ontain an idea that was not on the earth
before. 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 of 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 if by electric wires,
to my own brain from the brain of another. In some constitutions there
is a natural chemistry, and these constitutions may produce chemic
wonders--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may
produce electric wonders.

"But the wonders differ from Normal 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 told you that they 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 originate 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
into 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 sufficed to
kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog--had my
intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my
will."

"It killed your d