The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-01-04
SCIENCE AND THE SPIRITS.
By w. d. CUNNING.

I am surprised to find an outcrop OF
bigotry in one Of your readers 1t seems
that one Of your correspondents would con-
sign me to an insane retreat for nay paper
in the Cbr5stiDn Una0n, on" Demoniacs. 4"
Are we tc understand that DO fact which
bears on Spiritualsm shall have the con
of science? [ was in England
when Prof. Crookes announced his IN,
tention to apply scientific methods to the
Investigation OF Spirituaiism | remem
Der h w the English press received TINS
announcement This is as 1t should be.
Science is coming to- the front, and We are
nearing the end Of great deluslon. rms
was the tone
Well, the Prof has made the investiga-
ton and published the results He be
lisves there are spirits and he has gagged
tie force by which they manifest them
Selves now and then, within our realm III
being. What does the english press say
now? Why, the very men who cheered
or the investigation are now almost as
hird on Prof Crookes rs your correspon
dent on me?
On other questions men can think and
at as rational beings. Splritualism is
TIE red rag which maddrns the bull.
It is time fer science to come to the
font, and time for the ignorant to Lold
their peace. Your correspondent and the
Rev Mr.. Peck might learn a little WIS
dom and charity from Mr. Beechec's card
IN the Tribune OF Decembei 9th: look
With profound interest" says the
Plymouth preacher, upon all wise efforts
to educe the scientific truth from those
extraordinary phenomena which have be
come so common in our day, and to which
the attention of men Of the highest sclen
'tlGc attainment has at last been seriously
turned. Very we'll This is wise. What
follows is charitable: but have not
been convinced that these phenomena Or
ig maze from spirits outside of the human
body"
Science cannot assign her a nobltr task
than the solution of his problem. You
call me "splritnlistic writer l am not
entitled to this rank, but whatever
have written it has been in a strictly
scientific spirit to fnd AN answer t. the
question. " Do these phenonena come
from spirits inside or outside OF tieshy
bodies?" I know the difficulties which
oeset us. They are not greater than those
winch have beset the chemist and the
astronomer.
When FIaunhofer mapped out the
dark lines of the solar spectrum, and
found hat certain lines answer to She
lines made by the light from burning so
dunn, his first thought was that these
lines came from sodium in the sun. 1t
was magnificent vision, those dark lines
cutting the colored zones, lifting our
thought from the world around US, and
revealing tue elements that burn in the
sun. A second thought suggested a doubt.
May not those lines originate in our at
mosphere? Are they not of the earth
rather than the sun? Stellar spectra
must be examined. Many questions must
be put to nature beiors we can know
whether the source of these was mundane
or celestial.
Now if the Pecks and "Peckniffs will
not pelt us too. fiercrly, we propose to
"try the spirits by methods az strictly
scientific as those which the astronomer
has applied to the spectrum. He has
found that the lines in the spectrum have
their source in the sun, and are revela
ton of the constituents of another world.
But aome of.the lines he had thought to
be celestial, he finds have their source in
the aqueous vapor about the earth. The
discovery did not bafe him. He has
only exercised the greater skill to dis
tinguish between the lines which are
sun. born and those which are fog born.
Like the astronomer, we, too, have been
:" befogged." If we are not greatly de
ceived some of these spirituaiistic phe,
nomena are purely mundane. But if We
can put our trust in demonstrations rs
rigid az any which the spectroscops can
attest, other phenomena have their source
mot in embodied spirits.