EDITOR'S TABLE. 



411 



literature, and that his general useful- 

 ness for purposes of sensation is about 

 at an end ? 



We shall, perhaps, be confronted 

 with the present wide-spread belief in 

 spiritualism. Is not the ghost active, 

 it will be asked, in spiritualistic circles? 

 "Well, spiritualism itself has, in our opin- 

 ion, been an agency for discrediting the 

 ghost, or, at least, for narrowing and 

 regulating his heretofore willful activi- 

 ties. The spiritualistic ghost, in a word, 

 has been tamed by the medium. He 

 no longer goes gliding or skulking about 

 upon his terrifying nocturnal errands; 

 on the contrary, he comes meekly at 

 the call of his master or mistress, and, 

 the conditions being favorable, utters 

 through the table-leg such harmless 

 platitudes as seem most suited to the 

 average intelligence of the audience. 

 This is a great improvement upon the 

 old plan, according to which every 

 man met his ghost in solitude at the 

 midnight hour, and, with his blood in 

 a state of distressing coagulation, was 

 compelled to listen to some dire predic- 

 tion of coming doom. All our methods 

 nowadays are more or less scientific, 

 and the comfoi'table seance may be 

 compared to the beneficent lightning- 

 rod, with its many points for draining 

 oS the otherwise dangerous electrical 

 accumulations of the atmosphere. In- 

 stead of meeting the ghost alone, and 

 encountering the full weight of his 

 supernatural terrors, we meet him in 

 pleasant company, where his force is so 

 dispersed that no one gets more tlian a 

 proper, moderate, and enjoyable share. 

 At the same time, the ghost that comes 

 and goes at the medium's call, and talks 

 reasonably and mildly through the ta- 

 ble-leg, is not, qud gliosis the equal of 

 his more independent and less calcu- 

 lable predecessor. The ghost has de- 

 clined, there can be no question about it. 



Well, as we hinted at the outset, 

 we part with the ghost without reluc- 

 tance. We think good Christmas-sto- 

 ries can be written without drawing on 

 senseless and half-aflfected terrors for 



their interest. We think that literature 

 in general will be the better for shak- 

 ing itself free from the baseless delu- 

 sions of by-gone times of ignorance and 

 savagery. The ghost has done nothing 

 in the world that gives him any claim 

 upon our respect or remembrance. He 

 was necessary in his day, in tlie sense 

 that men had no choice but to believe 

 in him ; but, now that we have risen to 

 a point of view that renders him total- 

 ly unnecessary either for theoretical or 

 for practical purposes, we shall do well 

 to lay him finally to rest. We want to 

 concentrate onr energies on this world, 

 to develop all that is best in human 

 life, to methodize our knowledge, to 

 strengthen our hold upon all sound 

 moral principles. For these purposes, 

 close study of facts is required. We 

 need to see things as they are, and to 

 refer them to human welfare, taken in 

 its broadest and highest sense, as a cen- 

 tral point. As long as the ghost sur- 

 vived, he could override, and too often 

 did override, our practical judgments; 

 and men never felt sure as to how far 

 they could trust the plain dictates of 

 common sense. But, with the decay 

 and disappearance of the ghost, com- 

 mon sense, purified by the scientific 

 method, assumes full control of human 

 life and reigns without a rival. Hence- 

 forth we become free and responsible 

 men — free to follow the dictates of rea- 

 son, and responsible for doing so. We 

 can now give to the rising generation 

 an integral education founded on rea- 

 son, and can bring home to their minds 

 as never before the salutary conviction 

 that the reign of law is universal and 

 unbroken — that not even a ghost can 

 violate it — in short, that ghosts and all 

 things of which independence of natu- 

 ral law is predicated are mere figments 

 of the untrained imagination. This, 

 we say, is henceforth possible. It re- 

 mains to make the possible actual, and 

 to impress upon education once for all 

 that character which no sensible man 

 can doubt it is destined to take in the 

 not distant future. 



