THE SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION OF SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA NOT much observation of the phenomena of Spiritualism is necessary to learn that the manifestations are governed by physical and mental laws, though very few Systematic, of these laws are at present known, seientific research applied to Spiritualism would there fore, in the course of a few years, be sure to give very valuable results, by clearing away much of the mystery overhanging the border land between this world and the next, and by strengthening the conditions which now enable spirits to communicate. At the present time, while most of the English people are innocently swallowing the highly reliable information about Spiritualism given them by the daily papers, and while the orthodox scientific world is standing aloof, afraid to search after truth beeause of the apparent danger of being caught in the investigation of nonsense, there may still be a sufficient number of persons in the ranks of Spiritualism competent to begin the work of reducing its facts to a science. In general society the proportion of people experienced in experimental natural philoso phy and mental science is very small, partly because these subjects are generally neglected in schools and universities, and partly beeause everybody has not a liking for such pursuits. Probably the necessary mate rials may now be found within the ranks of Spiritualism to found a scientific society, but if not, the work need not be altogether neglected. Supposing a scientifie society were formed, its first work must be to collect a large mass of authenticated facts, and then try to extricate some few general prin ciples from the tangled mass. Anonymous articles in periodicals cannot be accepted as good evidence, neither can facts long stored up in the memory of witnesses be accepted as free from error. But this necessary work of collecting authenticated facts might as well be begun at once, with or without the formation of a scientific society. Perhaps the best way to begin would be to arrange with different cireles, to write down all the manifestations observed, and all the information ob tained as to how they are produced, sueh documents to be drawn up directly the sittings are over, signed with the names and addresses of witnesses, and posted to a central quarter where the records should be preserved. The documents should be short, and contain nothing but scientific facts, for a scientific body would have nothing to do with the good or evil of Spiritualism, or with the religious aspect of the ques tion ; its only business would be to find out what natural laws give the observed results. If a system of this kind were now at work, evidently great additional power in the way of investigation would be gained. For instance, if a notification were sent to all the different circles, asking them at the next sitting to “ learn as mueh as possible about how the moving of wooden articles is effected,” when the reports afterwards came in from each circle, there would of course be a great mass of contradictions, arising from imperfections of spirits both in and out of the body but soon a few glimpses of daylight would begin to shine through the mist. The comparison of the in formation thus obtained by a few dozen well educated and intelligent circles, independently of each other, would be highly interesting to all engaged in the work, and the plan is good because it would cost nothing but