Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/222

Rh 208 A P P A P P demain. Believers answer with sorrow that imposture is only too common on the part of mediums diffident of their powers ; but the aim of science ought to be to detect the realities that co-exist with the imposture. 3. Where conscious imposture does not come in, uncon scious cerebration and unconscious muscular action, super vening on a state of expectant attention, are just as deceit ful. That the mediums are in a morbid condition is proved by the feeling of a cold air passing over the hands, like the aura epileptica. Unconscious muscular action may be denned as the involuntary response made by the muscles to ideas with which the mind may be possessed when the directing power of the mind is in abeyance. The response given by rapping on the part of the agitated furniture is due to unconscious cerebration that is, to ideational changes taking place in the cerebrum of which we may be at the time unconscious through a want of receptivity on the part of the sensorium. The answer given, though not present in conscious thought, may exist in latent thought, and that latent thought may stimulate muscular action towards producing the unconsciously- desired result. In their reply, spiritualists depend on evidence which science hesitates to accept. They say that they have seen such phenomena as no consciously exerted muscular power could produce, and heard replies that did not exist even in their latent consciousness. Hence they insist on the presence of &quot; a new force.&quot; 4. The received spiritualist theory belongs to the philo sophy of savages. A savage looking on at a spiritual seance in London would be perfectly at home in the proceedings. It is answered that the savage s evidence and belief is an undesigned coincidence of great confirmatory strength. 5. The reported doings and sayings of the spirits are trivial, irreverent, useless, and shocking. Spiritualists reply, with Swedenborg, that death works no immediate change in character or knowledge, and agree with Plato, in the Phcedo, that the lowest and idlest souls are precisely the most likely to revisit earth. But with perseverance they look for better things. We must leave the question sub judice. No one can be surprised that men of science hold back from devoting valuable time to the investigation of phenomena asso ciated with darkened rooms, hysterics, and confessed imposture. On the other hand, believers will insist on crediting their eyes and ears, and being influenced by hopes and love and fears. Apparitions must be allowed to be an exception to the general ordinance a disturbing influence in the healthy tide of things. It is more pro bable that the ordinary laws of nature will hold their sway than that a revolution is about to be effected in all human and divine relations. This is what spiritualists expect, and their attitude has its interest for the student of Man. Perhaps the principal lesson to be gained from the study of the theories of apparitions is that human nature remains essentially the same, beneath the shifting surface of creeds and customs. 1 (A. L.) APPEAL, in its usual modern sense, is the act by which a decision is brought for review from an inferior to a supe rior court. In Roman jurisprudence it was used in this and in other significations ; it was sometimes equivalent to prosecution, or the calling up of an accused person before a tribunal where the accuser appealed to the protection of the magistrate against injustice or oppression. The derivation from the word appello, naturally shows its earliest meaning to have been an urgent outcry or prayer against injustice. Hence it inferred a superior power capable of protecting against petty tyranny. In its mean ing of seeking a higher tribunal for recourse against a lower, it does not seem to have been a characteristic of the Republic, where the magistrate was generally supreme within his sphere, and those who felt themselves outraged by injustice threw themselves on popular protection by jjrovocatio, instead of looking to redress from a higher official authority. The Empire, however, introduced grades of jurisdiction, and the ultimate remedy was an appeal to the emperor; thus Paul, when brought before Festus, appealed unto Caesar. It must be understood that the appeal was actually dealt with by a supreme judge repre senting the emperor, not by the emperor in person. In the Corpus Juris, the appeal to the emperor is called indis criminately appellatio and provocatio. A considerable portion of the 49th book of the Pandects is devoted to appeals ; but little of the practical operation of the system is to be deduced from the propositions there brought together. The ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the gradations of the feudal system, naturally afforded scope in the Middle Ages for appeals from the lower to the higher authority. In matters ecclesiastical, including these matrimonial, testamen tary, and other departments which the church ever tried to bring within the operation of the canon law, there were various grades of appeal, ending with the Pope. The Eu ropean princes in general struggled against this assumption of authority by the court of Rome, and it was the source of many contests between the ecclesiastical and the regal power. It became customary for ambitious sovereigns to encou rage appeals from the courts of the crown vassals to them selves as represented by the supreme judges, and Charle magne usually enjoys the credit of having set the example of this system of centralisation, by establishing missi domi- nici. The great vassals, however, sought recourse against the decisions of the royal courts in their own order, embodied as the great council or parliament of the nation, and hence arose the appeal to the House of Lords as the court of last resort. When the progress of civilisation and the art of self- government render judges no longer amenable to the charge of tyranny or fraud, an appellate system changes its character and objects. It in some measure certainly tends to preserve that judicial integrity which renders it unnecessary as the immediate refuge of the persecuted suitor. But its ostensible object is the preservation of uniformity in the law. The attainment of this object renders it unfortunately necessary, in such a country as ours, that no tribunal shall give, in the first instance, in any important question, a decision which is not open to appeal. The process has the double advantage, that it has a tendency to bring every legal difficulty ultimately to one tribunal, where a uniformity of principle may be expected in the application of the law, and, at the same time, stimulates the exertions of the subordinate judge, who knowing that his proceedings will be revised, is care ful to bring them as close as he can to those uniform prin ciples of law, which he knows that the court of appeal 1 The most eminent defender of modern spiritualism, Mr Alfred Wallace, reports a novel kind of apparition in the Fortnightly Review for May 1874. It seems that a young lady medium has the power of sending a semblance of herself into one room, while she is bound hand and foot in another. The pleasing peculiarity of this apparition ia that it is no mere shadow, like the mother of Odysseus, whom he could not embrace in Hades. Mr Crookes, a Fellow of the Eoyal Society, has inspected it with a phosphorus lamp, and clasped it in his arms within the medium s sight. In M. Gautier s romance Spirite, the lover was not permitted to touch his airy mistress. Truth ia indeed stranger than fiction.