119. But independently of the inability to communicate ideas, not preexisting in the minds of mortals present, which has been so erroneously inferred to exist by Dr. Bell, let this eminent physician suggest any conceivable explanation of the phenomena attested by him, excepting that founded on the agency of spirits.

120. And, independently of any other proof, the fact that one of my guardian spirits bore a message from me at Cape May to Mrs. Gourlay at Philadelphia, so as to induce her to do what was requested, is evidently, of itself, inexplicable under any other view than that of a spirit having officiated.

121. To conclude, I hope that while Spiritualism will give a quietus to atheism, it will be found, agreeably to the facts and reasoning presented in this book, better sustained by evidence, and to answer the great objects of religion, as above stated, vastly better than any other religious doctrine.

THEOLOGICAL AXIOMS.

Is not the affirmative of any of these queries, as evidently true as any of the axioms of Euclid?

Did not that thought from heaven proceed,
According God's mercy to every creed,
Which however pagan, howe'er untrue,
Is meant to give our Creator his due?
May not devotion to God be shown,

Whether through Christ or Mohammed known?
Whether men die in holy war,

Or kneel to be crushed by Juggernaut's car?

Mankind would God in error leave,

Yet penally for that error aggrieve.

Did God a special creed require,

Each soul would he not with that creed inspire?

Can a glaring evil endure

Despite of the power and will to cure?

Must not any event arrive

For which both will and power strive?

Will not any result obtain

Which power unites with will to gain?

If God can creatures make to suit his will,
Foresee, if they can, his design fulfil;
Wherefore to trial, those creatures expose,
Traits to discover, which he thus foreknows?

INTUITIVE EVIDENCE

OF THE

EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS.

NARRATIVE OF THE AUTHOR'S EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF

SPIRITURALISM.

122. THE first fruit of my attention to the phenomena of table turning, was the following letter. I trust I shall not be considered as self-complacent, when I allege it to be an exemplification of wise ignorance, which is about equivalent to folly. The wisest man who speaks in ignorance, speaks foolishly to the ears of those who perceive his ignorance. The great mass of men of science appear in this light to spiritualists when they argue against Spiritualism. Men who are only nominally Know Nothings have proved a formidable party in politics; unfortunately, Spiritualism has, in its most active opponents, real Know Nothings, who will not admit any fact of a spiritual origin, unless such as they have been educated to believe. In that case, many have powers of intellectual deglutition rivalling those of the anaconda in the physical way.

Letter in reply to an Inquiry respecting the influence of Electricity in Table Turning.

PHILADELPHIA, July 27, 1853. 123. "Dear Sir: I am of opinion that it is utterly impossible for six or eight, or any number of persons, seated around a table, to produce an electric current. Moreover, I am confident that if by any adequate means an electrical current were created, however forcible, it could not be productive of table turning. A dry wooden table is almost a non-conductor, but if forming a link necessary to complete a circuit between the sky and earth, it might possibly be shattered by a stroke of lightning; but if the power of all the galvanic apparatus ever made was to be collected in one current, there would be no power to move or otherwise affect such a table.

124. "Frictional electricity, such as produced by electric machines, must first be accumulated and then discharged, in order to produce any striking effect. It is in transitu that its power is seen and felt.

* It is suggested that these words may be misapprehended. I use them in the sense given by Johnson: "Sight of any thing, commonly mental view.”

I understand that evidence to be intuitive which is obtained by the simultaneous action of the mind and the sight, and, of course, of any other of the senses. Intuitive is derived from the Latin word intuo, to look upon. "Intuere cœlum," according to Cicero, means to look at the sky.

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125. "Insulated conductors, whether inanimate, or in the form of animals, may be electrified by the most powerful means, without being injured or seriously incommoded. Before a spark of lightning passes, every object on the terrestrial surface, for a great distance around, is subjected to a portion of the requisite previous accumulation. Yet it is only those objects which are made the medium of discharge that are sensibly affected. 126. "Powerful galvanic accumulation can only be produced by those. appropriate arrangements which concentrate upon a comparatively small filament of particles their peculiar polarizing power; but nothing seems to me more inconsistent with experience than to suppose a table moved by any possible form or mode of galvanic reaction. It was ascertained by Gaziot that one of the most powerful galvanic batteries ever made could not give a spark before contact to a conductor presented to it, at the smallest distance which could be made by a delicate micrometer. If there is any law which is pre-eminent for its invariability, it is, that inanimate matter cannot, per se, change its state as respects motion or rest. Were this law liable to any variation, we should be proportionably liable to perish; since in that case the revolutions and rotations of our planet and its satellite might undergo perturbations by which the ocean might inundate the land, or the too great proximity or remoteness of the sun cause us to be scorched or frozen. If the globe did not carry the Pacific more steadily than the most competent person could carry a basin of water, we should be drowned by the overflow of the land. I recommend to your attention, and that of others interested in this hallucination, Faraday's observations and experiments, recently published in some of our respectable newspapers. I entirely concur in the conclusions of that distinguished experimental expounder of Nature's riddles.

ROBERT HARE."

127. This publication drew forth the following remonstrance in the subjoined letter, which does great credit to the correctness of the author's observation and sagacity. It contributed, together with a personal invitation from Dr. Comstock to attend a circle, to induce the investigation upon which I entered immediately afterward.

SOUTHWICK, MASS., Nov. 17, 1853. 128. "Dear Sir: I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with you, something less than twenty years ago, when I exhibited telescopes in Philadelphia. You will, I trust, excuse the liberty I take in writing to you now. I have seen your letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer upon table moving. I never believed it was caused by electricity or galvanism, but is it not as likely to be these, as muscular force? You agree with Professor Faraday that the table is moved by the hands that are on it. Now I know, as certainly as I can know any thing, that this is not true in general, if it is in any instance. There is as much evidence that tables some