CHAPTER XII. SUMMARY. "One thing is because another is not; One thing is not, therefore another is not." QUINTILIAN. GENTLEMEN OF THE SEYBERT COMMISSION: In your Report you have presented, in a most able manner, the frauds you have detected in the so-called "spirit manifestations you have witnessed: I have presented to the same tribunal of Public Opinion what I have seen and heard, together with the testimony of a number of witnesses of undoubted credibility, and many of whom are men known to the scientific world as eminent scientists and investigators of undoubted ability and acumen. "Now let us reason together." Does it follow logically, that because you did not see, others did not? Admitting that you are truthful, should you not extend the same charity and courtesy to others? "Men under similar circumstances act similarly; " One thing is, therefore another is." You, having no motive to falsify, tell the truth in relating what you saw; therefore it is probable that other good men who had no motive to prevaricate, and who were moved by the same impulses that influenced you, were equally truthful. Now is it not evident to your unbiased minds that even if all you saw in your investigation was fraudulent, that does not prove that the phenomena seen by others were fraudulent also? Does it matter how many frauds you witnessed, if what others, equally competent observers, saw was not tainted therewith? No, gentlemen, you might write volumes of like experience, every page of which narrated a fraud, and yet one single well-authenticated truth would confound it all. Your testimony is negative as to the issue of the existence of "spirit manifestations"; mine is positive. And though you pile Ossa upon Pelion of such evidence, it would avail nothing against one single clearly established fact. The frauds you narrate may have existed, and so may the facts I have proven. You have no right to say "all men are liars" because you have been unfortunate in your limited associations. The circle of your life and experience does not circumscribe within its boundaries all the morality or intelligence of mankind. There are depths in the great ocean of Nature's mysteries your lead and line never sounded. There are heights in her vast altitudes beyond the reach of your feeble vision. There are secrets in her limitless arcana your penny mirror never yet reflected. When we contemplate the vast number and infinite variety of natural phenomena occurring around us, and compute the number of natural laws known to science; when we compare Nature's known with her unknown decrees, her solved with her unsolved problems, how limited appears our knowledge, and how limitless the vast unexplored territory whereon the foot of the scientist has never trod. And, gentlemen, as you know more than some men of some things, so do other men know more than you of other things. And in our search after knowledge we cannot always depend upon our own researches, but must take the testimony of others. The question before the court of public opinion in this issue is: Do the phenomena claimed by the Spiritualists actually exist? How can that question be satisfactorily answered, save by an appeal to human testimony? And as the most momentous actions of both men and nations are governed by that evidence, why hesitate to receive it here? If the witnesses I have called in this case are truthful and competent, then they did see what they assert, and there is an "intelligent force" unknown to science, or to our common experience, which, under certain conditions, manifests itself to observers. It may be true that accomplished magicians may feebly imitate its manifestations; nevertheless that force exists, if its phenomena have been actually seen and heard. It is evident, then, that the issue is narrowed down to the single question: Are the phenomena proven? Have competent observers, who so testify, actually seen them? If they have not, then should our courts of justice be abolished; for in them the most momentous interests of human life are decided upon just such testimony às is presented to the world in the claims of "Modern Spiritualism." If the evidence of our senses is not to be believed, if reputable men and women are not to be credited when they narrate what they saw and heard, then may God forgive us all for the injustice we have done either as judges, advocates, or jurors, when we have been called upon to decide upon the guilt or innocence of our fellowmen. I have been instrumental, in my professional life, in sending two men to the gallows, and hundreds to the penitentiary, on just such evidence as this. The whole science of the law of evidence is based upon the general principle that witnesses do not testify falsely when they have no motive to induce them to prevaricate. If this is not so, why go through the solemn formalities of administering an oath in our courts? Why, with uplifted hand, or holding the sacred volume to his lips, is the witness enjoined to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and that as he shall answer to God at the great day!—if, after all, he can only relate what his mistaken senses have told him, and which may not be true? If human testimony is not to be relied upon, then are our courts of law a miserable farce, and our judgment and reason but as a broken staff, which if we lean upon, will pierce our hands. Then is the boasted justice of our tri bunals but as "An ocean nymph, a mountain naiad, A fabled goddess to be dreamed of but not enjoyed." But we are gravely informed by pseudo-philosophers "that our senses are unreliable, that they often deceive us." Do they? How often do they falsify compared with the facts they relate? In all our waking hours we do not perform a single act but upon the assurance of our senses. Every step we take with confidence on the solid earth is with the knowledge given us by their past testimony that the ground will sustain our tread. We stretch out our hand to grasp the commonest objects of life, only on the assertion of our senses that the object is within our reach. Do we not place implicit confidence in our senses of smell, sight, touch, seeing, and tasting? And how often are we deceived by them, compared with the number of times they tell us the truth? Not once in a million of instances; and the reputation of a witness for veracity whose relations to falsehood and truth stand as one to a million, will never be successfully impeached in a court of justice. So much confidence have I in their evidences that if either of the mediums that I visited at Cassadaga Lake should publicly announce that all his experiments there were legerdemain, yet without explaining how they were performed, I could not believe him. It would be a question of veracity between him and my senses. I have known the latter so much longer than the former, they have always been so thoroughly reliable and truthful to me, that I could not discredit them on the simple word of a comparative stranger. More than that, if the medium was an old acquaintance, if for years I had known him well as a person of credibility, yet would his simple statement fail to convince me. So confident am I that I saw what I have related in my open letter, that no human testimony uncorroborated by the evidence of my senses would bring conviction to my mind. You see, belief is not a matter of volition, but a mental phenomenon as independent of human will as is the motion of the heart or lungs. No amount of verbal testimony could convince you that you did not see the stealthy fingers of the pretended medium you describe, open the slates "under the table" and write thereon; and for the same reason no verbal testimony could convince me that adroit fingers wrote the communications on the slates I held in my hands, under such circumstances as to absolutely preclude the possibility of such an act. Our testimony would be of equal value; yours would be proof of what you saw, mine of what I saw; yet your evidence would not be proof that such phenomena as I describe could not have happened. Scores of scientific investigators have seen not only what I witnessed, but much that was more unaccountable; and they have made it the subject of the closest investigation. Thousands of people have witnessed it at their home séances, where no fraud could be perpetrated without detection. How far, then, does your evidence go to disprove the existence of the phenomena that have been the subject of books written by the most learned men of this century, and which have become as familiar as household words in so many family circles? But you have the means of satisfying the public mind, if you will condescend to do so. If your Report is true, three of your |