Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/599

Rh that these phenomena are so different from the common province of the naturalist's observations, that they present to him especial difficulties, which plainly exist for others in a less degree.

All the methods of natural science rest upon the presupposition of an unchangeable order of occurrence, which presupposition involves the other, that everywhere, where the same conditions are given, the results must also agree. The naturalist, therefore, proceeds in his observations with unshakable confidence in the positiveness of his objects. Nature can not deceive him; there rules in nature neither freak nor accident. You will admit that we can not speak of a regularity of this sort in the domain of spiritualistic phenomena; on the contrary, the most conspicuous characteristic of these lies precisely in the fact that in their presence the laws of nature seem to be abrogated. But, even considered purely in themselves, they show no trace of an orderly connection or coherence. Even he who may have the hope that such an order will perhaps some day be discovered, can not deny that hitherto all hopes of this sort have been shipwrecked, that spiritualistic observation and natural science stand directly opposed to each other. As little can you deny, on the other hand, that that absolute confidence in the positiveness of the object (truthfulness of the medium) would not be in place in a province where the cardinal question, with which we first of all have to do, is precisely whether the phenomena possess reality or whether they rest upon deception.

Nevertheless I find in the observations which you report tolerably clear indications that the eminent naturalists, who deemed the medium Slade worthy of their investigation, transferred a portion of that confidence, which they justly bring to the ordinary objects of their observation, to this extraordinary object also. You report, for instance, the influences exerted by Mr. Slade upon the movements of a magnetic needle. It appears from your account that the medium was prepared for this experiment, similar experiments having been instituted in Berlin, at the instance of a scientific man there. The phenomena themselves are precisely the same as can be produced by a man provided with a strong magnet. You will not deny that such experiments possess convincing power only for him who is convinced of the correctness of the presupposition of the absolute trustworthiness of the investigated object, i. e., the medium. Now, that the eminent physicists who observed this remarkable phenomenon were chiefly chained by the reversal of the Amperian and Weberian molecular currents, which occurred under such unusual influences, is perfectly intelligible; a practical jurist would probably have been not so astonished, but, less accustomed to believe in the trustworthiness of the objects of his investigation, he would scarcely have neglected to examine the coat-sleeves of the medium, with reference to his magnetic powers.

I can not, therefore, respected sir, acknowledge the authorities in