ances are not from the so-called spiritual world; but I do not see why we should expect spirits out of the body to have more intelligence than spirits in the body. We have no reason to think so. We know absolutely nothing in respect to the changes which take place after death. It may be that pure and refined spirits, freed from the body, ascend to higher existence; but in that case it is difficult to imagine that such spirits would return to rap out foolish statements at tables. But, on the other hand, there are many low, mean, contemptible spirits dwelling here in the flesh to whom the body may lend apparent respectability, and, stripped of this garment which conceals their inanity of intellect and baseness of desires, they may fall in the scale of being even below what they seemed here. Such spirits of the earth earthy-would long for the gratifications of the sense and the flesh, and might be supposed to haunt the earth to which their desires cling, and grasp at any means of communication with it. Their heaven would be the heaven of the senses, and of the life they had lost, and one would naturally expect from them lies, hypocrisies, and deceit of every kind. Freed from the body, the naked spirit would be what it desiredthe high and pure of aspiration would therefore ascend to loftier planes of existence, the mean and base might descend even to lower. I only suggest this answer to any argument against spiritual communications founded upon their triviality, feebleness, and absurdity. Let us clear our minds of distinctions between human beings and spirits. We are all spirits; all our communications are spiritual. It is two spirits who talk together not two bodies - here on earth. We have no warrant for the belief that the instant the spirit is freed

from the body it necessarily leaves the earth-whatever be its condition-and becomes at once purified, and beyond its influences. It may be or it may not be; but it is certainly a possible supposition that they whose whole happiness, while here, has been in the joys of the body, and whose desires have been mean and depraved, may only continue to be possessed by the same desires, and long to regain the body through which they obtained their gratification.

Mallett. It never struck me before in this light, but it certainly is an intelligible theory, whether it be correct or not. We all have faith in gradations of future being, and we believe that the spirit survives the body, and retains its identity; and why not suppose, if its preparation in this life has been for higher spheres, it would naturally ascend to them, while if it had been for lower spheres, it would equally descend to them? If, after death, we retain an individuality, we naturally must remain what we inherently are, with the same desires, the same aspirations, the same tendencies. This would, if we accept it, enable the human being here to shape for himself his future sphere, by the training of his thoughts and aspirations to what is lofty, pure, and refined on the one hand, or, on the other, to what is low, bestial, and degraded. We should thus reap what we ourselves have sown, and not be subject to any judgment and sentence outside of ourselves. Would not this recommend itself to our sense of perfect justice?

Belton. If we choose to take another step, we might suppose that repeated trials might be allotted to every spirit to climb up to higher spheres of existence by the purgation of its desires (since every spirit is what it desires), by its devotion to noble ends, by its constant ex

perience that the low leads only to the low, by its sense of loss in consequence of its base aims.

Mallett. In respect to these socalled spiritual communications by means of table-rappings, and all that, we shall never have the phenomena properly investigated so long as we begin with a theory. To set out with the assumption that all the material phenomena are occasioned by spiritual intervention, is entirely unworthy of science and philosophy. But so strenuously is this theory advanced by believers, that the minds of those who pretend to investigate them are warped at the beginning: on the one side are those who are inclined to the spiritual theory, and on the other, those to whom such a theory is absurd and even worse; and both, for entirely opposite reasons, are averse to strict examination and investigation. The real question is, Do the facts exist or not? If so, how are they to be explained? If the facts clearly exist, it is idle to reject them because a foolish theory is advanced to explain them. Are there any facts outside our common experience of the laws of nature so called? If there be, let us arrange them with calmness and honesty. On both sides, on the contrary, I find precipitation and impatience. Those disposed to the spiritual theory accept everything at once as spiritual. Those who are sceptical and unbelieving reject every fact as a cheat, without carefully investigating it or explaining it. It suffices the latter class on one or two occasions to detect a charlatan at work, or to encounter an entire failure of the experiment, to come to the conclusion that the whole thing is the result of charlatanism. But repeated failures or repeated cheating prove nothing. No scientific man No scientific man would investigate any other question in the same spirit as he does this.

