( 266 ) 
‘April, 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
RESPECTING 
THE PHENOMENA CALLED SPIRITUAL. 
By Cuarvtes Francis KEArRY. 
Sir,—You have the satisfaction of 
thinking that you, more than any one 
else, have been instrumental in di- 
recting public attention to the ‘* phe- 
nomena called Spiritualism,” and 
that a strong and growing interest 
with many thoughtful people—and 
with not a few of considerable scien- 
tific attainment—dates from the pub- 
lication of your first ‘‘ enquiry ” in 
1870. This arose, no doubt, in great 
measure from the faét that you were 
the first scientific man who had de- 
voted much labour to these investiga- 
tions, and had made the result of 
them known; but partly also, I con- 
ceive, from a general impression in 
the public mind that you had not re- 
ceived very fair or decorous treatment 
either from the Royal Society or from 
the writer of a well-known article in 
the ‘‘ Quarterly Review.” 
Speaking of the influence which 
the growing practice of publicly read- 
ing the Bible had in promoting the 
spread of Protestantism, Hallam 
makes the acute observation that this 
influence was largely due to the oppo- 
sition which the practice met with 
from the Catholic Church, and to the 
fac& that people were thus led to in- 
terpret the Scriptures ** with that sort 
of prejudice which a jury feels in 
considering evidence that one party in 
a case has attempted to suppress; a 
danger,” he goes on to remark, 
‘which those who wish to restrain 
the course of free discussion, without 
any sure means of success, will in all 
ages do well to reflect upon.” This 
consideration should alone be suff- 
cient to determine us to give a fair 
hearing to the new science, or philo- 
sophy, or religion, or whatever it may 
be, which is comprised under the 
name of Spiritualism. 
It may well be to this very preju- 
dice of which Hallam speaks that we 
owe, to some extent, the activity of 
the public mind on this subject, and 
the decided advance which in the last 
few years the facts of Spiritualism 
have made towards—however far they 
may yet be from—a recognition. We 
must not therefore allow ourselves to 
be much influenced by a specious ar- 
gument drawn from this fact, as well 
as from the greater candour of our 
own days, which is often employed 
in favour of other beliefs or disbeliefs 
beside the one in question. Because 
some things of a nature not altogether 
dissimilar from Spiritualism, which 
were once scoffed at, are now admit- 
ted by scientific men,—therefore, it is 
said, Science is sure, sooner or later, 
to give a place to this new theory. 
The same argument is often employed 
in religious questions, where it is con- 
’ tended that, because the upholders of 
réligion have made many admissions 
and yielded many points once only 
maintained by sceptics, we are all 
inevitably drifting towards a complete 
scepticism at last. The argument is 
too foolish a one to be employed save 
in the heat of theological controversy, 
and I have wondered to find it sa 
often even there. It only requires to 
be pushed one step farther to become 
a xeductio ad absurdum. Because the 
representatives of Science or Religion, 
at any particular epoch, have almost 
as often as not been opposed to new 
discoveries, therefore there is no truth 
in either Science or Religion. Be- 
cause, for instance, Harvey’s discovery 
was scouted by the Medical Science 
of his day, therefore the pretender of 
ours who has found out that the earth 
is flat, or that the moon does not turn 
upon her axis, is as likely to be right 
as the Astronomer Royal. The fad, 
then, that Sir George Lewis, writing 
in 1849, spoke of Mesmerism or 
Electro-Biology as a theory which had 
been quite long enough before the 
world to have established its truth if 
there had been any in it, while the 
very facts of Ele&tro-Biology are by 
many looked to for a probable expla- 
nation of Spiritualism, should not 
have more influence with us than to 
prevent our being turned from a candid 
