Lights and shadows of spiritualism

"PEOPLE FRO.y THE OTHER IVORLDr 257I accomplish by inserting a number of worthless stories picked upjit soeonti or third-hand from various people. Don't think, however,that I am weak enough to believe in these stories. Thereader may do so, if he or she please ; but I myself have not theslightest faith in them." And this is a scientific investigator!This is the man who takes mottoes from Bacon, and dedicates hisworthless speculations to Mr. Crookes ! The dullest school-boywould blush to contradict himself thus. The most abject duncethat Satire ever pilloried would be ashamed of the company of sucha philosopher. That any human being should have the folly toconstruct such a work is strange enough. That, after having constructedit, he should consider it a Avork of philosophical reseai'ch,and under that designation send it forth into the Avorld, is enough,in the words of a great essayist, " to make us ashamed of ourspecies."'As a composition it is almost below criticism. As a display ofreasoning it is altogether beneath contempt. This last propositionI shall have occasion presently to substantiate. For the present Iconfine myself to a few words regarding the literary demerits ofthe volume before me, and to a brief exposition of the motiveswhich have led me to attempt the examination of this most worthlessand most dishonest book.It would be waste of space to discuss at any length its endlessliterary shortcomings. The supply of such. sentences as the followingis almost inexhaustible. " Poor Mrs. Eddy's mhj'ortmiesfollowed her even into the grave, as she one day told the children i«would."" He hired three or four of the children out to one showman,who took them to nearly all the principal cities cf the UnitedStates, and to another who took them to London." Grammaticallyconsidered, this sentence leaves us in an agreeable state of doubtas to whether one showman took the children to another, or onecity of the United States took the children to London. What thewriter probably meant v.as, that the father of the Eddys, afterreceiving back his olive branches from the first showman, hiredthem out to a second."I am quite aware of the fact that, as a scientific experiment,s