The psychic element is presented, not as feeding, but as feeding on successive worlds, like a silk-worm on mulberry-leaves, leaving geological strata behind it, for instance, as the refuse of its mineral sojourn.

Souls are first individualized in the fluidic or atmospheric world; and if they are docile to the instruction of that world, they never "incur the penalty of incarceration in bodies of planetary matter, and consequently never become men," but remain in this or that fluidic world until ripe for the highest or "sidereal order." On the other hand, the spirits who are indocile enter upon the second series of metempsychosis, "having brought upon themselves the penalty of exile in a planet corresponding, in the compactness or comparative fluidity of its material constituents, to the degree of their culpability."

(P. 309) "The moral and intellectual state of the soul decides the corresponding magnetic action of the perisprit, and thereby decides the nature of the body which is formed by that action."

(319) "While accomplishing the new series of incorporations in progressively nobler forms, in higher and higher planets, the spirit goes back, at each disaggregation of its material envelope, into the fluidic sphere of the planet in which its last material embodiment has been accomplished."

(322) "The fluidic world being the normal world of souls, we remain in intimate (though usually unconscious) connection with the fluidic sphere of the planet, while incarnated on its surface. We return to it during sleep, when, through the elasticity of the perisprit (which has been seen by clairvoyants elongated into a sort of luminous cord connecting the soul with the sleeping body), we are enabled to visit our friends in the other life."

(326) "The more extended vision of the fluidic sphere shows (its inhabitants) a wide range of human actions and intentions, and thus enables them to forecast with more or less correctness, and, when permitted to do so, to predict the same with more or less exactness, according to the flexibility of the medium."

S. Augustine has a fine passage in his De Divinatione Dæmonum, cap. iii., comparing the keenness and swiftness (acrimonia sensûs et celeritas motûs) which the devils possess in virtue of their fluidic state (aerium corpus) to the vulture's knowledge, who, "when the carcase is thrown out, flies up from an unseen distance; and to the osprey's, who, floating aloft, is said at that vast height to see the fish swimming beneath the waves, and fiercely smiting the water with outstretched legs and talons, to ravish it."

I can conceive the attractions of such a system, combining, as it does, the ingenuity and fulness of Platonism with something of the color and rhythm of modern science. If any concordat is to be made between religious enthusiasm unattached and science, I do not think the chances of spiritualism are to be despised. Just at present, however, although some scientific men have taken up spiritualism, there can be no doubt that, on the whole, spiritualism and science are at daggers drawn. There is no mistaking the utter loathing expressed in Professor Huxley's letter (Rep., p. 229), in which he declines to take any part in the committee's investigation, on the ground that, "supposing the phenomena to be true, they do not interest me." He has a perfect right to compare spiritualistic talk to "the chatter of old women and curates in a cathedral town"; but his anger has made him quite miss the logical point of the position. The privilege he declines as worthless is the opportunity, not of listening to such conversation, but of examining and testing the hitherto ignored faculty; and this no man can seriously reject as uninteresting.

There is no difficulty in understanding the bitterness with which modern science regards spiritualism. It had been for so long carrying everything before it; it had weighed so many things on earth and in the heavens; it had reduced so many apparently eccentric phenomena to law; its discoveries had been so brilliant, and its still more brilliant projections were so plausible, that it flattered itself that all idea of the supernatural was fairly relegated to the obscure past or to the obscurer future. The philosophy of the XIXth century was being fast reduced to a bare statement of the contents of sensation, and the philosophers of the day were looking for an easy victory over the most respectable of dogmatic traditions, when, lo! full in the calm scientific light, the singularly grotesque form of spiritualism lifts its head, and the warrior who had so loudly challenged the king to mortal combat finds himself set upon by the court fool. When earth, according to the poet's dream, should be "lapped in universal law," up starts a mass of phenomena not merely inexplicable by any known law, but, in popular estimation at least, incompatible with any hypothesis but that of supernatural agency. It has been the more intolerable that spiritualism had affected an imposing vocabulary of scientific terms, recommending itself to its audience by an appeal to partially known laws, such as magnetism and electricity, whilst really indulging in the most unblushing necromancy. Thus the scientific formulæ have been given somewhat the rôle of captives in the triumph of superstition. No wonder scientific men are angry. But whilst they "do well to be angry," I think they do by no means well to refuse to investigate the subject because on various accounts it is offensive to them.

