Footfalls On The Boundary Of Another World 1872 Unfootnoted Abridgement

Front matter

Footfalls on the boundary of another world

Robert Dale Owen

FOOTFALLS

Preface

It may interest the reader, before perusing this volume, to know some of the

CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH PRECEDED AND PRODUCED IT.

The subjects of which it treats came originally under my notice in a land where, except to the privileged foreigner, such subjects are interdicted,—at Naples, in the autumn of 1855. Up to that period I had regarded the whole as a delusion which no prejudice, indeed, would have prevented my examining with care, but in which, lacking such examination, I had no faith whatever.

To an excellent friend and former colleague, the Viscount de St. Amaro,

Brazilian Minister at Naples, I shall ever remain debtor for having first won my serious attention to phenomena of a magneto-psychological character and to the study of analogous subjects. It was in his apartments, on the 4th of March, 1856, and in presence of himself and his lady, together with a member of the royal family of Naples, that I witnessed for the first time, with mingled feelings of surprise and incredulity, certain physical movements apparently without material agency. Three weeks later, during an evening at the Russian Minister’s, an incident occurred, as we say, fortuitously, which, after the strictest scrutiny, I found myself unable to explain without referring it to some intelligent agency foreign to the spectators present,—not one of whom, it may be added, knew or had practiced any thing connected with what is called Spiritualism or mediumship. From that day I determined to test the matter thoroughly. My public duties left me, in winter, few leisure hours, but many during the summer and autumn months; and that leisure, throughout more than two years, I devoted to an investigation (conducted partly by personal observations made in domestic privacy, partly by means of books) of the great question whether agencies from another phase of existence ever intervene here, and operate, for good or evil, on mankind.

For a time the observations I made were similar to those which during the last ten years so many thousands have instituted in our country and in Europe, and my reading was restricted to works for and against Animal Magnetism and for and against the modern Spiritual theory. But, as the field opened before me, I found it expedient to enlarge my sphere of research,—to consult the best professional works on Physiology, especially in its connection with mental phenomena, on Psychology in general, on Sleep, on Hallucination, on Insanity, on the great Mental Epidemics of Europe and America, together with treatises on the Imponderables,—including Reichenbach’s curious observations, and the records of interesting researches recently made in Prussia, in Italy, in England and elsewhere, on the subject of Human Electricity in connection with its influence on the nervous system and the muscular tissues.

I collected, too, the most noted old works containing narrative collections of apparitions, hauntings, presentiments, and the like, accompanied by dissertations on the Invisible World, and toiled through formidable piles of chaff to reach a few gleanings of sound grain.

Gradually I became convinced that what by many have been regarded as new and unexampled phenomena are but modern phases of what has ever existed. And I ultimately reached the conclusion that, in order to a proper understanding of much that has excited and perplexed the public mind under the name of Spiritual Manifestations, historical research should precede every other inquiry, —that we ought to look throughout the past for classes of phenomena, and seek to arrange these, each in its proper niche.

I was finally satisfied, also, that it behooved the student in this field (in the first instance, at least) to devote his attention to spontaneous phenomena, rather than to those that are evoked,—to appearances and disturbances that present themselves occasionally only, it is true, but neither sought nor looked for; like the rainbow, or the Aurora Borealis, or the wind that bloweth where it listeth, uncontrolled by the wishes or the agency of man. By restricting the inquiry to these, all suspicion of being misled by epidemic excitement or expectant attention is completely set aside.

A record of such phenomena, carefully selected and authenticated, constitutes the staple of the present volume. In putting it forth, I am not to be held, any more than is the naturalist or the astronomer, to the imputation of tampering with holy things. As regards the special purpose of this work, no charge of necromantic efforts or unlawful seeking need be met, since it cannot possibly apply. The accusation, if any be brought, will be of a different character. If suspicion I incur, it will be not of sorcery, but of superstition,—of an endeavor, perhaps, to revive popular delusions which the lights of modern science have long since dispelled, or of stooping to put forth as grave relations of fact what are no better than idle nursery-tales.

