he well knew that he was near the close; and he radiantly says to the Baron, that the sincerity in this book had given him all the more pleasure as being a foretaste of the perfect veracities which he was going to enjoy in the other world. This gentle and profoundly religious man was the same, forsooth, in whose case the clerical authorities countermanded a funeral mass, and of whose state after death grave doubts were expressed! The dying man has no such bitterness in his creed. He writes: "You have concealed neither the shadows nor the stains inseparable from the human element always so visible in the Church, and by this alone you have brought out all the more the Divine element, which, in the end, ever prevails, and consoles us by inundating us with its soft and convincing light." Looking at the many expressions in the letter which show that the sense of coming death was strong upon the gifted spirit, and then finding such a passage as this "I anticipate with pleasure the satisfaction I shall have in reading your subsequent volumes"it appears as if some over-soul" in the writer assured him that life has no break in its development-that dissolution does not touch the nature or interrupt the delights of the true and inner life. The ink was scarcely dry when the last pang seized the writer of this admirable letter. The au revoir with which it concludes must be solemn, indeed, to Montalembert's correspondent. It was an appointment made for the other world.-Daily Telegraph.

66

Obituary.

MR. J. W. JACKSON.

OUR readers will learn with regret of the decease of Mr. J. W. Jackson, which took place April 2nd. He was one of the earliest and most active workers for the advancement of Mesmerism, and of those sciences which aim to enlarge our knowledge of human nature. As a lecturer and writer on these subjects he laboured indefatigably for more than a quarter of a century. He established classes to promote the knowledge and practice of Mesmerism as a remedial agent in Dublin, Edinburgh, and Glasgow; the late Archbishop Whately, and Professor Gregory frequently presided at his public lectures and addresses. removing to London a little more than a year ago, one of the chief objects he had in view was to establish in the metropolis a society to diffuse the knowledge and practice of Mesmerism throughout the land, and to rescue it from those charlatans into whose hands it unfortunately has so largely fallen.

In

Mr. Jackson was a man of genial and kindly nature, and catholic spirit; his intellect was broad and massive, with a capacious well-stored mind and retentive memory, from which, with wonderful ease and felicity of expression, he drew what seemed an inexhaustible supply of whatever, either new or old, would best enforce and illustrate the argument in hand. He was a voluminous and careful writer, with a style clear and chaste, and with that accuracy, depth of insight, and artistic beauty which arose from his being at once a man of science, a philosopher, and a poet. His chief works are The Ecstatics of Genius; Ethnology and Phrenology as an Aid to the Historian; and Mesmerism in Connection with Popular Superstitions. At the time his labours were suddenly arrested by his fatal illness, he was engaged on what would probably have been the crowning work of his life, a treatise On Man considered Physically, Morally, Intellectually, and Spiritually. This work was to have been completed in four parts, of which two only have appeared. Besides these works, and two volumes of poems, Mr. Jackson wrote largely for the periodical press. He was one of the principal contributories to The Future, an ethnological journal, edited by Luke Burke, and which appeared more than twenty years ago. He was a Fellow of the Anthropological Society, and some of the finest papers in the Anthropological Review were from his pen. He stood, indeed, in the front rank as a philosophical writer on subjects of Ethnology and Anthropology. His numerous papers in Human Nature have probably made him known to many Spiritualists not familiar with his earlier writings.

Some four years ago Mr. Jackson delivered an Address to the Glasgow Association of Spiritualists, which led Mr. Howitt to remark that he "was on the staircase leading to the chambers of Spiritualism, but had not reached the rooms for which the staircase was built." He had, indeed, recognised and admitted the phenomena of Spiritualism, but believed that Mesmerism furnished an adequate explanation of them without resorting to any theory of spiritual agency. But though his convictions on this subject were of slow growth, he ever advanced steadily towards the truth, and to which he finally and fully attained, for he reached the chambers of Spiritualism at last. Mediumship developed in his own family, in one in whom he knew he could confide, and the communications he received by this means satisfied him beyond a doubt that they proceeded from a spiritual source. Whilst in London he was most assiduous in attending spiritual séances, and in carefully noting the phenomena, and the conditions under which they were presented. A series of articles in the Medium, describing a number of séances at the house of Mrs. Gregory (widow of Professor Gregory) was from his pen, and

it was his intention to have written for the Spiritual Magazine a narrative of how he was led from Mesmerism to Spiritualism. In the last conversation the present writer had with him, he spoke especially of the spirit-hands he had seen and grasped, and of the direction whence these proceeded as being to his mind most convincing manifestations of the presence of individual spirits.

His last public Address was on Modern Spiritualism, and was delivered only a few weeks ago before the Chelsea Literary and Scientific Association.

Mr. Jackson was sixty-one years of age. It is painful to know that his death was hastened by over mental exertion, and by pecuniary anxieties, which his sensitive nature caused him to keep from the knowledge of his friends till unhappily it was too late. Had his earth life been continued, few men could have done better service to the cause of Spiritualism. Let us trust, however, that our friend is still working with us and for us, perhaps more effectually from the other side-from that brighter world where he now holds companionship with the great souls, to whom he was even here united by communion of generous sympathies and unselfish aims, and whose high thoughts were his daily inspiration.

Notices of Books.

