incredible doctrine rather as fools than rogues,
I have always listened to the promulgation of
startling and incredible doctrine with more
than usual impartiality. I have always given
them a fair hearing; I have never met them
with scoffing or active opposition, and I have
endeavoured to submit myself to the influences
which they profess to act under. I have taken
certain means of my own to test the genuineness
of those influences, but I have never
wilfully resisted anything that seemed likely to
carry conviction to my mind. I feel satisfied,
therefore, that the conclusions at which I have
arrived have not been inspired by bitterness,
nor prompted by prejudice. I have given
mediums and manifestations a fair hearing, from
the electro-biological period of twenty years
ago, down to Mr. Home's last lecture at
Willis's Rooms, and I purpose, in this paper,
to glance at my experiences, and record
my impressions.

My earliest recollection of "manifestations"
carries me back twenty years to a certain
thatch-covered hut, which stood then—and
stands now—on the brow of a Scotch
mountain. In that hut lived a shoemaker. Like
most Scotchmen of his class, he had that
dangerous thing, a little learning. He had picked
up a volume of Combe's works, and he took
a fancy to phrenology. He had a journeyman,
who read the book when his master was
done with it, and he also took a fancy to
phrenology. In course of time both master
and man became phrenology mad. They sat
together on their stools with a phrenological
bust before them, and talked about bumps while
they hammered the leather upon their lapstones.
But while they progressed in abstract science,
they lost way in the practical art of manufacturing
shoes. This was the natural consequence
of paying a larger share of their devotions
to Mr. Combe than to St. Crispin. They
devoted more attention to the formation of the
head than to the anatomy of the feet, and when
this bore its inevitable bitter fruit, loss of business,
the shoemaker and his journeyman went
so far beyond their lasts as to become lecturers
and demonstrators in electro-biology. I believe
this is the history of most of the professors of
the mystic arts. A little—a very little—learning,
a soul above business, a vaulting ambition,
an inordinate vanity, some degree of belief at
first, but eventually the necessity to become
charlatans and quacks to sustain their original
pretensions.

The shoemaker and his journeyman adopted
the practice of electro-biology from what they
had read in the newspapers. Living on a barren
hill-side, far away from towns, they had never
seen anything of the kind in practice. But
they were apt scholars.

I well remember their first séance. It was
given at the manse, the house of the minister.
The minister himself was much interested in the
experiments, and as there was no pretence of
anything beyond physical and psychological
manifestations—the spiritual pretence was yet to
come—willingly allowed the shoemaker and his
man to exhibit in his dining-room. This is what
the shoemaker did. He placed his man in a
chair, stared into his eyes, made passes at him,
and so put him into what was called a mesmeric
trance. When he was in this state, the master
touched his bumps to produce manifestations in
accordance with the faculty which they were
supposed to cover. Thus, when he rubbed the
bump of benevolence, the journeyman gave away
everything he had in his pockets, and I remember
that all his personal belongings consisted of
three-halfpence, a clasp-knife, a short pipe, a
flint and steel, and a small-tooth comb. When
the master touched the bump of acquisitiveness,
the man laid hands upon and pocketed
everything within his reach. When time and tune
were touched, the man danced and sang. But
the great sensation was at the close of the
séance, when on his bump of amativeness being
manipulated, the journeyman started from his
seat, and proceeded in a frantic manner to hug
and kiss the servant girls who formed part of
his audience. I think it was in consequence of
this manifestation being a little too life-like and
real, that experiments in electro-biology were
not repeated at the manse.

Many persons believed in the truth of these
phenomena, partly because they thought them
probable, and partly because they had faith in
the honesty of the shoemaker. They were not
wrong in their opinion of the shoemaker; but
the whole thing was an imposture nevertheless.
The shoemaker was the dupe of his man.

I am strongly disposed to believe, nay, I am
sure, that this is frequently the case among the
spiritualists; and that where there are two or
three tricksters, there are half a dozen credulous
persons, who believe in the imposture which
they unwittingly help to practise upon others.

But electro-biology was too tame a trick to
hold the attention of the public for any length
of time, and it became necessary to excite the
interest of the credulous by more daring feats,
just as the acrobat in the ring finds it necessary,
when the performance begins to flag, to increase
the number of hoops through which he jumps,
or to double his sommersaults and the risk of
breaking his neck. Electro-biology was
mundane, and just within the bounds of physical
probability. It now became "an object" to introduce
a supra-mundane element, as they call it,
and to present phenomena which would accord
with a belief in the unseen world, while it would
defy physical inquiry. When first introduced,
spiritualism presented itself in a very mild and
modest form. It assumed to be little more than
a development of animal magnetism. The
professors began by making tables turn; and when
this became monotonous, they made them rap.
The next thing was to declare that the raps
were produced by spirits of the departed wishing
to communicate with their friends on earth.
When this in its turn was getting stale, Mr.
Daniel Home introduced the spirit hand, spirit
writing, and the great sensation feat of floating
in the air. When inquiry came to close quarters