296. “The result of the inquiries of Dr. Bell and his friends—for several gentlemen of eminently fitting talents pursued the investigation with him—was briefly this:—_That what the questioner knows the spirits know; what the questioner does not know, the spirits are entirely ignorant of_. In other words, that there are really no superhuman agencies in the matter at all—no connection with another state of existence; but that it bears certain strong analogies to some of the experiences of _clairvoyance_, in that mysterious science of animal magnetism, as it has been protruding and receding for the last hundred years. Dr. Bell thought there was some reason to believe that the matter reproduced may come not only from the questioner, but if in the mind of any one at the circle, that it might be evolved. He made some observations upon the evidences of spirit existence, drawn from the character of the matter communicated by the mediums in a state of _impression_, when, as it is believed, spirits express themselves through the human agent. Of course, the quality of such composition is more or less a question of taste. Much of it is elevated, indicating high intellectual and moral capacities in the mind to which it owes its origin. Much more is absurd, puerile, and disgusting, infinitely below the grade of the human productions of the same persons from whom it professedly comes. Yet the spiritual revelation has given us nothing of such extraordinary value or novelty as to stamp it, in the judgment of unprejudiced minds, as of supermundane production. Dr. Bell alluded to a treatise which had been put into his hands by an earnest spiritualist, purporting to be the work of Thomas Paine, the author of the Age of Reason, &c., which was thought would carry conviction to anybody, as it purported to be a full explanation of the formation and changes of this earth, by one who, from his _situs_, must know all about it. The truth was, that the work was the production of some mind, celestial or mundane, ignorant of the very first rudiments of chemical philosophy, in which the most ridiculous blunders were made on every page in matters which are as demonstrable as mathematics, and where, of course, the answer cannot be made that the revelation was too high for common readers. Nor does Dr. Bell believe, from his observations, that the waters from this fountain ever reach a higher level than their source. The most elevated specimen of the spiritual literature would no doubt be found in the communications from Swedenborg and Lord Bacon in Judge Edmond’s and Dr. Dexter’s first and second volumes. Yet, whoever reads the very elegant and powerful preliminary treatise of these gentlemen, which Dr. Bell thought would compare favourably with any writings of the kind ever published, would not be able to feel that Swedenborg and Lord Bacon, after their nearly one and more than two centuries’ residence, respectively, amid the culture and refined senses