in  this  wisdom  can  tell  by  the 
character  of  this  glory  the  rank  of  the  divinity  who  has  seized  for 
the  time  the  reins  of  the  mystic's  soul,  and  guides  it  as  he  will. 
Sometimes  the  body  of  the  man  is  violently  agitated,  sometimes  it 
is  rigid  and  motionless.  In  some  instances  sweet  music  is  heard,  in 
others  discordant  and  fearful  sounds.  The  person  of  the  subject 
has  been  known  to  dilate  and  tower  to  a  superhuman  height,  in  other 
cases  it  has  been  lifted  into  the  air.  Frequently  not  merely  the 
ordinary  exercise  of  reason,  but  sensation  and  animal  life  would 
appear  to  have  been  suspended  ;  and  the  subject  of  the  afflatus  has 
not  felt  the  application  of  fire,  has  been  pierced  with  spits,  cut  with 
knives,  and  not  been  sensible  to  pain." 

The  next  passage  throws  much  light  on  what  is  so  often  a 
stumbling-block  to  sceptics — the  action  of  suspicion,  or  too  rigid 
inquiry  in  checking  the  manifestations.  Dr.  Frederick  L.  H. 
Willis,  Professor  of  Materia  Medica  in  the  New  York  Medical 
College,  thus  describes  his  experience  with  a  musical  medium 
(Spiritual  Magazine,  1867,  p.  209)  : — 

"  One  evening  the  medium  went  into  the  dark  room  alone,  and 
took  her  seat  at  the  piano.  I  was  in  the  sitting-room  adjoining 
(the  door  between  was  open),  the  light  from  which  made  every 


284  APPENDIX  TO 

object  in  the  circle-room  distinctly  visible.  Scarcely  had  the 
medium  struck  the  first  note  upon  the  piano,  when  the  tambou- 
rine and  the  bells  seemed  to  leap  fioin  the  floor  and  join  in  uni- 
son. Carefully  and  noiselessly  I  stole  into  the  room,  ana  for  several 
seconds  it  was  my  privilege  to  witness  a  rare  and  wonderful 
sight.  I  saw  the  bells  and  tambourine  in  motion.  I  saw  the 
bells  lifted  as  by  invisible  hands  and  chimed,  each  in  its  turn, 
accurately  and  beautifully  with  the  piano.  I  saw  the  tambourine 
dexterously  and  scientifically  manipulated  with  no  mortal  hand 
near  it.  But  suddenly,  by  a  slight  turn  of  the  head,  the  medium 
became  aware  of  my  presence ;  instantly,  like  the  severing  of  the 
connection  between  a  galvanic  battery  and  its  poles,  everything 
ceased.  Mark  this ;  so  long  as  my  presence  in  the  room  was 
known  only  to  the  invisibles,  so  long  the  manifestations  continued 
in  perfection  ;  the  moment  the  medium  became  aware  of  it,  every- 
thing stopped.  A  wave  of  mental  emotion  passed  over  her  mind, 
which  was  in  itself  sufficient  to  stop  the  phenomena  at  once.  The 
incident  proved  to  my  mind  most  clearly  that,  in  most  cases,  it  is 
the  condition  of  the  medium  that  renders  it  so  difficult  for  spirits 
to  perform  these  wonders  in  the  light  rather  than  any  lack  of 
power  or  disposition  on  their  part." 

From  the  numerous  cases  referred  to  at  pages  79  and  215,  which 
have  been  investigated  by  the  police  authorities,  I  adduce  the 
following  taken  from  La  Gazette  des  Tribunaux  (the  official  organ 
of  the  French  Police)  of  February  2,  1849,  because  in  this  case 
a  friend  of  mine,  a  literary  man,  has  verified  the  extract  at  the 
British  Museum,  and  assures  me  that  the  translation  is  exact : — 

• 

"A  fact  most  extraordinary,  and  which  has  been  repeated  every 
evening,  every  night,  for  the  last  three  weeks,  without  the  most 
active  researches,  the  most  extended  and  persevering  surveil- 
lance having  been  able  to  discover  the  cause,  has  thrown  into 
commotion  all  the  populous  quarter  of  La  Montagne-Sainte- 
Genevieve,  the  Sorbonne,  and  Place  Saint-Michel.  This  is  what 
has  taken  place,  in  accordance  with  the  public  clamorous  demand, 
and  a  double  inquiry,  judicial  and  administrative,  which  has  been 
going  on  many  days,  without  throwing  any  light  on  the  mystery. 

