As I hold presence of mind, or what is called courage, to be precisely
proportioned to familiarity with the circumstances that lead to it, so
I should say that I had been long sufficiently familiar with all
experiments that appertain to the marvellous. I had witnessed many
very extraordinary phenomena in various parts of the world,--phenomena
that would be either totally disbelieved if I stated them, or ascribed
to supernatural agencies. Now, my theory is that the supernatural is
the impossible, and that what is called supernatural is only a
something in the laws of Nature of which we have been hitherto
ignorant. Therefore, if a ghost rise before me, I have not the right
to say, "So, then, the supernatural is possible;" but rather, "So,
then, the apparition of a ghost, is, contrary to received opinion,
within the laws of Nature,--that is, not supernatural."

Now, in all that I had hitherto witnessed, and indeed in all the
wonders which the amateurs of mystery in our age record as facts, a
material living agency is always required. On the Continent you will
find still magicians who assert that they can raise spirits. Assume
for the moment that they assert truly, still the living material form
of the magician is present; and he is the material agency by which,
from some constitutional peculiarities, certain strange phenomena are
represented to your natural senses.

Accept, again, as truthful, the tales of spirit-manifestation in
America,--musical or other sounds; writings on paper, produced by no
discernible hand; articles of furniture moved without apparent human
agency; or the actual sight and touch of hands, to which no bodies
seem to belong,--still there must be found the MEDIUM, or living
being, with constitutional peculiarities capable of obtaining these