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is neither atheist, materialist, nor positivist, but simply a Pythagorean who taught the philosophy of Upper Asia, and claimed to possess the powers of the magicians, so despised by Draper's own school! Nothing more amusing than this contretemps has happened since the supposed statue of St. Peter was discovered by irreverent archeologists to be nothing else than the Jupiter of the Capitol, and Buddha's identity with the Catholic St. Josaphat was satisfactorily proven.

Thus, search where we may through the archives of history, we find that there is no fragment of modern philosophy-whether Newtonian, Car. tesian, Huxleyian or any other-but has been dug from the Oriental mines. Even Positivism and Nihilism find their prototype in the exoteric portion of Kapila's philosophy, as is well remarked by Max Müller. It was the inspiration of the Hindu sages that penetrated the mysteries of Praguâ Pâramitâ (perfect wisdom); their hands that rocked the cradle of the first ancestor of that feeble but noisy child that we have christ. ened MODERN SCIENCE.

CHAPTER IV.

"I choose the nobler part of Emerson, when, after various disenchantments, he exclaimed, 'I covel Truth. The gladness of true heroism visits the heart of him who is really competent to say

"A testimony is sufficient when it rests on :

this."

-TYNDALL.

1st. A great number of very sensible witnesses who agree in having seen well. 2d. Who are sane, bodily and mentally.

3d. Who are impartial and disinterested.

4th. Who unanimously agree.

5th. Who solemnly certify to the fact."-VOLTAIRE, Dictionnaire Philosophique.

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His battle

HE Count Agenor de Gasparin is a devoted Protestant. with des Mousseaux, de Mirville and other fanatics who laid the whole of the spiritual phenomena at the door of Satan, was long and fierce. Two volumes of over fifteen hundred pages are the result, proving the effects, denying the cause, and employing superhuman efforts to invent every other possible explanation that could be suggested rather than the true one.

The severe rebuke received by the Journal des Débats from M. de Gasparin, was read by all civilized Europe.* After that gentleman had minutely described numerous manifestations that he had witnessed himself, this journal very impertinently proposed to the authorities in France to send all those who, after having read the fine analysis of the "spiritual hallucinations" published by Faraday, should insist on crediting this delusion, to the lunatic asylum for Incurables. "Take care," wrote de Gasparin in answer, "the representatives of the exact sciences are on their way to become . . . the Inquisitors of our days. . . . Facts are stronger than Academies. Rejected, denied, mocked, they nevertheless are facts, and do exist."t

The following affirmations of physical phenomena, as witnessed by himself and Professor Thury, may be found in de Gasparin's voluminous work.

"The experimenters have often seen the legs of the table glued, so to say, to the floor, and, notwithstanding the excitement of those present, refuse to be moved from their place. On other occasions they have seen the tables levitated in quite an energetic way. They heard, with their own

• "Des Tables," vol. i., p. 213.

+ Ibid., 216.

ears, loud as well as gentle raps, the former threatening to shatter the table to pieces on account of their violence, the latter so soft as to become hardly perceptible. . . . . As to LEVITATIONS WITHOUT CONTACT, we found means to produce them easily, and with success. . . . . And such levitations do not pertain to isolated results. We have reproduced them over THIRTY times.* . . . . One day the table will turn, and lift its legs successively, its weight being augmented by a man weighing eighty-seven kilogrammes seated on it; another time it will remain motionless and immovable, notwithstanding that the person placed on it weighs but sixty. . . . On one occasion we willed it to turn upside down, and it turned over, with its legs in the air, notwithstanding that our fingers never touched it once."

"It is certain," remarks de Mirville, "that a man who had repeatedly witnessed such a phenomenon, could not accept the fine analysis of the English physicist." §

Since 1850, des Mousseaux and de Mirville, uncompromising Roman Catholics, have published many volumes whose titles are cleverly contrived to attract public attention. They betray on the part of the authors a very serious alarm, which, moreover, they take no pains to conceal. Were it possible to consider the phenomena spurious, the church of Rome would never have gone so much out of her way to repress them.

Both sides having agreed upon the facts, leaving skeptics out of the question, people could divide themselves into but two parties: the be lievers in the direct agency of the devil, and the believers in disembodied and other spirits. The fact alone, that theology dreaded a great deal more the revelations which might come through this mysterious agency than all the threatening "conflicts" with Science and the categorical denials of the latter, ought to have opened the eyes of the most skeptical. The church of Rome has never been either credulous or cowardly, as is abundantly proved by the Machiavellism which arks her policy. Moreover, she has never troubled herself much about the clever prestidigitateurs whom she knew to be simply adepts in juggling. Robert Houdin, Comte, Hamilton and Bosco, slept secure in their beds, while she persecuted such men as Paracelsus, Cagliostro, and Mesmer, the Hermetic philosophers and mystics-and effectually stopped every genuine manifestation of an occult nature by killing the mediums.

