PSYCHOLOGICAL CURIOSITIES OF SPIRITUALISM. 



113 



Philosophy of Spirittalism. 

 As Moses & Son kept a poet, so does spiritual- 

 Una now keep a philosopher — a Master of Arts of 

 Oxford — who, speculating profoundly on the con- 

 stitution of matter, has recently announced his 

 conclusion that there is no logical distinction 

 whatever between matter and spirit ; and that 

 there is, consequently, nothing at all difficult to 

 believe, either in the "materialization'' of de- 

 parted spirits who return to earth, or in the " de- 

 materialization " and " ^materialization " of solid 

 fleshly bodies. Hence he considers it to be true, 

 not only of the mind, but of the body, that 



" Stone-walls do not a prison make, 

 Nor iron bars a cage " — 



a doctrine that will prove extremely convenient 

 to the inmates of these institutions, if only they 

 can get " the spirits " to help them out. And 

 the passage of Mrs. Guppy through either the 

 walls, the closed doors, the shuttered windows, 

 the floor beneath, or the roof and ceilings above, 

 is to be regarded as, though somewhat unusual, a 

 perfectly " natural " phenomenon. 1 



Now, this reasoning seems to me so transpar- 

 ently fallacious as not to require wasting many 

 words upon it. Even if we accept, as Faraday 

 showed an inclination to do, the physical doctrine 

 of Boscovich, that what we call a "material" 

 body is nothing else than an aggregation of 

 " centres of force," and if we psychologically re- 

 fine down matter, as John S. Mill did, into " a 

 permanent possibility of sensation," I cannot see 

 that this carries us one single step toward the 

 M. A.'s deduction. For the very foundation of 

 our conception of " matter " is the sense of resist- 

 ance which we experience when we press some 

 part of our body against it ; and as we cannot, 

 take any such cognizance of " spirit," we cannot 

 conceive of it as having anything in common with 

 matter; the two remaining, just as they always 

 have been, " logically distinct entities." 



If this be a fair sample of the result of the 

 philosophic teaching imparted by the University 

 of Oxford, the sooner that teaching is reformed 

 the better for common-sense and rationality. 



Amenities of Spiritualism. 



It has been the boast of spiritualists that, if 

 their new religion does not supersede Christianity, 

 it is at any rate to supplement it, by carrying its 

 teachings to a higher development, and by thus 

 leading to the earlier prevalence of that universal 



1 " Is there any such. Thing as Matter? ' 

 (Oxon.). Human Xature for May, 1877. 



44 



By M. A. 



reign of peace and good-will which Christianity 

 has as yet failed to bring about. So far, how- 

 ever, is the practice of " professing " spiritualists 

 from being much better in this particular than 

 that of " professing " Christians, that it seems to 

 me to be worse ; instead of being " slow to anger " 

 and " forsaking wrath," there are spiritualists 

 who carry on their controversies, even among 

 themselves, with most reprehensible bitterness ; 

 while even the scientific advocates of the system, 

 whose position should place them above personal 

 animosity, cannot find decent language to put 

 down a troublesome skeptic, who imputes to them 

 nothing worse than a too easy credulity. 



Thus Mr. Home's book affords an ample store 

 of very choice samples of vituperative eloquence, 

 directed, not against scientific skeptics, for these 

 he treats with a marked consideration which Mr. 

 Wallace might well imitate, but against certain 

 spiritualists, whom he regards (for reasons not 

 stated) with a very unchristian hostility. One of 

 these is Colonel Olcott, of New York, President 

 of the Theosophical Society, of whom I shall have 

 more to say presently. This gentleman has lately 

 published a book called "People from the Other 

 World," dedicated to Messrs. Crookes and Wal- 

 lace, giving an account of the " materializations " 

 of the Eddy brothers, which Mr. Home utterly 

 discredits. Of this book Mr. Home says that " it 

 is ten times more meaningless than the gospel of 

 Mormon, or the speculations of Joanna South- 

 cote ; " that " seldom before have human minds 

 been astonished at such utterances ; " and that 

 while " other productions of the kind infest 

 spiritual literature, there are few which display 

 such an utter lack of principle, such a happy 

 audacity in assertion, or so complete a disregard 

 of facts." 



Of course, Mr. Home will " catch it " in his 

 turn from the spiritualistic critics of his book. 

 The following are a few excerpts from the only re- 

 view of it that I have seen : J 



" Mr. Home can have no pretense whatever to 

 occupy that lofty and interior plane from which 

 spirtualism proper is capable of being apprehended. 

 He is simply a phenomenal medium, and we have 

 yet to learn that this class contains any of those gift- 

 ed with glowing inspiration, placid wisdom, or pure 

 disinterestedness. . . . The clay of human mortal- 

 ity is attached to him so firmly that not for one 

 moment does he soar into the feigner realm of 

 spiritual light and principles [which is, of course, 

 inhabited by his critic]. . . . Eightly or wrongly, 

 Mr. Home has been most cruelly attacked by a 



1 Human Natwe, a Monthly Journal of Zoistic Sci- 

 ence, May, 1877. 