Accepting this issue, I am content to put myself on the country. I demand a fair trial before a jury who have not prejudged the cause. I ask for my witnesses a patient hearing, well assured that the final verdict, be it as it may, will be in accordance with reason and justice.

I aspire not to build up a theory. I doubt, as to this subject, whether any man living is yet prepared to do so. My less ambitious endeavor is to collect together solid, reliable building-stones which may serve some future architect. Already beyond middle age, it is not likely that I shall continue here long enough to see the edifice erected. But others may. The race endures, though the individual pass to another stage of existence.

If I did not esteem my subject one of vast importance, I should be unworthy to approach its treatment. Had I found other writers bestowing upon it the attention which that importance merits, I should have remained silent. As it is, I have felt, with a modern author, that “the withholding of large truths from the world may be a betrayal of the greatest trust.”

I am conscious, on the other hand, that one is ever apt to overestimate the importance of one’s own labors. Yet even an effort such as this may suffice to give public opinion a true or a false direction. Great results are sometimes determined by humble agencies. “A ridge-tile of a cottage in Derbyshire,” says Gisborne, “decides whether the rain which falls from heaven shall be directed to the German Ocean or the Atlantic.”

Let the reader, before he enters on the inquiry whether ultramundane interference be a great reality or a portentous delusion, permit me one additional remark. He will find that, in treating that hypothesis, I have left many things obscure and uninterpreted. Where no theory was clearly indicated, I preferred to state the facts and waive all explanation, having reached that period of life when, if good use has been made of past years, one is not ashamed to say, “I do not know,” in any case in which that is the simple truth. We do well, however, to bear in mind that a difficulty unsolved does not amount to an argument in opposition.

To the many friends whose kindness has aided my undertaking, these pages owe their chief value. To some therein named I am enabled here to tender my grateful acknowledgments. To others who have assisted in private I am not less deeply indebted.

I doubt not that if I were to delay the publication of this book for some years I should find much to modify, something to retract. But if, in this world, we postpone our work till we deem it perfect, death comes upon us in our hesitation, and we effect nothing, from bootless anxiety to effect too much.

R. D. O.

Table Of Contents

Preface

List of Authors Cited

CHAPTER I. The Statement of the Subject

Is ultramundane interference reality, or delusion?—The inquiry practical, but hitherto discouraged—Time an essential element—Isaac Taylor—Jung Stilling —Swedenborg—Animal Magnetism—Arago’s opinion—Dr. Carpenter’s admissions—The American epidemic—Phenomena independent of opinions— Sentiment linked to action—The home on the other side—Hades—Johnson’s, Byron’s, Addison’s, and Steele’s opinions—Truth in every rank—The Ghost- Club—Contempt corrects not—Spiritualism an influential element—Dangers of over-credulity—Demoniac manifestations—Reason the appointed pilot—Duty of research—How dispose of spontaneous phenomena?—Martin Korky— Courage and impartiality demanded—A besetting temptation—Feeble belief— Skepticism—Georget’s conversion—Evidence of sense—Some truths appeal to consciousness—Severe test applied to the subject selected.

CHAPTER II. The Impossible

Columbus in Barcelona—The marvel of marvels—Presumption—There may be laws not yet in operation—Modern study of the imponderables—Arago’s and Cuvier’s admissions—What may be.

CHAPTER III. The Miraculous

Modern miracles rejected—Hume—The Indian prince—Definition of a miracle —Change-bearing laws—Illustration from

Babbage’s calculating machine—That which has been may not always be—An error of two phases—Alleged miracles—Convulsionists of St. Medard— Spiritual agency, if it exist, not miraculous—Butler’s and Tillotson’s ideas of miracles.

CHAPTER IV. The Improbable

Two modes of seeking truth—Circulation of the blood—Aerolites—Rogers the poet, and La Place the mathematician—Former improbabilities—Argument as to concurrence in testimony—Love of the marvelous misleads—Haunted houses— The monks of Chantilly—Mental epidemics of Europe—Modesty enlists confidence—One success not disproved by twenty failures—Hallucination— Second-sight—Diagoras at Samothrace—Faraday on table-moving— Consequences of doubting our senses—Contending probabilities should be weighed.

