1855.] On Mental Education. 489 



of art, science, and economy : it replaces even the mind of the 

 human being in some of its lower services ; for a little camphine 

 lamp is set down and left to itself, to perform the duty of 

 watching the changes of magnetism, heat, and other forces of 

 nature, and to record the results, in pictorial curves, which 

 supply an enduring record of their most transitory actions. 



What has clairvoyance, or mesmerism, or table-rapping done 

 in comparison with results like these ? What have the snails 

 at Paris told us from the snails at New York ? What have any 

 of these intelligences done in aiding such developments ? Why 

 did they not inform us of the possibility of photography ? or 

 when that became known, why did they not favour us with 

 some instructions for its improvement? They all profess to 

 deal with agencies far more exalted in character than an electric 

 current or a ray of light : they also deal with mechanical forces ; 

 they employ both the bodily organs and the mental ; they pro- 

 fess to lift a table, to turn a hat, to see into a box, or into the 

 next room, or a town : why should they not move a balance, 

 and so give us the element of a new mechanical power ? take 

 cognizance of a bottle and its contents, and tell us how they 

 will act upon those of a neighbouring bottle ? either see or feel 

 into a crystal, and inform us of what it is composed? Why 

 have they not added one metal to the fifty known to mankind, 

 or one planet to the number daily increasing under the obser- 

 vant eye of the astronomer ? Why have they not corrected 

 one of the mistakes of the philosophers ? There are no doubt 

 very many that require it. There has been plenty of time for 

 the development and maturation of some of the numerous public 

 pretences that have risen up in connexion with these supposed 

 agencies ; how is it that not one new power has been added to 

 the means of investigation employed by the philosophers, or 

 one valuable utilitarian application presented to society ? 



In conclusion, I will freely acknowledge that all I have said 

 regarding the great want of judgment manifested by society as 

 a body, and the high value of any means which would tend to 

 supply the deficiency, have been developed and declared on 

 numerous occasions, by authority far above any I possess. The 

 deficiency is known hypothetically, but I doubt if in reality ; 

 the individual acknowledges the state in respect of others, but 

 is unconscious of it in regard to himself. As to the world at 

 large, the condition is accepted as a necessary fact ; and so it 



