s analogous to
that of wireless telegraphy. The evidences in favor of this doctrine are
so numerous that it has been somewhat widely accepted, and the title
applied to it has come into general use. It indicates, if true,
remarkable powers in the mind of man, capabilities that seem far to
transcend those of the ordinary intellectual activities.

This is one side of the case. The other side now calls for presentation.
This is that the great body of scientists utterly reject the theory of
spiritism, and look upon its manifestations as due to fraud,
misconception, credulity, or some other of the weaknesses to which human
nature is liable. As regards the opinions arrived at by the prominent
scientists mentioned, these men are looked upon by their fellows of the
great scientific body as mentally warped, or as having allowed
themselves to be victimized by impostors. The fact that Professor
Crookes has continued one of the most acute and deep searching of
investigators into the phenomena of physics, and that his results in
this direction are accepted without question, and that Professor Wallace
is acknowledged to be one of the leading thinkers of the day, has not
sufficed to clear them of the doubt which rests upon their sanity or
their critical judgment in this particular, and the very attempt of any
one to investigate the so-called spiritual manifestations is widely
looked upon as an evidence of credulity or some greater mental weakness.

This result may seem singular, yet it is not without abundant warrant.
It must be borne in mind that the phenomena in question differ
essentially in character from those with which science is usually
concerned. The field of scientific investigation is distinctly the
material; the facts with which it deals are those apparent to the
senses, or which can be tested by material instruments; its discoveries
are generally susceptible of but one interpretation; its methods are
capable of being indefinitely repeated, and its results, if justly
interpreted, are unvarying in character. None of these postulates fully
applies to the spiritistic investigation. Here the conditions differ,
the results vary, the methods can rarely be exactly repeated, conscious
beings, instead of unconscious instruments, are the agents employed, and
the secret thoughts and purposes of such agents are very likely to
vitiate the result, and open a field of doubt which does not exist in
the investigation of the inorganic world