CHAPTER I. Sleep in general

A familiar marvel—An inscrutable world—Dreamless sleep—Perquin’s observation—Does the soul sleep?—A personal observation—Phases of sleep which have much in common—Sleeping powers occasionally transcend the waking—Cabanis—Condorcet—Condillac—Gregory—Franklin—Legal opinion written out in sleep—Hypnotism—Carpenter’s observations—Darwin’s theory as to suspension of volition—Spiritual and mesmeric phenomena hypnotic—How is the nervous reservoir supplied?—The cerebral battery, and how it may possibly be charged—A hypothesis.

CHAPTER II. Dreams

Ancient opinions—Dreams and insanity—Dreams from the ivory gate—Fatal credulity—Dreams may be suggested by slight causes—Dreams may be intentionally suggested—

An ecstatic vision—The past recalled in. dream—Dreams verifying themselves —The locksmith’s apprentice—How a Paris editor obtained his wife—Death of Sir Charles Lee’s daughter—Calphurnia—The fishing-party—Signor Romano’s story—Dreams indicating a distant death—Macnish’s dream—A shipwreck foreshadowed—Dreams involving double coincidences—The lover’s appearance in dream—Misleading influence of a romantic incident—Alderman Clay’s dream—A Glasgow teller’s dream—The Arrears of Teind—The same error may result in skepticism and in superstition—William Howitt’s dream—Mary Howitt’s dream—The murder near Wadebridge—The two field-mice—The Percival murder seen in dream—Dreams may disclose trivial events—One dream the counterpart of another—The Joseph Wilkins dream—A miracle without a motive?—The Mary Goffe case—The Plymouth Club alarmed—We must take trouble, if we will get at truth—An obscure explanation—. Representation of cerebral action?—Prescience in dreams—Goethe's grandfather —The visit foretold—The Indian mutiny foreshadowed—Bell and Stephenson— Murder by a negro prevented—Inferences from this case—Dreams recorded in Scripture—Are all dreams untrustworthy?

Book III

DISTURBANCES POPULARLY TERMED HAUNTINGS. CHAPTER I. General Character of the Phenomena

No proof of gaudy supernaturalism—A startling element presents itself— Poltergeister—What we find, not what we may expect to find—Ancient haunted houses.

CHAPTER II.

Narratives

Disturbances at Tedworth—First example of responding of the sounds— Glanvil’s observations—Mr. Mompesson’s attestation—The Wesley disturbances—John Wesley’s narrative—Emily Wesley’s narrative, and her experience thirty-four years later—Opinions of Dr. Clarke, Dr. Priestley,

Southey, and Coleridge—The New Havensack case—Mrs. Golding and her maid—The Castle of Slawensik—Disturbances in Silesia—Dr. Kerner’s inquiries—Councilor Hahn’s attestation—Twenty-five years after—Disturbances in the dwelling of the Seeress of Prevorst—Displacement of house-rafters—The law-suit—Disturbances legally attested—The farm-house of Baldarroch—An alleged discovery—The credulousness of incredulity—Spicer’s narrative of a four-year disturbance—The cemetery of Ahrensburg—Effects produced on animals—An official investigation—Its report—The Cideville parsonage— Disturbances in the north of France—Legal depositions—Verdict of the court— Additional proofs—The Rochester knockings—Disturbances at Hydesville— Kate Fox—Allegations of the sounds—Previous disturbances in the same house —Human bones found—Two peddlers disappear—One reappears—The other cannot be traced—The Stratford disturbances.

CHAPTER III. Summing up

Character of the testimony—Phenomena long continued, and such as could not be mere imaginations—No expectation to influence—No motive for simulation —Whither ultra skepticism leads—Did Napoleon Buonaparte ever exist?

