xxxv] MESMERISM TO SPIRITUALISM 295 



example is quoted from the original authority wherever 

 possible, confirmatory testimony has been collected with the 

 greatest care, and the bearing of each upon the general 

 argument is discussed or clearly pointed out. This review 

 brought me a very interesting letter from the author, and 

 later on a communication from Dr. Eugene Crowell, M.D. 

 of New York, with a copy of his exceedingly valuable work, 

 " Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism " (2 vols.), 

 in which almost every miraculous occurrence narrated in the 

 Old or New Testaments is paralleled by well-authenticated 

 phenomena from the records of modern spiritualism, many of 

 them having been witnessed and carefully examined by Dr. 

 Crowell himself. 



During the years 1870-80 I had many opportunities of 

 witnessing interesting phenomena in the houses of various 

 friends, some of which I have not made public Early in 

 1874 I was invited by John Morley, then editor of the 

 Fortnightly Review, to write an article on ■ Spiritualism " for 

 that periodical. Much public interest had been excited by 

 the publication of the Report of the Committee of the 

 Dialectical Society, and especially by Mr. Crookes's experi- 

 ments with Mr. Home, and the refusal of the Royal Society 

 to see these experiments repeated. I therefore accepted the 

 task, and my article appeared in May and June under the 

 title " A Defence of Modern Spiritualism." At the end of 

 the same year I included this article, together with my former 

 small book, " The Scientific Aspects of the Supernatural," 

 and a paper I had read before the Dialectical Society in 

 1 87 1 answering the arguments of Hume, Lecky, and other 

 writers against miracles, in a volume which has had a very 

 considerable sale, and has led many persons to investigate 

 the subject and to become convinced of the reality of the 

 phenomena. In the preface I showed the inaccuracy of 

 Anton Dohrn's supposition that religious prejudices had led 

 me to believe in spiritualism. A third edition of the book, 

 in 1895, contained two new chapters on the nature and 

 purport of apparitions, and also, in a new preface, a brief 

 outline of the remarkable progress of the subject ; so that at 



