spect that this consequence cannot be avoided, if any part
of the system be of truly spiritual origin. Mr. Howitt treats the
philosophers either as ignorant babies, or as conscious spirit-fearers: and
seems much inclined to accuse the world at large of dreading, lest by the
actual presence of the other world their Christianity should imbibe a
spiritual element which would unfit it for the purposes of their lives.

{194}

FROM MATTER TO SPIRIT.

From Matter to Spirit. By C. D. With a preface by A. B.[339] London,
1863, 8vo.

This is a work on Spiritual Manifestations. The author upholds the facts
for spiritual phenomena: the prefator suspends his opinion as to the cause,
though he upholds the facts. The work begins systematically with the lower
class of phenomena, proceeds to the higher class, and offers a theory,
suggested by the facts, of the connection of the present and future life. I
agree in the main with A. B.; but can, of course, make none but horrescent
reference to his treatment of the smaller philosophers. This is always the
way with your paradoxers: they behave towards orthodoxy as the thresher
fish behaves towards the whale. But if true, as is said, that the drubbing
clears the great fish of parasites which he could not otherwise get rid of,
he ought to bear no malice. This preface retorts a little of that contempt
which the "philosophical world" has bestowed with heaped measure upon those
who have believed their senses, and have drawn natural, even if hasty,
inferences. There is philosophercraft as well as priestcraft, both from one
source, both of one spirit. In English cities and towns, the minister of
religion has been tamed: so many weapons are bared against him when he
obtrudes his office in a dictatory manner, that, as a rule, there is no
more quiet and modest member of society than the urban clergyman.
Domination over religious belief is reserved for the exclusive use of those
who admit the right: the rare exception to this mode of behavior is laughed
at as a bigot, or shunned as a nuisance. But the overbearing minister of
nature, who snaps you with _unphilosophical_ as the clergyman once
frightened you with _infidel_, is still a recognized member of society,
wants taming, and will get it. He wears the priest's cast-off {195}
clothes, dyed to escape detection: the better sort of philosophers would
gladly set him to square the circle.

The book just named appeared about the same time a