CHAPTER I. Touching Hallucination

Difficult to determine what is hallucination—The image on the retina—Opinions of Burdach, Muller, Baillarger, Dechambre, and De Boismont—Effects of imagination—Examples of different phases of hallucination—Illusion and hallucination—No collective hallucinations—Biological experiments— Reichenbach’s observations—Exceptional cases of perception—The deaf-mute in the minority—Effect of medicine on perceptions—Is there evidence for epidemical hallucination?—De Gasparin’s argument—The fanciful and the real.

CHAPTER II. Apparitions of the Living

Jung Stilling’s story—Apparition to a clergyman—Two apparitions of the living on the same day—The bride’s terror—Suggestion as to rules of evidence—The Glasgow surgeon’s assistant—Sight and sound—Apparition of the living seen by mother and daughter—Was this hallucination?—

Dr. Donne’s wife—Apparition at sea—The rescue—Apparition of the living at sea, and its practical result—The dying mother and her babe—Character of preceding phenomena how far indicated—The visionary excursion—Why a Livonian school-teacher lost her situation—Habitual apparition of a living person—The counterpart appears where the thoughts or affections are?

CHAPTER III. Apparitions of the Dead

The spiritual body—May it not occasionally show itself?—

A question not to be settled by closet theorists—Oberlin—

His belief as to apparitions—Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Improvisatore— Mr. Grose and the skeptical cardinal—Anna Maria Porter’s visitor—The dead body and the boat-cloak—apparition in India—An atheist’s theory examined— The brother’s appearance to the sister—Apparition at the moment of death—The nobleman and his servant—Apparition witnessed by two independent observers —Louise—The Wynyard apparition, with corroborative testimony—Apparition of a stranger—The iron stove—Glimpse of a species of future punishment?— The child’s bones found—Is there repentance and progress beyond the tomb?— Opinion of one of the Christian Fathers—The debt of three-and-tenpence— Human character little altered by the death-change?—The stains of blood—The victim attracted to earth?—The fourteenth of November—Through a (so-called) ghost an inaccuracy in a War-Office certificate is corrected—The old Kent manor-house—The Children family—Correct information regarding them obtained through an apparition—The author of Robinson Crusoe in a dilemma— Hades.

CHAPTER I. Retribution

The furies of the ancients not implacable—Modern examples of what seems retribution—The beautiful quadroon girl—

Can dreams embody requitals?—What a French actress suffered—Annoyances continued throughout two years and a half—A dying threat apparently fulfilled —What an English officer suffered—Was it retribution?

CHAPTER II. Guardianship

How Senator Linn’s life was saved—Was it clairvoyance, or prescience?—Help amid the snow-drifts—Unexpected consolation—Gaspar—The rejected suitor— Is spiritual guardianship an unholy or incredible hypothesis?

Book VI. The Suggested Results

CHAPTER I.

The Change at Death

A theory must not involve absurd results—Whence can the dead return?— Character but slightly changed at death—Spiritual theory involves two postulates—Hades swept out along with purgatory—How the matter stands historically—The Grecian Hades—The Jewish Sheol—What becomes of the soul immediately after death?—An abrupt metamorphosis?—A final doom, or a state of progress?—How human character is formed here—The postulates rational—What has resulted from discarding Hades—Enfeebling effect of distance—The loss of identity—The conception of two lives—Man cannot sympathize with that for which he is not prepared—The virtuous reasonably desire and expect another stage of action—Human instincts too little studied— Man’s nature and his situation—The Ideal—The utterings of the presaging voice —Man remains, after death, a human creature—Footfalls—A master-influence in another world—

We are journeying toward a land of love and truth—What death is—What obtains the rites of sepulture.

CHAPTER II.

Conclusion

Admissions demanded by reason—The invisible and inaudible world—We may expect outlines rather than filling up—Man’s choice becomes his judge— Pneumatology of the Bible—More light hereafter.

Appendix — Note A. Circular of the Cambridge Ghost-Club... 513 Note B. Testimony: View taken by two opposing Schools

Index

LIST OF AUTHORS CITED.

