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PLANCHETTE; OR, THE DESPAIR OF SCIENCE. BEING A FULL ACCOUNT OF MODERN SPIRITUALISM. ITS PHENOMENA, AND THE VARIOUS THEORIES REGARDING IT. WITH A SURVEY OF FRENCH SPIRITISM. - Published in 1869

Recently, attention has been directed to it anew by the wooden trifle known as the Planchette; and I have chosen the name of this mysterious toy as the title of my book, rather as a convenient signpost, pointing to one little phase of the complex whole, than as indicating fully the character of the facts here collected; for these are, I am persuaded, of supreme importance, embracing, as they do, in their relations, most of the authentic marvels in the pneumatology of ancient and modern times.

Without undervaluing the tributary services of Planchette in certain rare cases, I cannot doubt that its eccentricities are often explicable by unconscious nervous movement or by wanton deception. But, after making allowance for all that is unprofitable, trifling, and tedious in the experiments,-for all that ought to be deducted as giving no conclusive evidence of supersensual knowledge or power, - there is a remainder of well-attested results, which cannot be explained by any theory of imposture, hallucination, or unexplored nervous action; and these results belong to the class here considered.

I regret that the circumstances under which the present work was written did not permit me to shape it in nearer accordance with my own notions of completeness and of the far-reaching significance of the developments; but this earth-life is so brief and uncertain, that to have deferred my task, in order to accomplish more, might have been to accomplish nothing; and when one has something to say, he may leave it for ever unspoken if he is over-nice in his choice of modes of presentation. May I not tell the public that to your pen, my friend, they may look for something more in keeping with the amplitude of the theme; something of which I may venture to announce, - "'Tis not the hasty product of a day, But the well-ripened fruit of sage delay?"

In treating of the anti -supernaturalism of the age, you remark,"Every now and then comes forth sonhe one who says aloud, after this manner:' I know it, and also every man living knows, by his own eyes and ears, that there has nothing ever been known of the spiritual world, not a word from it even, not a miracle....

That anybody knows, or ever has known, more about it than anybody else, is nonsense. I am myself the standard by which you may measure Abraham, the patriarch; and as to his visions, they were merely dreams, such as I have myself. I am the measure of the man Paul. And, you may believe me, as to voice or light from heaven ever having come to him at the time of his conversion, that it was not so. Simply, at that time, he had an attack of vertigo, such as we all know something about.

Oh, this glorious clearing of the mind, by which now, in my view, there is nothing higher anywhere than the level of my own experience! Oh, what a comfort it is to have miracles shrink into common earthly things, and to know that nobody has ever seen them, any more than I have!' This would seem to be odd comfort; but there are persons whose needs it would seem to meet."

You anticipate that the child born this year will see in his generation our men of science become reverent believers in the supernatural of the Scriptures. In the facts I here present, you will find some reasons for this opinion; but you will also learn that there are persons who admit the phenomena, but denounce Spiritualism as a " nervous epidemic, based on a gigantic assumption, and propping an ancient superstition," namely, that of individual spirits! So, you see, there will be work still for the Spiritualists, even when the facts are generally accepted, as they are likely to be within the next quarter of a century.