nd people of common
sense, who would not believe in them if they were proved. Now, the
article in the _Journal of Science_ only deals with one of the phenomena
we hear so much of--that of the sudden suspension of the laws of
gravitation, in the case of individual men. The author has collected a
vast variety of traditions bearing on this subject, and his conclusion
apparently is, that events of this kind, though rather rare, are natural,
are peculiar to people of certain temperament and organization, and,
above all, bring no proof as to the truth of the doctrines asserted by
the persons who exhibit the phenomena. Now, men of science, as a rule,
and the world at large, look on stories of this sort as myths, romances,
false interpretations of subjective feelings, pious frauds, and absurd
nonsense. Before expressing an opinion, it may be well to look over the
facts, as they are called, which are brought under our notice.

What accounts, then, are there of levitation among the civilized people
of the Old World? First, there is Abaris, the Scythian, "in the time of
Pythagoras," says our author. Well, as a matter of evidence, Abaris may
have been levitated in the eighth century before Christ, or it may have
been two hundred and fifty years later. Perhaps he was a Druid of the
Hebrides. Toland thought so, and Toland had as good a chance of knowing
as any one else. Our earliest authority, Herodotus, says he took no
earthly food, and "went with his arrow all round the world without once
eating." It seems that he rode on this arrow, which, Mr. Rawlinson
thinks, may possibly have been an early tradition of the magnet. All our
detailed information about him is of later date than the Christian era.
The fact remains that tradition says he was able to fly in the air.
Pythagoras is said to have had the same power, or rather the same faculty
came upon him. He was lifted up, with no will or conscious exertion of
his own. Now, our evidence as to the power of Pythagoras to be "like a
bird, in two places at once," is exactly as valuable as that about
Abaris. It rests on the tradition repeated by superstitious philosophers
who lived eight hundred years after his death. "To Pythagoras,
therefore," as Herodotus has it, "we now say farewell," with no further
knowledge than that vague tradition says he was "levitated." The writer
now leaves classical antiquity behind him--he does not repeat a saying of
Plotinus, the mystic of Alexa