The opinion of Thury, as we have said, disagrees entirely with {110} Gasparin’s theories of will-power. He states it in so many plain words, in a letter, in answer to the invitation of the count to modify the last article of his _mémoire_. As the book of Thury is not at hand, we translate the letter as it is found in the _résumé_ of de Mirville’s _Defense_. Thury’s article which so shocked his religious friend, related to the possibility of the existence and intervention in those manifestations “of _wills_ other than those of men and animals.” “I feel, sir, the justness of your observations in relation to the last pages of this _mémoire_: they may provoke a very bad feeling for me on the part of scientists in general. I regret it the more as my determination seems _to affect you so much_; nevertheless, I persist in my resolution, because I think it a duty, to shirk which would be a kind of treason. “If, _against all expectations_, there were some truth in Spiritualism, by abstaining from saying on the part of science, as I conceive it to be, _that the absurdity of the belief in the intervention of spirits is not as yet demonstrated scientifically_ (for such is the _résumé_, and the thesis of the past pages of my _mémoire_), by abstaining from saying it to those who, after having read my work, will feel inclined to experiment with the phenomena, I might risk to entice such persons on a path many issues of which are very _equivocal_. ”_Without leaving the domain of science_, as I esteem it, I will pursue my duty to the end, without any reticence to the profit of my own glory, and, to use your own words, ‘as the great scandal lies there,’ I do not wish to assume the shame of it. I, moreover, insist that ‘_this is as scientific as anything else_.’ If I wanted to sustain now the theory of the intervention of disembodied spirits, I would have no power for it, for the facts which are made known are not sufficient for the demonstration of such a hypothesis. As it is, and in the position I have assumed, I feel I am strong against every one. Willingly or not, all the scientists must learn, through experience and their own errors, to suspend their judgment as to things which they have not sufficiently examined. The lesson you gave them in this direction cannot be lost. “GENEVA, _21 December, 1854_.”