racter, though the evidence he received was primary. He tenders a cheque upon a most respectable firm, Messrs. Fact & Co., to an immense amount: and might properly be answered by,'My dear friend, I know that your credit is good, as things in general go, but I really must make inquiry before I take so large a cheque as this for value.' On the other hand, the receiver of the testimony brings a few positions out of his stock of laws of nature, notions of possibility and impossibility, dictates of common sense, &c. &c., on which he desires the giver to conclude that the evidence of his own senses is good for nothing, because it would prove that what cannot be can be, which is absurd, Q. E. D. He tenders a cheque upon his house, Messrs. First Principles & Co., and might, with equal propriety, be answered by,- My good fellow, I know your credit in that quarter is unlimited; but the truth is, they give unlimited credit to so many, that I doubt their lasting through any twenty-four hours in the year.' Each of these parties deals unreasonably with the other. Now my reader will understand that I do not make any demand upon him: he will give me credit, if not himself a goose, for seeing that the tender of an anonymous cheque would be of equal effect, whether drawn on the Bank of England or on Aldgate Pump. My thesis is that he has asked of me a specimen of what makes me believe in the reality of some of the things called spirit-manifestations. Whether or no he shall allow me to have had the ground I say I had, is to me indifferent, and to the question irrelevant. I confess that for a little while I thought I had thrown salt on the tail of an impossibility. I felt what the French call désorienté, but fortunately not au bout de mon Latin, though the phrases are of the same family. So I went back to the old quiddity-mongers, and fortified myself with ab actu ad posse valet consequentia. My state required

so much relief that I had recourse to Aristotle, who says-my reader must excuse translation, it is really too deep-Ta de γενόμενα φανερὸν ὅτι δυνατά· οὐ γὰρ ἐγένετο εἰ ἦν ἀδύνατα. Ι, it will be observed, had my own senses to preserve from utter confutation: my reader will not require the strong medicines which I prescribed for myself; he has but to set me down for a liar, a dupe, or a hoaxer, and he gets off cheaper than I did.

Ten years ago, Mrs. Hayden, the well known American medium, came to my house alone. The sitting began immediately after her arrival. Eight or nine persons were present, of all ages, and of all degrees of belief and unbelief in the whole thing being imposture. The raps began in the usual way. They were to my ear clean, clear, faint sounds, such as would be said to ring, had they lasted. I likened them at the time to the noise which the ends of knitting-needles would make, if dropped from a small distance upon a marble slab, and instantly checked by a damper of some kind: and subsequent trial showed that my description was tolerably accurate. I never had the good luck to hear those exploits of Latin muscles, and small kicking done on the leg of a table by machinery, which have been proposed as the causes of these raps: but the noises I did hear were such as I feel quite unable to impute to either source, even on the supposition of imposture. Mrs. Hayden was seated at some distance from the table, and her feet were watched by their believers until faith in pedalism slowly evaporated. At a late period in the evening, after nearly three hours of experiment, Mrs. Hayden having risen, and talking at another table while taking refreshment, a child suddenly called out,' Will all the spirits who have been here this evening rap together?' The words were no sooner uttered than a hailstorm of knitting needles was heard, crowded into certainly less than two seconds; the big needle

(

sounds of the men, and the little ones of the women and children, being clearly distinguishable, but perfectly disorderly in their arrival.

For convenience I shall speak of these raps as proceeding from spirits the reader may say that the spirit was Mrs. Hayden; the party addressed, a departed friend, the devil, or what not. Though satisfied that the sounds were made amosgepotically, I prefer the word spirit, as briefer than ( amosgepotic influence.'

*

On being asked to put a question to the first spirit, I begged that I might be allowed to put my question mentally -that is, without speaking it, or writing it, or pointing it out to myself on an alphabet,-and that Mrs. Hayden might hold both arms extended while the answer was in progress. Both demands were instantly granted by a couple of raps. I put the question and desired the answer might be in one word, which I assigned; all mentally. I then took the printed alphabet, put a book upright before it, and, bending my eyes upon it, proceeded to point to the letters in the usual way. The word chess was given, by a rap at each letter. I had now a reasonable certainty of the following alternative: either some thought-reading of a character wholly inexplicable, or such superhuman acuteness on the part of Mrs. Hayden that she could detect the letter I wanted by my bearing, though she (seated six feet from the book which hid my alphabet) could

* I present this word as one which will be found very convenient : it may frequently effect a compromise. For example, I have lately heard of some one who declared in an elaborate article that he would not believe the evidence of his senses unless the facts presented were capable of explanation on some (by him) received hypothesis. I could go with him as far as this, that I would not trust my own eyes and ears for anything except what could safely be attributed to an amosgepotic

source.

see neither my hand nor my eye, nor at what rate I was going through the letters. I was fated to be driven out of the second alternative before the sitting was done.

At a later period of the evening, when another spirit was under examination, I asked him whether he remembered a certain review which was published soon after his death, and whether he could give me the initials of an epithet (which happened to be in five words) therein applied to himself. Consent having been given, I began my way through the alphabet, as above: the only difference of circumstances being that a bright table-lamp was now between me and the medium. I expected to be brought up at, say the letter F; and when my pencil passed that letter without any signal, I was surprised, and by the time I came to K, or thereabouts, I paused, intending to announce a failure. But some one called out, 'You have passed it; I heard a rap long ago.' I began again; and distinct raps came, first at c, then at D. I was now satisfied that the spirit had failed; and I thought to myself that it was rather hard to expect him to remember a passage in a review published in 1817, or thereabouts. But, stopping to consider a little more, it flashed into my mind that C. D. were his own initials, and that he had chosen to commence the clause which contained the epithet. I then said nothing but I see what you are at: pray go on,' and I then got T (for The), then the F I wanted—of which not one word had been said, — and then the remaining four initials. I was now satisfied that contents of my mind had been read which could not have been detected by my method of pointing to the alphabet, even supposing that could have been seen.

I gave an account of all this to a friend who was then alive, a man of ologies and ometers both, who was not at all disposed to think it anything but a clever imposture. But,' said he,

6

what you tell me is very singular: I shall go myself to Mrs. Hayden: I shall go alone and not give my name: I don't think I shall hear anything from anybody: but if I do I shall find out the trick; depend upon it I shall find it out.' He went accordingly and came to me to report progress. He told me that he had gone a step beyond me, for he had insisted on taking his alphabet behind a large folding screen, and asking his questions by the alphabet and a pencil, as well as receiving the answers. No persons except himself and Mrs. Hayden were in the room. The 'spirit' who came to him was one whose unfortunate death was fully detailed in the usual way. My friend told me that he was 'awe-struck,' and had nearly forgotten all his precautions.

The things which I have narrated were the beginning of a long series of experiences, many as remarkable as what I have given; many of a minor character, separately worth little, but jointly of weight when considered in connexion with the more decisive proofs of reality; many of a confirmatory tendency as mere facts, but of a character not sustentive of the gravity and dignity of the spiritual world. The celebrated apparition of Giles Scroggins is a serious personage compared to some which have fallen in my way, and a logical one too. If these things be spirits, they show that pretenders, coxcombs, and liars are to be found on the other side of the grave as well as on this; and what for no? as Meg Dods said.

The whole question may receive such persevering attention as shall worm out the real truth: or it may die away, obtaining only casual notice, until a new outburst of phenomena recalls its history of this day. But this subsidence does not seem to begin. It is now twelve or thirteen years since the matter began to be everywhere talked about: during which time there have been many announcements of the total ex