If God can creatures make to suit his will, Foresee, if they can, his design fulfil; Wherefore to trial, those creatures expose, Traits to discover, which he thus foreknows? [Illustration: _M. B. Gourlay_] INTUITIVE EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF SPIRITS. NARRATIVE OF THE AUTHOR’S EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF SPIRITUALISM. 122. THE first fruit of my attention to the phenomena of table turning, was the following letter. I trust I shall not be considered as self-complacent, when I allege it to be an exemplification of _wise ignorance_, which is about equivalent to folly. The wisest man who speaks in ignorance, speaks foolishly to the ears of those who perceive his ignorance. The great mass of men of science appear in this light to spiritualists when they argue against Spiritualism. Men who are only _nominally_ Know Nothings have proved a formidable party in politics; unfortunately, Spiritualism has, in its most active opponents, _real_ Know Nothings, who will not admit any fact of a spiritual origin, unless such as they have been educated to believe. In that case, many have powers of intellectual deglutition rivalling those of the anaconda in the physical way.[5] _Letter in reply to an Inquiry respecting the influence of Electricity in Table Turning._ PHILADELPHIA, July 27, 1853. 123. “_Dear Sir_: I am of opinion that it is utterly impossible for six or eight, or any number of persons, seated around a table, to produce an electric current. Moreover, I am confident that if by any adequate means an electrical current were created, however forcible, it could not be productive of table turning. A dry wooden table is almost a non-conductor, but if forming a link necessary to complete a circuit between the sky and earth, it might possibly be shattered by a stroke of lightning; but if the power of all the galvanic apparatus ever made was to be collected in one current, there would be no power to _move_ or otherwise affect such a table. 124. “Frictional electricity, such as produced by electric machines, must first be accumulated and then discharged, in order to produce any striking effect. It is in _transitu_ that its power is seen and felt. 125. “Insulated conductors, whether inanimate, or in the form of animals, may be electrified by the most powerful means, without being injured or seriously incommoded. Before a spark of lightning passes, every object on the terrestrial surface, for a great distance around, is subjected to a portion of the requisite previous accumulation. Yet it is only those objects which are made the medium of discharge that are sensibly affected.