itualists themselves may produce the
evidence. President Mahan ("Discussion with Tiffany and Rhen," p. 13)
remarks:--

"Certain experiments have been made, in order to determine whether
spirits are present. Individuals go in as inquirers, and get
definite answers--in the first place, from _departed spirits_ of
persons _yet living_; in the second place, from departed spirits
of persons who _never existed_ here or anywhere else; in the third
place, from the departed spirits of brute beasts."

When it is considered, as already noted, that spirits do their work
through mesmeric power, it is easy to understand how the medium is made to
believe that such and such a spirit is communicating when it is not so at
all. This question of identity came up in the very early stages of
Spiritualism, and is no nearer settled, on their own confession, now than
then. A Mr. Hobart, in 1856, who claimed to be the first Spiritualist in
Michigan, made the following admission:--

"The spirit sometimes _assumes_ the name of an individual
belonging to the same church, to induce them to hear. This is
necessary with some who are so bigoted they would not believe
unless a name was assumed which they respected."

An article in the _Spiritual Telegraph_, of July 11, 1857, begins as
follows:--

"The question is continually being asked, especially by novitiates
in spiritual investigations, How shall we know that the spirits
who communicate with us are really the ones whom they purport to
be?... In giving the results of our own experience and observation
upon this subject, we would premise that spirits unquestionably
can, and often do, personate other spirits, and that, too, often
with such perfection as, for the time being, to defy every effort
to detect the deception.... If direct tests are demanded at all,
we would recommend that they be asked for the purpose of proving
that the manifesting influence is that of _a spirit_, rather than
to prove what _particular_ spirit is the agent of its production."

This is an entire begging of the whole matter in question; for it is not
denied that it is _a_ spirit; we want to know what _particular_ spirit it
is; but for that we must not ask; for it cannot be ascertained. The same
article states that other and lower spirits often crowd in and take the
place of the spirit communicating, without the knowledge of the