THEORY OF DIRECT CREATION. 27 



Divine Author of Nature, to equally immutable 

 laws. 



There can be little doubt that the real 

 phenomena under-lying so-called miracles, witch- 

 craft, mesmerism, spiritualism, etc., depend on 

 ill-understood physico-psychological conditions, 

 which are not equally developed in all persons. 



In modern Europe alone has the crusade 

 against all phenomena of alleged supernatural 

 origin been waged with unremitting and exter- 

 minating fury ; and in Modern Europe alone, 

 have so-called supernatural phenomena become 

 so rare as to lead to general disbelief in their 



o 



reality ; a result due to the operation of the 

 ordinary principles of Natural Selection. During 

 the Witchmania, all constitutions capable of 

 producing even the simplest of such phenomena 

 were weeded out, while those who possessed no 

 such powers were left to continue the race. 

 Moreover, such a persecution would be intensified 

 by the higher classes of phenomena being the 

 first to disappear, leaving only the lower forms 

 to awaken more terror and aversion, till they also 

 were quenched in blood. The result was some- 

 what analogous to that pointed out by Galton as 

 produced by mediaeval religious persecutions and 



