Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 18.djvu/282

. What, without Mr. Kápchich's mediumistic power?

. Vous avez la main heureuse. Just imagine, the peasant of whom I told you turns out to be a real medium.

. I declare! Oh, but that is particularly interesting!

. Yes, yes. After dinner we made a little preliminary test with him.

. You have had time to have it and to convince yourself?

. Completely so. He has proved to be a medium of wonderful power.

(incredulously). I declare!

. It now turns out that this had been known quite awhile in the servants' room. When he sits down to a cup, the spoon jumps into his hand. (To the Professor.) Have you heard this?

. No, I have not heard this particular thing.

(to the Professor). Still, you admit the possibility of such phenomena?

. Of what phenomena?

. Well, in general, the spiritualistic, the mediumistic, in general, the supernatural phenomena.

. The question is what do we call supernatural? When not a living man, but a piece of stone, attracted a nail, how did such a phenomenon seem to the spectators, natural or supernatural?

. Yes, of course. Only, such phenomena, as the attraction of the magnet, are continually repeated.

. The same thing happens here. The phenomenon is repeated, and we subject it to investigation. More than that, we subject the phenomena under investigation to the laws which are common to other phenomena. Phenomena seem to be supernatural only because the causes of the phenomena are ascribed to the