No visual shade of some one lost,

But he, the Spirit himself may come,
When all the nerve of sense is numb,
Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost.

Thus that belief in the supernatural which is common to mankind, becomes intensified through the influence of imagination, of visions, and of grief, until in certain phases of experience or emotion the mind is prepared to look upon everything outside the pale of present knowledge as a manifestation from the spirit world. Priestcraft and jugglery, taking advantage of this tendency, have in all ages found credulous adherents and unconscious victims. In particular, this tendency to a belief in the supernatural has been turned to account by the priests of idolatry, in impressing the vulgar with their own sanctity as the confidants of the gods. The Egyptians were accustomed when any part of the body was afflicted with disease, "to invoke the demon to whom it was supposed to belong, in order to obtain a cure. In cases of greater moment oracles were consulted." An old papyrus found in Egypt mentions divination through a boy who acted as a medium, and who practised his art by means of "a bowl, a lamp and a pit," as do the modern magicians of the country. It also contains recipes for obtaining good fortune, for discovering theft, and for causing misfortunes to an enemy. It is supposed also by some that the ancient Egyptians had a knowledge of animal magnetism, and used this in their magic.*

With the ancient Orientals, the magician and the soothsayer were regular attendants at court. The Israelites were forbidden to tolerate "one that used divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." To pervert the belief of mankind in the supernatural into an agency of superstition, falsehood, and idolatry, was an "abomination to the Lord." Yet this offense has been repeated in almost every age of the Christian era.

Christ himself predicted that pretenders to his name and power would "show great signs and wonders, and, if

* Wilkinson and Lane.

possible, deceive the very elect." Paul describes the apostate Anti-Christ as coming with "signs and lying wonders." Passing over the legendary miracles of the early Christian centuries, we trace the rise and growth of the Papal delusions and the Mohammedan imposture; we find the most civilized nations of antiquity conducting wars and other enterprises according to omens in the heavens or voices from the gods. through the augurs; we find in the Middle Ages astrology deciding the fortunes of individuals and of empires; we find our Saxon ancestors in England holding communication with the invisible world through witches and mysterious symbols; we find the clergy using supposed supernatural agents as a means of intimidating and governing the laity; and in Puritan New England we find, according to Cotton Mather, examples of "witch" agency that surpass even the marvels. of modern Spiritualism. It is evident, therefore, that a belief in the Supernatural is one of the strongest influences affecting human thought and action. Perverted as this has been to subserve the vagaries of Fanaticism and the terrors of Superstition, it becomes of the highest importance to the philosopher and the divine to restore this faith to its normal action to mark the boundary between a rational belief in the Supernatural and that fanciful or superstitious interpretation of mere natural causes and effects which has made religion itself the minister of fear or of lust.

We cannot set aside the phenomena of modern Spiritualism by ignoring its alleged facts, or by denying the possibility of a supernatural event. The absolute disbelief of the Supernatural is contrary to man's nature. Goethe describes himself as "destitute of faith, yet terrified at skepticism." "Skepticism," says Mazzini, "is the suicide of the soul." Man must believe or his soul dies. The invisible world surrounds us as an atmosphere, and the soul can no more exist in perpetual unbelief than the body can exist in a perpetual vacuum. Το shut up the soul within its material confines, giving no vent to imagination and faith, compelling its heaven-kindled fires to feed upon grosser objects of sense, is like shutting up the body in a cabin without a flue, to warm it with the

fumes of charcoal. A delicious calm steals over the senses; care and trouble are forgotten; the subtle vapors close the ear against the noise of the tempest without; and all that could stir the activities of nature is hushed in the stupor of approaching death. Activity is the law of life to the soul. The stupor of skepticism is not the antidote it needs for wayward fancies and superstitious fears. That which is alleged to be Supernatural must be tested by laws of evidence which reason can apply. It is the aim of this Article to lay down such laws or principles as shall fairly test the phenomena of Spiritualism in comparison with the miracles recorded in the Bible.

