signs. In fine, in all such marvels, supposing even that there is no
imposture, there must be a human being like ourselves by whom, or
through whom, the effects presented to human beings are produced. It
is so with the now familiar phenomena of mesmerism or electro-biology;
the mind of the person operated on is affected through a material
living agent. Nor, supposing it true that a mesmerized patient can
respond to the will or passes of a mesmerizer a hundred miles distant,
is the response less occasioned by a material being; it may be through
a material fluid--call it Electric, call it Odic, call it what you
will--which has the power of traversing space and passing obstacles,
that the material effect is communicated from one to the other. Hence,
all that I had hitherto witnessed, or expected to witness, in this
strange house, I believed to be occasioned through some agency or
medium as mortal as myself; and this idea necessarily prevented the
awe with which those who regard as supernatural things that are not
within the ordinary operations of Nature, might have been impressed by
the adventures of that memorable night.

As, then, it was my conjecture that all that was presented, or would
be presented to my senses, must originate in some human being gifted
by constitution with the power so to present them, and having some
motive so to do, I felt an interest in my theory which, in its way,
was rather philosophical than superstitious. And I can sincerely say
that I was in as tranquil a temper for observation as any practical
experimentalist could be in awaiting the effects of some rare, though
perhaps perilous, chemical combination. Of course, the more I kept my
mind detached from fancy, the more the temper fitted for observation
would be obtained; and I therefore riveted eye and thought on the
strong daylight sense in the page of my Macaulay.