Abercrombie. Intellectual Powers.

Abrantes, Memoires de Madame la Duchesso de, ecrits par elle-meme, Paris, 1835.

Account of the French Prophets and their Pretended Inspirations, London, 1705. Alexander ab Alexandro; about 1450.

Aristotle. De Divinatione et Somniis.

Aubrey’s Miscellanies.

Bacon’s Essays, London, 1597.

Baillarger. Des Hallucinations.

Bailly. Report on Mesmerism, made to the King of France, August 11, 1784.

Baxter. The Certainty of the "World of Spirits, London, 1691.

Beaumont. An Historical, Physiological, and Theological Treatise of Spirits, London, 1705.

Beecher, Rev. Charles. Review of Spiritual Manifestations.

Bennett, Professor. The Mesmeric Mania, Edinburgh, 1851.

Bertrand. Traite du Somnambulisme, Paris, 1823.

Bichat. Recherches Physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort, Paris, 1805.

Binns, Edward, M. D. The Anatomy of Sleep, 2d ed., London, 1845. Blackstone’s Commentaries.

Boismont, De. Des Hallucinations, Paris, 1852.

Braid, James. Neurypnology, or the Rationale of Sleep, London, 1843.

Brewster, Sir David. The Martyrs of Science, London, 1856.

Brodie, Sir B. Psychological Inquiries, 3d ed., London, 1856.

Browne, Sir Thomas. Works.

Burdach. Traits de Physiologie, Paris, 1839.

Bushnell, Horace. Nature and the Supernatural, New York, 1858.

Butler’s Analogy of Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature.

Calmeil. De la Folie, Paris, 1845.

Capron. Modern Spiritualism, Boston, 1853.

Carlyon, Clement, M. D. Early Years and Late Reflections.

Carpenter, William B., M. D. Principles of Human Physiology, 5th ed., 1855. Causes Celebres.

Chalmers’s Evidences of the Christian Religion.

Chaucer’s Tale of the Chanon Yeman.

Christmas, Rev. Henry. Cradle of the Twin Giants, Science and History, London, 1849.

Cicero de Divinatione. de Natura Deorum.

Clarke, Dr. Memoirs of the Wesley Family, 2d ed., London, 1843.

Coleridge’s Lay Sermons.

Court, M. Histoire des Troubles des Cevennes, Alais, 1819.

Crowe, Catherine. Night Side of Nature, 1848.

Ghosts and Family Legends, 1859.

Dechambre. Analyse de l’Ouvrage du Docteur Szafkowski sur les Hallucinations, 1850.

De Foe, Daniel. Universal History of Apparitions, London, 1727.

Dendy, W. C. Philosophy of Mystery.

Eclipse of Faith.

Edwards, Henry, D. D. The Doctrine of the Supernatural Established, London, 1845.

Essays written during the Intervals of Business, London, 1853.

Faraday. Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, London, 1859. Ferriar, John, M. D. Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions.

Foissac. Rapports et Discussions de FAcademie Royale de Medecine sur le Magnetisme Animal, Paris, 1833.

Friends in Council, London.

Garinet. Histoire de la Magie en France.

Gasparin, Comte de. Des Tables tournantes, du Surnaturel en General, et des Esprits, Paris, 1855.

Georget. De la Physiologie du Systeme nerveux, Paris, 1821.

Glanvil. Sadducismus Triumphatus, 3d ed., London, 1689.

Grose, Francis, F. A. S. Provincial Glossary and Popular Superstition, London, 1790.

Hare, Robert, M. D. Experimental Examination of the Spirit-Manifestations, 4th ed., New York, 1856.

Hazlitt’s Round Table.

Herschel, Sir John. Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History, 2d ed., London, 1851.

Histoire des Diables de Loudun, Amsterdam, 1693.

Holland. Chapters on Mental Physiology, London, 1852.

Huidekoper, Frederick. The Belief of the First Three Centuries concerning Christ’s Mission to the Underworld.

Humboldt, Baron. Cosmos.

Hume’s Essays.