I. We must agree with Hume, that the uniformity of the course of nature creates a strong presumption against the occurrence of a miracle, and therefore any testimony to a supposed supernatural event should be subjected to the most careful scrutiny. But when Mr. Hume goes beyond this, and affirms as a maxim of philosophy, that "no human testimony can have such force as to prove a miracle," he begs the whole question by assuming the impossibility of a miracle, which is the very point in dispute. To prove that there never has been a miracle, he stoutly asserts that there never has been a miracle!

True, he limits the remark by adding that "a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion." But that does not alter the question of fact; for if the miracle can be proved at all, it certainly can be made to serve as the foundation of religion, quite as well as any other fact not miraculous. To take his own illustration.

"I own," he says, "that otherwise there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony. Thus, suppose all authors, in all languages, agree that from the first of January, 1600, there was a total darkness over the whole earth for eight days: suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travelers who return from foreign countries bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction; it is evident that our present philosophers, instead of doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived.

"

'But suppose that all the historians who treat of England should agree that on the first of January, 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that both before and after her death she was seen by her physicians and the whole court as is

usual with persons of her rank; that her successor was acknowledged and proclaimed by the Parliament; and that, after being interred for a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years; I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pretended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it; I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was, nor possibly could be real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility of deceiving the world in an affair of such consequence; the wisdom and solid judgment of that renowned Queen; with the little or no advantage which she could reap from so poor an artifice: all this might astonish me; but I would still reply that the kuavery and folly of men are such common phenomena that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature."*

Now the fallacies of this position are manifold. Foremost of all is the assumption that there can be nothing in the universe that David Hume does not understand; that nothing is possible to Almighty power that does not fall within the range of his philosophy.

Next is the fallacy of making the non-experience of one man a test of the experience of another. "No amount of testimony," says Mr. Hume, "could make it credible that one rose from the dead, since that would be contrary to the universal experience of mankind." But the very point in dispute is whether such a fact has fallen within the experience of those who testify that they have seen it. The testimony of a thousand men that they did not witness a certain phenomenon cannot silence the testimony of ten men that they did witness it, unless the thousand were present at the same time and place with the ten, and with the same facilities of observation. No amount of testimony from people who were asleep in their beds, could weigh against the testimony of watchmen and others as to the fact of a great meteoric shower in the year 1833. The question, in such cases, is not one of nonexperience against a strange experience, but one of the credi bility of the witnesses and their competence to judge of that to which they testify. And here comes in a consideration which Mr. Hume entirely overlooks, but which is vital to the

Hume's Inquiry on Human Understanding, Sec. x.

whole question, viz, Does the occasion warrant the alleged miracle? The reasons for incredulity, in the supposed case of the resurrection of Elizabeth, are valid, not because human testimony could not prove such a miracle, but because there is no object that should call for such an act of Divine power; and God does not trifle with his creatures, or amuse them with shows. If we believe in God, as Mr. Hume professed to do, then He who created man has power to raise a dead man to life; and if God should do this, the fact would be capable of being testified to; the difficulty, therefore, in believing the supposed resurrection of Queen Elizabeth would not lie in the impossibility of such an event for it is clearly within the power of God-nor in the impossibility of supporting it by testimony, if it did occur; but in the absence of any reason comporting with the Divine nature that should seem to warrant the miracle, and therefore the suspicion of some deception, or of a trance or other state simulating death. But the miracles recorded in the Bible were wrought upon occasions and for objects grand enough to warrant such direct interference of Divine power, to challenge attention to the event or the truth, and to certify it as from Him. The moral reason for the miracle, which appears in the nature of the circumstances, so far removes the antecedent improbability, that the miracle is as fair a subject of testimony as any other event.

Mr. Owen's reply to Hume, while in some points quite forcible, fails through his attempt to reduce the miraculous within the sphere of general laws. He contends that "no human experience is unalterable," and that it is hazardous to say that in any given particular, human experience "has hitherto been unaltered." He denounces as "monstrous" Hume's assertion of the infallibility of his own experience. But at the same time he affirms that "accumulating experience discredits the doctrine of occasional causes and the belief in the miraculous." Hume rejects the miracles of the Bible as incredible; Owen accepts as facts the events recorded as miraculous, but refers them to a general law, which he seeks to establish as well for the phenomena of modern Spiritualism. The moral argument just stated, corrects both these extremes;