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German novelist, born at Magdeburg. He produced novels of the Young German school, influenced by Gutzkow, well constructed in plot, but somewhat over-weighted with moralizings. These placed him in the front rank of authorship. They include Problematical Natures (1861; 9th ed. 1880), with sequel, Through Night to Light (1862); Hammer and Anvil (1869; 8th ed. 1881); Storm-Floods (1878); Noblesse Oblige (1888); A New Pharaoh (1889); Faustulus (1897); Ever Forward (1872); What the Swallow sang (1873); The Hohensteins (1864); Rank and File (1866); Low Land (1879); Love for Love (1875); Quisisana (1880). See Study by Karpeles (1889). He translated into German Curtis's Howadji and Emerson's English Traits, among other translations.

Spielmann, MARION HARRY (1858), English art critic and author, born in London; was an engineer till 1884. He soon turned to literature, and contributed to the Pall Mall Gazette (1883-90), Daily Graphic, and Graphic as art critic (till 1891); Black and White as art editor (1890). Spielmann was editor of the Magazine of Art from 1887 till its publication ceased in July, 1904. (See MAGAZINE OF ART.) In 1886 he published a Pall Mall extra on "The Works of Mr. G. F. Watts, R.A.'; also Henrietta Ronner (1891), The Hist. of Punch (1895), Millais and his Works (1898), Thackeray (1899), Ruskin (1900), Chaucer's Portraits (1900), Charles Kean (1903), and The Art of John MacWhirter, R.A. (1904).

Spigelia, a genus of American herbaceous plants belonging to the order Loganiacea. They bear spikes of yellow, red, or purple flowers, and a few species are sometimes grown in gardens. S. Marylandica, with scarlet and yellow tubular flowers in a onesided spike, is the Indian pink or pink root, somewhat used as a vermifuge.

Spike, an inflorescence in which the flowers are arranged without stalks along a simple, undivided axis, as in the plantain. Strobilus, spadix, and amentum are terms used to indicate special forms of spikes, as illustrated by the inflorescences of the hop, the arum, and the willow respectively.

Spikenard, or NARD, a hardy perennial Himalayan herbaceous plant (Nardostachys jatamansi) belonging to the order Valerianaceæ. It has a thick, fusiform root, which is very fragrant, and it bears dense heads of reddish flowers in late autumn. It is quite easy of cultivation in ordinary soil. As a perfume and as a stimulant medicine, spikenard root has always been held in great esteem in the Orient.

Spiking Guns is now practically an obsolete term. It applied to muzzle-loaders, fired from a vent or touch-hole in the breech, which was closed by driving into it a spike or iron rod, afterwards broken short off by a hammer. The only remedy was drilling another vent, a long and tedious process. The modern equivalent is the removing or destroying of the breech-block and the sights of the gun.

Spina Bifida, or CLEFT SPINE, a condition due to arrest of development in some vertebræ, resulting in the protrusion of the spinal cord and its membranous coverings. It may occur in any part of the spinal column. The appearance is that of a tense, fluctuating tumor, covered often by only a very thin skin. The condition is generally fatal within a few days or weeks after birth. But sometimes the condition is spontaneously cured by the gradual oozing away of the cerebrospinal fluid and the closure of the aperture in the column. Injections of iodine sometimes succeed by inducing absorption.

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Forms of Spike.

1. Spadix (arum). 2. Catkin (willow). 3. Spike (plantain). 4. Strobilus (hop).

Spinach. An annual kitchen vegetable (Spinacia oleracea), the arrow-shaped root leaves of which are used for greens. It may be sown out of doors as early in the spring as the ground can be worked, in rows 12 inches apart, putting in 30 to 40 seeds to each foot of row. For the early spring crop the seed is planted in August or early September and the crop covered on the approach of winter with a 2-inch mulch of leaves, straw, or other clean litter. This is removed early in the spring, and the plant rapidly reaches edible size. The plants are thinned to 6 to 8 inches in the rows and are ready for gathering within about 8 weeks from the time of planting. Spinach is in greatest demand in

