eight years' careful investigation in private families, and after sitting in many hundreds of " circles," they are obliged to come to the conviction that the phenomena are genuine, and that there are both forces and intelligences which do not come at present within any recognised law. Of course, there is much deception, and still more self-delusion, mixed up with the subject; but it seems almost impossible not to come to the conclusion that there is a residue of truth. The question then is, whence come these phenomena ? From whom, or what, are they derived ? Here there is a great difference of opinion, the great majority, as has ever been the case since the world began where the causes are hidden, ascribing them to spiritual agency. We are supposed to prove, every time when by an act of the will we move a limb, that spirit moves matter. Now, we know nothing of the nature or essence of "force," and we may call it "spirit" if we like; but we do know that precisely the same force that moves the steam-engine, moves the body, and that this force is generated by the union of carbon and oxygen and the consequent evolution of heat. Whatever may have been the origin of all motion, this force is unattended with intelligence; but late investigations have proved that vital forces are correlated from physical, and mental from vital; and further investigation of the correlation of forces may show whence the particular force is derived that is displayed in these so-called spiritual manifestations. 'Each manifestation of force can be interpreted only as the effect of some antecedent force: no matter whether it be an inorganic action, an animal movement, a thought, or a feeling. Either this must be conceded or else it must be asserted that our successive states of consciousness are selfcreated, Either mental energies, as well as bodily ones, are quantitatively correlated to certain energies expended in their production, and to certain other energies which they initiate or else nothing must become something, or something must become nothing.”* It is probably to this correlation that we must look for the force displayed in these extraordinary phenomena: but whence the intelligence? This, further investigation, I think, will prove to be merely the reflex and reflection of our own embodied intelligence, as manifested in the abnormal conditions of mind to which I have alluded in this chapter. The conditions requisite for its manifestation are precisely those attending the preter-natural states of mind attending mesmeric action, such as clairvoyance, electro-biology, &c., &c., in which given constitutions and temperaments are necessary, and the failures consequently are more numerous than the successes. The mind acts through the brain and the senses ordinarily are necessary to set the brain in motion; but that it may be acted upon *Herbert Spencer. directly by some other force, and without the aid of the senses, appears to be now an established fact; also, the nervous force, not generated but eliminated by the brain, and guided by the will, moves the body; but of what nature is this force? We know it is the correlate of physical forces, but what other "form" it may take, or how far and to what extent it can act upon other things and other brains, and consequently other intelligences, outside the body, is not yet known; but that it has such power to act, I think is more than probable. Very much lies beyond the ken of ordinary sense and vision, and our five senses are rather clumsy instruments to deal with the imponderables. The microscope shows a material world within them, and a sensitive nervous system not only sees what is not apparent to ordinary sense, but appears even to break down the boundary of sense, and to reveal a world beyond. There is quite a new world lying open for our investigation in this direction, and its pursuit is not calculated, ultimately, to lead us back into the bonds of superstition, but forward in the path of Cerebral Physiology and the true Science of Mind. It might fairly have been expected that the light of Science and general Education would have dispelled for ever the darkness of superstition and fanaticism, but this cannot take place till the Science of Mind is much advanced, so as to lay bare the true causes of the spiritual emotions which generate, or lie at the root of, such states of mind. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. THE freedom of will, and of action, with which we suppose ourselves to be endowed, is a delusion. For ages men believed the sun to go round the earth, because it seemed to do so. A similar delusion is at the base of our Ethical system, because we seem free. Whence, then, the source of the delusion? Our apparent freedom consists in the absence of all physical restraint, and in our power therefore to do as we please; but what we please to do depends upon our mental constitution and the circumstances in which we are placed. The forces of nature which culminate in mind, re-act on nature, as an intelligent power, and thus the hand of necessity is hidden, but it is not the less there, acting with undeviating regularity and resistless force. It is true that the "liberty" seems infinite, and action inexhaustibly various; yet the limitation is complete, and the mighty controlling power ever present, although unseen and unnoticed, and pressing with the lightness of a feather. Nothing, then, under the circumstances, could have happened but that which did happen,; and the actions of men, under precisely the same cir |