The editor of one of the ablest scientific journals has well said, "Science having no methods by which it can experimentally determine that man has a spiritual nature distinct from the material, it follows that it must be incompetent to throw light upon the nature of that which is unrecognized or unknown."
The testimony of scientists in such matters cannot be considered of any more value than that of any other careful investigator; and if we take into consideration their materialistic views, it is dealing liberally with them to concede that much.
Science accepts the theory of molecules and atoms, and declares matter to be indestructible. These little molecules set in motion produce the phenomena of life. When they get tired and refuse to climb one above another, like acrobats in a circus, then there is death. It is all very simple, and any one can understand it,—a little alkali thrown into some acid,—a rapid effervescence,—the atoms are disturbed and seek to hurriedly arrange themselves into a different position,—they have performed the fantastical dance of life, and all is over!
Upon this theory scientists have endeavored to account for the creation of everything. If they have found anything else they have not declared it. The trinity of Molecules, Atoms, and Motion is the keystone of the whole structure which for centuries they have been trying to build up.
As science takes nothing for granted, it would be interesting to learn when and where they found these little atoms, which no microscope, however powerful, has ever revealed. Before scientists insist upon the denial of the existence of that spiritual force which organizes and individualizes all forms of life, it might be as well for them to settle the question, What is matter?
I do not assert positively that these beings are spirits; for it may be said, in a scientific point of view, I have no right to do so; but I do assert that the facts warrant beyond a question the conclusion that they do not belong to what we call the earth-side of life,—that they are not automatons, lay figures, or effigies, but are living, breathing, intelligent beings, with thoughts, feelings, and passions strictly human; that they come out of invisible space, and depart in the same way. In the language of Professor Crookes, "Nothing is more certain than the reality of these facts. I do not say that they are possible, but I say that they are."
CHAPTER V.
PUBLIC OPINION.
When Mesmer appeared in Paris, exhibiting his claims to Magnetism, he was ridiculed, and treated as a humbug. The French Academy of Science, after due consideration, pronounced Mesmerism a fraud. This was the more remarkable from the fact that many of the experiments in Mesmerism are so simple that a child can demonstrate them to the entire satisfaction of an unprejudiced person. Many years afterward, in 1831, the French Academy of Medicine, through a report of its Committee, reversed this decision.
So far as we know, these are the only efforts that have been made, until within a few years, by any scientific association, to investigate this class of phenomena. Both in Europe and this country it has been treated with contempt, and for more than a hundred years condemned by pseudo-Science as nothing more than a hallucination produced by a diseased condition of body or mind.