"In  the  work  of  demolition  going  on  to  open  a  new  street, 
which  shall  join  the  Sorbonne  to  the  Pantheon  and  L'Ecole  de 
Droit,  in  traversing  the  Rue  de  Gres  up  to  the  old  church,  they 
came  to  a  wood  and  coal  yard,  with  an  inhabited  house  connected 
with  it,  of  only  one  storey  and  an  attic.  This  house,  at  some 
distance  from  the  street,  and  separated  from  the  houses  in 
course  of  destruction  by  large  excavations,  has  been  assailed 
every  evening,  and  through  the  whole  night,  by  a  hail  of  pro- 
jectiles, which,  from  their  bulk,  and  the  violence  with  which  they 
have  been  thrown,  have  done  such  destruction,  that  it  has  been 


A  DEFENCE  OF  MODERN  SPIRITUALISM  285 

laid  open  to  the  day,  and  the  woodwork  of  the  doors  and  win- 
dows reduced  to  shivers,  as  if  it  had  sustained  a  siege,  aided  by 
a  catapult  or  grapeshot. 

"  Whence  came  these  projectiles,  which  are  paving  stones,  frag- 
ments of  the  demolished  walls  near,  and  ashlar  stones  entire, 
which  from  their  weight,  and  the  distance  they  are  hurled,  are 
clearly  from  no  mortal  hand  ?  This  is  just  what,  up  to  this 
moment,  it  has  been  impossible  to  discover.  In  vain  has  a 
surveillance  been  exercised,  day  and  night,  under  the  personal 
direction  of  the  Commissary  of  Police,  and  able  assistants.  In 
vain  has  the  head  of  the  Service  of  Safety  been  continually  on 
the  spot.  In  vain  have  they  let  loose  every  night  watchdogs  in 
the  adjoining  enclosures.  Nothing  has  been  able  to  explain  the 
phenomena,  which,  in  its  credulity,  the  people  has  attributed  to 
mysterious  means.  The  projectiles  have  continued  to  rain  down 
with  great  noise  on  the  nouse,  launched  forth  at  a  great  height 
above  the  heads  of  those  who  have  placed  themselves  in  observa- 
tion on  the  roofs  of  the  small  surrounding  houses,  and,  seeming 
to  come  from  a  great  distance,  reaching  their  aim  with  a  pre- 
cision, as  it  were,  mathematical,  and  without  deviating  from  the 
parabolic  evidently  designed  for  them. 

"We  shall  not  enter  into  the  ample  details  of  these  facts,  which 
will,  without  doubt,  receive  a  speedy  explanation ;  thanks  to 
the  solicitude  which  they  have  awakened.  Nevertheless,  we  will 
remark  that,  in  circumstances  somewhat  analogous,  and  which 
equally  excited  a  certain  sensation  in  Paris,  where,  for  example, 
a  rain  of  pieces  of  small  money  drew  together  the  loungers  of 
Paris  every  evening  in  the  Rue  de  Montesquieu,  or  when  all  the 
bells  were  rung  in  a  house  in  the  Rue  de  Malte  by  an  invisible 
hand,  it  was  found  impossible  to  make  any  discovery,  to  find  any 
papable  cause  for  the  phenomena.  Let  us  hope  that  this  time  we 
shall  arrive  at  a  result  more  precise." 

My  friend  informs  me  that  he  found  a  later  short  notice  saying 
that  "the  phenomena  remain  inexplicable,"  and  then  the  matter 
seems  to  have  been  no  further  noticed  ;  so  we  may  conclude  that, 
as  in  the  other  cases  referred  to,  "  it  was  found  impossible  to  make 
any  discovery." 

The  sneer  of  the  writer  at  the  people's  "  credulity,"  in  attribut- 
ing the  phenomena  to  "mysterious  means,"  is  quite  amusing,  in 
face  of  the  statement  just  made  that  they  "are  clearly  from  no 
mortal  hand,"  and  the  undoubted  fact  that  they  were  "  mysteries," 
since  it  was  found  "impossible"  to  discover  them  in  a  month's 
close  examination  by  the  police  force  of  Paris.  If  we  read  the 
narrative  carefully,  giving  due  weight  to  all  the  facts  that  occurred 
and  the  completeness  of  the  investigation  into  them,  we  shall 
be  driven  to  the  conclusion  that  had  any  human  beings  with  the 


286  APPENDIX 

necessary  machinery  been  engaged,  tkey  must  have  been  discovered.  It 
is  a  case  strictly  analogous  to  that  of  Healing's  Bells  (see  p.  218) 
and  others  there  referred  to,  and  it  by  no  means  stands  alone,  for 
Mr.  Howitt  has  published  a  remarkable  collection  of  cases  of 
"stone-throwing,"  most  of  them  strictly  investigated  at  the  time, 
without  any  human  agents  being  in  any  case  discovered. 


