appear. The raps are heard-the table rocks: he looks in vain for the agency. Again the table rocks; again he is totally at a loss to understand how any one present could cause it to rock. He is so completely thrown off his balance by this unexpected refutation of his original doubts, that he willingly acquiesces in the remark, "You see it moves, and that no one moves it." His conversion is complete. He is willing publicly to testifiy to the "facts" he has seen.

Now, if we scrutinise this evidence, it will appear that his senses told him simply that the table moved, and raps were heard. They could not tell him that no one moved the table-no one rapped the raps: they could only testify to the facts directly observed. The inference that no one did, or could, move the table, and the further inference that spirits moved it, cannot be ranged under the head of observed facts. These inferences may be correct, or incorrect; but they are assuredly not facts which can be testified by the evidence of the senses.

We were once witnesses of a "fact" quite as marvellous as any of the table-turnings. In a friendly gathering, a gentleman, well known to us all, produced a little skeleton cut out of card-board, which he undertook should dance on the ground as long as he whistled. He seated himself in the centre of the room, balanced the skeleton a moment on its feet, and then began to whistle. To our great astonishment and amusement we saw the skeleton, completely unsupported, standing upright and dancing with ludicrous energy. In asmuch as no one imagined this to be produced by a spirit, every one was eager to explain how the skeleton moved. Nothing could be more evident than that the skeleton was not touched by the whistler. Perhaps it was sustained by a magnet? No. Perhaps an invisible horsehair was attached to the skeleton, and held between the teeth of the whistler? To ascertain this, several of us passed our hands between the skeleton and the gentleman; but there was nothing there. In short, all our ingenuity failed to discover

how the trick was performed; and if we had been placed in a witness-box, we might have sworn that we saw a cardboard skeleton, totally unsupported, stand on the carpet, and dance while a gentleman whistled to it. But we should not have sworn that no physical agencies could have effected this; that would have been rather more than our evidence warranted; the utmost we could have sworn to was that we neither detected the agency, nor conceived how the skeleton was moved.

Had the writer of a paper, which recently appeared in the pages of a contemporary, known how to discriminate between fact and inference, he would have paused ere he committed himself by the statements there offered respecting his "experiences." Stranger than fiction. his narrative assuredly is; but the strangeness arises from his method of narration. How radically unfit his mind must be for the investigation of evidence, may be concluded from one or two sentences. For example, he says: "There was nobody in the apartment capable of practising a deception, and no conceivable object to gain by it." Considering the immense importance of the truth of this statement,-as a postulate in future inquiry removing the whole experience" from the reach of the most obvious explanation, and excluding the possibility of deception, we cannot but admire the simplicity with which the statement is made. It is loose after-dinner language, which under cross-examination speedily becomes modified into this very different statement: "There was, according to the best of my belief, nobody present who would stoop to practise a deception; nor can I conceive what object would have been gained by deceit." We then require to know what the "best of his belief" may be in this case. What does he know of the persons? Is his knowledge of them more extensive than that gained in dining with them, talking with them, finding them to hold unexceptionable opinions on religion, morals, and politics, and finding in general that they conduct themselves respectably? Has he had money

transactions with them all? Has he seen them under trying and delicate circumstances? He does not say. But all who know how completely we may be in the dark as to the perfect integrity of friends and relatives, should be slow to assert that no one among them is capable of practising a deception, when vanity or other motive impels. And to suppose that, because a séance takes place in the house of an honourable man, amid several honourable people, no one has been brought there capable of jugglery, either to gain money or notoriety, is to display a radical unfitness for the investigation of evidence. After this we read with less surprise that, "during the whole time when these communications are going forward, every person's hands are displayed on the surface of the table, so that no manipulation can take place beneath." This is the logic which convinces spiritualists. It makes other people smile. There are other means of producing raps besides hands; and before attributing the raps to spirits, we should like to have it proved that all other means were impossible. To jump to the conclusion that no physical agency produced these raps, because they were not produced by hands, is a wide leap.