If the matter were worthy of consideration at all, he would not be stopped in his researches by repeated failures to obtain his end. He would try again and again. He would not insist in the outset, for instance, that galvanism did not exist, unless he could produce its effects in the way he chose. He would not insist on his own conditions, and assert that unless the results were obtained through them, they did not exist at all. But this is what he constantly does in his professed investigation of so-called spiritual phenomena, because it is the term spiritual which annoys and disgusts him. If you recount to him any phenomena, perfectly material and physical, as having occurred in your presence under conditions contrary to his preconceived opinions or experience, he says, It would not have occurred had I been there; or he smiles, and says, Ah, indeed! and thinks you are a fool. If you press the point, and ask him to explain it, and tell him the details, and show him that his explanation does not accord with the facts, he assumes at once that you were incapable of investigation, that you were humbugged, or that you lie. Humbug is the great word he uses

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a very expansive one, which means anything or nothing. If you reply, How humbugged? where is the humbug? point it out-I desire to know as much as you; he declines to particularise, and prefers the generalisation of Humbug.

Belton. I cannot wonder at his condition of mind, nor fail to sympathise with his disgust at so much absurdity as is put forth by spiritualists in general.

Mallett. Nor I; but, at the same time, he should, I think, preserve a more scientific and philosophic attitude, and not decide until he has thoroughly investigated. There may be nothing in all this; he

may be quite right, only he has not examined the question sufficiently to decide upon it. For all he has seen and can explain there may be something. Of all these phenomena some may be real and point to a law not yet understood. Are there any such? It is not, to my mind, sufficient to try a few casual experiments on absolute conditions, and to reject the whole if failure ensues. In science one does not expect the first tentative experiment to succeed. Suppose the experiment fails a hundred times and succeeds once, the important fact is the one success, not the hundred failures. The truth is that all begin with scepticism-not honest scepticism which neither believes nor disbelieves, which is ready to accept or reject according to the evidence and facts, but scepticism with a loaded bias to unbelief. There is no reason either for or against the existence of any phenomenon a priori. The mere fact that it is contrary to our experience is no proof that it does not exist. Suppose a community of blind persons to exist on an island which had never been visited by any person who saw, and suppose, by accident, a man with the power of sight should be thrown among them. How could he prove to them that this faculty really existed in him? He would at once be met by the statement that it was contrary to their experience, that no one they had ever heard of possessed such a faculty. Vainly would he reason with them. His exhibition of this faculty would be treated as humbug and charlatanism. He would say, for instance, Place a person fifty yards from me, and beside him any selected person in whom you have confidence. I will tell you without moving from here every action he makes. He would do this. What would be the answer? Would the blind be con

vinced? Not at all; they would say, You have a confederate; this knowledge is procured by a secret system of sounds and signs intelligible to the senses we all have, or by some method which we do not know; what we do know is that nobody can see. Or they would say, Let us lock you up in a room all by yourself, with no doors or windows, and chain you there, and then you must tell us what is done in another house by a person we will lock up there, or what is done in the street. outside. If you answer, Under those conditions I cannot see; they would cry out, This proves it is all juggling. If you can't see as well in a box locked up at night as in the open air by day, you cannot see at all. There is no such power that exists; and though we do not detect the trick, it is nevertheless a trick. Don't you see that the seeing man in this case would be in a hopeless position? Suppose that there be anything real-I do not say there is

but suppose there be anything real in the phenomena of tables rising in the air, the person through whose mediumship they are executed is, to the scientific man of to-day, in a position quite analogous to that of the seeing man among the blind or the hearing among the deaf, provided they have had no previous experience of such a faculty as sight or hearing.

Belton. You speak as if you believed in these phenomena. Do you?

Mallett. I was not speaking of my belief, nor did I intend to indicate whether I believed in any of them or not. I merely meant to say that the spirit in which they are investigated is not what I wish it were.

Belton. But do you believe?

Mallett. I believe what I have seen and what I have tested with

all my senses. I mean the physical

But I

phenomena, for I have every proof of their reality that I have of anything, and I am not yet persuaded that I am an utter fool. do not undertake to explain them, much less do I accept the spiritual explanation. In my opinion there is quite as much stupidity in our incredulity as in our credulity. I cannot explain anything. It is an entire mystery how I see, how I hear, how I move my arm. Anatomists and scientific men explain to me the mechanism, and I understand that; but I do not understand how I set the mechanism in movement, nor they either. A man lives, sees, moves, one moment; the next moment he is what we call dead. The mechanism is the same, but the somewhat we cannot trace that moved it, is gone. A priori, outside our experience one thing is as difficult to believe as another, and it is idle to attempt to set bounds to any operation of life by our experience. It is quite possible that we have subtle powers and faculties which have escaped our observation, and that are exercised at times unconsciously or only in certain abnormal conditions. Change for a moment the normal conditions of ordinary life, and instantly we have new phenomena, as in the case of madness, monomania, or delirium. In high fever the organs are far more susceptible than in health. What are you going to do with second-sight and ghosts, apparitions and premonitions? Will you reject them all? Is there nothing in them? or will you say with Dr Johnson, "All argument is against it, but all belief is for it"? Are there no such things as sympathies and antipathies which we cannot explain, and yet which to us are real? What is love? What is hate? No! we do not know anything yet; and there are, in my opinion, penumbral powers and

