And the heads of the reply are always the same. Remember Goethe's aphorism: "Alles factische ist schon Theorie." Trustworthy witnesses are constantly deceived, or deceive themselves, in their interpretation of sensible phenomena. No one can prove that the sensible phenomena, in these cases, could be caused only by the agency of spirits: and there is abundant ground for believing that they may be produced in other ways. Therefore, the utmost that can be reasonably asked for, on the evidence as it stands, is suspension of judgment. And, on the necessity for even that suspension, reasonable men may differ, according to their views of probability.
[89] Yet I must somehow have laid hold of the pith of the matter, for, many years afterwards, when Dean Mansell's Bampton lectures were published, it seemed to me I already knew all that this eminently agnostic thinker had to tell me.
[90] Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Edit. Hartenstein, p. 256.
[91] Report of the Church Congress, Manchester, 1888, p. 252.
[92] Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1889.
[93] My citations are made from Teulet's Einhardi omnia quæ extant opera, Paris, 1840-1843, which contains a biography of the author, a history of the text, with translations into French, and many valuable annotations.
[94] At present included in the Duchies of Hesse-Darmstadt and Baden.
[95] This took place in the year 826 A.D. The relics were brought from Rome and deposited in the Church of St. Medardus at Soissons.
[96] Now included in Western Switzerland.
[97] Probably, according to Teulet, the present Sandhofer-fahrt, a little below the embouchure of the Neckar.