"It is not to be expected," says this writer, after relating an exhibition of moving tables, "that any person who is a stranger to these phenomena should read such a story as this with complacency. It would be irrational to expect a patient hearing for a traveller who should tell you that he was once addressed in good English by an oak-tree; and talking trees are not a whit more improbable than moving tables." Very true; but so far from being staggered by this improbability, he glories in it, as illustrating the weakness of the human mind. And to be candid, it does illustrate the weakness of some minds. Having stated the improbability, he triumphantly adds: "Yet here is a fact which undoubtedly took place, and which cannot be referred to any known physical or mechanical causes." We beg distinctly to state that he only narrates a part of "the fact which

undoubtedly took place;" and that even this part, incomplete as it is, can be referred to known physical causes; and if he were to narrate the whole of the facts, the explanation would be given in that narration. If the traveller were simply to tell us that he heard himself addressed in good English while standing near an oak-tree, and that his efforts to discover a human being near or on the tree were fruitless, we should listen with perfect patience. If, however, he asserted that it was the oak-tree which spoke, we should demand evidence a little more rigorous than that of his inability to see any human being. Virgil and Tennyson have given us talking oaks, without greatly disturbing our philosophy;

we

can accept the moving-tables only on a similar licence. There is no improbability at all in the fact of moving-tables; none in the fact that the narrator cannot understand how the tables were moved; the improbability lies simply in the inference that the tables were moved by spirits: an inference confessedly based on ignorance of the means which were employed.

We have made no inconsiderable advance towards a philosophic appreciation of Spiritualism, when we have learned to withdraw our scepticism from the facts narrated, and to let it fall solely on the inferences which the spectators mingle with the facts. Respecting the inference that spiritual agency causes the movements and the raps, we shall perhaps soon come to a decision, if we treat it purely as a question of inference. We must ask, what are the evidences for the existence of spirits in general? And having made out some show of reason for this belief, we may then proceed to examine the evidence for the actual presence and agency of spirits in the rapping and table-turning.

It is in the dim perception of some such necessity as this, that Mr Robert Dale Owen, son of the once celebrated socialist, has collected the evidence in favour of spiritual communications, in a work, republished from the tenth American edition, entitled, Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. His book is a

curious farrago, but it is less foolish than the majority of the writings we have read on this subject, and its great success in America justifies us in selecting it for notice. Mr Owen seems perfectly in earnest, and imagines that there is strict philosophical evidence for the truth of his opinions. Whatever may be thought of his logic or his sagacity, we cannot deny that his tone is temperate, candid, and free from all charlatanism. He has made a collection of stories respecting dreams, apparitions, and haunted houses, which of itself gives interest to the work, and makes it a valuable record.

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Mr Owen begins by claiming the abstract right to investigate "the reality of ultra-mundane interference. We concede the right to the utmost; and ask, with him: What scientific hypothesis do men at the present day scruple to examine And, if scientific, why not spiritual also? Are we prepared to trust our reason in the one case and not in the other?" If the believers in Spiritualism were really anxious to have their hypothesis investigated according to strict scientific methods, there would soon cease to be much difference of opinion; unhappily, while they all claim the right to scientific inquiry, invoke scientific freedom, and scatter scientific formulæ over their statements, they all resist or evade scientific inquiry; some from conscious scoundrelism, others from that impatience of dissent which is common to strong convictions that have not been rationally formed. The impostors, of course, resist every means of disclosing the imposture. The honest believers (and we have not the slightest doubt of the integrity of the mass of believers) are so unacquainted with the principles of evidence and the ordinary methods of verification, that they willingly listen to the impudent excuses by which the impostors resist and evade inquiry. It is one of the damning evidences against the "Medium" that he, or she, will not permit a sceptic to determine any of the simplest conditions of the experiment. No sooner is the presence of a sceptic confessed, or betrayed by his desire to ascertain all the

conditions, than the excuse is put forward of there being a disturbing influence"-and we are told that the Spirits refuse to appear while that influence" remains. This is dexterous impudence. It is dexterous, because the assembly, not being acquainted with Spirits, cannot deny that scepticism may be offensive to them. It is impudent, because the Medium thereby pretends that he is acquainted with the feelings of the Spirits, who have distinctly told him they were offended by scepticism; and the baseness of this pretence is easily exposed, for the sceptic need only withhold every expression of incredulity, and if he is a sufficiently good actor to deceive the Medium, he will find the Spirits are not in the least disturbed by his presence. This has been the plan we have uniformly adopted. Suspecting the integrity of the exhibitors, we pretended to be dupes in order to throw them off their guard. This succeeded so well, that not only were the Spirits totally unaware of any disturbing influence, but on one occasion the Medium boasted to other people of our complete conversion. It may be said that we were only dealing with impostors, and that Spiritualism is not to be held accountable for all that charlatans may do in its name. This is true. But we are justified in drawing this conclusion: Among the persons who profess to be "Mediums," there are some impostors; and one test of imposture is in the power of every one having sufficient command over his muscles not to betray scepticism.