INDEX 


AMBERLEY,  LORD,  on  spiritual  phe- 
nomena and  the  character  of 
mediums,  146 

Animal  magnetism,  61 

Animals  terrified  by  disturbances 
and  apparitions,  239 

Antiquity  of  man,  evidence  of, 
long  denied  or  ignored,  1 8 

Apparitions,  evidence  of  the  reality 
of,  71  ;  date  of  a  War  Office 
certificate  shown  to  be  erroneous 
by,  74  ;  at  the  "  Old  Kent  Manor 
House,"  76 ;  are  they  objective, 
231  ;  seen  by  more  than  one  per- 
son together,  235 ;  objectivity 
indicated  by  their  space  rela- 
tions, 237  ;  effects  of,  on  animals, 
239 ;  physical  effects  produced 
by,  244 ;  can  be  photographed, 
247 ;  objectivity  of,  does  not 
imply  materiality,  253  ;  what  are 
they,  and  why  do  they  appear  ? 
255  ;  telepathic  theory  of,  255  ; 
often  indicate  the  happiness  of 
the  dead,  267 ;  foretelling  events, 
271 ;  giving  a  warning,  272 ; 
probable  explanation  of  doubles 
and  phantasms,  274 

Atkinson,  H.  G.,  clairvoyant  ex- 
periment with  Adolphe  Didier,  68 

Aymar,  Jaques,  discovery  of  a 
murderer  by,  58 

BARING  GOULD  on  Jaques  Aymar, 

59,  60 
Barter,    General,   sees  phantasmal 

pony  and  rider,  241 


287 


Healings  Bells,  218,  246 

Beattie,  Mr.  John,  his  experiments 
in  spirit-photography,  200,  249 

Bell-ringing,  cases  of  mysterious, 
246 

Bertha,  Sister,  sees  a  phantasm  of 
Miss  Gambier  Parry  twelve 
hours  after  her  death,  268 

Bray,  Charles,  testimony  to  clair- 
voyance, 112;  his  theory  of  a 
"  thought  atmosphere "  unin- 
telligible, 113 

Brewster,  Sir  David,  his  account  of 
his  sitting  with  Mr.  Home,  165 

Bulldog  trembles  with  terror  at 
phantasmal  noises,  240 

Burton,  Captain,  testimony  as  to 
the  Davenport  Brothers,  100 

CARPENTER,  Dr.,  misstatement  by, 
34  ;  criticism  on  Mr.  Rutter,  58  ; 
omission  of  facts  opposed  to  his 
views  in  his  "Mental  Physi- 
ology," 70;  on  Faraday's  explana- 
tion of  table-turning,  279  ;  invited 
by  the  author  to  witness  pheno- 
mena, 279;  ''unconscious  cere- 
bration "  misapplied,  280. 

Challis,  Professor,  on  the  conclusive- 
ness  of  the  testimony,  101 

Chambers,  Dr.  Robert,  experiment 
by,  163  ;  extract  from  letter  of, 
186  (note) 

Chesterfield,mysterious  bell-ringing 
near,  247 

Cideville,  disturbances  at,  legally 
attested,  79 


288 


INDEX 


Clairvoyance,  tests  of,  62,  63 

Clark,  Dr.  T.  Edwards,  on  a  medical 
case  of  clairvoyance,  69 

Converts  from  the  ranks  of  Spiri- 
tualism never  made,  183 

Cook,  Miss  Florence,  tested  by  Mr. 
Varley  and  Mr.  Crookes  (in  note), 
187 

Cox,  Sergeant,  on  trance-speaking, 
208 

Criticism  on  the  Fortnightly  article 
replied  to,  282 

Crookes,  Mr.,  his  investigation  of 
the  phenomena,  102,  181;  his 
recent  declarations,  103 ;  his 
treatment  by  the  press,  181  ; 
on  materialisations  through  Miss 
Cook,  188  (note) ;  photographs  a 
spirit-form,  251 ;  his  treatment 
by  the  Secretaries  of  the  Royal 
Society,  280 

