IV. THE ERRORS AND SUPERSTITIONS OF THE CHURCH OF [Being the Dudleian Lecture delivered in the Chapel of A Vindication of the Most Reverend Thomas Cranmer, Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and there with of the Reformation in England, against some of the Allegations which have been recently made by the Rev. Dr. Lingard, the Rev. Dr. Milner, and Charles A Remonstrance addressed to the Trustees of Phillips Academy, on the State of the Theological Seminary Thalatta, a Book for the Sea-Side, Sparks's Letters to Washington, Eliot's Discourses on the Unity of God, Noble's Life and Works of Cole, Schleiden's Poetry of the Vegetable World, The Child's Matins and Vespers, Judd's Birthright Church, - Literary Intelligence. - New Publications, . Religious Intelligence. Western Unitarian Confer- ence, Anniversary Week, American Unitarian - THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER AND RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY. JULY, 1853. ART. I.-SPIRITUAL MECHANICS.* We have printed below the titles of some books, not because we intend to review them in detail, but as suggesting the subject which we have in mind to discuss. They all agree in professing to give the rigid results of scientific observations, made in a province of research which falls partly under the jurisdiction of physics, and partly under that of physiology. The work of Reichenbach shows a candid and laborious purpose of its author to reduce to natural, though hitherto unregistered laws of matter, the fitful lights and the uncertain mirage of ani 1. Physico-Physiological Researches on the Dynamics of Magnetism, Electricity, Heat, Light, Crystallization, and Chemism, in their Relations to Vital Force. By BARON CHARLES VON REICHENBACH. The complete Work, from the German Second Edition, with the Addition of a Preface and Critical Notes, by JOHN ASHBURNER, M. D. London. 1851. 2. Untersuchungen uber Thierische Electricitat. Von EMIL DU BOISREYMEND. Berlin. 1848. 3. On Animal Electricity, being an Abstract of the Discoveries of Emil du Bois-Reymend, made by DR. J. MÜLLER, Professor of Physics at Freiburg. Edited by H. BENCE JONES. London. 1852. 4. Traité des Phénomènes Electro-physiologiques des Animaux, par C. MATTEUCCI: suivi d'Études Anatomiques sur le System Nerveux et sur l'Organe Electrique de la Torpille, par PAUL SAVI. Paris. 1844. 5. Leçons sur les Phénomènes Physiques des Corps vivants. Edition française publiée avec des Additions considérables sur 2 Edition italienne, par C. MATTEUCCI. Paris. 1847. VOL. LV.-4тH S. VOL. XX. NO. I. 1 mal magnetism; and for this purity of intention it is to be treated with respect. When we examine this book, however, in detail, we do not find in it the same wise precautions against disturbing influences which characterize remarkably the investigations of Matteucci and BoisReymend. Reichenbach thinks he has proved that sensitive persons see an objective light round the poles of a magnet, and at the ends of the axis of a crystal; that the magnet and the crystal affect the nerves and attract the human hand; that the patient can distinguish magnetized from unmagnetized water; that terrestrial magnetism disturbs the nerves; that the restless sleeper is least disturbed when he stretches himself out on the magnetic meridian, but tosses and dreams when his head and feet point to the east and west; that the power which the crystal and the magnet have of acting on those well disposed can be imparted to living men; that a similar influence is associated with solar radiations, chemical action, and electricity. This force, which always exists where magnetism is, but is not identical with magnetism, because it is found where magnetism is not found, is universal and potent, and deserves a name of its own. Reichenbach, therefore, for reasons as odd as the name itself, calls it "Od." There is an "od-negative" and an "odpositive." The left side of man is in odic opposition to the right. This force is centralized in the hands and feet, especially in the hands. The mouth, with the tongue, is od-negative. "We have arrived," says Reichenbach, "at a not uninteresting explanation of a hitherto obscure matter, - the import of the kiss. The lips form one of the foci of the biod, and the flames which our poets describe do actually blaze there. This will be clearly elucidated in the next treatise. It may be asked how this can agree with the circumstance that the mouth is od-negative. This, however, does harmonize very well with the fact; for the kiss gives nothing, it desires and strives merely, it sucks and sips, and while it revels, longing and desire increase. The kiss is therefore not a negation, but a physical and moral negativity." (p. 257.) It is remarkable, that whenever the