SPIRITUALISM AS A SCIENTIFIC QUESTION. 581 



that these phenomena are so different from the common province of 

 the naturalist's observations, that they present to him especial difficul- 

 ties, which plainly exist for others in a less degree. 



All the methods of natural science rest upon the presupposition of 

 an unchangeable order of occurrence, which presupposition involves the 

 other, that everywhere, where the same conditions are given, the results 

 must also agree. The naturalist, therefore, proceeds in his observa- 

 tions with unshakable confidence in the positiveness of his objects. 

 Nature can not deceive him ; there rules in nature neither freak nor ac- 

 cident. You will admit that we can not speak of a regularity of this 

 sort in the domain of spiritualistic phenomena ; on the contrary, the 

 most conspicuous characteristic of these lies precisely in the fact that 

 in their presence the laws of nature seem to be abrogated. But, even 

 considered purely in themselves, they show no trace of an orderly con- 

 nection or coherence. Even he who may have the hope that such" an 

 order will perhaps some day be discovered, can not deny that hitherto 

 all hopes of this sort have been shipwrecked, that spiritualistic obser- 

 vation and natural science stand directly opposed to each other. As 

 little can you deny, on the other hand, that that absolute confidence in 

 the positiveness of the object (truthfulness of the medium) would not 

 be in place in a province where the cardinal question, with which we 

 first of all have to do, is precisely whether the phenomena possess real- 

 ity or whether they rest upon deception. 



Nevertheless I find in the observations which you report tolera- 

 bly clear indications that the eminent naturalists, who deemed the me- 

 dium Slade worthy of their investigation, transferred a portion of 

 that confidence, which they justly bring to the ordinary objects of 

 their observation, to this extraordinary object also. You report, for 

 instance, the influences exerted by Mr. Slade upon the movements of 

 a magnetic needle. It appears from your account that the medium 

 was prepared for this experiment, similar experiments having been in- 

 stituted in Berlin, at the instance of a scientific man there. The phe- 

 nomena themselves are precisely the same as can be produced by a 

 man provided with a strong magnet. You will not deny that such 

 experiments possess convincing power only for him who is convinced 

 of the correctness of the presupposition of the absolute trustwor- 

 thiness of the investigated object, i. e., the medium. Now, that the 

 eminent physicists who observed this remarkable phenomenon were 

 chiefly chained by the reversal of the Amperian and Weberian mo- 

 lecular currents, which occurred under such unusual influences, is per- 

 fectly intelligible ; a practical jurist would probably have been not so 

 astonished, but, less accustomed to believe in the trustworthiness of 

 the objects of his investigation, he would scarcely have neglected to 

 examine the coat-sleeves of the medium, with reference to his mag- 

 netic powers. 



I can not, therefore, respected sir, acknowledge the authorities in 