Insulanus, Theophilus. Treatise on Second-Sight, Dreams, and Apparitions, Edinburgh, 1763.

Johnson’s Rasselas.

Jones, Bence, M. D. On Animal Electricity: being an Abstract of the Discoveries of Emil Du Bois-Reymond, London, 1852.

Kepleri Epistolae.

Kerner, Justinus. Die Seherin von Prevorst, 4th ed., Stuttgart, 1846.

Kerr, Robert. Memoirs of the Life of "William Smellie, Edinburgh, 1811. La Fleche. La Demonomanie de Loudun, 1634.

La Place. Theorie analytique des Probability, Paris, 1847.

Locke on the Human Understanding.

Macario. Du Sommeil, des Reves, et du Somnambulisme, Lyons, 1857. Mackay’s Popular Delusions.

Macnish. Philosophy of Sleep.

Martin. Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, Loudon, 1706.

Mayo, Herbert. On the Truths contained in Popular Superstitions, Edinburgh and London, 1851.

Menardaye, M. de la. Examen et Discussions critiques de EHistoire des Diables de Loudun, Paris, 1747.

Mirville, Marquis de. Des Esprits, et de leurs Manifestations fluidiques, 3d ed., Paris, 1354.

Misson. Theatre sacre des Cevennes, London, 1707.

Montgeron, Carre de. La Verite des Miracles operes par l’lntercession de M. de Paris, 2d ed., Cologne, 1745.

Muller’s Manuel de Physiologie, Paris, 1845.

Neander’s Church History.

Priestley, Dr. Original Letters by the Rev. John Wesley and his Friends, London, 1791.

Racine. Abrege de l’Histoire de Port-Royal, Paris, 1693.

Raikes, Thomas. A Portion of the Journal kept by, London, 1856.

Sensitive Mensch.

Reid’s Essays on the Mind.

Reponse a l’Examen de la Possession des Religieuses de Louviers, Rouen, 1643. Report of the Mysterious Noises at Hydesville, Canandaigua, April, 1848. Ricard. Traite du Magnetisme Animal.

Rogers’ Table-Talk.

Rogers, E. C. Philosophy of Mysterious Agents, Human and Mundane, Boston, 1853.

Roman Ritual.

Roscoe, William. The Life of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Rutter. Animal Electricity.

Scheffer. Histoire de Laponie, Paris, 1778.

Scott, Sir Walter. Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, 2d ed., 1857.

Sears, Edmund II. Foregleams of Immortality, 4th ed., Boston, 1858.

Sinclair. Satan’s Invisible World Discovered, Edinburgh, 1789.

Spectator for July 6, 1711.

Spicer. Facts and Fantasies, London, 1853.

Stilling, Jung. Theorie der Geisterkunde, 1809.

Stober. Vie de J. F. Oberlin.

Strahan, Rev. George, D. D. Prayers and Meditations of Dr. Samuel Johnson, London, 1785.

Strauss. Life of Jesus.

Taylor, Isaac. Physical Theory of Another Life, London, 1839.

Taylor, Joseph. Danger of Premature Interment.

Tillotson’s Sermons.

Tissot, le Pere. Histoire Abrege de la Possession des Ursulines de Loudun, Paris, 1828.

Walton, Isaac. The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, &c., Oxford edition, 1824.

Warton’s History of English Poetry.

Welby, Horace. Signs before Death, London, 1825.

Whateley, Archbishop. Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte 12th ed., London, 1853.

Whateley, Archbishop'. Elements of Logic.

Wigan. Duality of the Mind, London, 1844.

Wraxall, Sir N. William. Historical Memoirs of my Own Time.

Book I. Preliminary

I. STATEMENT OF THE SUBJECT.

“As I did ever hold, there nought be as great a vanitie in retiring and withdrawing men’s conceites (except they bee of some nature) from the world as in obtruding them; so, in these particulars, I have played myself the Inquisitor, and find nothing to my understanding in them contrarie or infectious to the state of Religion or manners, but rather, as I suppose, medecinable.” —Bacon: Dedication to Essays, 1597.

