MESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISM 301 



through the alphabet by raps in the usual way, most of the 

 answers being either vague or altogether wrong, and the 

 last question was, " Is Mrs. Hayden an impostor ? " to which 

 the answer was " Yes." And this ingenious trick he afterwards 

 termed " forcing Mrs. Hayden to avow herself an impostor ! ' 



As it is always of interest to have at first-hand an ex- 

 pression of the frame of mind of eminent men upon this 

 subject, I here give a letter from John Stuart Mill to a 

 gentleman who sent him a tract in which it was stated that 

 he, along with Ruskin, Tennyson, and Longfellow, had be- 

 come a believer in spiritualism, and asking if it were true. 

 This gentleman, Mr. N. Kilburn, Bishop of Auckland, sent 

 me a copy of Mill's reply, which was as follows — 



" It is the first time I ever heard that I was a believer 

 in spiritualism, and I am not sorry to be able to suppose 

 that some of the other names I have seen mentioned as 

 believers in it are no more so than myself. 



" For my own part I not only have never seen any evidence 

 that I think of the slightest weight in favour of spiritualism, 

 but I should also find it very difficult to • believe any of it 

 on any evidence whatever, and I am in the habit of express- 

 ing my opinion to that effect very freely whenever the subject 

 is mentioned in my presence. You are at liberty to make 

 any use you please of this letter." 



This was dated " March 18, 1868," but I did not know of 

 it till 1874, or I might have mentioned the subject when 

 I dined with him in 1870. If by " any evidence whatever ' 

 Mr. Mill meant testimony of others, I myself, and most 

 spiritualists, were in the same frame of mind when we began 

 our inquiries ; but as he used the word " evidence," he no 

 doubt included personal evidence, and to decide beforehand 

 that he would not believe it is very unphilosophical. Still, 

 he only says difficult, not impossible, and here, again, I quite 

 agree with him. 



At this same period I had letters from other men of 

 various degrees of eminence of a much more satisfactory 

 nature. On receipt of a copy of my pamphlet, Professor 

 de Morgan wrote me as follows : — 



