bsence of what we hold to be the soul; that
is, of superior emancipated intelligence. These apparitions come for
little or no object--they seldom speak when they do come; if they speak,
they utter no ideas above those of an ordinary person on earth.
Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be
truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is
incumbent on philosophy to deny--viz., nothing supernatural. They are
but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the
means) from one mortal brain to another. Whether, in so doing, tables
walk by their own accord, or fiend-like shapes appear in a magic circle,
or bodyless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of
Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood--still am I
persuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to
my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there is a
natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic
wonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
produce electric wonders. But the wonders differ from Natural Science in
this--they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous. They
lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and
true sages have not cultivated them. But sure I am, that of all I saw or
heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and I believe
unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this
reason: no two persons, you say, have ever experienced exactly the same
thing. Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same
dream. If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be
arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a
supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for
some definite end. These phenomena belong to neither class; my
persuasion is that they originated in some brain now far distant; that
that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what
does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed
thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put
in action and invested with a semi-substance. That this brain is of
immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is
malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have
killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have