I884.J 
If True 
143 
alternately taller and shorter than his ordinary stature the 
change being judged of not by sight alone but by feeling 
of living persons being conveyed through the’air and passed’ 
without injury to themselves, through walls and floors • of 
!e reaT'in thT'^ ‘° ^ theil ; %ht without any 
cleciease in the apparent size of the flame; of rings bein°- 
Irmly cCed o e „th?l 0f W'T Whilst hi » hand -™aSeI 
mrni y clasped on the leg of a chair ; of statues weeping • of 
han embedded in a plaster-cast continuing to grow & c g &c 
^irsibk e ’’ 0n p P ;' in f Ciple , T? reIuaan " to g use ’the woM 
impossible. But if such things may and do harmpn if 
seems to us that we live rather in Chaos than in Cosmos 
ie introduction of the arbitrary into many, perhaps all* 
classes of phenomena, is, to the scientific mind craving 
everywhere for law and order,— a most painful notion. A 
w, 01 rather a hitherto unknown, agency or force not 
governed by any finite, personal intelligence, might if dis- 
coveied compel us to re-write our text- books of physics or 
wouTdW °f PerhapS ? f bioI °^* But its announcement 
would be far from unwelcome. We should know that in its 
manifestations there could be no caprice. We might ration- 
f y iimih e "\W t0 diSC ° Ver itS its *»odes fc rf Sion, 
its limits. With an agency or “ force ” governed bv intelli 
gence other than that of God-postulated as unvarying^ 
ivmg, visible man, the case is very different. So manv 
‘sr ed int ° every 
We cannot help noticing, with gloomy forebodings that 
Spiritualism has greatly changed its character and fts’ ore 
tensions, and is undergoing still further changes Inhts 
Tgd was t0 V ve man a demonstration of the existence 
of God and of spirits generally; it was to assure him of his 
,n™ C ° n U f anc f after death > and to afford him during life 
departed" 5 i f 0 ™ 7‘ th kindred and friends who have 
S t d ' Now it seems bent on the rehabilitation of much 
t7o h i and f0 ‘’ a C “ tUry classed as n’odiaival supersti- 
tion and which was supposed to be buried for ever. P 
P eiBa P s ’. not be idle ^ enquire what some of the 
alle b ed Spiritualistic phenomena involve ? Let us take the 
“v ,7f 0Wt d f hairfr °, m P> as ‘--casts, as it has been 
recently discussed by several correspondents of “ Lmht ” 
We may admit, for argument’s sake, that the phenomenon 
has really taken place as described,— that there has been a 
tiue growth, demonstrated, or at least demonstrable by 
ke^Mh w “S hin &« and that the increment’has 
°een ot the same nature as that which occurs with the hair 
