ARTICLE II.-VOICES FROM THE SPIRIT-REALM.

[By Dr. ROBERT FRIESE, Leipsic, Mutze, 1879.]

A REVIEW BY DR. FR. HOFFMAN, INCLUDING ALSO A GENERAL REVIEW OF SPIRITUALISM. WITH A POSTSCRIPT BY PROF. H. ULRICI, DEFINING HIS OWN VIEWS ON SPIRITUALISM.

"Materialism kills everything.”—Kant.

"Our happiness will be complete in goodness, wisdom and purity; in short, we shall be 'perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect.””Countess Pomar.

If we turn our gaze backward to the dreadful days of witchcraft prosecutions, we find that then all Europe, with the most insignificant exceptions, believed fully in the ability of the spiritual world to invade and control the world physical. A countless number of so-called facts were brought forward as evident proof of the truth of this belief. It is therefore quite natural that dangers great and real, though perhaps of different character, should be anticipated as the outcome of this new spiritualism, or spiritism, notwithstanding that the spirit faith is presented here in a very different form. But when has a great movement ever taken place upon earth that did not involve new and hitherto unknown dangers? The most that can be done is to recognize these dangers, throw light upon them, and so far as possible prevent their baleful effects. That such dangers should be connected with this subject, and be inseparable from it, is the necessary result of an existing partizan spirit which decides without evidence, waives all earnest examination, turns the back toward the facts, and becomes absolutely incapable of making an impartial investigation, or attaining to a reasonable conclusion. So far as mere unbelievers are concerned, this is a matter of little importance, but it is a matter of great concern when it applies to the infatuated disputants who break staves stoutly over the question, and yet scout as untrustworthy every investigation. In the ranks of fully persuaded spiritists there are some men to be found, who once were disbelievers, and yet did not refuse to investigate:

men who only after long years of patient examination were absolutely convinced by the indisputable facts and evidences of spiritic manifestations. Let any man examine the writings of Wallace, Crookes, Hare, and Edmonds and he will soon see that the facts presented by these men, at least, were substantiated by the strongest testimony. Zöllner, on the other hand, building, as he did, with overwhelming confidence upon Kant, came to the investigation from a very different philosophical standpoint. In his personal investigations and examinations he followed methods which were in nowise inferior to the most convincing methods of American and English investigators. But he has met with a most obstinate opposition from most of our scientific men; an opposition which is not explicable from the fact they too had investigated and come to different conclusions. They have differed rather on account of their mechanical (and fundamentally atheistic) system of philosophy, and they have dogmatically, and à priori, come to the conclusion that the results of Zöllner's actual facts are, per se, impossible. Spinoza and Christian Wolff are children in dogmatism (according to Kant's definition) alongside of one of these mechanico-philosophical investigators, who from a pure empiricism builds an à priori dictum, by means of which they profess to have overthrown everything which outreaches their mental horizon. They misuse the great Kant, by assuming from his assertion "the existence of God is undemonstrable," that on the other hand it is a demonstrated fact that they need not in the least trouble themselves about the existence of God, or at least about the scientific relations of a God whose existence cannot be demonstrated. J. R. Mayer's discovery of the conservation of forces tends (in Mayer's judgment) to the probable conclusion that since one finite existence is not inconsistent with itself, nor inconsistent with one or more others, we ought never to hear anything more said about creation or a Creator. But philosophers of this school do not notice the result of their materialistic theory of atoms. If these are not eternal, they must presuppose a countless number of uncaused existences; or if they do notice it, the absurdity of pre-supposing a multitude of uncaused existences does not wake in them the slightest scruple, and they profess to have harmonized everything. This is really

their position when they refuse to transfer the compound conception of their thought from the finite or infinite sum of their absolute or uncaused existences to one governing power, and so reduce their noun of multitude to a unit. They do not understand that they have no right to presuppose the absolute unchangeableness of natural law, because mere experience can never demonstrate it. Moreover they establish their conclusions only by bringing in as testimony isolated facts of experience, which are never more than a relatively insignificant proportion of the facts experience can give, and they are never able to affirm that the conditions of these experiences might not sometimes produce different results. The laws of nature could not have made themselves, and the existences in which they operate are likewise limited and not absolute. They may therefore possibly suffer change at the hands of the Absolute Existence who created them, if these changes should be found advantageous or necessary to accomplish the highest fulfillment of the world-plan. This is eminently supposable, because it is an essential element of the idea of the creation of a world, that there should proceed the unfolding of a world and its history, and the history of a universe, which must take place and develop step by step until the infinite limit of absolute perfection had been reached, and no further changes could be supposed; until nothing further can be conceived of than everlasting youth, even as we can only suppose God's life to advance without exhaustion or decay from years. So much as this in the conception of world-building must one entirely throw away before he can be himself thrown away by indorsing the monstrous. idea of a universe composed of untold independent existences; put together blindly, and at hap-hazard; self-created; moving about among themselves like a tread-mill forever without thought, or object, or purpose; without moving from their places, in tiresome indifference, passing through unconscious changes, which indeed, since they produce no real changes are not deserving to be called changes at all. Pure Empiricism merges swiftly into Atheism, and Atheism (identical with Pantocosmism) is absolute Equivalence (It does not mean to be, but it is.) of good and evil, of truth and falsehood, and thus moves directly on ad absurdum.

