we can conclude from the character of their writings upon slates, can only be described as lamentable. These writings belong throughout to the domain of higher or lower stupidity, chiefly lower—i. e., they are absolutely without sense.
3. The moral condition of the souls seems to be relatively the most favorable. According to all the evidence, the character of harmlessness can not be denied them. It shows itself particularly in the fact that they hold it to be necessary to make excuses for proceedings of a somewhat brutal nature, in case of becoming guilty of such—as, for instance, the destruction of a bed-screen, with a politeness which, in a ghost, is certainly deserving of acknowledgment. This harmlessness, therefore, gives us a right to expect something good of their other moral qualities, concerning which nothing particular is known.
Pardon me if I seem to joke. You would misunderstand me if you should believe that I had adduced these consequences of your premises with any other intention than that of indicating as forcibly as possible the earnest scientific, moral, and religious anxiety which the views that you represent in your latest essay must necessarily awaken.
I will not speak of how, even in the most favorable case of your example finding no further following, the science which concerns us both most nearly, philosophy, can not be without danger of having its reputation severely damaged, when one of its distinguished representatives, who has treated almost all of its departments and has especially occupied himself earnestly with logical studies, now suddenly throws overboard all principles of scientific investigation, in order to find in the revelations of rapping spirits the means of supplementing our insight into the order of the world. The specialist in scientific investigation has the prerogative of a certain one-sidedness; we justify many a freak in his narrower field which can not abide the test of criticism. But what is to become of philosophy, if it abandons the general principles of knowledge, whose authority it is its office to establish for the special sciences? Yet even this particular interest is of subordinate importance, compared with the serious consequences which your procedure must have, if, which God forbid, it should find more followers in the scientific world. Whence is the scientific investigator to get courage and perseverance for his work, if the laws of nature, according to the prospect which you open, are approaching a point where they shall be done away with? And who will still be inclined to occupy himself with scientific problems, when he is allured by the hope of obtaining an answer to the deepest and highest questions by means of spiritualistic appearances? It is true that the disclosures already won in this way are good for nothing. But how were it possible for individuals and societies to spend their time in these idle occupations, if they did not hope for better results? A mournful intellectual desolation would be the necessary consequence, if views such as you pro-