patients and the sensitive were the subjects of experiment, there was a positive result. But when they were called on to act and not to feel, the experiment generally failed. For Reichenbach frankly confesses that they could not lift iron filings by the odic attraction of their fingers, or deflect the galvanometer, or magnetize needles. There certainly is no subject, connected with religion, philosophy, science, or the practical concerns of life, which at the present time occupies and disturbs more minds, in this and neighboring communities, than certain alleged phenomena, the reality of which many altogether deny; but which others, forced, as they think, to admit by the overwhelming evidence of their senses, either attempt to resolve into the operation of familiar, physical laws, or regard as spiritual manifestations of beings, once indeed moving like themselves upon the earth, but now removed beyond the ordinary reach of the human senses. The discovery, or at any rate the new application, of a fresh motive power by Ericsson, with its alleged economy and efficiency, and the consequent influence which is predicted for it on the useful arts and the grand march of civilization, meteoric as was the flash with which it first burst upon the public gaze, and all-important as it would become if its ample claims were justified, has produced a feeble and evanescent impression, compared with the more dubious phenomena just mentioned. The strong hold which a motley collection of hastily assumed or imperfectly investigated facts, known under the incongruous names of "spiritual manifestations," "tablemovings," "rappings," "knockings," and other aliases, has taken of the more impressible portion of the community, may be explained to a certain degree by the novelty of the subject, and by an impertinent human curiosity which is ever ready to gnaw at any apple of forbidden knowledge; but at the same time it proclaims the violent reaction which the imaginative, the superstitious, the religious element of man's nature, is striving to effect against the dead weight of materialism and utilitarianism by which it is so heavily pressed down in this age and country. In more than one city, town, and village, these phenomena, these experiments, and the agencies they are thought to engage, have been for months the engrossing subject of conversation, the sole relaxation for a body and mind wearied with life's toils, and in some cases the only consolation for a spirit oppressed with the troubles and sorrows of life. Many repair daily to these exhibitions as a necessary excitement, and few can be so happily retired as wholly to escape them. They are the acknowledged attraction of many a social gathering in the gay city, and all the luxuries and adornments of the dinner or evening party are incomplete without them. It can hardly be doubted that a subject in which some are painfully engaged, and of which all hear or talk incessantly, must exert considerable influence on health, morality, and happiness. Under these circumstances, we have thought it might not be without interest and profit to look at the scientific aspects of this strange matter.. What we propose to consider is, firstly, whether the mode of investigation adopted in reference to it is calculated to inspire confidence in any positive result, or is such as is recommended and followed by universal consent in other scientific researches; and, secondly, in case strange phenomena do appear, for example, motions which are not caused by ordinary mechanical forces, whether these motions are explicable on natural principles by the intervention of extraordinary forces in nature, such as electricity or magnetismn; or whether they are to be regarded as supernatural or spiritual manifestations. We would remark, first, with regard to the method of investigation, that any person, of whatever education or profession, or if he have neither, feels perfectly competent to undertake it on his own responsibility. Those who have never made a scientific experiment before, are not deterred thereby from venturing upon these experiments. The results to which inexperienced investigators in any department of research, scientific, literary, or practical, may come, are not usually clothed with authority, whatever may be the general intelligence of these men, and however much above suspicion may be their truth. and conscientiousness. In a question which relates to the motions of the heavenly bodies, astronomers do not rely on the observations, much less on the conjectures of a chemist, although he may stand at the head of his own science; and the chemist, in his turn, would not place a high value on the first raw experiments of the mathematician, especially in a research involving difficult organic |