125. “Insulated conductors, whether inanimate, or in the form of animals, may be electrified by the most powerful means, without being injured or seriously incommoded. Before a spark of lightning passes, every object on the terrestrial surface, for a great distance around, is subjected to a portion of the requisite previous accumulation. Yet it is only those objects which are made the medium of discharge that are sensibly affected.
126. “Powerful galvanic accumulation can only be produced by those appropriate arrangements which concentrate upon a comparatively small filament of particles their peculiar polarizing power; but nothing seems to me more inconsistent with experience than to suppose a table moved by any possible form or mode of galvanic reaction. It was ascertained by Gaziot that one of the most powerful galvanic batteries ever made could not give a spark before contact to a conductor presented to it, at the smallest distance which could be made by a delicate micrometer. If there is any law which is pre-eminent for its invariability, it is, that inanimate matter cannot, per se, change its state as respects motion or rest. Were this law liable to any variation, we should be proportionably liable to perish; since in that case the revolutions and rotations of our planet and its satellite might undergo perturbations by which the ocean might inundate the land, or the too great proximity or remoteness of the sun cause us to be scorched or frozen. If the globe did not carry the Pacific more steadily than the most competent person could carry a basin of water, we should be drowned by the overflow of the land. I recommend to your attention, and that of others interested in this hallucination, Faraday’s observations and experiments, recently published in some of our respectable newspapers. I entirely concur in the conclusions of that distinguished experimental expounder of Nature’s riddles.
Robert Hare.”
127. This publication drew forth the following remonstrance in the subjoined letter, which does great credit to the correctness of the author’s observation and sagacity. It contributed, together with a personal invitation from Dr. Comstock to attend a circle, to induce the investigation upon which I entered immediately afterward.
Southwick, Mass., Nov. 17, 1853.
128. “Dear Sir: I had the pleasure of a slight acquaintance with you, something less than twenty years ago, when I exhibited telescopes in Philadelphia. You will, I trust, excuse the liberty I take in writing to you now. I have seen your letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer upon table moving. I never believed it was caused by electricity or galvanism, but is it not as likely to be these, as muscular force? You agree with Professor Faraday that the table is moved by the hands that are on it. Now I know, as certainly as I can know any thing, that this is not true in general, if it is in any instance. There is as much evidence that tables sometimes move without any person near them, as that they sometimes move with hands on them. I cannot in this case doubt the evidence of my senses. I have seen tables move, and heard tunes beat on them, when no person was within several feet of them. This fact is proof positive that the force or power is not muscular.
129. “If any further evidence was necessary to set aside Professor Faraday’s explanation, it is found in abundance in the great variety of other facts taking place through the country, such as musical instruments being played upon without any hands touching them, and a great variety of other heavy articles being moved without any visible cause. If tables never moved except when hands were on them, the case would be different; but as they do move, both with and without hands, it is plain that the true cause remains yet to be discovered.
130. “I wish, sir, that you had leisure and opportunity to witness some other phases of this matter, which seem not yet to have fallen under your notice, and I think you would be satisfied that there is less ‘hallucination’ and ‘self-deception’ about it, than you have imagined. The intelligence connected with these movements has not been accounted for.
131. “If these things can be accounted for on scientific principles, would it not be a great acquisition to science, to discover what those principles are? If, however, science cannot discover them, the public are deeply interested in knowing the fact. It is certainly of great importance that these strange things that are taking place everywhere should be explained. It is affecting the churches seriously; whether for good or for evil is uncertain until the truth is known. No cause has yet been assigned that does not imply a greater absurdity than even to believe, as many do, that it is caused by spirits either good or bad, or both.