EDITOR'S TABLE. 



1M 



right to demand the legitimate results 

 that must flow from it, as we expect 

 and require the natural results of all 

 other genuine discoveries. Of course, 

 the objection may be interposed that we 

 must not be premature in anticipating 

 the fruits of discovery, because the his- 

 tory of all science shows that the interval 

 between the dawn of a new principle and 

 its developments and applications may 

 be very long. This is true ; yet, in every 

 case, we demand at once the effects that 

 flow immediately from the quality of the 

 discovery ; in fact, we only know it by 

 these results. It would, of course, have 

 been absurd to expect from the inven- 

 tion of the spy-glass the great results 

 of the modern telescope, which has 

 grown out of it ; but it would have been 

 proper to expect from the spy -glass that 

 which was properly claimed for it, and 

 which it at once compelled all men to 

 yield. All scientific discoveries, in fact, 

 are new procurable effects, and are, 

 therefore, their own witnesses. Clair- 

 voyance must give us the new results 

 of a marvelously-sharpened vision ; the 

 extra faculty implies extra disclosures. 

 And again we ask, where are they? 

 With a new capacity for seeing, what 

 new thing has been seen? The limita- 

 tions of vision restrict and measure the 

 usual sphere of knowledge, and with 

 every increase in the power of optical 

 instruments, as the microscope and tel- 

 escope, in aiding the eye, knowledge 

 has been extended, novel facts brought 

 to light, and it is these that attest the 

 instrumental improvements. But with 

 a power of vision so mysteriously sharp- 

 ened that opaque objects become trans- 

 parent, with the barriers actually taken 

 away, what ha3 been revealed? There 

 are thousands of perplexing and unset- 

 tled questions, regarding the constitu- 

 tion of material things, which might be 

 cleared up by another increment of vis- 

 ual penetration; but clairvoyance has 

 given no help in conquering these diffi- 

 culties. If it has been a demonstrated 

 reality these fifty years, it ought long 



ago to have vindicated its claims by un- 

 veiling some of the obscurities of mate- 

 rial objects. Yet, claiming to be a su- 

 perior means of laying open the inner 

 constitution of things, it has not even 

 proved equal to ordinary sight, and has, 

 in fact, done nothing whatever toward 

 extending the boundaries of knowledge. 

 It may, perhaps, be objected that clair- 

 voyant power of seeing through opaque 

 things no more implies a revealing of 

 their inner nature, than looking through 

 the air with the eye implies the recog- 

 nition of its physical and chemical con- 

 stitution. But this plea for seeing noth- 

 ing, with a preternatural gift of sight, 

 is futile, and the advocates of clairvoy- 

 ance understand well enough that the 

 validity of the claim must turn on what 

 is recognized ; accordingly, the French 

 commissioners say it had been demon- 

 strated to them that clairvoyance gave 

 a knowledge of the internal condition 

 of other persons. The body was not 

 looked through as we look through the 

 air, where nothing is seen ; but it is 

 claimed that things were seen, internal 

 conditions perceived, morbid actions 

 identified, and features of disease de- 

 scribed, that were confirmed by post- 

 mortem examination. Why, then, should 

 this power be confined to the identifica- 

 tion of things already ascertained by 

 the common resources of inquiry ? The 

 new way of getting into the mysteries 

 of the organism should have attested 

 itself by results not accessible by ordi- 

 nary means. It is significant that the 

 clairvoyant reports only as far as nor- 

 mal knowing had already reached. 

 Yet the human system is filled with 

 physiological and pathological enigmas 

 and obscurities, the clearing up of which 

 would be priceless to science. Why, 

 then, did not the physicians of the 

 French commission close the investiga- 

 tion at once and forever by throwing 

 light upon organic processes not before 

 understood, and thus vindicating the 

 new method, by showing that it could 

 do, in a direct way, at least as much as 



