Experimental Investigation of the Spirit Manifestations / Demonstrating the existence of spirits and their communion with mortals. Doctrine of the spirit world respecting heaven, hell, morality, and God. Also, the influence of Scripture on the morals of Christians.

by Robert Hare

A LETTER FROM DR. HARE.

Addressed to the President of the Association for the Advancement of Science, at their meeting, August 18, 1855.

Preliminary Remarks.

Having addressed the subjoined letter to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the standing committee resolved that the subject did not fall sufficiently within the objects of the Association to allow even of its being read to the meeting. In the instance of my letter to the Episcopal clergy, it was stated that its acknowledgment by them was not expected; and after this impression was verified, I admitted that, in their not replying, the interest of the church was best consulted. In the present case I admit that the harmony of the Association was perhaps best consulted in not recognising that the objects of the Association involved the duty of allowing certain facts to be stated before it, which are at war with the received doctrines of science, no less than with those of revelation.

During the Dark Ages, the so-called word of God (but really the words of ignorant propagandists) had taken such hold of the proper domain of science, that it was heresy to assert the rotundity of this planet, or that the sun did not revolve about it diurnally. But at this time science has established itself upon the domain claimed for religious truth, so that between the positive science of the atheist Comte and the dogmatic opinions of the orthodox savan, there is no room for the germ of Spiritualism to shoot up.

It seems to me that, in due courtesy and liberality, the standing committee might have had my letter read to the meeting, and have let the members judge whether it should be acknowledged. But I place it on record in this volume, and leave the propriety of their having neglected to acknowledge it to be estimated hereafter in this world, as it has already been in the world of spirits, as respects its influence on the estimation of the parties.

I am aware, however, that every man in society is more or less a peon, and that there is no small analogy between the situation of many holding worldly pre-eminence and that of the poor apothecary of Shakspeare. Conscience and reason are ever under the control of expediency. Those who live in society must be governed by the hearts and heads of others as well as their own: unless they are quite sure that the cause of truth will suffer by their silence, they should not speak to give others umbrage. I always considered it my duty not to do any thing which would injure the institution of which I was a member for nearly thirty years. Doubtless, the sachems of the Association did what they thought best, as probably I should have done, had I been situated as they were, and holding their opinions.

In the letter as actually sent to the Association, I introduced the arguments founded on Dr. Bell’s observations, ([111], [287], [864],) also the facts and reasoning submitted in the Supplemental Preface. I shall, of course, leave the reader to recur to those passages, and introduce here only the other portions of my letter:

To the President of the Association for the Advancement of Science:

Dear Sir: Being engaged in putting a work to press, I am sorry to be unable to be present at the meeting of the Association on the 15th inst.

When I was at the last meeting, I stated an experiment made with the greatest care and precision, which proved the existence of a power independent of any possible or conceivable mortal agency; and I had on that occasion an opportunity of experiencing the fate of the Dutch ambassador who first made the king of Ava acquainted with the fact that bodies of water can be frozen so as to enable people to walk on a solidified aqueous surface. It was a disease of the mind in either case.

But let no one apply to his soul the self-complacent unction that it was my hallucination, not bigoted ignorance, that originated that diagnosis. Since that time, the fact of movements being made intelligibly, without any perceptible or assignable mortal aid, has been verified hundreds of times by others; while under my own intuition it has been reiterated many times, the experiment which I adduced having been repeated with every imaginable precaution and instructive variation. * * * * *

About two years have elapsed, since I erroneously sanctioned Farraday’s explanation of the manifestations, in ascribing them to involuntary muscular action. This arose from my being, no less than that philosopher, so utterly incredulous and intolerant of any idea of spiritual agency in any of the phenomena of nature, excepting those which I ascribed to God, that I did not take the possible agency of spirits into view; but having been obliged to admit the facts conceded by Dr. Bell, ([287],) and having received interesting and intellectual communications of which he has not been informed, I cannot, with him, stop half-way: nor could he, were he to have the interesting communications with his spirit friends which I have had with mine.

There has been a time when religion repressed science; and it would seem that at the present era science is to revenge itself by repressing religious truth, by sanctioning indirectly the alleged manifestations of antiquity, while deriding those of the present time; believing on miracles told by no one knows who, yet denying the allegations of eye-witnesses known to be truthful; while straining at spiritual gnats, swallowing scriptural camels.

With high esteem, your well-wisher,
Robert Hare.