Scientific men frequently complain that spiritualists will not submit their séances to the test of a public examination in broad daylight. Now, this is really not a fair statement of the case. Spiritualists say that they have found by experience that a certain class of phenomena require dark or twilight; but a vast number of independent physical manifestations do take place in broad daylight. On the other hand, when the scientific investigator insists upon interfering with the constituents of the séance, the arrangement of the circle, etc., the spiritualist answers, fairly enough, that, since under the most favorable conditions the success of the séance cannot be reckoned on, it would be absurd to allow the abandonment of what experience has shown to be a necessary condition of success. "With the phenomena of magic we can experimentalize but little; neither can we evoke the least of them at our good pleasure. We can but observe them where they present themselves, gather them into corresponding groups, and discover among them common features and common laws." (Perty, Mystisch. Erscheinungen—Vorrede, p. xi.) This being understood, spiritualists invite the representatives of science to make what observations they please in broad daylight, when, at least, they will be able to discount such disturbing conditions as they may not eliminate. It is an onus, certainly, for the investigator to have to form a part of what is going on; but this is no more than the detective undergoes when he plays the accomplice in order to discover the thief. Say that spiritualism is a folly, a disease, what you will, it is at least of the highest scientific interest and practical importance that we should understand its conditions and action as thoroughly as possible. If scientific men have no more serious scruple to keep them aloof than the dignity of their order—for, after all, this is what Mr. Huxley's excuses come to—the exigencies of the case require that it should be put aside. If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.

Nothing is more calculated to bring out the inherent diversities of the human mind than the investigation of spiritualism; for it not only involves an examination of some of the most difficult problems relating to evidence, but, indirectly at least, an examination of the whole process by which each individual concerned rejects or assimilates his mental pabulum. Hence the extraordinary difficulty of conducting such an inquiry without incessant wrangling. The Committee of the Dialectical Society, to whose Report I have so often referred, is quite a case in point. Its Report is the record of a schism, of an irreconcilable clash of opinions. If the committee had waited until these had been reduced to harmony, the Report would never have been published. One of the principal members—Dr. Edmunds—was, I think, exceptionally tried. His own opinion was and is that spiritualism is a mixture of trickery and delusion; but his own dining-room table habitually took sides against him, and this in the most treacherous manner. It used to wait until he had left the room, and then, in the presence of the other investigators, run around with nobody touching it.

You might almost as well meddle with a man's digestion as with his belief. Prove that his convictions are groundless, and he feels as outraged as though you had affixed a register to his waistcoat which showed the world that his favorite dish had disagreed with him. Dr. Garth Wilkinson (Rep., p. 234) is by no means singular in his experience "that nearly all truth is temperamental to us, or given in the affections or intuitions, and that discussion and inquiry do little more than feed the temperament." And what a variety of temperaments will inevitably be found in any committee of investigation—men who, like Mr. Lewes, consider the possibility of an hypothesis which cannot be rigidly tested unworthy of consideration, or like Mr. Grattan Geary (Rep., p. 95), who, on finding that many eminent men are spiritualists, is simply impressed by the number of eminent men who are enjoying an unmerited reputation for sanity. After all, men make more account, as a general rule, of one little bit of experience, the real force of which is incommunicable, and which, when put into words for another's benefit, is often to the last degree trivial, than of all the arguments in the world. A charming example of this is given by Dr. H. More in a letter to Glanville, published at the beginning of the latter's Sadducismus Triumphatus: "I remember an old gentleman in the country of my acquaintance, an excellent justice of the peace, and a piece of a mathematician; but what sort of a philosopher he was you may understand from a rhime of his own making, which he commended to me on my taking horse in his yard, which rhime is this:

