NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 



many of those iu private life, at least, are of the highest worth and, indeed, 

 he believed that many of those who gratified those interested by paid sessions 

 to be no less worthy) in declaring that they have no consciousness of any par- 

 ticipation in what is going on before them. Nor could he see, in the temper- 

 aments or other indications of the mediums, any thing in common. They ran 

 through a wide expansion of intelligence, from Judge Edmonds down to the 

 most moderate intellectual development. 



Dr. Cutler inquired how Dr. Bell supposed the raps to be made. 



The doctor admitted his entire inability to suggest how, any more than why 

 t'.ie magnetic needle should insist upon turning toward the north instead of 

 S.S.E. 



Dr. Bell remarked that there was a great number of very curious facts con- 

 nected with the various branches into which these phenomena had run off, 

 which he had not time to enter into the consideration of. He considered them 

 all as of less intense interest that the great question of the veritable existence 

 of the "spirits.'' 1 The trance speaking, the impressions of a visual panoramic 

 order, the composition of all sorts of prose and poetry, the curious " spirit- 

 drawings." and still other manifestations ; of some of them it is very difficult 

 to make an explanation ; others may hereafter be found in the class of hyster- 

 ico-nervous excitements, in which the individual, without any intention to de- 

 ceive, is so wrapped up in an internal flow of fancies as to lose consciousness 

 of external things ; yet the intellectual process goes on. Still other pheno- 

 mena may perhaps be proved to be connected with the duality of the brain. 

 It is undoubted that that organ is like the ear and eye, each of which is one 

 of two symmetrical duplicates. When both act concurrently, but one class of 

 effects is produced. When the ear or eye becomes dislocated from its fellow, 

 double vision and disturbed audition result. One eye may be habitually pass- 

 ive, as seems to be one perfect optics of the cross-eyed, and the attention is 

 not called to the images which it presents, although these images may be all 

 distinctly pictured on the retina, and may, by some association or diseased 

 action, be subsequently reproduced. The analogy of the brain to these facts 

 is shown in the phenomena of dreaming, when we do and say and think 

 things which are utterly foreign to our habitual feelings and views, as much 

 as one mind could vary from another. Or, again, it is illustrated in not un- 

 frequent examples of periodical mania, where, for a period of weeks, or months, 

 or years, the patient lives in a certain state of moral, intellectual, and affect- 

 ive existence, perfect!}" unlike the other remnant of his life. "Were a new 

 guide or governor known to enter the sensorium and assume the reins, a more 

 completely distinct set of results could not be expected. In inebriety the 

 same facts exist. The phenomena of impressions made upon an organ, and 

 afterward reproduced on disease, are common in the books. 



Dr. Bell admitted that many of the responses made by the purporting 

 I: spirits" of your friends are so odd and unnatural, as compared with your 

 own thoughts or manner of speech, as to make it difficult to believe that they 

 ever came from your own habitual brain that is, that part of your brain 

 which you recognize as responsible to your own individuality. He related an 

 incident illustrative of his meaning. He was once atfr i-ling a session, or 



