THE SPIRIT-RAPPERS, THE TEL- 

 EPATHS, AND THE GAL- 

 VANOMETER 



MANY clever people have a habit of thinking, and 

 saying, that we know as yet very little of the world 

 about us ; and they like to quote Sir Isaac Newton's 

 famous simile that, with all his knowledge, he felt 

 like a child gathering shells on the shores of an 

 infinite sea. 



On this supposed gap between the whole of 

 things and the little part we know about, much 

 has been built. It has been used to silence doubts 

 as to the truths of telepathy, mental science, spirit- 

 ism, and the like. It has been employed to break 

 down the atheistical tendencies of modern science. 

 It seems a sort of aggressive agnosticism, behind 

 which the most curious of fancies find a conven- 

 ient shelter. 



Sometimes such modes of thought are to be 

 found associated either with an ignorance of the 

 conquests of science or with a lack of what 

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