without the intervention of
a material point.

Is it reasonable, then, to suppose that in this our age, for the first
time, a single solitary manifestation of this supernatural power should
occur, as claimed by the spiritualists, unaccompanied by any analogous
contemporary or corroborative fact of the same or of a different nature?
To admit this is to admit one of three things: 1st, that both the
physical senses and spiritual constitution of humanity have undergone a
sudden and wonderful change; 2dly, that the Almighty has entirely
altered his mode of communication with mankind; or, 3dly, that the whole
world of spirits has been let loose to wander at will over the universe
and space!

But admitting, as all must do, that there is in each individual human
organism an intimate and mysterious connection, through the nerves and
brain, between the spirit and the senses, the fact that this is the only
known connection, direct or indirect, between matter and spirit, seems
to me to argue that there is no other perceptible one. For, if there
were any such, designed in any way to affect our perceptions, mental,
moral, or physical, would it not, in some one of its phases, have been
made manifest through all the past ages of the world? That such a
connection has never been discovered is proof sufficient that no such
was ever intended by the Supreme Being to affect mankind in any way,
_unless_ we admit that the spiritual and religious necessities of
mankind, and, in fact, the very constitution itself of human spirit, are
entirely different from what they have been in the ages gone by, and
require not only a different pabulum, but also a different mode of
dealing at the hands of the Almighty: in a word, that the very essence
of religion is progressive.

If these positions be correct, the discussion is narrowed down to the
consideration of the relations of the spirit as connected with the
organized frame. And this brings us to another very natural deduction.

Every schoolboy knows the story of the wonderful clock whose inventor
was blinded by the order of his sovereign, that he might not be able to
repeat his work for any rival power; and how, many years afterward, when
the memory of his person had passed away from those who had known him in
his younger days, he groped his way back to the scene of his former
labors, and, guided by a lad to the tower which enclosed the already
famous work of art, under pretence of listening once m