ow, and in at another, in Ashley Place, S.W., 16th December
1868. A third person, Captain Wynne, was present at the time, but had
written no separate account. Dr. Carpenter, in an article in the
_Contemporary Review_ for January 1876, thus commented on the
incident:--

"'The most diverse accounts of the _facts_ of a seance will be given by
a believer and a sceptic. A whole party of believers will affirm that
they saw Mr. Home float out of one window, and in at another, while a
single honest sceptic declares that Mr. Home was sitting in his chair
all the time. And in this last case we have an example of a fact, of
which there is ample illustration, that during the prevalence of an
epidemic delusion, the honest testimony of any number of individuals on
one side, if given under a prepossession, is of no more weight than that
of a single adverse witness--if so much.'

"This passage was of course quoted as implying that Captain Wynne had
somewhere made a statement contradicting Lords Lindsay and Adare. Home
wrote to him to inquire; and he replied ... in the following terms:--

"'I remember that Dr. Carpenter wrote some nonsense about that trip of
yours along the side of the house in Ashley Place. I wrote to the
_Medium_ to say that I was present as a witness. Now I don't think that
any one who knows me would for one moment say that I was a victim to
hallucination or any other humbug of the kind. The fact of your having
gone out of the window and in at the other I can swear to.'"

"It seems, therefore, that the instance selected by Dr. Carpenter to
prove the existence of a hallucination--by the exemption of one person
present from the illusion--was of a very unfortunate kind; suggesting,
indeed, that a controversialist thus driven to draw on his imagination
for his facts must have been conscious of a weak case."[71]

It may be interesting, in concluding this brief examination into one
branch of the great subject of "Spiritualism," to bring together a few
of the impressions produced on the minds of some of the leading
investigators. It should not be forgotten that the branch of the subject
which we have been studying may be looked upon as representing the
lowest steps only of a great staircase which ascends, until, to our
gaze, it is lost in unknown infinite heights. It is only the foot of a
ladder, to use another simile, resting on the material earth, which we
have been considering; at most the two or three lowest rungs.