Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

78 FOREIGN CORROBORATIVE EVIDENCE OFtime all tlic laws of physics have been based on the grand primordial law,and the player of ten-pins is not more successful from such efforts, thanhe of the billiard ball just named.366. ^' IIow changed are the times ! Twoyears ago, the whole Academyof Sciences revolted against the Baron de Humboldt for supposing that ata distance he caused a deviation of the magnetic needle—an experiment,too, which could never be renewed at Paris ; and, behold ! in place of needles,all at once heavy tables are seen waltzing about the room, and obedient to thewill; and all this is easily explained ! It is quite plausible ! Yes, but thistime, gentlemen Savans, we will not allow you to distort the facts.Sincethe commencement of this volume, we have done nothing but establish,on good evidence, allthose which your colleagues arrange agreeably to theirfancy, after having absolutely denied them.rises with us to convict them, and to say to you :But now the half of FranceNo, your nervous brancheswill never explain it; neither the physical phenomena which you wouldrefer to them, nor the intelligence of our tables which respond to our ownquestions, nor the super-intelligence of those which probably to-morrowwill reveal to us what we are ignorant of ourselves.367. " Attending on the morrow, then ! It is truly sorrowful to see aman of the highest merit, like M. Chevreul, expose himself in this wayto the weakest scholar who, cue in hand, might fairly undertake to answerhim. Those may hereafter believe in physics who wish. It is mosthorribly compromised. A science, capable of thus forswearing all its principles,loses, in our estimation, much of itsauthority.468. ^' La Rciue Mcdicalc, cited by La Patric of May 20th, declares inits turn ' the explanation either by imagination or muscular vibrations, asrepresentedby MM. Corvisart and De Castelnan, entirely nullified by thefact of the simple change in the relations of the little fingers.^369. '' As for the Medical, they see in it animal magnetism, and exclaim :'No one is able to foresee the application of which this discovery is susceptible.It is an entire world for explanation. Who knows if there isnot at the end of this hint the means of illustrating a whole generation !'370. " Lucky Magnetism—what a reparation you have a right to demand !what incense will be bestowed on you to-morrow, by those who yesterdayso cruelly tore you to pieces !But La Presse and IJ Union Medicale maydo what they please, no one will hereafter believe them on their word.371. '^ A just reward, gentlemen, for things here below. You wouldnot believe and 3'ou are not believed now !"We read afresh in X« Patricof May 21st, the recital of ' tables promenading and upsetting withoutcontact by pure efforts of volition j or even by a simple magnetic ^;