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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



This is solemnly attested as a fact unde- 

 niable and irrefutable." Now, when 

 Mr. Kiddle declares that he Icnoios there 

 is no delusion in the matter, he simply 

 means that he solemnly believes it, 

 which is the basis on which the mys- 

 teries of another world have been re- 

 vealed from the earliest origin of these 

 superstitions. He gives exactly the 

 kind of evidence that would require us 

 to believe all the insane hallucinations 

 of our lunatic asylums, for no man is 

 so undeniably and irrefutably sure that 

 he is not deluded as a madman. 



Freeman had a mission, and regard- 

 ed himself divinely chosen for a great 

 work. So does Kiddle. He is commis- 

 sioned to open new relations with' the 

 unseen world. He announces " a new 

 spiritual revelation," a "a new dispensa- 

 tion of religious light," showing "the 

 existence of a future world." Under an 

 "obligation imposed upon the editor by 

 Divine Providence," he promulgates " a 

 revelation of the future destiny of man- 

 kind, of transcendent importance to 

 them both here and hereafter." And 

 so all the old spiritual revelations are 

 failures ; the existence of a future world 

 remained still to be proved ; and the 

 human race having struggled in vain 

 for thousands of years to arrive at this 

 truth of transcendent moment, Mr. 

 Kiddle arrives at it by the aid of a 

 couple of green mediums in the space 

 of about nine months ! Fortunate Mr. 

 Kiddle ! 



Curiously enough, the Superintend- 

 ent of Schools of the City of New York, 

 who has given his life to the interests 

 of knowledge, now gives notice that he 

 has not a very high opinion of the later 

 tendencies of science, and in this he is 

 not alone. But he further intimates 

 that his revelations of a supersensuous 

 world may be designed by Heaven to 

 thwart the influence of this bad science. 

 We quote a passage from his introduc- 

 tory chapter, and beg the reader to no- 

 tice that what follows is not from a 

 spirit, but from Kiddle himself: 



"When distinguished scientists sneSr- 

 ingly ask : ' Who has ever seen the soul 

 with the very best microscope that can 

 be made? What physiologist h as ever 

 found any human spirit in his most 

 minute dissections?' when the proud 

 scientist, filled with vainglory by the 

 discovery of some of the laws of light 

 and heat, or puffed up with vanity be- 

 cause he has caught a vision of some- 

 thing which he daringly calls the 

 'physical basis of life,' and, ready to 

 fall down in adoration before his new- 

 found deity, Protoplasm, announces 

 that he finds in matter the 'promise and 

 potency of every form of life ;' or when 

 he cries 'Amen' to his brother scientist 

 who has traced, by the law of evolution 

 and the ' survival of the fittest,' to a com- 

 mon origin himself and all the rest of 

 the animal creation, and glories in his 

 quadrumanous ancestry when such is 

 the age in which we live an age char- 

 acterized by the worst forms of irreli- 

 gion is it improbable that the All-Mer- 

 ciful Father should come again to the 

 rescue of his benighted creatures, and 

 for this purpose should in part unveil 

 the glories of the supersensuous world 

 to which all are tending? " 



Mr. Kiddle's book, as this extract 

 alone illustrates, is a very debilitated 

 piece of intellectual work. Our first 

 impression was that the man had un- 

 dertaken to perpetrate a huge joke, but 

 we became soon convinced that he is 

 not himself. Various indications sug- 

 gest an unhealthy state of mind, that 

 is probably caused by some exhaustion 

 or failure of the brain. The sudden- 

 ness of his change of conduct at the 

 age of fifty-five in regard to spiritual- 

 ism ; the slyness with which all was 

 done, even to the printing of his book; 

 his obstinacy in refusing to listen to rea- 

 son and remonstrance in matters where 

 others are concerned ; and his egotis- 

 tic hallucination in supposing himself 

 divinely called upon to do a great re- 

 ligious work these, taken in connec- 

 tion with the imbecile and idiotic 