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A. The spinal column, side view. Atlas (1st cervical vertebra) from above. C. Axis (2d cervical vertebra), side view. D. Dorsal vertebra, side view. E. Section of a vertebra, showing structure. F. Section of two lumbar vertebra, showing ligaments. 1, Cervical, 2, dorsal, 3, lumbar vertebræ; 4, sacrum; 5, coccyx; 6, body of vertebra; 7, spinous process; 8, 9, transverse process; 10, superior articular surface; 11, inferior; 12, superior articular process; 13, inferior; 14, articulation for rib; 15, intervertebral substance; 16, anterior common ligament; 17, posterior; 18, ligamenta subflava; 19, interspinous ligament; 20, supraspinous ligament; 21, foramen for spinal cord; 22, foramen for blood-vessel.

are called cervical; the next twelve lie between the shoulders and the waist, and are known as dor al; while the remaining five, the lumbar vertebræ, are situated immediately above the sacrum. Each vertebra consists CI two essential parts-an anterior solid segment or body, with concave surfaces above and below, and a posterior hollow segment or arch. The vertebræ are superimposed one upon the other, so that the bodies make a strong, solid pillar, while the arches form a continuous bony canal behind. Between each pair of vertebræ apertures exist for the spinal nerves arising from the spinal cord within the canal. The two highest cervical vertebræ present characteristic modifications in connection with the movements of the head, the upper being known as the atlas, and the second as the axis. The atlas has no body, but is a mere bony ring, capable of rotation around the odontoid process of the axis.

Spinal Column

All the cervical vertebræ have the transverse process on each side pierced by a foramen, through which the vertebral artery and vein pass. The spine is thick and nearly horizontal in direction. It furnishes attachment for the strong ligamentum nuchæ or ligament of the neck. Its average length is about two feet two inches. Viewed laterally, the spine presents several curvatures which correspond with its different regions. The cervical curve is the least marked, and is concave backward, the dorsal is concave forward, the lumbar is concave posteriorly, while below the lumbar region the sacrum and coccyx form the pelvic curve, which has its concavity looking forward. From the greater traction exercised by the muscles of the right arm, the dorsal region of the spine generally presents a lateral curvature, the convexity of which is toward the right side, and also a slight compensatory curve of an opposite nature in the lumbar region. The cartilages between the vertebræ form in the aggregate nearly one-fourth of the total length of the spine; but they are not uniform in thickness, being thinner in the dorsal than in the cervical and lumbar regions, which have, consequently, greater pliancy and mobility. The ligaments of the spinal column are mostly characterized by the large amount of elastic tissue which they contain, and which serves to maintain the upright position with but little expenditure of muscular energy. The transverse ligament of the atlas stretches across the ring of that bone, and retains the odontoid process of the axis in the anterior arch. Death by hanging is due to the rupture of this ligament, as a result of which the odontoid process crushes the medulla oblongata and destroys the vital centres. Strong ligaments also connect the occipital bone with the axis and with the atlas. The spinal column is the central support for the framework of the body. The maximum of movement between two adjacent vertebræ is very slight, but the aggregated movements of several such joints amount to a considerable range of mobility. The curvature of the spine adds to its strength, and confers upon it the properties of an elastic spring. It thus dissipates the force of a fall instead of transmitting it to the head, as a rigid and straight column would do. The spine also forms an armored flexible tube for the protection of the delicate spinal cord.

The spinal column may be the seat of sprains, fractures, or dislocations, as well as of synovitis

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in one or more of the many synovial joints. Sprains are apt to be associated with persistent pain, and are often followed by rheumatic inflammations. Fractures and dislocations are attended by the serious risk that the spinal cord may suffer either laceration or compression. Dislocation of the spine without fracture is impossible except in the cervical region, and there it is uncommon. For Pott's disease of the spine and for abnormal curvatures, see HUNCHBACK.

Spinal Cord, the elongated cylindrical part of the central nervous system. It is usually about sixteen inches in length, and does not nearly fill the spinal canal, its investing membranes being separated from the bony wall by areolar tissue and a plexus of veins, as well as by cerebro-spinal fluid, while in the adult it does not reach lower than the first lumbar vertebra, where it terminates as a slender thread of gray matter. spinal cord is a flattened cylinder, with a deep longitudinal furrow or fissure on both the anterior and the posterior aspects. These fissures divide the cord into symmetrical halves, which are united

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Diagrammatic Section of Spinal
Cord in Cervical Region.

