In another volume M. de Gasparin demolished the tales, but he was only at the beginning of his subject. The historical and anthropological evidence for the movement of objects without contact, not under his conditions, is very vast in bulk. The modern experiments are sometimes more scientific than his own, and the evidence for the most startling events of all kinds is quite as good as that on which he relies for his prodigies, themselves sufficiently startling. His hypothesis, at all events, of will directing a force or fluid, by no means explains phenomena quite as well provided with evidence as his own. So M. de Gasparin disposes of the rival miracles as the result of chance, imposture, or hallucination, the very weapons of his scientific adversaries. His own prodigies he has seen, and is satisfied. His opponents say: 'You cannot register your force sur l'inclinaison d'une aiguille'. He could not, but Home could do so to the satisfaction of a scientific expert, and probably M. de Gasparin would have believed it, if he had seen it. M. de Gasparin is horrified at the idea of 'trespassing on the territory of acts beyond our power'. But, if it were possible to do the miracles of Home, it would be possible because it is _not_ beyond our power. 'The spiritualistic opinion is opposed to the doctrine of the resurrection: it merely announces the immortality of the soul.' But that has nothing to do with the matter in hand. The theology of spirits, of course, is neither here nor there. A 'spirit' will say anything or everything. But Mr. C. C. Massey when he saw a chair move at a word (and even without one), in the presence of such a double-dyed impostor as Slade, had as much right to believe his own eyes as M. de Gasparin, and what he saw does not square with M. de Gasparin's private 'Trewth'. The chair in Mr. Massey's experience, was 'unattached' to a piece of string; it fell, and, at request, jumped up again, and approached Mr. Massey, 'just as if some one had picked it up in order to take a seat beside me'. {319a}