a Mr. Benjamin Coleman, who is very severe upon scientific men for their incredulity, but seems to consider it rather their misfortune than their fault, since he says, 'Had I been fettered by scientific education, I could not have allowed so "preposterous" and "impossible" an event to enter my brain.' Being himself perfectly unfettered, however, by any absurd prejudices, he had been led to anticipate and even to predict that these wonders would culminate in Mrs. Guppy-one of the largest and heaviest women of his acquaintance-being carried away; and we cannot but suspect that his prediction had something to do in bringing about its fulfilment. It is obvious that the party of eleven persons, who were sitting in the dark in Mr. Herne's apartments, were in that state of 'expectant attention' which is well known to physiologists to be productive of 'subjective sensations' as well as of movements; and just as, in a 'circle' of Table-turners, when one leads off all the others follow suit, so any one who heard or felt anything (seeing being out of the question) which could be fancied to indicate Mrs. Guppy's presence on the table would readily excite the same belief in the minds of the rest; just as Theodore Hook, in his celebrated experiment on popular credulity, persuaded a London crowd not merely that he, but that they, could see the lion on the top of Northumberland House wag his tail. How, in a dark séance, it was ascertained not merely that Mrs. Guppy was present, but that she was in a state of déshabille, and that the ink was still wet in her pen, we are not informed. The following incident, recorded in another part of the same number of the 'Spiritualist,' seems to afford some clue to the mystery:

It

'Last Friday week at a dark séance at the residence of Mr. Guppy, two live lobsters were placed on the hands of one of the sitters. was then made known that Miss Thom, of Pendleton, near Manchester, whispered to her mother that she wished the spirits would bring a live lobster instead of flowers. Mrs. Thom, who attended the circle merely as an inquirer, did not think it proper to repeat the request aloud, so neither the medium nor anybody else at the circle knew that a desire for a lobster had been expressed.'

Can any rational person doubt that these two live lobsters' existed only in the imagination of Miss Thom and her associates? She could not see them in the dark; and if they had made their presence felt by pinching her fingers, she would have most assuredly screamed. In the state of 'expectant attention,' she doubtless experienced, in unusual strength, the 'creepycrawly' sensations familiar to many of us in strange beds, and attributed these to the presence of the lobsters she had been wishing for. If she will assure us that they were boiled for supper Vol. 131.-No. 262.

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after the séance, and proved to be substantial, not spiritual, food, we will retract our hypothetical explanation.

We might fill another page or two with Mr. Coleman's accounts of Mrs. Guppy's 'mediumistic' endowments, which, as regards her power of bringing in any quantity of fruits and flowers, are only paralleled by those of a Houdin or a Frikell; whilst she goes beyond these accomplished prestidigitateurs in dashing down large quantities of snow, so clear and sparkling that it could not have been touched by human hands, and pieces of ice, as large as the fist, in such quantity as to require the services of a man-servant to take it away. This last occurrence is vouched for not only by Mr. Coleman but by the editor of the 'Spiritualist,' who further informs us that Mrs. Guppy and her friends had been sitting before a large fire for half-an-hour before the séance began.

There is one trifling inconsistency we should like explained before we can accept these narratives as veracious. The invisible spirits at Mrs. Guppy's command can obviously do as much for her as did the obedient Jins for the heroes and heroines of the immortal tales that charm the youth of successive generations. If they can bring in any quantity of fruits, flowers, and ices for a dessert, they must surely be able to furnish forth her breakfast and her dinner-tables. When she wishes to travel, they save her not merely the fatigue of the journey, but the cost of cabs and railway fares. What on earth, then, has Mrs. Guppy got to do with 'household accounts'?

None can be more ready than ourselves to admit that 'ridicule is not the test of truth;' but there are some subjects-and we believe this to be one of them-as to which ridicule has a wholesome power of checking the spread of pernicious error. We have gravely discussed many of the phenomena which are adduced as evidences of 'spiritual' agency, for the purpose of showing that, like others which had previously presented themselves under different names, they are really produced by the unconscious agency of the individuals through whose 'mediumship' they are exhibited; and that their occurrence affords new and interesting exemplifications of physiological and psychological principles previously known and accepted. But when we are called on to believe in the 'levitation' of the human body, and in the power of incorporeal spirits to move heavy masses of matter without any ostensible agency, to make an accordion play tunes without the working of its bellows or its keys, and to evolve fruits and flowers, snow and ice, live lobsters and the hands of departed friends, out of the depths of their own consciousness, the question is one to be decided, not by an elaborate

elaborate discussion, but by direct appeal to educated common sense. Is it more likely that these marvels actually occurred as narrated, or that the witnesses to them were deceived by their own imaginings?

The history of Epidemic Delusions affords such abundant evidence as to the former prevalence of what are now universally regarded as the most absurd beliefs, that those who have no more than a general acquaintance with it can have no difficulty in finding parallels to that on which we have now been commenting. Not more than two centuries ago, for example, the transportation of witches through the air, that they might take part in the unholy orgies of their creed, and hold sexual commerce with evil Spirits, was not only testified in courts of justice by multitudes of witnesses, but was admitted by the culprits themselves, many of whom went to the stake with the heroism of martyrs' witnessing a good confession' to what they honestly believed to be true. If we once begin to try such affirmations by the test of reason, we should perchance find ourselves obliged to acquiesce in the dictum of Dr. Johnson, that nothing proves the non-existence of witches; or, in the conclusion of one of our greatest modern logicians-who had devoted himself so exclusively to the science of Reasoning as to be unfitted for that practical appreciation of the value of Evidence, on which we depend in the judgments of every-day life-that the Spiritualist doctrine has a better claim to acceptance than any of the other thousand-and-one explanations that might be given of the phenomena.

