_Dear Sir_: Being engaged in putting a work to press, I am sorry to
be unable to be present at the meeting of the Association on the 15th
inst.
When I was at the last meeting, I stated an experiment made with the
greatest care and precision, which proved the existence of a power
independent of any possible or conceivable mortal agency; and I had
on that occasion an opportunity of experiencing the fate of the Dutch
ambassador who first made the king of Ava acquainted with the fact
that bodies of water can be frozen so as to enable people to walk on
a solidified aqueous surface. It was a disease of the mind in either
case.
But let no one apply to his soul the self-complacent unction that
it was my hallucination, not bigoted ignorance, that originated
that diagnosis. Since that time, the fact of movements being made
intelligibly, without any perceptible or assignable mortal aid,
has been verified hundreds of times by others; while under my own
intuition it has been reiterated many times, the experiment which I
adduced having been repeated with every imaginable precaution and
instructive variation. * * * * *
About two years have elapsed, since I erroneously sanctioned
Farraday’s explanation of the manifestations, in ascribing them to
involuntary muscular action. This arose from my being, no less than
that philosopher, so utterly incredulous and intolerant of any idea of
spiritual agency in any of the phenomena of nature, excepting those
which I ascribed to God, that I did not take the possible agency of
spirits into view; but having been obliged to admit the facts conceded
by Dr. Bell, (287,) and having received interesting and intellectual
communications of which he has not been informed, I cannot, with
him, stop half-way: nor could he, were he to have the interesting
communications with his spirit friends which I have had with mine.
There has been a time when religion repressed science; and it
would seem that at the present era science is to revenge itself by
repressing religious truth, by sanctioning indirectly the alleged
manifestations of antiquity, while deriding those of the present
time; believing on miracles told by no one knows who, yet denying the
allegations of eye-witnesses known to be truthful; while straining at
spiritual gnats, swallowing scriptural camels.
With high esteem, your well-wisher,
ROBERT HARE.