In an age so essentially utilitarian as the present, no inquiry is likely to

ENGAGE THE PERMANENT ATTENTION OF THE PUBLIC, UNLESS IT BE PRACTICAL IN ITS BEARINGS.

Even then, if the course of such inquiry lead to the examination of extraordinary phenomena, it will be found that evidence the most direct, apparently sufficing to prove the reality of these, will usually leave the minds of men incredulous, or in doubt, if the appearances be of isolated character, devoid of authentic precedent in the past, and incapable of classification, in the proper niche, among analogous results; much more, in case they involve a suspension of the laws of nature.

If I entertain a hope of winning the public ear, while I broach, broadly and frankly, the question whether occasional interferences from another world in this be reality or delusion, it is, first, because I feel confident in being able to show that the inquiry is of a practical nature; and, secondly, because the phenomena which I purpose to examine in connection with it are not of isolated, still less of miraculous, character. In the etymological sense of the term, they are not unlikely, there being many of their like to be found adequately attested throughout history. They appear in groups, and lend themselves, like all other natural phenomena, to classification.

Extraordinary, even astounding, they will usually be considered; and that, not so much because they are really uncommon, as because they have been, in a measure, kept out of sight. And this again arises, in part, because few dispassionate observers have patiently examined them; in part, because prejudice, which discredits them, has prevented thousands to whom they have presented themselves from bearing public or even private testimony to what they have witnessed; in part, again, because, although these phenomena are by no means of modern origin, or determined by laws but recently operative, they appear to have much increased in frequency and variety, and to have reached a new stage of development, in the last few years; and finally, because they aresuch as readily stir up in weak minds blind credulity or superstitious terror, the prolific sources of extravagance and exaggeration. Thus the intelligent conceal and the ignorant misstate them.

This condition of things complicates the subject, and much increases the difficulty of treating it.

Again: though no article of human faith is better founded than the belief in the ultimate prevalence of truth, yet, in every thing relating to earthly progress, time enters as an essential element. The fruit drops not till it has ripened: if nipped by early blight or plucked by premature hand it is imperfect and worthless. And the world of mind, like that of physical nature, has its seasons: its spring, when the sap rises and the buds swell; its summer, of opened flower and blossom; its autumn, of yellow grain. We must not expect to reap, in any field, until harvest¬ time.

Yet, how gradual soever time’s innovations and the corresponding progress of the human mind, there are certain epochs at which, by what our short sight calls chance, particular subjects spring forth into notice, as it were, by a sudden impulse, attracting general attention, and thus predisposing men’s minds to engage in their investigation. At such epochs, words that at other times would foil unheeded may sink deep and bear good fruit.

It seldom happens, however, at the first outbreak of any great excitement, when some strange novelty seems bursting on the world, that the minds of men, whether of supporters or of opponents, maintain due moderation, either in assent or in denial. The hasty ardor of newborn zeal, and the sense, quick to offense when first impinged upon, of prejudice long dominant, alike indispose to calm inquiry, are alike unfavorable to critical judgment.

And thus, at the present day, perhaps, (when the din of the earliest onset has subsided and the still small voice can be heard,) rather than at any period of the last ten years, during which our country has witnessed the rise and progress of what may be called a revival of Pneumatology, may the subject be discussed with less of passion and received with diminished prejudice. And if a writer, in treating of it at this juncture, escape some of those shoals upon which earlier inquirers have stranded, it may be due as much to a happy selection of time, as to any especial merit or superior discernment.

Then, too, as to the great question of which I purpose to examine the probabilities, recent events have not only enlisted the attention of the audience: they have also, in a measure, opened way for the speaker. The strictness of the taboo is relaxed. And this was greatly to be desired. For the inquiry touching the probability of ultramundane intervention—though it cannot be said to have been lost sight of at any moment since the dawn of civilization, though Scripture affirm it as to former ages, and though, throughout later times, often in various superstitious shapes, it has challenged the terrors of the ignorant—had seemed, for a century past, to be gradually losing credit and reputable standing, and to be doomed to exclusion from respectable society or philosophical circles. Able men cared not to jeopard a reputation for common sense by meddling with it at all.

