he exclaimed, "If it were possible, I should think that it was my father's footsteps which I have heard.' He made an entry in his log-book of the day and the hour of the occurrence, and when he reached home he learned that at the time his father lay dying, and his latest thoughts were filled with anxiety for his boy at sea." Emma Hardinge, while in London, contracted an engagement to lecture to a spiritual association at St Louis a distance of some 5000 miles from London -the engagement being made by a "brain-wave;" or, as it has been more aptly termed, by "spirit telegraphy." Bacon says on this subject:-" Men who have looked deeply into the hidden nature of things→→→ the transmission of one body to another, and the magnetic forces-have agreed that the human mind can be placed in communication with other minds, and trans→ mit these impressions." Mason Gill, of Huddersfield, has had very numerous illustrations of this sympathetic theory, and it is to be hoped that all interested in psy chology will collect as many such cases as possible, and carefully examine the evidence of their truth.

I would also disprove the popular theory of mind and brain from the facts of modern spiritualism. The facts brought forward by spiritualists are likely to create no greater a revolution in the physical than in the psychological world—and the sooner the better. If it upsets false theory, it is the herald of progress; and although it has its own theory, which we do not accept, yet its facts remain, and at our own peril

do we reject them. Now, several spiritualists assert that they have felt and been conscious of their spirits leaving the body-that their spirits have visited the circles of other spiritualists-that they can bring themselves in rapport, while in a trance, with the spirits of other men, and read their characters very minutely that they have seen spirit forms when their organs of vision were shut-that they mix their paint, and paint, draw, &c., with their eyes closedthat they are often used as the physical instruments of other spirits who wish to communicate with us. They thus speak, write, &c., and are wholly unconscious of what they are doing while thus engaged. The truth of these statements has been frequently testified to and admitted by those who were themselves anti-spiritualists. I therefore argue that, as these men can perform such things without the aid of their senses-see, paint, draw, write, with their eyes closed, hear when the sense of hearing is shut, &c., and as the senses are the reflectors of external impressions on the brain without them (to be logical) there can be no such impression-it must follow that the mind can see without the aid of the brain, and therefore the brain is not the organ of the mind. I cannot enter into spiritualism as I would like; but I am happy that its study is one of the objects of this Society, and I think that the more it is studied the more will the spiritualists be persuaded that the human spirit, under certain favourable condi

tions, can see, &c., without the aid of any physical organ whatever. Under this head I could introduce second sight, but a very able paper on that subject has been already brought before your notice. Reverie, also, is prolific with arguments against the popular theory now under consideration; and abstraction, likewise, where men have eyes, and see not; ears, and hear not, &c., and their mind wholly absent from surrounding circumstances. Sir Isaac Newton, for instance, "when in a fit of absence, made a tobacco stopper of a lady's finger. Archimedes remained unconscious and unmoved during the noise and slaughter of captured Syracuse. A priest in a fit of mental absence was unconscious of the pain of burning." We read also of a gentleman-" While you fancy he is admiring a beautiful woman, it is an even wager that he is solving a proposition in Euclid; and while you may imagine that he is reading the Paris Gazette, it is far from being impossible that he is pulling down and rebuilding his country house.” Hogarth, the illustrious painter, paid a visit to the Lord Mayor in his new carriage. When the interview was over, he returned home on foot amid a drenching rain. He forgot that he had a carriage, or that that carriage had brought him to the Mayor's. John Philip Kemble, the great actor, on the evening of the day of his marriage, left the theatre when the performance was over, returned to his lodgings, and retired to bed, absolutely forgetting

that he had been married that day, and that his wife was impatiently awaiting his return from the theatre. Professor Hamilton, of Aberdeen, was walking along the banks of the river Dee, when, to the horror of the many fish-women, who were awaiting the return of the boats, the Professor marched into the river. Assistance was procured and he was dragged out, still unconscious of what was going on. One of the women, in the simplicity of her heart, exclaimed, "Eh, sirce the day! they hae muckle tae answer for, that lat's you gang yer leen." Many other stories of a like nature could be told, but I think it unnecessary for my purpose. We have thus not only cases where men have seen and heard without the aid of the eyes and ears, but also where these senses were open, and the men neither heard nor saw. It may be objected that all that was necessary, in order to make these men see, &c., was attention. I ask, do we see by attention, or hear by attention? Is attention the function of any brain organ? Can attention create a function? To say that attention does this or that is merely an evasion of the question. Yet some men gather a smile of satisfaction over their countenances when they make such evasion, as if their ingenuity has finally answered the question. He is no philosopher who will not look at a question in all its phases, and answer it if he can. If he cannot, let him say so at once, without having recourse to the disingenuous subterfuge of evasion.

CHAPTER VI.

INSANITY AND SPECTRAL ILLUSIONS.

T has, often been argued that insanity is the result of brain disease, but, as we have seen, this assertion is without the most distant shadow of proof. Abercrombie, a very great authority on this subject, says, "attempts have been made to refer insanity to disease of bodily organs, but hitherto without much success. In some instances we are able to trace a connection of this kind, but in a large proportion we can trace no bodily disease." It is quite impossible to say with any safety whatever that insanity is the result of brain disease, because we have no means of proving this statement. Though the brain of an insane man was found to be diseased, it by no means follows that insanity was the result of such disease, for we have already seen a large number of cases where the brain was very extensively diseased, yet the person was thoroughly sane, Again, the insane, in their lucid moments,