Savants and Spiritualism
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SAVANTS AND SPIRITUALISM.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is in session at Montreal. Professor Hare, one of the most eminent members of that body, has endeavored again, as he did last year, to direct the attention of the Association to an inquiry into the facts and phenomena of Spiritualism; but the subject was tabooed, and the venerable Professor was not treated with even common courtesy.
We are not Spiritualists—neither believers in the tenets nor admirers of the results which pertain to the system. But we are bound to admit, in common with nineteen twentieths of the educated men who have devoted the least attention to the subject, that there is “something in’t.” We are by no means convinced that the manifestations which Spiritualists produce are originated by departed spirits; but that there have been and daily are, in different parts of the country, manifestations produced, which are not to be accounted for by ordinary reasoning, we are fully persuaded. Here is at least an interesting subject of scientific inquiry spread out before the savants of the age; and with or without formal examination, every well read man cannot fail to have an impression, if not a theory, on the subject
It appears to us that there are only three possible theories on the subject. Either these manifestations are in every instance the result of collusion, fraud, and deception; or they are produced by spiritual agency; or that some law of nature, as yet not understood, causes them. The first assumption we believe to be untenable. It would stamp every “medium,” without exception, as an impostor, and nearly every advocate of the system as either principal or accessory in a wholesale scheme of public deception. For the credit of human nature, we are unable to accept this solution of the mystery. Nor are we a whit the more inclined to admit the solution suggested by the Spiritualists themselves. We therefore fall back on the third theory, and are inclined to believe, that if the savants and scientific men assembled at Montreal, aided by all the lights of modern discovery and nineteenth century civilisation, were to devote their most assiduous attention to the subject, a satisfactory conclusion might be reached, which would solve the doubts and calm the fears of thousands of inquiring minds, and at the same time add a useful chapter to the world’s present knowledge of the causes of the phenomena of nature.
It must not be forgotten that the refusal of the savants to investigate the subject, is a virtual concession of the Spiritualistic theory. For if the causes of the phenomena be natural, they rightly pertain to the domain of the Society’s investigations; and only in the event of their being confirmedly supernatural, can the Association for the Advancement of Science be exempted from consideration of them.