It is pretended that the spirits have latterly rendered themselves visible and tangible. Mr. Livermore, of this city, sees and embraces his deceased wife, who caresses and kisses him, and he feels her hands as warm and fleshlike as when she was living. Suppose the phenomena to be as related, and not eked out by Mr. Livermore's imagination; the visible body in which she appeared to him could have been only assumed, and no real body at all, certainly not her body during life—that lies mouldering in the grave. And all the spirits teach that the body thrown off at death does not rise again. They nowhere, that we can find, teach the resurrection of the flesh, but uniformly deny it. If the spirits, then, do really render themselves visible and tangible to our senses, it must be in a simulated body; and why may they not simulate one form as well as another? The senses of sight and touch furnish, then, of themselves, no proof that a departed spirit or a human spirit once alive in the flesh, is present, communicating through the medium with the living.
The assertion of the pretended spirit of its identity counts for nothing, whether made by knocks or table-tipping, by writing or by audible voice and distinct articulation; for the spiritists themselves concede that some of the spirits, at least, are great liars, and that they have no criterion by which to distinguish the lying spirits from the others, if others there are, that seek to communicate with the living. Conceding all the phenomena alleged, there is, then, absolutely no proof or evidence that there are any departed spirits present, or that any communication from them has ever been received. The spirit of a person may be simulated as well as his voice, features, form, handwriting, or anything else characteristic of him. Spiritism, then, contrary to the pretension of the spiritists, proves neither that the dead live again, nor that the spirit survives the body. It does not even prove that there is in man a soul or spirit distinct from the body. We call the special attention of our readers to this point, which is worthy of more consideration than it has received.
The spiritists claim that the alleged spirit-manifestations have proved the spirituality and immortality of the soul, in opposition to materialism. This is their boast, and hence it is that they call their doctrine spiritualism, and seek to establish for it the authority of a revelation, supplementary to the Christian revelation. Their whole fabric rests on the assumption that the manifestations are made by human spirits that have once lived in the flesh, and live now in the spirit-world, whatever that may be. Set aside this assumption, or show that nothing in the alleged spirit-manifestations sustains it, and the whole edifice tumbles to the ground. There is nothing to support this assumption but the testimony of spirits that often prove themselves lying spirits, and whose identity with the individual they personate, or pretend to be, we have no means of proving. Unable to prove this vital point, the spiritists can prove nothing to the purpose. The spirits all say there is no resurrection of the dead, and therefore deny point-blank the doctrine that the dead live again. If we are unable, as we are, to identify them with spirits that once lived united with bodies that have mouldered or are mouldering in their graves, what proof have we, or can they give, that they are, or ever were, human spirits at all? If they are not proved to be or to have been human spirits, they afford no proof that the soul is distinct from the body, or that it is not material like the body, and perishes with it. If, then, the men of science have shown themselves little able to explain the origin and cause of the phenomena, the spiritists have shown themselves to be very defective as inductive reasoners.
"But the phenomena warrant the induction that they are produced by spirits of some sort, or that there are intelligences not clothed with human bodies between whom and us there is more or less communication." Of themselves alone they warrant no induction at all, but are simply inexplicable phenomena, the origin and cause of which lie beyond the reach of scientific investigation; but, taken in the light of what we know aliunde, they warrant the conclusion that they proceed from a superhuman cause, and that there are spirits which are, in some respects, stronger and more intelligent than men; but whether the particular spirits to whom the spirit-manifestations in question are to be ascribed are angelic or demoniac, must be determined by the special character of the manifestations themselves, the circumstances in which they are made, and the end they are manifestly designed to effect.
We make here no attack on the inductive method followed in constructing the physical sciences. We only maintain that the validity of the induction depends on a principle which is not itself obtained or obtainable from induction. Hence Herbert Spencer and the positivists who follow very closely the inductive method, relegate principles and causes to the "unknowable." The principle on which the inductive process depends cannot be attained to by studying the phenomena themselves, but must be given immediately, either in a priori intuition or in revelation. Books have been written, like Paley's Natural Theology and the Bridgewater Treatises, to prove, by way of induction, from the phenomena of the universe, the being and attributes of God, and it is very generally said that every object in nature proves that God is, and that no man ever is or can be really an atheist; but no study of the phenomena of nature could originate the idea or the word in a mind that had it not. Men must have the idea expressed in language of some sort before they can find proofs in the observable phenomena of nature that God is. Hence, those savants who confound the origination of the idea or belief with the proofs of its truth, and who see that the idea or belief is not obtainable by induction, are really atheists, and say with the fool in his heart, God is—not. We do not assert that God is, on the authority of revelation; for we must know that he is before we have or can have any means of proving the fact of revelation; yet if God had not himself taught his own being to the first man, and given him a sign signifying it, the human race could never have known or conceived that he exists. The phenomena or the facts and events of the universe which so clearly prove that God is, and find in his creative act their origin and cause, would have been to all men, as they are to the atheist, simply inexplicable phenomena.
