1874.] Phenomena called Spiritual. 79 
Kate Fox (now Mrs. Jencken) was free from domestic and 
maternal occupations, I feel compelled to suspend further 
investigation for the present. 
To obtain free access to some persons abundantly 
endowed with the power I am experimenting upon, now 
involves more favour than a scientific investigator should 
be expected to make of it. Spiritualism amongst its 
more devout followers is a religion. The mediums, in 
‘many cases young members of the family, are guarded 
with a seclusion and jealousy which an outsider can 
penetrate with difficulty. Being earnest and conscien- 
tious believers in the truth of certain do¢trines which they 
hold to be substantiated by what appear to them to be 
miraculous occurrences, they seem to hold the presence of 
scientific investigation as a profanation of the shrine. Asa 
personal favour I have more than once been allowed to be 
present at meetings that presented rather the form of a 
religious ceremony than of a spiritualistic séance. But 
to be admitted by favour once or twice, as a stranger 
might be allowed to witness the Eleusinian mysteries, or a 
Gentile to peep within the Holy of Holies, is not the way to 
ascertain facts and discover laws. To gratify curiosity is 
one thing; to carry on systematic researchis another. Iam 
seeking the truth continually. Ona few occasions, indeed, I 
have been allowed to apply tests and impose conditions ; but 
only once or twice have I been permitted to carry off the 
priestess from her shrine, and in my own house, surrounded 
by my own friends, to enjoy opportunities of testing the 
phenomena I had witnessed elsewhere under less conclusive 
-conditions.* My observations on these cases will find their 
due place in the work I am about to publish. 
Following the plan adopted on previous occasions,—a plan 
which, however much it offended the prejudices of some 
critics, I have good reason to know was acceptable to the 
readers of the ‘‘ Quarterly Journal of Science,”’—I in- 
tended to embody the results of my labour in the form of 
one or two articles for this journal. However, on going 
over my notes, I find such a wealth of faéts, such a super- 
abundance of evidence, so overwhelming a mass of tes- 
timony, all of which will have to be marshalled in order, 
that I could fill several numbers of the ‘‘Quarterly.” I must 
* In this paper I give no instances and use no arguments drawn from these 
exceptional cases. Without this explanation it might be thought that the 
immense number of facts I have accumulated were principally obtained on the 
few occasions here referred to, and the objeéion would naturally arise of 
insufficiency of scrutiny from want of time. 