Those who are unable to believe in a personal devil and the dogmas of the church must nevertheless accord to the clergy enough of shrewdIbid., p. 35.

"Des Tables," vol. i., p. 48. +Ibid., p. 24.
De Mirville: "Des Esprits," p. 26.

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ness to prevent the compromising of her reputation for infallibility by making so much of manifestations which, if fraudulent, must inevitably be some day exposed.

But the best testimony to the reality of this force was given by Robert Houdin himself, the king of jugglers, who, upon being called as an expert by the Academy to witness the wonderful clairvoyant powers and occasional mistakes of a table, said: "We jugglers never make mistakes, and my second-sight never failed me yet."

The learned astronomoner Babinet was not more fortunate in his selection of Comte, the celebrated ventriloquist, as an expert to testify against the phenomena of direct voices and the rappings. Comte, if we may believe the witnesses, laughed in the face of Babinet at the bare suggestion that the raps were produced by "unconscious ventriloquism !" The latter theory, worthy twin-sister of "unconscious cerebration," caused many of the most skeptical academicians to blush. Its absurdity was too apparent.

"The problem of the supernatural," says de Gasparin, “such as it was presented by the middle ages, and as it stands now, is not among the number of those which we are permitted to despise; its breadth and grandeur escape the notice of no one. . . . . Everything is profoundly serious in it, both the evil and the remedy, the superstitious recrudescency, and the physical fact which is destined to conquer the latter." *

....

Further, he pronounces the following decisive opinion, to which he came, conquered by the various manifestations, as he says himself—"The number of facts which claim their place in the broad daylight of truth, has so much increased of late, that of two consequences one is hence

forth inevitable: either the domain of natural sciences must consent to expand itself, or the domain of the supernatural will become so enlarged as to have no bounds." †

Among the multitude of books against spiritualism emanating from Catholic and Protestant sources, none have produced a more appalling effect than the works of de Mirville and des Mousseaux: La Magie au XIXme Siecle-Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons-Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie-Les Mediateurs de la Magie-Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations, etc. They comprise the most cyclopædic biography of the devil and his imps that has appeared for the private delectation of good Catholics since the middle ages.

According to the authors, he who was "a liar and murderer from the beginning," was also the principal motor of spiritual phenomena. He had been for thousands of years at the head of pagan theurgy;

• "Avant propos," pp. 12 and 16.

† Vol. i., p. 244

and it was he, again, who, encouraged by the increase of heresies, infidelity, and atheism, had reappeared in our century. The French Academy lifted up its voice in a general outcry of indignation, and M. de Gasparin even took it for a personal insult. "This is a declaration of war, a 'levée of shields'". -wrote he in his voluminous book of refutations. "The work of M. de Mirville is a real manifesto. . . . . I would be glad to see in it the expression of a strictly individual opinion, but, in truth, it is impossible. The success of the work, these solemn adhesions, the faithful reproduction of its theses by the journals and writers of the party, the solidarity established throughout between them and the whole body of catholicity. . . . everything goes to show a work which is essentially an act, and has the value of a collective labor. As it is, I felt that I had a duty to perform. . . . I felt obliged to pick up the glove, and lift high the Protestant flag against the Ultramontane banner.” *

The medical faculties, as might have been expected, assuming the part of the Greek chorus, echoed the various expostulations against the demonological authors. The Medico-Psychological Annals, edited by Drs. Brierre de Boismont and Cerise, published the following: "Outside these controversies of antagonistical parties, never in our country did a writer dare to face, with a more aggressive serenity, . . . . the sarcasms, the scorn of what we term common sense; and, as if to defy and challenge at the same time thundering peals of laughter and shrugging of shoulders, the author strikes an attitude, and placing himself with effrontery before the members of the Academy addresses to them what

... •

he modestly terms his Mémoire on the Devil !" †

That was a cutting insult to the Academicians, to be sure; but ever since 1850 they seem to have been doomed to suffer in their pride more than most of them can bear. The idea of asking the attention of the forty "Immortals" to the pranks of the Devil! They vowed revenge, and, leaguing themselves together, propounded a theory which exceeded in absurdity even de Mirville's demonolatry! Dr. Royer and Jobart de Lamballe-both celebrities in their way-formed an alliance and presented to the Institute a German whose cleverness afforded, according to his statement, the key to all the knockings and rappings of both hemispheres. "We blush "—remarks the Marquis de Mirville-" to say that the whole of the trick consisted simply in the reiterated displacement of one of the muscular tendons of the legs. Great demonstration of the system in full sitting of the Institute—and on the spot. . . . . expressions of Academical gratitude for this interesting communication, and, a few days later, a full assurance given to the public by a professor of the medical + Medico-Psychological Annals," Jan. 1, 1854.

*Vol. ii., p. 524.

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