senses surrounding our plain and definite ones, which we do not understand, and which we have not investigated. All I mean by this is, that it seems to me very foolish to cry out humbug at anything which is contrary to our common experience; and that it would be more scientific and honest to investigate calmly, than to ridicule. without investigation. And this is all I have to say, and don't let us talk any more about it. I am ready to believe anything if you can prove it properly. I am ready to disbelieve it if you can show that it has absolutely no foundation; but I do not begin by believing or disbelieving before careful examination. If I have not examined into it, I merely say I know nothing, or, as Montaigne did, "Que sais-je ?"

Belton. I daresay you are perfectly right; but my own persuasion is that ninety-nine one-hundredths of all this spiritualism is utter charlatanry, and I think I am very generous in giving you up the one onehundredth. Do you remember that medium who, after gathering a considerable number of persons together at one of his séances, and finding that several had obtained entrance without paying for their tickets, rose on a subsequent séance before commencing his operations, and said: "I wish to make one observation-there's nothing riles the spirits so as coming in without paying"?

Mallett. I remember; and he was a very clever fellow, and knew what he was about. I have no doubt that the more money was paid the more his spirits were raised. But I admit that there are many charlatans of this kidney, and numbers of people whom they take in, and to whom the rubbish that is slowly rapped up at the table seems like inspired communications from the other world. My disgust

at these fellows is quite equal to yours. I cannot use language too strong to express my abhorrence of those who, by lying arts, pretend to summon from the other world those who were dear as life to us, but who have passed away, and then put into their mouths those miserable lies. Think, for instance, of Charles Sumner's spirit being rapped up the other day, and giving this remarkable advice to his listeners-"You musn't act selfish!"

Belton. Sometimes the messages rapped up are very amusing. Did ever hear what the spirit of Dr Webster, the murderer of Dr Parkman, once rapped up to an astonished audience?

Mallett. Never; but pray let me hear it.

Belton. Well, Webster, as you know, killed Dr Parkman to avoid paying a debt due to him; and when the spirit of Dr W. presented itself to the table and was asked, as usual, what he was doing in the spirit-world, his answer was that he was keeping a boardinghouse, and that Dr Parkman was living with him, without paying, until he should work off or eat up the debt.

Mallett. That shows more ingenuity and intellect than one generally gets from the rapping spirits. If they would always be as amusing I should like to attend some séances.

Belton. Yes, if they only would be a little amusing, it would be a relief; after all, they might make such fun of us here: what a chance for them! but they are so deadly serious, and so sadly commonplace, that they are not good company. Heavens! only think of such a lot surrounding you in another world, and you without a body to hide away in, or a key to your door, and all of them swarming in upon you,

with their futile remarks and sad commonplaces.

Mallett. It would be worse than the mosquitoes in the Western States of America. Why do we always think of spirits as being so serious? Are we to lose all our sense of humour when we lose our bodies? Are we never to amuse ourselves? Is there nothing in the other world to correspond to the enjoyments of this? Are all our art and poetry to be utterly swept away? Are there to be no varieties of character and personality? Shall we never laugh? Worse than this. According to the old superstition, we artists shall be in a pretty mess; for all the graven images we have made, and all the likenesses of things in the heavens, or the earth, or the waters under the earth, will, it has been said, become endowed with life and pursue us, and haunt us, and torment us-a pleasant thought indeed! But what should I do there without art and poetry, and literature and music, and all these occupations and delights? Will there be no work for us to do? no books to read-no pictures to paint?

Belton. Music is, according to the general belief, admitted. We shall be able to sing. It will always be the same song; but we shall be able to sing it eternally; and we are told that we shall never tire of singing it. But as for painting pictures and modelling statues, I have never heard we should be allowed to do that.

Mallett. I earnestly hope I shall have a body. I don't at all conceive how I could do without one. But every one tells me, and of course every one knows, that I shall not need a body; and that I shall be perfectly contented with doing nothing but sing. But how shall I sing if I have no body? What sort of preparation then are any of