The insight we have gained in the course of this inquiry into the gullibility, not merely of the average public, but of many of those who command its respect, either as teachers of religion or as successful scientific investigators, has made us reflect seriously as to what it is in our present system of education which constitutes the chief'predisposing cause' of the Spiritualist epidemic. And after the best comparison we have been able to make between the mental condition of the classes who have most severely suffered from it, and that of the classes who have been least affected, we have come to the conclusion that part, at least, of this predisposition depends on the deficiency of early scientific training. Such training ought to include (1), the acquirement of habits of correct observation of the phenomena daily taking place around us; (2), the cultivation of the power of reasoning upon these phenomena, so as to arrive at general principles by the inductive process; (3), the study of the method of testing the validity of such inductions by experiment; and (4), the deductive application of principles thus acquired to the prediction

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of phenomena which can be verified by observation. We speak with knowledge when we say that a tenth of the time which is devoted, in an ordinary school curriculum, to the study of abstractions, will suffice for the culture (if judiciously directed) of the power of bringing the reasoning faculties to bear on objective realities, not only without disadvantage to his other studies, but with a manifest improvement in the pupil's power of apprehending the real meaning of abstractions which had previously perplexed him. Now it is among purely literary men, whose minds have seldom been exercised upon anything but abstractions, that we have witnessed most ready surrender to the seductions of Spiritualism; the distinction between objective realities and the creations of their own imaginations being often extremely ill-defined; and the testimony borne by Science to the want of trustworthiness of what they assume to be the evidence of their own senses, being scornfully repudiated. On the other hand, those who have either gone through the discipline of such an early scientific training as we have advocated, or have (like Faraday) conscientiously imposed it upon themselves at a later period, are usually the last persons to become 'possessed' by the delusions of this pseudo-science; or, if they should have perchance been attracted by them for a time, they speedily come to discern their fallacy.

Our belief that the early education of the scientific witnesses who have come forward to testify to the reality of the Physical manifestations of Spiritualism, was not such as to develope the power of scientific discrimination, is fully justified, as we have shown, by the thoroughly unscientific manner in which they have conducted their investigations, and reported their results. Let any who may accuse us of underrating the competency of these witnesses, merely because we have ourselves come to a foregone conclusion as to the incredibility of their statements, compare the narratives of Dr. Hare and Mr. Crookes with Professor Faraday's Letters on Table-turning,' and Professor Chevreul's treatise on the Baguette Divinatoire.' * The latter are models of scientific inquiry on a subject rendered peculiarly difficult by the interposition of the human element; the former, as we have shown, are conspicuous for the absence of true scientific method.

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But there is a positive as well as a negative defect in the prevailing mental organisation of our time, which shows itself in the unhealthy craving for some 'sign' that shall testify to the

*This admirable treatise, which was not published until after the appearance of our former article, entirely confirms, by a most elaborate and conclusive series of investigations, the views we had ourselves expressed in regard to the Divining Rod.'

reality

reality of the existence of disembodied spirits, while the legitimate influence of the noble lives and pregnant sayings of the great and good who have gone before us is proportionately ignored. Putting aside, as beyond the scope of our present inquiry, those questions of high Philosophy, which arise out of modern ideas of the relation between Matter and Force, Body and Spirit, we would fearlessly leave it to the good sense of any right-minded person, whether he would surrender the enduring and inspiring memories impressed on his inner soul by the counsels and example of a wise father, by the affectionate sympathy of a tender and judicious mother, by the cordial unselfishness of a generous-hearted brother, by the self-sacrificing devotion of a loving sister, or by the guileless simplicity of an innocent child, for any communications they could send him by 'rappings or table-tiltings. Or, to turn from these to influences of a wider scope, who that early felt his intellect expanded and his aspirations elevated by the noble thoughts put forth in the 'Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy,' and has endeavoured, however imperfectly, to make them the guide of his own scientific life; who that recently joined with the most eminent representatives of every department of British science in attending to their last resting-place in the national mausoleum the honoured remains of one whom all acknowledged to be their master, could wish that the spirit of a Herschel should be asked to give evidence of its continued existence by playing a tune on an accordion or rapping out a line of his Astronomy'?

It happened to us, within a few weeks after that mournful ceremony, to follow to the same resting-place the not less honoured remains of one whom we had come to regard with no inferior veneration, not so much for his great erudition and varied intellectual ability, as for his rare-we might almost say unprecedented-combination of unswerving justice tempered by the most gracious kindliness, of perfect unselfishness, animated by the most enlarged philanthropy. Of all the memories in our spiritual Valhalla, that of George Grote stands pre-eminent for those qualities which have commanded our respect and inspired our personal attachment. Who that has had the privilege of not only observing the public course of our modern Aristides, but of sharing in the amenities of his private life, could wish anything better for himself, than that the spirit of his departed friend should be his own constant and life-long guide; so that whenever its close may arrive, he too may be deemed worthy of the eulogy so appropriately bestowed on our great historian from the grand old words-The just shall be held in everlasting remembrance.'

ART. II.