Crowell,  Dr.  Eugene,  on  a  curious 
physical  phenomenon,  245 ;  hU 
explanation  of  doubles,  274 

Curtis,  Miss  R.  F.,  prevision  in  a 
dream  of  accident  to  a  friend,  272 

D family,  apparition  seen  by, 

237 

Davenport  Brothers,  tested  by  Sir 
R.  Burton,  100  ;  by  Dr.  Sexton, 
177 

Dean,  Rev.  Dr.  R.,  a  witness  of 
cures  by  Valentine  Greatrak,  41 

Decline  of  belief  in  the  super- 
natural due  to  a  natural  law,  23 
(note) 

Deity,  the  popular  and  spiritualistic 
notions  of,  compared,  123 

De  Morgan,  Professor,  on  spiritual 
phenomena,  83 

Mrs.,  on  table-moving  with 

a  purpose,  86 

Dialectical  Committee,  investiga- 
tion by,  184 

Diseases  cured  by  Valentine  Great- 
ark,  41 


Disturbances,  unexplained,  before 
rise  of  modern  Spiritualism,  218  ; 
for  twenty  years  in  clergyman's 
house,  236 

Divining  rod,  58 

Dogs  frightened  during  the  distur- 
bances at  Tedworth,  241  ;  at 
Ep worth  parsonage,  241 

Door  opening  in  a  haunted  house, 
245,  246 

Doubles  supposed  to  be  due  to 
telepathy,  255 

Dunphy,  Mr.,  versus  Lord  Am- 
berley,  147 

EDINBURGH  REVIEW'S  criticism  on 

Young,  18 
Edmonds,  Judge,  investigation  by, 

87-90 ;   his  character,   172  ;   his 

mode  of  investigation,  173 ;    his 

daughter  speaking  in   languages 

unknown  to  her,  176 
Elliotson,  Dr.,  his  treatment  by  the 

medical  profession,  ix. ;  a  convert 

to  spiritualism,  99 
Experiments  and  tests  by  the  author, 

127-144 

F.  G.,  of  Boston,  Mass.,  sees  veri- 
dical phantasm  of  his  sister,  269 

Fire  test,  166 

Flammarion,  M.  Camille,  evidence 
of,  185 

Fortnightly  Review  on  the  disturb- 
ances at  the  residence  of  the 
Wesley  family,  80 

Fox,  Miss  Kate,  the  earliest  medium, 
153  ;  tested  by  committees,  154  ; 
by  Dr.  Robert  Chambers  and 
Mr.  R.  D.  Owen,  163  ;  stances 
with  Mr.  Livermore,  163 

Fryer,  Mr.,  hears  a  phantasmal 
voice,  257 

Future  life,  proof  of  the  great  use 
of  modern  Spiritualism,  220  ;  the 
spiritual  theory  of,  not  a  product 
of  the  medium's  own  mind,  225 


INDEX 


289 


CABLING,  Mr.,  sees  an  apparition  of 
a  dying  friend,  237 

Glanvil,  character  of,  24  ;  extracts 
from,  25,  241 

Greatrak,  Valentine,  cures  by,  41 

Gregory,  Dr.  William,  on  clair- 
voyance, 61  ;  criticism  of,  64 

Gully,  Dr.,  on  the  Cornhill  article 
and  Mr.  Home,  94 

Guppy,  Mrs.,  her  career  as  a  medium, 
168  ;  production  of  flowers,  170  ; 
experiments  in  spirit  -  photo  - 
graphy,  194 

Gwynne,  Dr.  and  Mrs.,  see  an  ap- 
parition extinguish  a  night-light, 
245 

HADDOCK,  Dr.  Joseph,  account  of 
discovery  of  stolen  property  by  a 
clairvoyant,  66 

Hall,  S.  C.,  his  conversion  from 
scepticism,  96  ;  undergoes  the  fire 
test,  166 

