“Time, the great teacher, will decide between us. Ten years—probably less—will see the question determined whether the Spiritual hypothesis is destined to grow in favor and assume station as a reality, or to sink into discredit, as a mere figment of the brain. I am content to bide the event.
“Meanwhile, following my convictions of the useful, I propose next year (unless ere then I pass to another phase of existence where much that is now obscure will doubtless be made plain) to follow up my first work by another; and therein I purpose to examine what I have not yet touched upon; namely, the progress and character of what go by the name of ‘Spiritual manifestations.’ I purpose to investigate first their verity, then their influence; to inquire under what aspects they have proved injurious, and under what beneficial to mankind; how far they may be usefully prosecuted, and at what point they become prejudicial or unsafe.
“This second volume, like the first, shall contain many materials, some suggestions, few opinions. On such a subject as this, dogmatism, whether in affirming or denying, is unpardonable. There is, perhaps, no human inquiry, as to which Bacon’s wise aphorism is more applicable: ‘If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.’
“If even the opinions and suggestions I may offer should fail in accuracy, the materials will remain valuable, if care and industry may avail judiciously to select them. From these each reader can deduce his own conclusions; and thus, perhaps, such incidental puzzles as the seeming investment with clothing of apparitions may be relieved from the imputation of absurdity, if they do not find full solution.
“A word, in conclusion, as to the alleged abandonment of what is called Spiritualism by certain persons named by you. You adduce the reported defection of such seceders as conclusive argument against the cause they desert. But it proves nothing, except, perhaps, that one extreme often results in its opposite. If these men, forsaking common sense, ran off into wild extravagance, little wonder that they repented. And if their case be otherwise, their secession, if secede they did, has still no weight. Weak men adopt opinions, and again discard them, alike on insufficient evidence. We sometimes turn back, confused, in the very path of progress. Du Fay, the discoverer of the fact that there are two kinds or states of electricity, repudiated his own brilliant discovery.
“I am, my dear sir,
“Faithfully yours,
“Robert Dale Owen.
“President C. C. Felton.”[13]
I may add that Mr. Owen, in the summer of 1859, while residing with us, engaged upon his first book (the “Footfalls”), obtained the willing consent of Mr. Underhill and myself, to invite Prof. Felton to come and accept the hospitality of our home at 232 W. 37th Street, for a fortnight or as much shorter or longer a period as he might favor us with his stay; as a means of receiving daily and hourly evidences of all he should like to investigate. Prof. Felton declined the invitation. The invitation proved at least our willingness to submit to such an exhaustive investigation. What disposition its non-acceptance indicated on the other side, in regard to a question which is confessedly one of supremest vital importance to all mankind, it is not for me to say, but rather to leave to the judgment of those who may do me the honor of being my readers.
[13] To this letter Prof. Felton never made any published reply. A letter from him, bearing date seven days after that of Mr. Owen, is before me (or rather a copy of it which Mr. Owen allowed Mr. Underhill to make); but, while perfectly civil and friendly, it bears on its face the evidence of a virtual prohibition of publication, saying that it was so hastily written that it was despatched without reperusal, and that his other duties left him no time for public controversy on this subject. I need only say that it was mainly made up of slashing and sweeping generalities against Spiritualism, which Mr. Owen would have had not the slightest difficulty in confuting—and in confuting so triumphantly that the learned Greek professor of Harvard would not have had a rag left to cover the nakedness of the “absurdum” to which he would have been reduced by Owen’s superior brain and pen. A further appeal against publication was clearly involved in a remark that he contemplated some future publication of a volume on the subject. Mr. Owen therefore could do no more than await the promised volume, but the purpose was never carried into effect; which is much to be regretted, since its non-appearance costs to the literature of Spiritualism a third volume (this time controversial), which would have constituted a precious sequel to Mr. Owen’s two great works, the “Footfalls on the Boundary of another World,” and “The Debatable Land.” The two gentlemen (both of whom I knew) have now passed beyond that Boundary, and beyond all further Debate about that Land, where we shall all soon find them, I doubt not, now excellent friends to the cause of Spiritualism, as well as to each other.—Ed.