5 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



previously to employ common terms of speech. As the modern geome- 

 trician speaks of a " plane and in itself congruent manifold of three 

 dimensions," without understanding by it anything else than the space 

 well known to all of us, so he designates with the term " intelligent 

 beings of four dimensions " simply what we ordinary men are accus- 

 tomed to call ghosts. I believe now with you that the hypothesis 

 which alone is left for us is at the same time the sole hypothesis 

 which would be able to explain the phenomena their reality being 

 presupposed and we can therefore confidently make it the basis of 

 our further conclusions. For my own part, I should prefer the term 

 " intelligent beings of four dimensions," because it is more scientific ; 

 but for the sake of brevity I will employ the current name of ghosts. 



You now put the question a question worth taking to heart 

 " Who are these ghosts ? " Your deductions lead you to the conclu- 

 sion that we have to see in them the souls of men who have died, 

 which possess the power to assume again, partially or fully, their 

 former bodily form. Although in Mr. Slade's sittings only detached 

 members hands and feet became visible, partly immediately and 

 partly in impressions, it still appears from American advices that ma- 

 terializations of entire bodies are not wanting. I can only assent to 

 this conclusion. I am also essentially determined here by the impres- 

 sion, to which you refer of a man's foot deformed by a tight shoe 

 upon a blackened tablet. The assumption that the beings of some 

 other world unknown to us would naturally resemble us not only in 

 their bodily constitution, but also in their dress, has to me only a very 

 slight probability. I confess, indeed, that the thought that hard- 

 hearted shoemakers might even in the next world continue their 

 attempts to improve the anatomical structure of our feet gives me 

 great uneasiness, while I could more easily reconcile myself to the 

 idea that some abiding effects of sufferings here might accompany us 

 into the future. Under this assumption, I count it not altogether im- 

 possible that a specialist might be able to conclude from the peculiar 

 character of the deformity as to the period in which the possessor of 

 the foot lived, and perhaps even as to the nation to which he belonged. 

 I regret that this investigation does not appear to have been thought of. 



We will assume, therefore, that the ghosts belonged to our deceased 

 fellow men, who advise us in this way of their survival and their con- 

 dition after death. What significance have the phenomena, then ? 

 You, respected sir, believe that you must view this significance as 

 lying above all else in the fact that nothing could more powerfully 

 strengthen our faith in a supreme moral government of the world, 

 nothing more surely counteract the materialism and indifferentism of 

 the time, than the certainty of immortality. To-day, when faith has 

 become tottering, when, at the same time, there are no youthful races 

 (like the Celts, the Teutons, the Slavs) able, as at the time of the 

 decay of ancient civilization, " to take up the broken thread of civiliza- 