1, Anterior cornu of gray matter; 2, posterior cornu; 3, commissure; 4, central canal; 5, anterior nerve root, 6, posterior; 7, anterior median fissure, 8, posterior; 9, fasciculus of Türck; 10, antero-internal column; 11, probable tract of sensations of pain, heat, and cold; 12, crossed pyramidal tract; 13, posterior column; 14, postero-internal column of Goll; 15, tract for sensation of touch and muscular sense; 16, postero-median, or posterointernal column, or column of Goll.

in the middle line throughout their whole length by a transverse band of nervous substance known as the commissure. In transverse section the cord is seen to consist of white and gray matter, of which the white lies externally, and constitutes the greater part. The gray matter is arranged somewhat in the shape of a crescent in each half of the cord, the two crescents being united near their middle by gray matter which passes across the commissure. Both the white and the gray matter contain a supporting tissue known as neuroglia, which consists of elastic fibres and nucleated cells. The

Spinal Cord

nerve cells are large, and stellate or multipolar, possessing many processes, which break up like the branches of a tree into fine nerve networks. The spinal cord is supplied with a large number of blood-vessels, and the bloodvessels and ganglion cells are surrounded by lymph spaces. The cord is enveloped in three membranes-the dura mater, the arachnoid membrane, and the pia mater-which are composed of fibrous connective tissue and endothelium.

The white medullated fibres which join the anterior pyramids of the medulla oblongata decussate almost entirely before entering the spinal cord, and it is owing to this that hemiplegic paralysis so often affects the side of the body opposite to that on which the lesion is. The nerve filaments of the white matter depend for their vitality upon the cells from which they spring, and should hæmorrhage or other lesion destroy the cell in the cortex cerebri, the whole filament undergoes speedy degeneration. Should the filament be severed at any point, the portion situated distally from the cell degenerates in the same way. Destruction of the ganglionic cells of the cord is followed by degeneration of the motor fibres of the corresponding spinal nerve, and the muscles are also dependent upon these cells for their nutrition. Throughout the entire length of the spinal cord sensory fibres cross from one side to the other. A unilateral lesion of the spinal cord, therefore, produces motor paralysis on the same side as the lesion, along with sensory paralysis on the opposite side, the paralysis in each case being only below the seat of the lesion. The column of Goll, which lies in the posterior column close alongside the posterior median fissure, seems to convey the sensation of touch and the muscular sense.

All the nervous system is built up on the reflex plan. The spinal cord alone may carry out a reflex act, a sensation being received by the sensory ganglion cell of the cord, transmitted to the motor cell, and transformed into a motor impulse. But commonly part of the sensory impulse is sent up to the higher centres in the brain, which may then direct or control the result ing motor phenomena. In strychnine poisoning the subordinate spinal centres become hyperexcitable, and the slightest sensory stimuli lead to excessive discharge of energy, which is altogether beyond the control of the brain. Similarly, a lesion which cuts the communicating fibres between the brain and cord leaves the reflex centres uncon

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trolled, and the reflex movements which then follow-say, tickling of the sole--are consequently enormously exaggerated from want of the restraining influence of the higher centres. See also SCLEROSIS.

Spinazzola, tn., prov. Bari, Italy, 42 m. w. by s. of Bari; exports oil and fruit. Pop. (1901) 11,532.

Spindle Tree. The common spindle tree (Euonymus europaus) is a European shrub, which bears glossy lanceolate leaves, and in late spring clusters of small

Spindle Tree.

1, Flower; 2, section; 3, fruit; 4, seed.

greenish flowers, followed by fruits which become beautifully rose-colored. The wood is very compact, and is used for making skewers. See EUONYMUS.

Spine. See SPINAL COLUMN.

oxide, but zinc and manganese may also be present. As a rule the spinels form excellently developed octahedral crystals, belonging to the regular or isometric system, and their refractive index is high and their hardness usually great. The best known are precious spinel or balas ruby (pink and transparent MgAl2O4), magnetite (black, metallic, and magnetic), chromite (dark brown or black); but zinc-spinel (franklinite), chrome-spinel (picotite), pleonaste,, and hercynite also have a wide distribution.

Spinello Aretino, properly LUCA SPINELLO (c. 1330-1410), Italian painter, born at Arezzo. He was a disciple of Giotto, and is known for his painting of frescoes, only a few of which have been preserved. His most famous are the Fall of the Rebel Angels and those executed for the sacristy of the church of San Miniato (Florence), with others at Pisa, Siena, and Arezzo.