Mrs.  S.  C.,  on  a  dog  fright- 
ened by  phantasms,  243 

Hardinge,  Mrs.  Emma,  quotations 
from  her  addresses,^17,  119 

Hare,  Professor  Robert,  experi- 
ments and  tests  by,  90 

Harrison,  Mr.,  photographs  a  spirit- 
form,  251 

Harry,  Mr.  J.,  and  family  see  an 
apparition,  235 

Hauntings  often  indicate  a  mode  of 
punishment  of  crime,  276 

Historical  teachings  of  Spiritualism, 
212 

Home,  Mr.  Daniel  D. ,  experience 
of  Sir  David  Brewster  with,  165  ; 
the  fire  test,  166  ;  experience  of 
Sergeant  Cox  with,  167 ;  ex- 
posed to  twenty  years  of  scrutiny, 
168 

Houdin,  Robert,  opinion  of  Alexis 
the  clairvoyant,  67 

Howitt,  William,  on  healing  at  the 
tomb  of  the  Abbe"  Paris,  11 ;  testi- 


mony as  to  an  accordion  sus- 
pended in  the  air,  95 

Hume,  David,  on  miracles,  3  ;  de- 
finition of  a  miracle,  4  ;  argu- 
ments against  miracles,  6,  12 ; 
self-contradictions,  8 

Huxley,  Professor,  on  the  uninte- 
resting nature  of  the  phenomena, 
221 

ILLUSTBATIVE  extracts,  283 

Imagination,  effects  of,  41 

Invisible  intelligent  beings,  exist- 
ence of,  around  us  not  impossible, 
43  ;  their  action  on  matter  not  an 
"invasion  of  the  law  of  nature," 
48 

JACQUES  AYMAR,  remarkable  powers 
of,  58 

Jamblicus  on  divination,  remark- 
able correspondence  with  modern 
spiritualistic  phenomena,  283 

Joy,  Mr.  Algernon,  curious  case  of 
his  double,  257 

KEENER,  Dr.  Justinus,  on  a  dog's 
dread  of  an  apparition,  242 

Kerr,  Rev.  William,  M.A.,  testi- 
mony to  phenomena  occurring  in 
private,  97 

Keulemans,  Mr.  J.  G.,  sees  in 
Paris  the  phantasm  of  his  son  at 
time  of  death  in  London,  268 

LANG,  Mr.  Andrew,  on  absence  of 
growth  of  legend  in  the  case  of 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  23  (footnote) 

Law  of  continuity  applicable  to 
Spiritualism,  108 

Lecky,    assertions  about   miracles, 

20  ;   fallacies  in   his  arguments, 

21  ;  account  of  Glanvil,  24 ;   on 
growth  of  opinion  as  to  incredi- 
bility of  miracles,  37 

Lee,  Dr.  Edwin,  on  experiments 
with  Alexis  Didier,  the  clair- 
voyant, 67 

T 


290 


INDEX 


Lodge,  Professor  Oliver  J.,  obser- 
vations of  mental  and  physical 
phenomena,  103 

Lyndhurst,  Lord  Chancellor,  belief 
in  the  spiritual  phenomena,  99 

Levitation,  examples  of,  7,  8 

Lewes,  Mr.  G.  H.,  views  of,  as  to 
identical  hallucinations  criticised, 
203  (note) 

MACKENZIE,  Robert,  appears  after 
death  to  his  employer  to  defend 
his  character,  265 

Mapes,  Professor,  inquiries  into 
Spiritualism,  155 

Mayo,  Dr.  Herbert,  F.R.S.,  on 
clairvoyance,  64  ;  on  phreno-mes- 
merisrn,  65 

Medical  men,  evidence  of,  for  facts 
deemed  incredible,  20 

Mediums,  career  of  remarkable,  162 

Menneer,  Mrs.,  sees  a  dream-appa- 
rition of  her  brother  who  was 
killed  at  Sarawak,  263 

Mental  phenomena,  summary  of, 
206 

Mesmerism,  personal  experiences  of, 
127  ;  supposed  to  explain  Spiri- 
tualism, 130 

Miracle,  definitions  of,  4,  37 ;  at 
tomb  of  Abb^  Paris,  9  ;  modern 
objections  to,  14;  illogical  con- 
ceptions of,  46 

Miracles,  are  they  a  survival  of 
savage  thought,  27 

Mirville,  Marquis  de,  a  witness  of 
the  mysterious  disturbances  at 
Cideville,  80 

Montgeron,  evidence  of  miracles  at 
tomb  of  Abbe"  Paris,  11 

Moor,  Major,  on  mysterious  bell- 
ringings,  218,  246 
Moral   teachings    of    Spiritualism, 

