But there is another view of the subject. I hold that the bodily senses can only perceive material things; and the spirit spiritual things; and hence, that, admitting the actual presence of disembodied spirits, neither could we perceive them, nor they us, as material bodies. They might, indeed, perceive the souls within us, but could only be cognizant of our actions as those of pure spirit; while we, blinded by the impenetrable screen of the body, would be debarred of even this recognition. For through only three of the bodily senses--sight, hearing, and feeling--have the boldest of so-called spiritualists dared to attempt the proof of their doctrine. To begin with the latter, the essential quality of the sense of feeling is _resistance_, without which there can be no perception. And what is resistance? In one class of cases it is simply the _vis inertiae_ of matter: in the other and only remaining one, the opposition of some material matter to the force of gravity. Even the perception of the lightest zephyr depends upon the resistance of the atmosphere. Does spirit possess this quality of resistance? The argument on this head is closed the moment the distinction is made between material things and spiritual. If the wave theory of light and sound be correct--and it is so generally accepted that few writers dare risk their reputations in the defence of any other--the senses of sight and hearing come, for the purposes of this argument, in the same category. Nothing can affect the ear which is not capable of producing vibration in the atmosphere, which may be considered, in comparison with pure spirit, a material substance. Here again the argument is clinched by the mere distinction between matter and spirit, the one being the very antipodes of and incapable of acting upon the other.