MESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISM 305 



public (and are still made both on this and on other subjects), 

 it will be well to give a short account of one of these, which 

 caused much discussion at the time. 



Mr. Home first came to England (since his childhood) 

 early in 1855, and lived for some months with Mr. Cox, of 

 Cox's Hotel in Jermyn Street. Here, among numerous other 

 eminent men, he gave a sitting to Lord Brougham accom- 

 panied by Sir David Brewster, " in order to assist in finding 

 out the trick," as Sir David himself stated. About six months 

 afterwards a not quite correct account of this seance was 

 given in the Morning Advertiser, copied from an American 

 paper, whereupon Sir David wrote to the editor to give his 

 own account, in which he said, " It is quite true that I saw 

 at Cox's Hotel, in company with Lord Brougham, and at 

 Ealing, in company with Mrs. Trollope, several mechanical 

 effects which I was unable to explain. But although I could 

 not account for all these effects, I never thought of ascribing 

 them to spirits stalking beneath the drapery of the table ; 

 and / saw enough to satisfy myself that they could all be 

 produced by human hands and feet, and to prove to others 

 that some of them, at least, had such an origin. 



" Were Mr. Home to assume the character of the Wizard 

 of the West, I should enjoy his exhibition as much as that of 

 other conjurors ; but when he pretends to possess the power 

 of introducing among the feet of his audience the spirits of 

 the dead, of bringing them into physical communication with 

 their dearest relatives, and of revealing the secrets of the 

 grave, he insults religion and common sense, and tampers 

 with the most sacred feelings of his victims. 



I am, sir, 

 Yours, etc., 

 " D. Brewster." 



Here Sir David appeals to religious prejudice, as he had 

 just done in his very weak book in reply to Whewell's 

 " Plurality of Worlds." But his account of the seance and 

 the imputations it cast on both Home and his host, Mr. Cox, 

 were at once answered by that gentleman, who declared that, 



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