ostile and distracting influences, the contending
currents, in the midst of which Reason has to operate as well as she
can. Meanwhile every one of us probably supposes himself to be a
model of pure reason, and if people would only listen to him, the
measure of the universe. This happy and universal frame of mind is
agreeably illustrated in a work by the late Comte Agenor de
Gasparin, Les Tables Tournantes (Deuxieme edition: Levy, Paris,
1888). The first edition is of 1854, and was published at a time of
general excitement about 'table-turning' and 'spirit-rapping,' an
excitement which only old people remember, and which it is amazing
to read about.

Modern spirit-rapping, of which table-turning is a branch, began, as
we know, in 1847-48. A family of Methodists named Fox, entered, in
1847, on the tenancy of a house in Hydesville, in the State of New
York. The previous occupants had been disturbed by 'knocking,' this
continued in the Fox regime, one of the little girls found that the
raps would answer (a discovery often made before) a system of
alphabetic communication was opened, and spiritualism was launched.
{307} In March, 1853, a packet of American newspapers reached
Bremen, and, as Dr. Andree wrote to the Gazette d'Augsbourg (March
30, 1853), all Bremen took to experiments in turning tables. The
practice spread like a new disease, even men of science and
academicians were puzzled, it is a fact that, at a breakfast party
in Macaulay's rooms in the Albany, a long and heavy table became
vivacious, to Macaulay's disgust, when the usual experiment was
tried. Men of science were, in some cases, puzzled, in others
believed that a new force must be recognised, in others talked of
unconscious pushing or of imposture. M. Babinet, a member of the
Institute, writing in the Revue des Deux Mondes (May, 1854),
explained the 'raps' or percussive noises, as the result of
ventriloquism! A similar explanation was urged, and withdrawn, in
the case of the Cock Lane ghost, and it does not appear that M.
Babinet produced a ventriloquist who could do the trick. Raps may
be counterfeited in many ways, but hardly by ventriloquism. The
raps were, in Europe, a later phenomenon than the table-turning, and
aroused far more interest. The higher clergy investigated the
matter, and the Bishop of Mans in a charge, set down the phenomena
to the agency of some kind of spirits, with whom Christian men
should have no commerce. Granting