Let us analyze the above letter, and try to discover what the writer thinks, or rather what he does not think of this new force. One thing is certain, at least: Professor Thury, a distinguished physicist and naturalist, admits, and even scientifically proves that various manifestations take place. Like Mr. Crookes, he does not believe that they are produced by the interference of spirits or disembodied men who {111} have lived and died on earth; for he says in his letter that nothing has demonstrated this theory. He certainly believes no more in the Catholic devils or demons, for de Mirville, who quotes this letter as a triumphant proof against de Gasparin’s naturalistic theory, once arrived at the above sentence, hastens to emphasize it by a foot-note, which runs thus: “At Valleyres—_perhaps_, but everywhere else!”[210] showing himself anxious to convey the idea that the professor only meant the manifestations of Valleyres, when denying their being produced by demons. The contradictions, and we are sorry to say, the absurdities in which de Gasparin allows himself to be caught, are numerous. While bitterly criticizing the pretensions of the learned Faradaysiacs, he attributes things which he declares _magical_, to causes perfectly natural. “If,” he says, “we had to deal but with such phenomena (as witnessed and explained (?) by the great physicist), we might as well hold our tongues; but we have passed _beyond_, and what good can they do now, I would ask, these apparatus which demonstrate that an _unconscious pressure_ explains the whole? It explains _all_, and the table resists pressure and guidance! It explains _all_, and a piece of furniture which _nobody touches_ follows the fingers pointed at it; it _levitates_ (without contact), and it turns itself _upside down_!”[211] But for all that, he takes upon himself to _explain_ the phenomena. “People will be advocating miracles, you say—magic! Every new law appears to them as a prodigy. Calm yourselves; I take upon myself the task to quiet those who are alarmed. In the face of such phenomena, we do not cross at all the boundaries of natural law.”[212] Most assuredly, we do not. But can the scientists assert that they have in their possession the keys to such law? M. de Gasparin thinks he has. Let us see. “I do not risk myself to explain anything; _it is no business of mine_.(?) To authenticate simple facts, and maintain a truth which science desires to smother, is all I pretend to do. Nevertheless, I cannot resist the temptation to point out to those who would treat us as so many _illuminati_ or sorcerers, that the manifestation in question affords an interpretation which agrees with _the ordinary laws of science_.