disinterested truth-seeker, not stopping to weigh adverse consequences, and not hesitating to proclaim what he had witnessed. I shall not grudge him the exercise of the same fearlessness in construing the phenomena, which he has shown in testifying to them, however widely I may differ from his interpretations. Are there no cases in the Church, differing from that of Mr. Cook only in the fact that the recipients of the truth keep it to themselves? Yes, there are many such. I have myself been present at séances with two eminent Unitarian clergymen, now deceased, one the Rev. Dr. Hall, of Dorchester, Mass., the other the Rev. Dr. George Putnam, of Roxbury,—both of whom admitted to me that they accepted the phenomena as genuine, beyond all possibility of collusion or trick. Miss Jennie Lord, now Mrs. Webb, was the medium, and, though it was a dark circle, the evidences of a preterhuman power at work that could see in the dark as well as in the light, were conclusive. The tangible spirit-hand, the playing on instruments, the placing of a full tumbler of water at the lips of the different sitters, so that not a drop was spilled, the violent, repeated dashing of the tambourine on the table, and then on the floor, with inconceivable swiftness, without touching one of the hands placed on the table, and all this in the dark, and while the medium was held, were phenomena that must have impressed the most apathetic as preterhuman. Both these reverend doctors, while admitting the genuineness of what transpired, excused themselves from saying anything about it publicly, on the ground that it would involve them in controversy; that it was too "big a subject" for them to take up at their age; that they could not investigate further without giving to it more time than they could spare from their parochial duties, &c. Both were noble, sincere men, and if they had been as young and as daring as Mr. Cook, they would doubtless not have allowed the phenomena to remain sterile in their minds. I also took the well-known Edinburgh author and publisher, the late Robert Chambers, then in America, to witness the manifestations in Miss Lord's presence. But he was already a Spiritualist, and had no hesitation in recognizing them as among the most convincing he had ever experienced. His views and arguments in regard to the phenomena are clearly set forth in his Introduction to the second volume of the Life of D. D. Home, the celebrated medium. I subsequently tested the phenomena through Miss Lord several times in my own library, when only my own family and a single friend were present. There was no conceivable chance for an abettor. Under test conditions, and while the medium's hands and feet were held, a large bassviol was taken from the corner of the room and played on vigorously and well. Several familiar psalm tunes, among them "Coronation," were accurately given. That it was a preterhuman performance (judging human capacity solely by what science admits) I absolutely know. The spirit operator first touched us all on the head with the viol-bow. The spirit-hand, twice as large as that of the medium, proved its tangibility by being placed repeatedly on our heads; it took down the hair of two ladies present, and carefully put it up again, and indicated in various ways the intelligence guiding it—and all this while the medium was held, If any other witness from the Church is wanted besides Mr. Cook, I could refer the curious to the estimable Episcopal bishop of Rhode Island, Mr. Clark. Towards "interviewers" he may be reticent; but to those in his confidence he may narrate experiences far transcending those to which Mr. Cook has testified-experiences which, if accepted, make credible the re-appearance of Christ in the room with closed doors. Bishop Clark preaches openly the Pauline doctrine of a spiritual body; thus rejecting or superseding the unscientific notion of a re-composition of the material remains. His extreme spiritualistic views and his long entertained convictions are well known to his brethren; and there has been question occasionally of a convocation to consider the heresy in his case; but he has not yet been summoned to the bar for examination, and I hardly think the indiscretion will ever be attempted. In England not a few clergymen of the established church are avowed Spiritualists. But if the elasticity of that church prevents its touching Bishop Colenso, it may well spare the recipient of the simple belief in continuous life, as justified by the demonstrated facts of Spiritualism. An unprofessional medium testifies that the following words came to him from a spirit: "The spiritual body is made up by deposits of human thought even as the human material body is sustained by food. Hence the thoughts and affections of the heart go to construct the spirit-body, enter into it, become it. I warn you how you indulge in thoughts that are evil. The spiritual body does not change as easily as you imagine." Edmund Spenser, one of the most medially gifted of poets, and who tells us that "all that's good is beautiful and fair," plainly inculcates this notion of a spirit-body, made fair or foul by the habitual character of our thoughts. He says: "So every spirit, as it is more pure, And hath in it the more of heavenly light, To habit in, and it more fairly dight CHAPTER IX. DISCRETE MENTAL STATES. -THE FACT ADMITTED BY MEDI. INFERENCES FROM THE PHENOMENON. -- CAL SCIENCE. SPIRIT-ANALOGIES. HARTMANN'S THEORY OF CONSCIOUS. THE UN THE facts already recorded show that the human mind is so constituted that it may manifest discrete, or entirely separate, states of consciousness. I have illustrated this in the cases of Mrs. Mowatt, Miss Reynolds, and others. In the case of Mrs. Mowatt, the superior consciousness included the lower; in that of Miss Reynolds, the consciousness of each state was entirely distinct from the other. Even medical science admits the phenomenon of discrete states in catalepsy and other affections; so the question of its reality has been settled. Indeed the phenomena of our daily natural sleep confirm it. But as the subject from my standpoint introduces views not yet admitted by philosophy, in regard to the nature of consciousness, a somewhat more extended survey will be necessary before I formally draw my inference, which is briefly this: An analogous fact of discrete mental states as they affect communicating spirits, may be fairly postulated as accounting for many of the shortcomings, contradictions, and stupidities on the part of supposed spirits, which have so mystified and baffled investigators. That mental phenomena and changes take place in the utter absence of consciousness, and that we may even think without it, seems to be now the doctrine generally taught and accepted. My purpose is to show that this doctrine must be dismissed as not proven; that some degree of consciousness attends all mental operations, even those which go on in sleep; - that there is no such phenomenon as "unconscious cerebration," but that all intelligence involves the exercise of a conscious discrimination, more or less active. By the law or maxim of parcimony, we must not multiply substances or entities unnecessarily ; and my further conclusion under that rule is, that the theosophic theory of a partition of the spirit, under which a geist, or shadow-man, independent of the spirit, is left behind to manifest itself to mortals, and play many unaccountable antics, is wholly superfluous, since the doctrine of discrete states, applied to spirits as well as to mortals, is a sufficient explanation. Locke's assertion that self is not determined by identity or diversity of substance, but only by identity of consciousness, requires qualification. Hartmann, of Berlin, the pessimist, whose "Philosophy of the Unconscious" has been more widely circulated than any recent philosophical work in Germany, has undertaken. to treat the subject exhaustively, and he seems to agree with Locke; for he assumes that belief in a double consciousness in the human subject is equivalent to belief in a double personality. As the issue of Hartmann's inductive philosophy, based as it is more on physiological facts than on metaphysical abstractions, is that the Supreme Power in the universe has intelligence and will, but is destitute of consciousness, and therefore unworthy of adoration, — it will be seen that if it can be proved that consciousness is merely the equivalent of active intelligence, all Hartmann's excellent scientific arguments, proving the operation of mind and purpose throughout all animated nature, fall to the service of theism, and his atheism, or pantheism, which ever it may be, is annulled. I defer for the present my |