Further, he pronounces the following decisive opinion, to which he came, conquered by the various manifestations, as he says himself—“The number of facts which claim their place in the broad daylight of truth, has so much increased of late, that of two consequences one is henceforth inevitable: either the domain of natural sciences must consent to expand itself, or the domain of the supernatural will become so enlarged as to have no bounds.”[189] Among the multitude of books against spiritualism emanating from Catholic and Protestant sources, none have produced a more appalling effect than the works of de Mirville and des Mousseaux: _La Magie au XIXme Siecle_—_Mœurs et Pratiques des Demons_—_Hauts Phénomènes de la Magie_—_Les Mediateurs de la Magie_—_Des Esprits et de leurs Manifestations_, etc. They comprise the most cyclopædic biography of the devil and his imps that has appeared for the private delectation of good Catholics since the middle ages. According to the authors, _he_ who was “a liar and murderer from the beginning,” was also the principal motor of spiritual phenomena. He had been for thousands of years at the head of pagan theurgy; and it was {102} he, again, who, encouraged by the increase of heresies, infidelity, and atheism, had reappeared in our century. The French Academy lifted up its voice in a general outcry of indignation, and M. de Gasparin even took it for a personal insult. “This is a declaration of war, a ‘levée of shields’”—wrote he in his voluminous book of refutations. “The work of M. de Mirville is a real _manifesto_.... I would be glad to see in it the expression of a strictly individual opinion, but, in truth, it is _impossible_. The success of the work, these solemn adhesions, the faithful reproduction of its theses by the journals and writers of the party, the solidarity established throughout between them and the whole body of catholicity ... everything goes to show a work which _is essentially an act, and has the value of a collective labor_. As it is, I felt that I had a duty to perform.... I felt obliged to pick up the glove, ... and lift high the Protestant flag against the Ultramontane banner.”[190] The medical faculties, as might have been expected, assuming the part of the Greek chorus, echoed the various expostulations against the demonological authors. The _Medico-Psychological Annals_, edited by Drs. Brierre de Boismont and Cerise, published the following: “Outside these controversies of antagonistical parties, never in our country did a writer dare to face, with a more aggressive serenity, ... the sarcasms, the scorn of what we term common sense; and, as if to defy and challenge at the same time thundering peals of laughter and shrugging of shoulders, the author strikes an attitude, and placing himself with effrontery before the members of the Academy ... addresses to them what he modestly terms his _Mémoire on the Devil_!”[191]