M. de Gasparin now examines another class of objections. First, the phenomena were denied; next, they were said to be as old as history, and familiar to the Greeks. We elsewhere show that this is quite true, that the movement of objects without contact was as familiar to the Greeks as to the Peruvians, the Thibetans, the Eskimo, and in modern stories of haunted houses. But, as will presently appear, these wilder facts would by no means coalesce with the hypothesis of M. de Gasparin. To his mind, tables turn, but they turn by virtue of the will of a 'circle,' consciously exerted, through the means of some physical force, fluid, or what not, produced by the imposition of hands. Now these processes do not characterise the phenomena among Greeks, Thibetans, Eskimo, Peruvians, in haunted houses, or in presence of the late Mr. Home,--granting the facts as alleged. In these instances, nobody is 'circling' round a chair, a bed, or what not, yet the chair or bed moves, as in the story of Monsieur S. at St. Maur (1706), and in countless other examples. All this would not, as we shall see, be convenient for the theory of M. de Gasparin. His line of argument is that the Greek and Latin texts are misunderstood, but that, if the Greeks did turn tables, that is no proof that tables do not turn, but rather the reverse. A favourite text is taken from Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxix. ch. i. M. de Gasparin does not appear to have read the passage carefully. About 371 A.D. one Hilarius was tortured on a charge of magical operations against the Emperor Valens. He confessed. A little table, made of Delphic laurel, was produced in court. 'We made it,' he said, 'that confounded little table, under strange rites and imprecations, and we set it in movement, thus: it was placed in a room charged with perfumes, above a round plate fashioned of various metals. The edge of the plate was marked with the letters of the alphabet separated by certain spaces. A priest, linen clad, bowed himself over the table, balancing a ring tied to a thin thread. The ring, bounding from letter to letter, picks out letters forming hexameters, like those of Delphi.' This is confusing. Probably the movements of the table, communicated to the thread, caused the bounds of the ring, otherwise there was no use in the table moving. At all events the ring touched THEO (which is not a word that could begin a hexameter) when they asked who was to succeed Valens. Some one called out 'Theodore' and they pursued the experiment no farther. A number of Theodores and Theophiles were put to death, but when Theodosius was joined with Gratian in the Empire, the believers held that the table had been well inspired. Here there was no chaine, or circle, the table is not said to lever le pied legerement, as the song advises, therefore M. de Gasparin rules the case out of court. The object, however, really was analogous to planchette, Ouija, and other modern modes of automatic divination.