115,  220 

Morgan,  Mr.  F.,  of  Bristol,  has 
a  curiously  indirect  warning, 
258 


Morrison,  Mrs.,  prevision  of  death 
by  a  voice,  271 

Moses,  William  Stainton,  a  remark- 
able medium,  102 

Mountford,  Rev.  \V.,  apparition  of 
horse  and  carriage  seen  by  him- 
self and  others,  238 

Mumler's  spirit-photographs,  248 

Murderer  discovered  by  occult 
power,  58 

Musical  phenomenon  with  Miss 
Nichol,  ]70 

Muller,  George,  account  of  his  life 
and  dependence  on  prayer,  216 

Myers,  Mr.,  on  the  experiences  of 
W.  Stain  ton -Moses,  102 

NEWNHAM,  Rev.  P.,  and  Mrs.,  re- 
ceive communications  from  sup- 
posed second  self  of  Mrs.  N.,  260 

OLD  KENT  MANOR  HOUSE,  appari- 
tions seen  in,  7(5 
Oracles  not  all  impostures,  213 
Owen,  Robert  Dale,  on  supernatural 
phenomena  occurring  unsought, 
71 ;  case  *f  apparition  seen  by 
two  persons  at  once,  72 ;  date 
of  a  War  Office  certificate  shown 
to  be  erroneous  by  means  of  an 
apparition,  74 ;  the  Old  Kent 
Manor  House,  76  ;  judicial  record 
of  disturbances  at  Cideville,  79 ; 
testimony  as  to  spirit-forms,  190 
(note) 

PERSONAL  evidence,  126  ;  first  ex- 
perience in  table-turning,  132  ; 
with  Mrs.  Marshall,  135 

Photographs,  a  conclusive  test,  188  ; 
conditions  of  a  satisfactory  test, 
191  ;  Mrs.  Guppy's  remarkable 
spirit-photograph,  194 ;  likenesses 
recognised  by  Mr.  Howitt,  196  ; 
by  Dr.  Thompson,  196  ;  by  the 
author,  196  (note);  Mr.  Slater's 
experiments,  197;  Dr.  R.  Wil- 


INDEX 


291 


Hams'    experiments,    197 ;     Mr. 

John  Beattie's  experiments,  200, 

250 

Physical  effects  produced  by  appa- 
ritions, 244 
Physical  phenomena,  summary  of, 

205 
Psychical     Research     Society,    its 

valuable  work,  232 
Practical    utility   of    Spiritualism, 

objections  replied  to,  281 
Prayer,  efficacy  of,  21t> 

QUARTERLY  REVIEW  on  Spiritualism, 
149 

RAMHURST  MANOR  HOUSE,  appari- 
tions seen  in,  76 

Reichenbach,  Baron  von,  his  ex- 
periments derided,  but  since  con- 
firmed, xi. ;  his  observations  on 
magnets  and  crystals,  54 ;  his 
witnesses,  55  ;  review  of  his  work, 
56 

Rivers,  Lieut.,  R.  N. ,  on  mysterious 
bell-ringing  in  Greenwich  Hos- 
pital, 246 

Robertson,  Dr.  J.  Lockhart,  tests 
the  phenomena  and  accepts  them 
as  facts,  161 

Rutter  on  the  magnetoscope,  57 

SCEPTICS,  investigations  by,  177 

Scientific  men,  denial  of  facts  by, 
17;  their  mode  of  dealing  with 
the  subject,  149  ;  refusal  to  in- 
vestigate, 279 

Second  or  subliminal  self,  e  ormous 
difficulties  of  theory  of,  262 

Severn,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  community 
of  sensation  at  a  distance,  257 

Senior,  Nassau  William,  on  mes- 
merism, and  his  belief  in  spiritual 
phenomena,  96 

Sexton,  Dr.  George,  his  mode  of 
conversion,  177 


Sherbroke,  Sir  John,  and  General 
George  Wynyard,  see  the  appari- 
tion of  Wynyard's  brother,  72 

Slater,  Mr.  Thomas,  his  experiments 
in  spirit-photography,  190,  250 

Socrates  rehabilitated  by  Spiritual- 
ism, 212 

Spirit-hypothesis  not  unscientific, 
xv. 