Now we should naturally expect, if empiricism in Science is to be relied on as the agent to produce all results, that spiritic manifestations, if there are any (and there certainly seem to be some such manifestations), should not be excluded from the investigations of natural scientists, no matter how materialistic they may be. But so far as the greater part of these scientists are concerned, the contrary is true; and some even are not wanting who come to unfavorable conclusions without any fair examination. And it is moreover a remarkable phenomenon that a younger member of the Atheistic school, who was certainly present at the manifestations (now no longer denied) of the living magnetic powers of Hansen the Dane, at Leipsic, has recognized the reality of the so-called spiritic phenomena, particularly those of Crookes with Howe, and Zöllner with Slade, yet seeks to explain them materialistically. Leeser's brochure, which in many respects is very acute, has certainly the merit of having told scientists plainly about their obstinate refusal to investigate the matters in question. Whether he, by his article, has broken the ice, remains to be seen. He has at least corrected the denial of actually existing manifestation, and offered an attempt at explanation. This is the beginning of true investigation. It is probable that the outcome of his investigations will ere long lead him beyond his present position.

Dr. R. Friese opens his book with some remarks to Professor Zöllner and to the reader. He is the principal of a highschool at Breslau, who has filled up a long life in the earnest effort to preach to thousands of scholars and hearers, clearness in thought, and caution in judgment. It was Zöllner's experiments that specially incited him to personal investigation and experiment as well as to an acquaintanceship with no small part of spiritualistic and spiritistic literature. His work contains twenty-three chapters besides an interesting supplement. There is room for discussion as to his motive for placing his chapters in the order in which they stand. Would not the book have gained in clearness of vision, if the author, when he had compiled his own observations and experiments, had shut out other people's observations until in another volume he had sought out an explanatory theory? It certainly seems to us

that two widely different undertakings are to be accomplished: first, a collection of manifest facts; secondly, a work devoted to theories, to critical comparison of facts, and to testing of theories. At the present time there is no theory that fully covers the ground, although there are several theories propounded, of various grades and of great divergence, reaching even to absolute contradiction. These theories should be compared and harmonized. In his address to the reader in the first volume, the writer does not state his own position quite satisfactorily. In the second volume his position is made quite clear, as follows:

"In the times when man was satisfied with a knowledge of his own tribe or kindred, and content to look upon all the phenomena of nature as a riddle, which mere human wisdom could never solve; then the tyrannical representatives of spiritual darkness made use of the ignorance of the masses for their own advantage, inspired men with suitable fear, and persuaded their weak and compliant natures that everything inexplicable to the dwarfed reason of the laity was a work of the devil over whom they (the priesthood) alone had power. To-day people have in large measure outgrown this terror, and have fallen into the opposite error of believing nothing. The gigantic strides which have been taken in the knowledge of natural forces, have driven from men's minds the fear of the devil's alleged power, and established a conviction already dominant over a large portion of sound human intelligence that these uncanny representations were sheer folly, and altogether unworthy of our conception of that most holy and exalted Being who made the world. But some people go still farther, and, on account of these wonderful achievements and discoveries that have been made, imagine that they have now attained almost to the extreme limits. They think they see in the properties of matter, rich beyond all previous conception, and wonderful beyond comprehension, the true and only essence of all created things. They have further denied the spirit principle, and banished it from the creation, given their adhesion to a comfortless materialism, and cast away their faith in the existence of the soul, or at least its immortality. It is the frequently promulgated errand of the spirits to wage war upon this materialistic idea, which spreads itself so contagiously and is so diametrically opposed to everything ideal. I could furnish the reader whole volumes to show how earnestly the spirits address themselves to this task. Instead of this I have undertaken in this present discussion to bring together what materials I could, so as to construct a picture of the kind of life enjoyed by departed souls-that life into which we must all one day enter."

The testimony in the preceding and following pages of this book for the existence of these intelligent beings is quite un