ATHEISM AND THE CHURCH. 621 



reading without the use of the eyes. The subject who made the claim 

 was a lady of education, culture, and social position, universally and justly 

 respected. In answer to the request, I stated that by deductive reason- 

 ing it was established as firmly as the Copernican theory, or the law of 

 the persistence of force, that no human creature could have any such 

 power, and that therefore it would be unscientific to investigate any such 

 claim ; but as an amusement, and for the sake of determining whether 

 the deception was intentional or unintentional, I would suggest and pre- 

 pare some tests in which all the six sources of error would be excluded. 

 This was done. The tests were of course not taken, but the result of 

 the investigation was to demonstrate the interesting psychological fact 

 tliat for years a graceful and agreeable lady had been deceiving not 

 only strangers and friends, but even her own husband, by means of the 

 very old and familiar "ballot-trick," and a not especially adroit method 

 of performing it. The puzzling cases of starving girls, of invalid clair- 

 voyants, of mediumship, that are constantly infesting and astonishing 

 civilized society, are in many instances to be similarly explained. The 

 "mind-readers" were originally self-deceived, since the physiological 

 interpretation of that phenomenon is too complex and profound to be 

 suggested, not to say comprehended, by the mass of those who are ac- 

 customed to practice that art. But at the present time the public per- 

 formers probably understand, in a general way, the philosophy of their 

 success, at least enough to know that their claims of a sixth sense are 

 baseless. 



Lying, like stealing, may become a passion, and, in like manner also, 

 may concentrate all its force in some one direction, for folly as well as 

 wisdom has its specialties and hobbies : there is a monomania for de- 

 ceiving, where naught is gained save its own gratification ; one who is 

 in all other directions honorable and just may become an inebriate of 

 falsifying, and be half his days intoxicated thereby. 



-<^'*- 



ATHEISM AXD THE CHUKCH. 



Br Eev. G. TI. CUETEIS. 



/^MNIA EXEUNT IX— Theologiam.' No branch of science appears 

 v^ to consider itself complete, nowadays, until it has issued at last 

 into the vexed ocean of theology. Thus, Biology writes "Lay 

 Sermons " in Professor Huxley ; Physics acknowledges itself almost 

 Christian in Professor Tyndall ; Anthropology claims to be religious 

 m Mr. Darwin ; and Logic, in Mr. Spencer, confesses that " a religious 

 system is a normal and essential factor in every evolving society." " 



' Everything issues into theology. 



2 Spencer, "Sociology " (seventh edition, 1878), p. 313. 



