SPIRIT-RAPPING TABLE-TURNING. 59 



be a spirit, we are only led to the conclusion that the 

 operators in connection with this imposture are possessed 

 with the ignorant idea that the souls of the departed have 

 more sound than sense, are little improved by their advent 

 into eternity, and have become only fit to be outrageously 

 insulted before audiences as ignorant as the insulter, and 

 not less profane. Nil nisi bonus mortis seems to be no part 

 of the Spiritualist's motto. In his hands men of sense 

 and virtue are only liable to lose their characters after 

 they have joined the array of the just made perfect, and 

 have no voice of wisdom and propriety left among their 

 unworthy relatives on earth to screen their memories 

 from being made an element of ridicule, misrepresentation, 

 and swindling. The kind of evidence which is required 

 to justify our belief in such a case, is not that a spirit 

 should reveal itself, but that those who assert it has to any 

 extent done so should afford us every means, so far as 

 they are concerned, of making certain that there is no 

 collusion. 



But there are other pretensions which have not claimed 

 concealment or darkness as essential to their success. 

 Of these, Table-turning and Mesmerism are examples. 

 The former has gone down before the light it has invoked, 

 and the latter has greatly receded from its first assertions. 

 Michael Faraday showed that while continued muscular 

 pressure might, from the strain and weariness of the effort, 

 become unconscious of lateral tendency, even while 

 actually exerting it in a very strong degree, a simple 

 index could make us conscious of the fact, and also enable 

 us to detect confederacy ; and thenceforward gyraceous and 

 peripatetic tables ceased to move. Table-turning is at an 

 end, and its history only affords one of those useful illustra- 

 tions of misconceived phenomena which, when fairly placed 

 under the light of general intelligence, science never fails 

 to explain. A simple application of the principle involved 



