472 On Mental Education. [1855. 



wandering at our feet ; the animals, the trees, the plants ; and 

 consider the permanency of their actions and conditions under 

 the government of these laws. The most delicate flower, the 

 tenderest insect, continues in its species through countless 

 years ; always varying, yet ever the same. When we think we 

 have discovered a departure, as in the Aphides, Medusa, Di- 

 stomae, &c.*, the law concerned is itself the best means of in- 

 stituting an investigation, and hitherto we have always found 

 the witness to return to its original testimony. These frail 

 things are never-ceasing, never-changing, evidence of the law's 

 immutability. It would be well for a man who has an anomalous 

 case before him, to contemplate a blade of grass, and when he 

 has considered the numerous ceaseless, yet certain actions 

 there located, and his inability to change the character of the 

 least among them, to recur to his new subject ; and, in place 

 of accepting unwatched and unchecked results, to search for a 

 like certainty and recurrence in the appearances and actions 

 which belong to it. 



Perhaps it may be said, the delusion of table-moving is past, 

 and'need not be recalled before an audience like the presentf ; 

 even granting this, let us endeavour to make the subject 

 leave one useful result ; let it serve for an example, not to pass 

 into forgetfulness. It is so recent, and was received by the 

 public in a manner so strange, as to justify a reference to it, in 

 proof of the uneducated condition of the general mind. I do 

 not object to table-moving, for itself '; for being once stated, it 

 becomes a fit, though a very unpromising subject for experi- 

 ment ; but I am opposed to the unwillingness of its advocates 

 to investigate ; their boldness to assert ; the credulity of the 



* See Claparede's Account of Alternating Generation and the Metamor- 

 phoses of Inferior Animals. Bibl. Univ. Mar. 1854, : p. 229. 



f As an illustration of the present state of the subject, I will quote one 

 letter from among many like it which I have received. 



" April 5, 1854. 



" SIR, I am one of the clergymen of this parish,, and have had the subject 

 of table-turning brought under my notice by some of my young parishioners ; 

 I gave your solution of it as a sufficient answer to the mystery. The reply 

 was made, that you had since seen reason to alter 3 7 our opinion. Would you 

 have the politeness to inform me if you have done so ? With many apologies 

 for troubling you, 



" I am, your obedient servant, 