With honorable exceptions, however. Of these I have met with none so original in thought, so philosophic in spirit, as Isaac Taylor. Yet he has treated, with a master’s hand, one branch only of the subject,—the analogical.

Another portion of this field of research has been partially occupied, from time to time, by a class of writers, often German, usually set down as superstitious dreamers; of which Jung Stilling, perhaps, is one of the fairest examples. Pious, earnest, able, of a probity beyond suspicion, but somewhat mystical withal, the Aulic Councilor of Baden sought proofs of his speculations in alleged actual occurrences, (as apparitions, house-hauntings, and the like,) the records of which he adopted, and thereupon erected his spirit-theory with a facility of belief for which the apparent evidence seems, in many of the examples cited, to be insufficient warrant. In our day others have pursued a similar line of argument; in one instance, at least, if sixteen editions in six years may vouch for the fact, attracting the sympathy of the public.

It may be conceded, however, that these narratives have commonly been read rather to amuse an idle hour than for graver purpose. They have often excited wonder, seldom produced conviction. But this, as I think, is due, not to actual insufficiency in this field, but rather, first, to an unphilosophical manner of presenting the subject,—a talking of wonders and miracles, when there was question only of natural, even if ultramundane, phenomena; and, secondly, to an indiscriminate mixing-up of the reliable with the apocryphal, to lack of judgment in selection and of industry in verification. I have not scrupled freely to cull from this department; seeking, however, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and content, in so doing, even if the available material that remains shall have shrunk to somewhat petty dimensions.

Essentially connected with this inquiry, and to be studied by all who engage therein, are the phenomena embraced in what is usually called Animal Magnetism. First showing itself in France, three-quarters of a century ago, its progress arrested at the outset, when its claims were vague and its chief phenomena as yet unobserved, by the celebrated report of Badly, often falling into the hands of untrained and superficial observers, sometimes of arrant charlatans, its pretensions extravagantly stated by some and arrogantly denied by others, Animal Magnetism has won its way through the errors of its properly so called. It is usually admitted that somnambulism, with its attendant phenomena, in the form now known to us, was observed, for the first time, by the Marquis de Puysegur, on his estate of Buzaney, near Soissons, on the 4th of March, 1784; but Puysegur made public his observations only at the close of that year, four months after the commissioners’ report was made. Badly and his associates, learned and candid as they were, must not be cited as condemning that which they had never seen nor heard of. To this fact Arago, a man who rose superior to the common prejudices of his associates, honestly testifies. 1 translate from his notice of the life and career of the unfortunate Badly, published in the “Annuaire du Bureau des Fongitudes” for 1853. “The report of Badly,” says he, “upset from their foundations the ideas, the system, the practice, of Mesmer and his disciples: let us add, in ad sincerity, that we have no right to evoke its authority against modern somnambulism. Most of the phenomena now grouped around that name were neither known nor announced in 1783. Amagnetizer undoubtedly says one of the least probable things in the world, when he teds us that such an individual, in a state of somnambulism, can see every thing in perfect darkness, or read through a wall, or even without the aid of the eyes. But the improbability of such assertions does not result from the celebrated report. Badly does not notice such marvels, either to assert or to deny them. The naturalist, the physician, or the mere curious investigator, who engages in somnambulic experiments, who thinks it his duty to inquire whether, in certain states of nervous excitement, individuals are really endowed with extraordinary faculties,—that, for instance, of reading through the epigastrium or the heel,— who desires to ascertain positively up to what point the phenomena announced with so much assurance by "modern magnetizers belong only to the domain of the rogue or the conjurer,—all such inquirers, we say, are not in this case running counter to a judgment rendered; they are not really opposing themselves to a Lavoisier, a Franklin, a Badly. They are entering upon a world entirely new, the very existence of which these illustrious sages did not suspect.”—(pp. 444-445.)