which rhime of his was so rapturous to himself that, at the reciting of the second verse, the old man turned himself about upon his toe as nimbly as one may see a dry leaf whisk'd round in the corner of an orchard-walk by some little whirlwind. With this philosopher I have had many discourses concerning the immortality of the soul and its distinction. When I have run him quite down by reason, he would laugh and say, 'That is logick, H.,' calling me by my Christian name. To which I replied, 'This is reason, Fr. L. (for so I and some others used to call him), but it seems you are for the new light and direct inspiration,' which, I confess, he was as little for as for the other; but I said so only by way of drollery to him in those times. But truth is, nothing but palpable experience could move him; and being a bold man, and fearing nothing, he told me he had tried all the ceremonies of conjuration he could to raise the devil or a spirit, and had a most earnest desire to meet with one, but never could do it. But this he told me: when he did not so much as think of it, while his servant was pulling off his boots in the hall, some invisible hand gave him such a clap on the back that it made all ring again. So, thought he, now I am invited to the converse of my spirit; and therefore, so soon as his boots were off and his shoes on, out he went into the yard and next field to find out the spirit that had given him this familiar clap on the back, but found none neither in the yard nor field next to it. But though he did not feel the stroke, albeit he thought it afterwards (finding nothing come of it) a mere delusion, yet, not long before his death, it had more force with him than all the philosophical arguments I could use to him, though I could wind him and nonplus as I pleased; but yet all my arguments, how solid soever, made no impression upon him. Wherefore, after several reasonings of this nature, whereby I would prove the soul's distinction from the body, and its immortality, when nothing of such subtile considerations did any more execution on his mind than some lightning is said to do, though it melts the sword, upon the fuzzy consistency of the scabbard, well, said I, Fr. L., though none of these things move you, I have something still behind, and what you yourself acknowledged to me, that may do the business. Do you remember that clap on the back when your servant was pulling off your boots in the hall? Assure yourself, said I, Fr. L., that goblin will be the first that will bid you welcome into the other world. Upon that his countenance changed most sensibly, and he was more confounded with this rubbing up of his memory than with all the rational and philosophical arguments I could produce."

Whilst admitting that the Report of the Dialectical Society indicates a very considerable initial success, I cannot but feel the undiminished importance of W. M. Wilkinson's rather caustic warning (Rep., p. 231): "The first thing in such an investigation is to assume nothing, not even that a committee of the Dialectical Society can 'obtain a satisfactory elucidation of the phenomena.' No committee has ever done so yet. A committee of professors of Harvard University, amongst whom was Agassiz, after they had made an examination, did not think proper to publish their report, though they had published their intention to do so, and were frequently and publicly asked for it." The London Society has, at least improved upon the example.

I have maintained throughout that neither the hypothesis of trickery nor of delusion can be sustained for a moment as an adequate explanation of the phenomena of spiritualism, on grounds which may be thus summarized: 1. Many of these phenomena outdo all conjuring. 2. They take place where the possibility of trickery has been eliminated. 3. The exhibition of imaginative excitement is, on the whole, inconsiderable, and there is no appreciable proportion between the degrees of excitement and the phenomena. But, at the same time, I am far from maintaining that there is no trickery amongst the mediums, and no predisposition in the company tending more or less to disqualify them from detecting it. I am inclined to think that more or less trickery forms part of the stock in trade of most mediums, but that its share in the production of phenomena is comparatively slight.

