the matter with those whose minds are evidently
quite comfortably made up on the matter. It is such a pity to interfere
with cherished opinions. I have found out that there are Athanasian
creeds in science as well as in theology; and really, whilst they form
recognised formulae in the one or the other, it is positively lost labour
to go running one's head against them. The question I want to ask--not
the gentle apothecaries, but my readers--is, What do you mean by
believing in spiritualism? Many of the phenomena of spiritualism I
cannot but believe, if I am to take my five senses as my guides in this
as in other matters, and quite setting aside any credence I may give to
respectable testimony. When, however, I pass from facts to theories, and
am asked to account for those facts, then I hesitate. There are some
here, I know, who will say that the spiritualist like the lady who
hesitates is lost--who think me as heterodox for doing so, as the
inflexible old ladies and the omniscient apothecaries did on account of
my even deigning to look into the evidence of such phenomena. I feel
really that I have set myself up like an animated ninepin to be knocked
down by the first thorough-going spiritualist who cares to bowl at me.
But whatever else they think of me--sceptical though they deem me on
subjects where perhaps you are, many of you, a little prone to
dogmatize--I claim the character at least of an honest sceptic. I do not
altogether disavow the title, but I understand it to mean "inquirer." I
confess myself, after long years of perfectly unbiassed inquiry, still
an investigator--a sceptic. It is the fashion to abuse St. Thomas
because he sought sensible proofs on a subject which it was certainly
most important to have satisfactorily cleared up. I never could read the
words addressed to him at all in the light of a rebuke--"Because thou
hast seen thou hast believed." The Church of England treats the doubt of
St. Thomas as permitted by God "for the more confirmation of the faith;"
and I feel sure that professed spiritualists will not be so inconsistent
as to censure any man for examining long and carefully matters which
they believe to admit of demonstration. I heard the most eloquent of
their advocates say, when comparing spiritual with credal conviction,
"Our motto no longer is 'I believe,' but 'I know.'" Belief may be
instantaneous, but knowledge will be gradual; and so it is that,
standing at a certain fixed point in very