locomotion in all. Butterflies, moths, and the like, have six legs and two wings. Consequently, if there be any design in creation, and angels have been created, they can only be regarded as the connecting link between the highest and the lowest classes of animal life. If then, there be such a thing as harmony of design in Creation--if the Creator be not the author of confusion (1 Cor. xiv. 33)--if matter be material, and imponderable forces cannot be weighed or made otherwise recognisable by the senses, except by their effects--if the Almighty be omnipresent and omniscient, it is absolutely impossible for a thoughtful mind to believe in the existence of angels in any shape--whether material, immaterial, or essential. But this consideration forces us still further, and we feel compelled to ask ourselves, whether, with our minds constituted as they are, we can believe in, or understand any thing wholly immaterial? Whether we can imagine the existence, for, example, of "force" without matter?--a shape which is formless?--a form visible to the eye, yet wholly immaterial? It seems to me to be desirable, at the present day, to call attention to this point in a particular manner, inasmuch as there are vast numbers, both in Europe and America, who believe in what is called Spiritualism, and are, in reality, as greatly the dupes of charlatans as were the disciples of Alexander the false prophet, whose history we gave in vol. II. The jargon of these pretenders is based upon the assertion in the Bible that there are spirits--the accounts of certain of these returning to the earth which they have quitted, or conversing with human beings in dreams, or in reality. But both they and their victims fail to see that a spirit, being without a material existence, cannot put matter into motion--it cannot produce the waves in the ether that cause those impressions on eye and ear which give the idea of sight and sound. We may best give our reader a glimpse of our meaning, if we compare a spirit to a picture projected on a sheet by a magic lantern. It is true that we can see it--yet we know that it is powerless to hear, to speak, to move; it cannot of itself even vanish. Yet there are many onlookers who, by a ventriloquist, can be made to believe that the picture speaks. After prolonged observation, I believe that spirits, angels, demons, &c., have no reality except in the delusions of individuals whose diseased brains induce them to believe that they see apparitions and hear them speak. To this matter we shall probably return by and by.