propose to take up, and when,
over forty years ago, I published in my JOURNAL OF MAN the
incontestable facts then established, and gave their rationale, the
psychic researchers of to-day were as ignorant as sucking babes of the
whole subject. This ignorance is the very _raison d'etre_ of the
society. They don't know if there is anything to be discovered, and
they propose to look out. Their failure so far is considered by
Colonel Higginson a proof of their superior wisdom, which means that
they are looking for a mare's nest, and have shown their wisdom by not
finding it!

Let those who are seeking to enter the freshman class in psychic
science assume a little appearance of modesty, and not attempt to set
themselves above the old graduates and professors of the university,
at which they have heretofore been throwing stones like an
unrestrained mob. This is plain speech, but it is just. Let them begin
their operations by an act of justice--by building a monument to
Professor Hare, the noblest of American scientists, and the object of
their persecution.

"The time has come," says our lady critic, "for mystery to work hand
in hand with scientific study or to lay aside its claims to scientific
respect." Very true, very true, indeed, except your chronology; the
time has long since gone by. Science has grappled with mystery long
since. I can point out, if you wish to see it, the very anatomical
structures, the special fibres in connection with which the spiritual
phenomena are developed. The _modus operandi_ is understood, and the
facts have been known some thirty, some a hundred, some several
thousand years. Among advanced thinkers psychic science is no more a
debatable question than the rotundity of the earth or the principles
of astronomy.

Finally, dear, eloquent lady, your exhortations in behalf of honesty
are very admirable, indeed, and would be much more admirable if the
exhortation itself were more fair and honest--if you did not seem to
sprinkle the reproach of dishonesty over multitudes of honest people
more gifted than yourself, with the power to find and clasp the
holiest truths. If the inferior and less honorable class of mediums
are now before the public, why is it? It is due solely, dear lady, to
such people as yourself and your psychic society men, and "fellows of
a baser sort," who follow your lead--to those whose censorious and
sometimes scurrilous hostility against spiritual phenomena has driven
into ret