DR. DOHERTY'S OUTLINES OF BIOLOGY.*

It is unfortunate that Dr. Doherty surrounds his meaning with such a sharp spike-fence of hard words that only the most intrepid and determined readers can be expected to surmount it. Those, however, who do so will not, we think, regret their toil. Organic Philosophy is a work of much thought and labour, and careful preparation, and goes far deeper than the common shallow philosophy of the time, It will consist of five volumes, each volume complete in itself, though all belong to one general plan, namely, an exposition of the laws of order and association manifested in the complex nature of man. The first volume is an outline of GICOSMOLOGY. The second, a general view of ONTOLOGY. The third volume (the last issued), is an outline of SYSTEMATIC

Organic Philosophy. Vol. III.-Outlines of Biology: Body, Soul, Mind, Spirit. By HUGH DOHERTY, M.D. TRUBNER & Co.

BIOLOGY. The fourth will treat of SYSTEMATIC SOCOLOGY, and the concluding volume will be a treatise on DIALOGNECTICS, or Biological Methods in parallel with Mathematics, as a science of Method.

This will, perhaps, sufficiently indicate the large scope and comprehensive character of the work in which Dr. Doherty is engaged. The present volume, after a general introduction, treats of Biology in four books. Book I.-The Body: Outlines of Physical Biology. Book II.-The Soul: Intellectual Biology. Book III.-The_Mind: Synopsis of Mental Faculties. Book IV.-The Will. Each of these Books is subdivided into several Parts and Chapters, and the author shows an intimate acquaintance with the several existing systems of philosophy now in vogue, and of which some searching criticisms are incidentally presented. When Dr. Doherty's work is completed, we hope that some abstract of it may be presented in a more compendious and popular form, that may ensure for his philosophical views a larger share of attention than we apprehend they are likely to receive in their present shape.

A LITTLE BOOK OF SPIRITUAL

COMMUNICATIONS.*

IN her announcement of this work the author says:

"The first part of Heaven Opened, having been well received and widely read, the Author now offers Part II., feeling confident that all who received help from the messages given 'from Our Little Ones in Glory, will not fail to be interested in the deeper teachings of the more advanced or developed spirits, in reference to their Spirit-Home."

The writer gives some interesting reminiscences of her father, the late Mr. Robert Theobald, showing the consolation he derived from his experience in spiritual communion during the painful illness which terminated his earthly existence. Since his departure to the better land, he seems to have kept up an uninterrupted communication with his family on earth, and the messages to them are full of tenderness and affection, and descriptive of his early experiences in spirit-life.

The writer expresses her "sincere belief, and hope that these words from the spirit-land will bring consolation to the

* Heaven Opened. Part II. Being Further Descriptions of, and Advanced Teachings from, the Spirit-Land, giving through the Mediumship of F. J. T.; with an Appendix, containing the Scriptural Proofs of Spiritualism, and their Correspondence with the present Phenomena. London J. BURNS, 15, Southampton Row, Holborn, W.C. E. W. ALLEN, 11, Ave Maria Lane, E. C.

sorrowing as they have done to us," and "that all who read these teachings may be able to see how the knowledge of Spiritualism ennobles life in all its varied phases; how it brings home to our hearts, as nothing else can, the fact that our lives are most clearly bound up and intertwined with the spirit-life around us, both good and ill."

Correspondence.

ALL NATURE MIRACULOUS.

To the Editor of the " Spiritual Magazine."

SIR, Mrs. Newton Crossland equally objects to the definition of a miracle given by Hume, and to the amendment by Mr. Wallace, but her own definition seems to include both.

Hume's Definition.-"A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature."

Mr. Wallace's Definition.—" Any act or event implying the existence and agency of superhuman intelligence.

Mrs. Crossland's Definition." A transgression of a known and established law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some superhuman intelligent agent."

Johnson's Dictionary.-"Something above human power."

Now in all these definitions the difficulty remains of deciding with our limited knowledge and experience and assumptions of finality, as to what is and must be supernature and superhuman, in the sense of progressive development which cannot and never has been anticipated.

Mr. Wallace includes in his definition the presence and action of disembodied spirits, though in another place he does not consider those spirits to be supernatural and hardly-as being in our midst-supermundane.

Then I beg to suggest that as we have no evidence of any supernatural violation of the laws of nature, so far as we can possibly know-and Modern Spiritualism has certainly exhibited no such interferences that we had better cease to speak of miracles, because if by a miracle we mean the action of an unknown, transcendental and mystical cause, then all causation is such, and as such must ever be accounted miraculous, as utterly beyond the penetration of the human mind, which mind itself in regard to its cause is the crowning miracle, and to know more than which would be doubly miraculous. Once attain to a clear conception of the fundamental truth, and of the shallow nature of all our knowledge, and we shall cease to be continually startled or alarmed on the first appearance of novel phenomena which we cannot immediately account for, or rather find a place for in the register of previous experience; but rather let us reflect with such minds as Newton and Bain and Humboldt on the vast unknown regions of knowledge still lying unexplored before us, remembering that no one thing can be more wonderful than another, the causes being equally well known.

To take the simplest instance, to show how difficult it is with our limited knowledge and experience to decide whether a novel phenomenon is or is not contrary to the laws of nature,-there was supposed to be a principle of levity opposed to the law of gravity to enable a ship to float, or any light body such as a bubble or a balloon to rise from the earth contrary to the supposed order and law in respect to gravitation. But a little additional knowledge in regard to the collateral laws of fluid action, &c., brought the whole diversified action under the one primary law of gravitation. How careful then we ought to be in denouncing this or that alleged phenomenon as contrary to the laws of nature, when may be it is only different from the yet observed order.

HENRY G. ATKINSON.