第21章

Those communications, taking the best, are certainly not a whit of higher order than would be communications from living persons of fair talent and education; they are wondrously inferior to what Bacon, Shakespeare, and Plato said and wrote when on earth.Nor, what is more noticeable, do they ever contain an idea that was not on the earth before.Wonderful, therefore, as such phenomena may be (granting them to be truthful), I see much that philosophy may question, nothing that it is incumbent on philosophy to deny,--namely, nothing supernatural.They are but ideas conveyed somehow or other (we have not yet discovered the means) from one mortal brain to another.Whether, in so doing, tables walk of their own accord, or fiendlike shapes appear in a magic circle, or bodiless hands rise and remove material objects, or a Thing of Darkness, such as presented itself to me, freeze our blood,--still am Ipersuaded that these are but agencies conveyed, as by electric wires, to my own brain from the brain of another.In some constitutions there is a natural chemistry, and those constitutions may produce chemic wonders,--in others a natural fluid, call it electricity, and these may produce electric wonders.But the wonders differ from Normal Science in this,--they are alike objectless, purposeless, puerile, frivolous.They lead on to no grand results; and therefore the world does not heed, and true sages have not cultivated them.But sure I am, that of all I saw or heard, a man, human as myself, was the remote originator; and Ibelieve unconsciously to himself as to the exact effects produced, for this reason: no two persons, you say, have ever told you that they experienced exactly the same thing.Well, observe, no two persons ever experience exactly the same dream.If this were an ordinary imposture, the machinery would be arranged for results that would but little vary; if it were a supernatural agency permitted by the Almighty, it would surely be for some definite end.These phenomena belong to neither class; my persuasion is, that they originate in some brain now far distant; that that brain had no distinct volition in anything that occurred; that what does occur reflects but its devious, motley, ever-shifting, half-formed thoughts; in short, that it has been but the dreams of such a brain put into action and invested with a semisubstance.That this brain is of immense power, that it can set matter into movement, that it is malignant and destructive, I believe; some material force must have killed my dog; the same force might, for aught I know, have sufficed to kill myself, had I been as subjugated by terror as the dog,--had my intellect or my spirit given me no countervailing resistance in my will.""It killed your dog,--that is fearful! Indeed it is strange that no animal can be induced to stay in that house; not even a cat.

Rats and mice are never found in it."

"The instincts of the brute creation detect influences deadly to their existence.Man's reason has a sense less subtle, because it has a resisting power more supreme.But enough; do you comprehend my theory?""Yes, though imperfectly,--and I accept any crotchet (pardon the word), however odd, rather than embrace at once the notion of ghosts and hobgoblins we imbibed in our nurseries.Still, to my unfortunate house, the evil is the same.What on earth can I do with the house?""I will tell you what I would do.I am convinced from my own internal feelings that the small, unfurnished room at right angles to the door of the bedroom which I occupied, forms a starting point or receptacle for the influences which haunt the house; and Istrongly advise you to have the walls opened, the floor removed,--nay, the whole room pulled down.I observe that it is detached from the body of the house, built over the small backyard, and could be removed without injury to the rest of the building.""And you think, if I did that--"