the 'force' or
'agency,' or 'condition of matter' or what you please. 'Substances,
forces, vibrations, let it be what you choose, as long as it is
something.' The objection that the phenomena are 'of no use' was
made, and is still very common, but, of course, is in no case
scientifically valid. Electricity was 'of no use' once, and the
most useless phenomenon is none the less worthy of examination.

M. de Gasparin now examines another class of objections. First, the
phenomena were denied; next, they were said to be as old as history,
and familiar to the Greeks. We elsewhere show that this is quite
true, that the movement of objects without contact was as familiar
to the Greeks as to the Peruvians, the Thibetans, the Eskimo, and in
modern stories of haunted houses. But, as will presently appear,
these wilder facts would by no means coalesce with the hypothesis of
M. de Gasparin. To his mind, tables turn, but they turn by virtue
of the will of a 'circle,' consciously exerted, through the means of
some physical force, fluid, or what not, produced by the imposition
of hands. Now these processes do not characterise the phenomena
among Greeks, Thibetans, Eskimo, Peruvians, in haunted houses, or in
presence of the late Mr. Home,--granting the facts as alleged. In
these instances, nobody is 'circling' round a chair, a bed, or what
not, yet the chair or bed moves, as in the story of Monsieur S. at
St. Maur (1706), and in countless other examples. All this would
not, as we shall see, be convenient for the theory of M. de
Gasparin.

His line of argument is that the Greek and Latin texts are
misunderstood, but that, if the Greeks did turn tables, that is no
proof that tables do not turn, but rather the reverse. A favourite
text is taken from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxix. ch. i. M. de
Gasparin does not appear to have read the passage carefully. About
371 A.D. one Hilarius was tortured on a charge of magical operations
against the Emperor Valens. He confessed. A little table, made of
Delphic laurel, was produced in court. 'We made it,' he said, 'that
confounded little table, under strange rites and imprecations, and
we set it in movement, thus: it was placed in a room charged with
perfumes, above a round plate fashioned of various metals. The edge
of the plate was marked with the letters of the alphabet separated
by certain spaces. A priest, linen clad, bowed himself over the
table, balancing a ring tied to a