Mr. Browning's marvellous conception of Sludge the Medium is based, I admit, upon a real, existing unscrupulosity on the one side, and on a real, existing gullibility on the other; but these are magnified into colossal and perfectly unreal proportions so far as Sludge is to be taken as a representative of his class. In many cases a single fraud may fairly be taken to vitiate the whole projection. If in a chemical demonstration, for instance, we were to discover the secret substitution, by the operator, of an ingredient not in the programme, we might fairly conclude that the whole thing was a pretence; that there was nothing in it. But this is not necessarily so in the case of spiritualism; the lie or trick does not always imply the total absence of other force, but may be an initial ceremony, preparing the company by quickening their expectations, and propitiating the evil influence by an acceptable sacrifice of human honor.

It must be confessed that there is something very suggestive of trickery, and of silly trickery, in the attempts made from time to time by the spirits to flatter into good-humor the anti-spiritualistic critic of the company; as when Professor Tyndall was dubbed "Poet of Science,"[196] and when Dr. Edmunds' portrait was given in such glowing colors that, except in the character of a sceptic, he would have been ashamed to reproduce it (Report). Again, that something like systematic trickery has sometimes been attempted would seem to be established by the very remarkable evidence of Mr. W. Faulkener Surgeon (Rep., p. 125): "He said that for years he had been in the habit of supplying magnets for the production of rapping sounds at spiritual séances.... Some of these magnets—as, for instance, the one he had brought with him—were made for concealment about the person; while others were constructed with a view to their attachment to various articles of furniture.... He had never himself fitted up a house with these magnets, and he only knew of one house, Mr. Addison's, that is so fitted up. He also stated that he had not supplied any of these magnets for two or three years."

As regards the company's predisposition to believe in spiritualism, I admit that a sufficient predisposing reaction against materialism has taken place, giving room for a man to constitute what "Sludge" calls

Nay, I admit that the following fiercely graphic catalogue of the medium's patrons only sins by omission:

And far stronger than any such predispositions is the intense and widespread feeling, so pathetic even in its uncouthest manifestations, to which Dr. Edmunds refers (Rep., p. 57): "Prior to the experience gained in this inquiry, I never realized the vast hold which the supernatural has upon mankind. Minds which have broken away from the commonplace lines of faith, and thrown overboard their belief in revealed religion, have not cast out the longing after immortality." And I may add, that when all religious assurance of what the soul must needs desire is absent, the longing for some visible, palpable witness becomes proportionably intenser. And so just now, from the very lack of faith, there is an exceptionally vehement desire that some one should come with unmistakable credentials from beyond the grave, and make us see, and feel, and know what we cannot help longing for; and it is difficult to say to what extent the wish may not be father to the thought.

I admit that all this constitutes an adverse momentum of antecedent probability. But, after all, spiritualists, as a whole, are not persons who have given any indications that this yearning has so wholly overbalanced their critical faculty as to make them incompetent witnesses. Moreover, we have, as witnesses to spiritualistic phenomena, not merely the spiritualists proper, but persons who, as regards the predominance of this sentiment, are their extremest opposites—viz., the advocates of psychic force. It must be admitted that these persons are either without the yearning for evidence of a future life, or at least hold it in complete subordination to the critical faculty.

It may easily be contended that I have been overrating the progress and prospects of spiritualism, for that the public prints as a rule make fun of it. I may be reminded that Mr. Browning has exposed it, in the region of poetry, in his Sludge the Medium; Professor Tyndall in that of prose, in his delicious account of a séance, in which he discomfits the medium and plays spirits himself, to the great edification of the company, who rebuke him solemnly for his want of faith in his own make-believe; that the keen critics of the Saturday and the Pall Mall invariably treat spiritualism as unmitigated humbug.

