the Higher Life" (Trübner & Co., 1880), remarks: "With regard to slate-writing, there is no order of spiritual phenomena which impresses me more powerfully. Slade and his slate-writing were to me objects of absorbing interest. All was done in the light and above-board. The evidence that the writing was produced by a spiritual intelligence, without the intervention of human hands, was overwhelming; and in his presence the materialism of three thousand years was refuted in five minutes. When, therefore, brutal and intolerant ignorance seized Slade, and dragged him into a police court, I felt prepared to run any risk, and incur any responsibility in his defence."

Dr. Wyld is of opinion that the "psychic force" producing the phenomena can be exercised by some human beings in the body, but that much more easily and frequently the souls of departed human beings can exercise the same force. He held the theory at one time that the unconscious spirit of the medium may often produce the direct writing; but in relation to this question he finally says: "I have come much more round to the theory that most of the mediumistic phenomena are produced by foreign spirits." This is generally the conclusion of those who have had the largest and longest experience in studying and testing the phenomena.

It is a sign of the advancing intelligence of the timest that Dr. Wyld is able to say (1880) in regard to his unpopular investigations: "For one friend I have lost, I have gained twenty better friends, and even my worldly prosperity has been greatly thereby increased."

THE theory of the Materialist is, that the aggregation of certain material molecules, developing into an organism, is sufficient to explain the phenomena of life and mind; that there is no more of mystery in the evolution of the phenomenon man from a few particles of matter hardly visible with the aid of a microscope, and undistinguishable from the little glutinous speck that grows into a nettle or a tadpole, than there is in the evolution of an oak-tree from And this last half of the assertion may be true. Tyndall, who is not in the habit of giving comfort to Spiritualists, has the candor to admit that the gap between molecules and the phenomena of mind is not bridged by any theory of materialism. While he believes that "matter contains within itself the promise and potency of all terrestrial life," he prudently adds, "How it came to have this power, is a question on which I never ventured an opinion."

an acorn.

Thus he would seem to favor the ancient doctrine of the Hylozoists, that life and matter are inseparable: a doctrine that has been held in various forms. It crops out in "the ultimate particles, material and having life," of Straton of Lampsacus; in the theories of the followers of Plotinus; in the assertion of Spinoza that all things are alive in dif

ferent degrees; in the monadology of Leibnitz; and in the theory of divine influx of Swedenborg. So we find Tyndall in good company; and he must not be classed with Huxley, who, while he admits that his organism has "certain mental functions," believes they are "dependent on its molecular composition, and come to an end" when he dies.

That an intelligence, whether originating in this sphere of being or coming from some other, can exist and manifest life independently of a brain and nervous system, is what materialism, claiming to represent the most advanced science of the day, repudiates as an impossibility. But Spiritualism, as I have shown, gives direct evidence that intelligence can clearly manifest itself independently of any visible organism. In the words of the Rev. H. R. Haweis of England: "It offers to produce intelligence of some kind acting upon matter, and yet unconnected with a brain and nervous system. If this could be proved, the materialist argument would at once fall; for if intelligence similar to ours exists, and can operate outside the usual organized conditions, our souls may· we do not say must do the same: — God is conceivable, and intelligence ceases to be the mere product of blind force and matter specially organized."

The facts I have verified by my experience have satisfied me that it has been proved that an intelligence operating at a distance of twenty-two feet from any known medium, and of more than fifteen feet from any other human being. may produce a written message on a slate. The theory that there are latent powers in the human subject that, unconsciously to him, can accomplish such an effect, involves the theory that there are powers independent of material organs, and which are not dependent on a visible material body for their potential activity. So that which-ever theory may prevail, the cause of Spiritualism is see ire.

In the Times of Chicago, July, 1880, there is a graphic account of his experiences by Professor V. B. Denslow, not a Spiritualist, but who had four sittings in that city with Henry Slade, and one or two with Mrs. Simpson. From it I quote the following passages :

We en

"I next sat with Mr. Slade at his own rooms. tered the back parlor, no other person being in the room, and the doors were closed. I examined the carpet, table, aud wall, all of which were ordinary and honest. I did not search Slade's pockets, nor, as the letter in the New York Nation recommended, did I look for concealed magnets thrust under his skin. The sequel will show that such precautions on my part would have been as futile as a means of discovering the mode in which the slate-writing was done, as the thrusting of magnets' into or under one's skin would be as a means of writing between two slates. Nor is it material whether there was one slate or fifty slates in the room, as, in the mode in which the writing was done, the theory of substitution of slates cuts no figure. But according to my best observation the room contained but two slates at the time, both of which lay on the table, and both of which I examined on both sides at the outset, and they contained no writing. Nor were there any springs about the slates by which, as suggested by one imaginative 'spirit exposer' in California, a roll of muslin indistinguishable from the surface of the slate was unfurled and spread over the slate. All such complicated and impracticable devices only bring out into strong contrast the simplicity yet certainty of the occult power which was now to perform the writing."

Professor Denslow got the slate-writing in a way which he fully describes, and which satisfied him as a proof that slate-writing could be done in Slade's presence" without any contact between any living person and the pencil that wrote." He says:

"I have read, with a sincere desire to get some light from it, Mr. Howells' careful analysis in The Undiscovered Country,' of the various stages of lunacy which induced his Dr. Boynton' to look for spirit manifestations where they

were not to be found, but I do not see that they shed any light whatever on a case where slate-writing is clearly done without the possibility of physical contact between any living person and the pencil. I have also read Dr. George M. Beard's efforts to connect the word hysteria' with these singular phenomena, but I fail to see wherein they apply to such a case. My health was never so good, and my mind never more calm, than when observing these phenomena. I am as free from hysteria as Dr. Beard, and from lunacy as Mr. Howells, and so in like manner were each and all of the twenty ladies and gentlemen who at various times have witnessed these phenomena in my presence, or have described to me their nature immediately afterward. So far, I have seen as much intelligence, as much skepticism, as much calm, healthy acumen, learning, and culture, as much familiarity with scientific methods and with sleight-of-hand, as the most querulous could wish, or as either Beard or Howells possesses, brought to bear on the simple problem, which it would seem a child ought to be able to solve, of detecting whether any human being was in physical contact with the pencil when it wrote. They all say no such contact was possible. . .

66

Independent slate-writing has never been a characteristic of hysterics. Hysterical persons may believe they see what they do not see, but the principle of illusion has no application in this case, as fifty persons in the room at the time would all have seen the writing alike when it had been done, and all would have heard the pencil doing it. I did not see the pencil make its mark, and therefore there is no fact in the entire phenomena to which the principle of illusion can apply. The use of the word hysteria, therefore, where no illusion of the senses is alleged, is merely the impudence of ignorance. It explains nothing, and designates nothing. When I examined the slates before the writing, no illusion theory applies, because nothing had yet occurred. When I examined them after the writing was over, no illusion theory applies, since the writing was undoubtedly there, and any one of a million persons, if they saw the slate at all, would have seen and read it alike. The only part of the fact in relation to which the illusion theory can apply is, that I suppose I held the slate-surface, where physical contact with the pencil on the part of some human writer would be impossible, when, in reality, I did