Spirit-photographs  proved  to  be 
realities,  xiv. ;  not  necessarily 
photographs  of  spirits,  192 

Spiritualism,  uncertainty  of  the 
alleged  phenomena  of,  16  ;  scien- 
tific testimony  demanded,  17  ; 
periodicals  devoted  to,  50  ;  recent 
testimony  to  the  facts  of,  101 ;  the 
theory  of,  107 ;  moral  teachings 
of,  115;  what  it  has  done,  124  ; 
personal  experiences,  131  ;  New 
Quarterly  Magazine  on,  148  ; 
Quarterly  Review  on,  149  ;  his- 
torical sketch  of,  152 ;  phenomena 
of,  156;  nature  of  the  belief  in, 
159;  no  recantations  in,  161; 
evidence  of  the  facts  of,  162 ; 
summary  of  phenomena,  205 ; 
phenomena  repeatedly  confirmed, 
210;  historical  teachings  of,  212  ; 
moral  teachings  of,  220  ;  a  science 
of  human  nature,  221  ;  practical 
results  of,  282 

Stone-throwing,  remarkable  case  of, 
in  Paris,  284 

Stainton-Moses,  Mr.,  a  remarkable 
medium,  102  ;  his  double  appears, 
256  ;  dreams  truly  the  details  of 
a  funeral  at  a  distance,  266 

Stigmata  first  denied  to  be  a  fact, 
now  admitted,  xi. 

Storie,  Mrs.,  dreams  of  accident  to 
her  brother,  264 

Supernatural  phenomena  so-called, 
works  relating  to,  34 ;  authors 
who  vouch  for  the  facts,  35 

Suspicion,  action  of,  illustrated,  283 

Sympathy  of  feeling,  127 


292 


INDEX 


TESTIMONY  of  modern  men  of 
science,  101 

Thackeray  on  phenomena  witnessed 
in  New  York,  98 

Thomson,  Dr.,  his  experiments  in 
spirit-photography,  249 

Trance-mediums,  after  stringent 
investigation,  declared  not  to  be 
impostors,  xii. 

Triviality  of  the  phenomena  often 
apparent  rather  than  real,  110 

Trollope,  T.  Adolphus,  evidence  of, 
93  ;  as  to  the  possibility  of  its 
being  conjuring,  168  ;  as  to  the 
production  of  flowers,  171 

Tylor,  Mr.  E.  B.,  on  miracles  as  a 
"survival  of  savage  thought," 
27  ;  his  mesmeric  theory  of  spiri- 
tual phenomena  answered,  125 

Tyndall,  Professor,  definition  of  a 
miracle  by,  37  ;  on  Spiritualism, 
150 ;  reply  to,  by  Mr.  Patrick 
Fraser  Alexander,  151  ;  declines 
investigation  of  the  facts,  279 

USES  of  Spiritualism,  124 

WAMBKY,  Rev.  0.  C.,  hears  a  phan- 
tom voice,  270 


War  Office  certificate  of  death  cor- 
rected by  apparition,  74 

Weld,  Mr.  W.,  and  his  daughter,  see 
apparition  of  his  son,  266 

Wesley  family  and  the  mysterious 
disturbances  at  Epworth,  80 

Whately,  Archbishop,  an  inquirer 
into  Spiritualism,  99 

Wheatcroft,  Mrs.,  sees  apparition 
of  her  husband  at  time  of  his 
death  in  India,  74 

Wilbraham,  the  Hon.  Colonel,  testi- 
mony to  the  genuineness  of  the 
phenomena  occurring  with  Mr. 
Home,  95 

Williams,  Dr.  R.,  his  experiments 
in  spirit-photography,  200 

Willis,  Dr.  F.  L.  H.,  remarkable  ex- 
perience with  a  musical  medium, 
283 

Witchcraft,  evidence  for,  26  ;  phe- 
nomena analogous  to  those  of 
modern  Spiritualism,  215  (note) 

YORKSHIRE  vicar  saved  by  a  warning 
voice,  272 

ZOLLNER,  Professor  J.  C.  F.,  remark- 
able test  by,  104  ;  remarkable 
experiments  of,  105 


THE  END 


Printed  by  BALLANTYNE,   HANSON  &  Co. 
Edinburgh  and  London 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


iY  2  6 1983 

MAY  1 

MAY  9  1988 
ROD  MAY  9 

L      1         *^      ™^^ 


MOV 

RETDNOV25 


Series  9482 


3   1205  00534  0144 


LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     001  062  286     8