Spines, in botany. See THORN. Spinet, a keyed musical instrument much in use from 1500 to 1760. It derived its name from the spines or crowquills which, attached to levers called jacks, plucked the string and produced the tone. In England it was

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Interior Mechanism of Spinet. A, Jack; B. tongue; c, quill; D, bristle spring; E, cloth damper; F, pivot; G, wire. specially popular in the reign of Elizabeth, its other name being virginal. In 1611 there appeared Parthenia, the First Musicke that ever was printed for

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in that continent. Its narrow leaves are coarse and hard, and land covered with the grass is not easy to traverse.

Spinning. See COTTON (Manufacture); WOOLLEN TEXTILES; SILK; YARNS.

Spinola, AMBROSIO, MARQUIS OF (1569-1630), general, in the service of Spain, born at Genoa. He served under Mendoza in the Netherlands, was made com

mander-in-chief to cope with Maurice of Nassau (1604), when he took Ostend after a three years' siege; raised the siege of Ghent (1605), concluding a twelve years' truce (1609). In 1620 he conquered part of the Palatinate for the emperor; and returning (1621) to the Netherlands, took Breda (1625). See Life, in French, by Siret (1851).

Spinoza, BARUCH or BENEDICTUS DE (1632-77), Cartesian philosopher, was born at Amsterdam, and belonged to a Jewish family, but was later excommunicated on account of his heretical views. His life was entirely uneventful. His livelihood was earned by grinding lenses, his leisure devoted to philosophy. The works published by Spinoza in his lifetime an exposition of Descartes's philosophy and (anonymously) the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670) are of less importance than those published after his death-his masterpiece, the Ethica, which is really a metaphysics as well; the short, unfinished treatise De Intellectus Emendatione; and the Tractatus Politicus. His system is essentially a development of Cartesianism, the most conspicuous feature of which is the "fundamental dualism between thinking and extended substance. The res cogitans and the res extensa, alike in being substances, are so totally diverse in nature otherwise, that the problem of their relation to each other could only be solved by subordinating them both to God as the infinite and only self subsistent substance Thinking and extension are for Spinoza not two substances of different nature, but only two diverse attributes of one and the same substance. They no longer have to be brought together by divine agency, for they are themselves already attributes of God -the infinite, as He is also the only substance. The dualism of Descartes is thus transformed into a pantheistic monism, and this pantheism is worked out by Spinoza in terms of the three related conceptions of substance, attribute, and mode. His method of exposition and proof is an imitation of geometry, then the ideal of scientific demonstration, and starts with definitions and axioms, from which a series of

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propositions is then deduced. In the original definitions the main features of the system are virtually involved and assumed. God, the infinite substance, has, according to Spinoza, an infinity of attributes, but all finite things known to us belong to the two attributes of thought and extension. And since it is the same substance that is expressed in both these attributes, there is a thoroughgoing parallelism between the modes of thought and the modes of extension. The difficulties of Spinoza's doctrine in regard to the attributes were already seen in his own day by his acute critic and correspondent, Tschirnhausen. The leading idea of the ethical part of Spinoza's great work is, that in becoming conscious of the unity of all things in God we rise above the bondage of the passions and desires which belong to our finitude. His political doctrine owes much the English philosopher Hobbes. The standard edition is that of Van Vloten and Land (1882), There are translations of the Works by Elwes (1884), and of the Ethica and De Intell. Emend. by Hale White (1883), expositions by Caird (1888), Martineau (1882). Pollock (1880), Joachim, and of his ethico-political doctrine by Duff (1903). See also Fullerton's trans. The Philosophy of Spinoza, selections with introduction (1894), and Fullerton's On Spinozistic Immortality (1899), for a study.

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Spinthariscope, an instrument contrived by Sir William Crookes in 1903 to show the luminous effects due to radium. It consists of a short brass tube closed at one end by a convex lens, and at the other by a zinc sulphide screen, with a small piece of radium salt placed close in front of it. An observer, looking at the screen through the lens, sees it lit up by dazzling scintillations, each of which marks the impact of an 'alpha particle,' hurled from the disintegrating radium. The flashes of light are held by Becquerel to be occasioned by actual cleavage of the crystals composing the screen; but Prof. R. W. Wood has obtained from later experiments data which, though not conclusive, make it probable that this is not the actual process in operation.