In reply, I point to the Report; to the testimony of an antagonist like Mr. Geary, as to the number of eminent men who believe in spiritualism; to the notorious fact that scientific men, as a whole, in Germany and America have ceased to regard spiritualism as a mere delusion; to the recent correspondence in the Times, and particularly to the article of December 26, 1872, wherein the writer, after reviewing the Report, exclaims that "it is high time competent hands undertook the unravelling of this gordian knot. It must be fairly and patiently unravelled, and not cut through. The slash of the Alexandrian blade has been tried often enough, and has never sufficed. Scientific men forget that, in the matter of spiritualism, they must make themselves fools in order that they may become wise." The writer then proceeds to relate how he went off to examine for himself. He tells us that he and his friend enter a room, the furniture of which consisted of a table and a few cane-bottomed chairs, which he previously examines; that in an inner room, during a dark séance, in which the medium's hands and feet have been carefully secured, a chair is lifted up and thrown upon the table; that afterwards, in the outer room, "the furniture became quite lively, and this in broad daylight; a chair jumped three or four yards across the carpet, our hat fell to our feet, and numerous other phenomena occurred"; but the mediums are free, and he is nervous about them. In another séance, the same writer, whilst the medium's hands and feet are in custody, has various things thrust into his hand, and once "felt distinctly the touch of a large finger and thumb." Several times during the séance he takes the opportunity, freely accorded, of carefully searching under the table with a lamp. He confesses there was nothing during the whole evening, except the phenomena themselves, to suggest imposture. "We tried our best to detect it, but found no trace of it." And then he ends with "a slash of the Alexandrian blade," after all, and suggests that still trickery it must be.

Spiritualism indubitably affords, and in all probability will continue to afford, an abundant and legitimate field for the satirist of human folly, even when its substantial reality has been admitted; for it is a condescension to a great vulgar want, and its supplies are detailed, for the most part, through the unwashed fingers of very scurvy fellows indeed. Neither is there anything in the discipline necessary for the development of a medium, so far as I know, which makes his refinement as a class probable.

Educated men are naturally shy of admitting their connection with anything involving so much that is low and disagreeable, except as a sort of "casual ward" experience; just as men are usually shy of its being known that they eat strange meats, such as rats, out of siege-time. But once let an heroic rat-eater come forward, impelled by a sense of public duty, to tell the world what a noble viand it is neglecting, when, lo! it appears, from confessions on this side and on that, that numbers know all about it, and have been secretly indulging in the rat feast. So it is with spiritualism and its adherents; it is only now and again that the curtain is lifted up, and we are enabled to appreciate the hold which it is steadily making good on the public imagination.

As to the line taken by the Pall Mall and the Saturday, the question is whether the critics who write in these periodicals could, under any circumstances, adapt their method and style, I will not say to the support, but to the fair discussion, of an uncouth, ill-conditioned, sensational enthusiasm like spiritualism. As it was the Crusader's boast that he never touched the unbeliever save with the sword, so, it would seem, some of our critics plume themselves upon never touching enthusiasm but with a sneer. Our present school of critics is the result of a reaction from the enthusiastic Young England school of forty years ago, who were romanticists, patronizing religious enthusiasm as one of the many forms of romance. We can hardly expect that a school which is inclined to regard all religious sentiment as something essentially weak and finikin; which can talk of Joan of Arc as a "crazy servant-girl,"[197] should be civil to an exhibition of enthusiasm much weaker, and vulgar to boot. Neither do I see how it would be possible to write a trenchant critique of such a nondescript medley, except by treating it as a form of mania. It admits of no precise scientific treatment, for it falls under no one category. Spiritualism, to discuss, not to banter, would be as uncongenial a subject for the Pall Mall or the Saturday as a case of chronic bronchitis for a brilliant public operator.

When the "Jupiter" of the latter days is engaged in duly chronicling, for the edification of the public, the splendid spiritualistic phenomena with which Antichrist will dazzle the world, should the Pall Mall and Saturday still exist, we should not look for them even then amongst the enthusiastic crowd. Though employed in the government interest, they will surely be allowed to do their old work in their old way, and we shall find them engaged in the congenial task of mocking the last miracles by which Enoch and Elias are gathering in the remnant of the elect.

It may be insisted that the one effectual way of repressing spiritualism is to pooh-pooh it. Surely it is too late; you must give its many sober adherents some better reason against trusting their own senses than its making other people laugh.

Assuredly spiritualism can never be safely despised until its reality has been discounted and its author recognized.