Let us, however, assume that it is the mere excuse of conscious charlatanry when scepticism is said to act as a disturbing influence on the spiritual manifestations, and that all genuine spiritualists really desire to have the phenomena investigated properly. If there be truth at bottom, it can only become more patent by rigorous examination. Now, every scientific investigator is painfully aware of the extremé difficulty in keeping before the mind all the facts, all the conditions of an experiment; some unobserved condition, or one seemingly so trivial that it is neglected, will often vitiate the result,

as the omission of a cipher will vitiate the solution of an arithmetical problem. Incessant caution, and incessant control by counter-experiment, are necessary before the smallest discovery in physical science can be accepted; yet men require us to accept a discovery so startling and momentous as that of communication with the spiritual world in the form of dancing-tables, on the evidence of facts hastily collected in drawingrooms, and interpreted without experimental control by persons wholly unused to the investigation of evidence. In the laboratory we test every fact we rigidly question every circumstance. In the drawing-room we are restrained by politeness from taking the most ordinary precautions. We can put an acid to the test at once, and see whether it is really what we suppose it to be; but we cannot in a drawing-room, full of well-dressed people, turn to a spiritual American and say, "Perhaps, sir, you are an impostor; let us test you,"--we cannot address a young lady with our suspicions that she is yielding to the temptation of love of notoriety, or that wantonness of deceit which are known to move girls to practise persistent and ingenious deceptions. Thus, while Imposture has every facility, none is allowed to Investigation. In crowded rooms and darkened rooms many things may happen which the most sagacious sceptic may be wholly unable to explain, and which, because he cannot explain them, will be accepted as marvellous by others. But if there is any Medium who wishes to clear his character of the suspicion of imposture which must inevitably cling to it in the minds of all but believers, or if there is any sincere believer truly desirous to have the phenomena tested-we will not say with the rigour demanded by a scientific experiment, but simply with that degree of circumspection in the reception of evidence demanded by a court of law-he will insist on every sceptic present at a séance having the right to ascertain every minute detail-to control the experiment in any way he may devise-and to cross-examine the evidence. We shall be told that this has been done:

the believers were all sceptics at first. Perhaps so; but mere disbelief is not sufficient: a scientific inquiry demands something more than that, and the unfitness of most believers for examining any complicated question of evidence is but too apparent in their statement of "facts." Disbelief there has been in abundance-cross-examination has not been permitted.

Mr Dale Owen conceives that, inasmuch as spiritual communications have been believed in from the earliest times, and that thousands of witnesses testify to the truth of apparitions, haunted houses, dreams, &c., we are justified in concluding table-turning and rapping to be phenomena of the same class. Philosophy may smile at a belief in Ghosts and Haunted Houses; but that, Mr Owen thinks, is owing to the limitations of philosophy; a calmer, broader wisdom will see that these beliefs must rest upon solid fact. "If we find, for instance," he

says, at different periods of the world, and in various nations, examples constantly recurring of men testifying to certain phenomena of the same or similar character, then, though these alleged phenomena may seem to us highly improbable, we are not justified in ascribing the concurrence of such testimony to chance." And pray who ever thought of ascribing it to chance? It has generally been ascribed to cerebral excitement or imperfect logic; but whether or not it was to be explained on psychological laws, no one ever imagined it could be due to chance. Mr Dale Owen, not discriminating between fact and inference, naturally concludes that the testimonies of ghost-seers must be valid evidence of the existence of ghosts. "It seems a very easy matter," he says, "to find witnesses of such moderate veracity and intelligence, that we are justified in declaring it to be more probable that their testimony shall be true than that it shall be false." Yes; but what is their testimony? It may be true that they saw something which they inferred to be a ghost; but this is no evidence that their inference was true. Not recognising this difficulty in testimony, Mr Owen