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Spræa, a genus of herbs and shrubs belonging to the order Rosacea. It includes the hardhack (S. tomentosa), meadowsweet (S. salicifolia), and a large number of beautiful cultivated plants.

Spiral, a curve which winds round a centre or pole, while continuously approaching or receding from it. The following are the best-known spirals: (1) r=ae, spiral of Archimedes; (2) re=a,

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hyperbolic or reciprocal spiral; (3) r2 = a2, lituus; (4) r = de me, equiangular or logarithmic spiral.

Forms of Spiral.

1. Spiral of Archimedes. 2. Lituus spiral. 3. Logarithmic spiral. 4. Hyperbolic spiral.

In all these curves r is the radius vector, the angle it has described, a and m constants. These curves may be traced by finding the values of r for given values of, and plotting by polar coordinates the points so obtained. There are an infinite number of convolutions about the pole in each case; r sina is an asymptote to (2), the initial line is an asymptote to (3), while in (4) as the angle increases in arithmetical progression, the radius vector in

Spiriter

creases in geometrical progression.

Spiranthes, a genus of terrestrial orchids, bearing flowers in spikes. The American species are now included in the genus Gyrostachys and are known as 'ladies' tresses.' The small flowers are pale or white in spirals or close ranks.

Spire, an elongated pyramidal roof over a tower. It is a very important feature in Gothic churches and cathedrals. Spires are usually of stone, but are formed also of wood and covered with slate or lead. In the Norman period corner turrets were commonly terminated with a sort of spire, the form or plan being the same as the turret itself, either round or square, and rising direct from the top of the tower without any parapet, as at St. Peter's at Oxford, or St. Stephen's at Caen. Later the spire proper, being a much longer pyramid, was octag onal, on a square tower, the corners being filled in, as it were, with angular pieces, when it was termed a broach. In later styles the parapet is well marked and ornamented with pinnacles and flying buttresses, as at Lichfield Cathedral; while the spire itself is often perforated with openings, either simply moulded or having perpendicular jambs, covered with small gables and sometimes filled in with regular tracery. The spire is also ornamented with moulded or ornamental bands, as at Salisbury, while the angles are sometimes enriched with beads and sometimes with crockets. In Germany the later spires are entirely composed of tracery, as at Freiburg, Vienna, Cologne.

Spires (Ger. Speyer), tn., prov. Palatinate, Bavaria, on the Rhine, 21 m. by rail s. of Worms. There are remains of town walls, of an old palace, and of a subterranean bath. The cathedral was built in 1030, and contains the tombs of eight German emperors and some of their consorts. The Diet of the empire was frequently held here, and Spires was the seat of the imperial tribunal from 1513 to 1689. The town was taken and almost destroyed by the French in 1689, and again in 1794. Pop. (1905) 21,823.

Spirifer, a fossil brachiopod. The shell is usually marked externally with radiating furrows, and the ventral valve has often in addition a well-marked mesial groove, to which a ridge corresponds on the dorsal valve. The opening for the peduncle is found only on the dorsal valve. In the interior there are two large spirally coiled supports for the arms. In shape the species vary greatly, some being oblong, others very broad from side to side and short from front to back. The number of fossil forms, especially in the

Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous formations, is very large.

Spirifers.

1. S. Sowerbyi. 2. S Sheppardi. 3. S. costalis.

Spirit. Originally there existed no distinction between spirit and soul or mind, because the only distinction that appeals to the primitive mind is the broad one between the outward and visible body and the inward or animating principle. Moreover, this latter principle is conceived in materialistic fashion, and is very usually identified with the breath. Even for philosophical reflection the true distinction between the material and the immaterial is not easily seized, and the early Greek philosophers were not much in advance of primitive thought in that respect. But when at last the immaterial nature of the soul was recognized, the notion of spirit still continued to play an important part in physiological theory (e.g. with Aristotle and the Peripatetics), and spirit was regarded as a sort of connecting link between soul and body-a view which survives as late as Descartes's doctrine of animal spirits.' When materialism revived, as it speedily did, this ambiguous position of spirit made the notion peculiarly available, and in the Stoic philosophy it was widely extended to signify the principle which, all pervasive yet material, animates the whole world, as in the particular form of the human soul it animates the human body. In the religious notion of spirit as developed in the Old and New Testaments the central element comes to be that of divine or supernatural agency operative in the life of man. Hence spirit, though it may still be conceived in materialistic fashion, takes the highest place as the presence of the divine in man. Both the materialistic or physiological and the religious notions of spirit have now ceased to possess any psychological significance the former because it has disappeared before a truer physiology, the latter because it is a religious notion with which a purely scientific psychology has no concern one way or the other. Consequently, in philosophy, the term spirit has now no special meaning distinct from mind or soul.