So it is with the spirit-manifestations, whether angelic or demoniac. The existence of spirits must be known to us, either by intuition or revelation, before we can assign these phenomena a spirital origin and cause. We do not and cannot know it intuitively; and therefore, without recurring to what revelation teaches us, these manifestations, however striking, wonderful, or perplexing they might be, would be to us and to all men inexplicable, and we could not assign them any origin or cause. Revelation—become traditionary, and so embodied in the common intelligence through language as to control, unconsciously and unsuspected, the reasonings even of individuals who pride themselves on denying it—furnishes the principle needed as the basis of the induction of the principle and cause of the spirit-manifestations. Revelation teaches that God has created an order of intelligences superior to man, called angels, to be the messengers of his will. Some of these remained faithful to their Creator, always obedient to his command; others kept not their first estate, rebelled against their sovereign Lord, were, with their chief, cast out of heaven into the lower regions, and became demons or evil spirits.
The spiritists complain of our scientific professors, but without just reason; for, on the principles of modern science, the proofs they offer of their doctrines prove nothing but their own logical ineptness. Science, if it will accept no revelation, and recognize no principle not obtained by the inductive method, has no alternative but either to deny the manifestations as facts, or to admit them only as inexplicable phenomena. The class of facts are as well authenticated, as facts, as any facts can be; but the explanation of them by the spiritists is utterly inadmissible, and sound inductive reasoners, who exclude all revealed principles, must reject it. The professors are not wrong in rejecting that explanation as unscientific; for it would be even more unscientific to admit it; and perhaps, if compelled to do one or the other, we should hold it more unreasonable to admit it than to deny outright the facts themselves.
The fault of the professors is in denying the necessity to the validity of induction of principles neither obtainable nor provable by induction, and in supposing that we can construct an adequate science of the universe without the principles which are given us only by divine revelation. Without these principles we can explain nothing, and the universe is a vast assemblage of inexplicable phenomena; for it is only in those principles we do or can obtain a key to its meaning. Hence, modern science, which excludes both revelation and intuition a priori, explains nothing, reduces nothing to its principle and cause, and only generalizes and classifies observable phenomena, which, we submit, is no science at all. Certainly, we do not pretend that science is built on faith, as the traditionalists do, or are accused of doing; but we do say that, without the light of revelation, we cannot construct an adequate science of the universe, or explain the various facts and events of history. If I did not know from revelation that the devil and his angels exist, I might observe the facts of satanophany, but I should not know whence they came, or what they mean. I might be tempted, vexed, harassed, besieged, possessed, by evil spirits as the spiritists are; but I should be ignorant of the cause, and utterly unable to explain my trouble, or to ascribe it to any cause, far less to satanic invasion. The prodigies would be for me simply inexplicable prodigies. But, taught by revelation that the air swarms with evil spirits, the enemies of man, and enemies of man because enemies of God, we can see at once the explanation of the spirit-manifestations, and assign them their real principle and cause.
We know that many who call themselves Christians are disposed to doubt, if not to deny, the personal existence of satan, and to maintain that the word, which means an enemy or adversary, is simply a general term for the sum of the evil influences to which we are exposed, if not subjected. As if a generalization were possible where there is nothing concrete! We get rid of no difficulty by this explanation. Influence supposes some person or principle from whom or from which proceeds the influence or the in-flowing. If you deny satan's personal existence, you have no option but either to deny evil altogether or to admit an original eternal principle of evil warring against the principle of good, that is, Manichaeism, or Persian dualism, which, though Calvinism, indeed, in teaching that evil or sin is something positive, may imply it, is neither good philosophy nor sound Christian theology. According to sound philosophy and theology, God alone hath eternity, and by his word has created heaven and earth, and all things therein, visible and invisible. All the works of God are good, very good; and as there is nothing in existence except himself that he hath not made, it follows necessarily that evil is not a positive existence, but is simply negative, the negation or absence of good. It originates and can originate only in the abuse of his faculties by a creature whom God hath created and endowed with intelligence and free-will, and therefore capable of acting wrong as well as right. To assert that man is subjected or exposed to evil influences leads necessarily to the assertion of a personal devil who exerts it. You must, then, either deny all evil influences from a source foreign to or distinguishable from man's own intrinsic nature, or else admit the personal existence of satan and his hosts.
Satan and his hosts having rebelled against God, and in refusing to worship the incarnate Son as God, were cast out of heaven, and became the bitter enemies of him and the human race. Satan, as the chief of the fallen angels, evil demons, or devils, carries on incessant war against God, and seeks to draw men away from their allegiance to him, and to get himself worshipped by them in his place. Hence, he seeks by lying wonders to deceive them; by his prodigies to rival in their belief real miracles; and, by his pretended revelations of the spirit-world, to substitute belief in his pretended communications for faith in divine revelation, and thus reestablish in lands redeemed by Christianity from his dominion the devil-worship which has never ceased to obtain in all heathen countries. The holy Scriptures assure us that all the gods of the heathen are demons or devils. These took possession of the idols made of wood or stone, gold or silver, [Footnote 65] had their temples, their priests and priestesses, their service, and were worshipped as gods.