Spirit. See ALCOHOL; DISTILLATION; METHYLATED SPIRIT; PROOF SPIRIT; RECTIFIED SPIRIT.

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Spirit fresco. See MURAL DECORATION.

Spirit-level. See LEVEL. Spiritualism. Spiritualism is a term that denotes two closely related and yet distinguishable beliefs. Its older import applied to that view of the human mind which opposed it to materialism and which maintained that the soul in consequence of its not being a function of the bodily organism survived death. This view describes the position of Christianity against the claims of Epicurean materialism. It represented the philosophic conception of past history from the decline of ancient civilization, and it did not begin to lose its hold on men's minds until the agnosticism of Immanuel Kant substituted Idealism for it. He accepted the term as properly defining the opposing conception to materialism, but was too sceptical to protect it from the weakness of philosophic systems. The existence of the soul and its survival were really a matter of faith and not of fact, and the term had no suggestion of communication with the dead to give it meaning. But the second import of the term, which is a scientific one, was conferred by the belief that communication with the deceased is possible or a fact. Swedenborg was perhaps the first to give this idea its present standing, though he was not the inventor of the term nor the person who gave it the associations of charlatanism which pervade its history since his time. This second meaning of the term concedes that materialism can be supplanted only by communication with the dead, and so bases its contention upon the facts of present experience, or evidence of communication, while the older view was based upon purely philosophic speculation. The two points of view are reconcilable and may ultimately be united.

The possibility of communicating with the dead early gave rise to the fraudulent simulation of it, and the revival of modern Spiritualism is usually traced to the Fox sisters instead of Swedenborg. Raps and knockings constituted the method by which these adventurers and others pretended to establish communication with the dead. But the discovery of their frauds and their final confession of them gave the doctrine a setback, from which it has been very difficult to recover.

It was the organization of the Society for Psychical Research that has revived recent interest in the doctrine, and its work has tended to put limits to the claims which have generally been made for communication with the dis

carnate, though it has at the same time tended to strengthen the belief by giving it better scientific credentials than it has hitherto possessed. Its publications have discriminated between pseudospiritistic phenomena and such as have genuine claim to being supernormal, whatever the final explanation. To escape the misconceptions which have accompanied the term spiritualism, it has coined that of spiritism' to denote the point of view descriptive of many of its phenomena, though not committing itself to the belief in the fact of communication with the dead. Much of the Society's material bears upon other questions than spiritism, and so relates to such ideas as telepathy, clairvoyance, premonitions, coincidental dreams, coincidental apparitions whether of the living or of the dead, and other residual phenomena. Mediumistic phenomena, which usually claim to have their source in discarnate spirits, are equally a subject of its investigations, though they often have not adequate evidential claims to the source which they superficially represent. Spiritism or spiritualism, therefore, in its expurgated form, is confined to the idea of communiIcation with the dead, at least in so far as its strictly scientific import is concerned.

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There are various phenomena which have given the popular mind its conception of the problem and its solution. They are such as materializations' assoIciated with cabinets and dark seances, independent slate writing in which messages purporting to come from the discarnate are thought to be written between closed or concealed slates by invisible agencies, rope-tying performances which Zöllner explained by a fourth dimension, the movement of obiects without physical contact, and the production of sounds in some way not explicable by ordinary means. Assuming these as genuine, for which there is no adequate scientific evidence as yet, they are not indicative of spirit agency whatever they may suggest and although they might be explicable by it when once proved. The real problem of discarnate agency is in the evidence of personal identity after death and something very different from physical marvels, though scientific observation should neither neglect the investigation of such claims nor refuse them, if true, the possible explanation which they claim.

The phenomena which are most pertinent to the doctrine of spiritism are apparitions of the dying and the dead and mediumistic communications, when they are undoubtedly supernormal and

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