In the case of the New York medium, did she see the spirit of the Patent Office, the spirits of the papers, the drawings, the desks, and the spirit of the examiner seated at the spirit of one of the desks, examining the spirits of the drawings and of the specifications? I repeat it, the percipient sees the image of that which is in the mind of the agent, and he never sees more than that. It often happens that the image of some one is seen, of whom the agent is not consciously thinking at the moment. This has been already explained, on the obvious ground that it is the subjective, or unconscious, mind of the agent that is read. It sometimes happens that some fact is related, some scene described, which the sitter cannot recall to mind, and he conscientiously declares that he never knew the fact related, nor witnessed the incident depicted. But when it is remembered that the subjective mind of man retains all that he has ever seen, heard, or read, and that he retains comparatively little in his objective recollection, it is extremely unsafe for him to declare that any one fact has never been known to him. It is merely negative evidence at best, and amounts only to a declaration that he does not recall the fact. When we consider how little we retain, in our objective recollection, of what we have seen, heard, or read, we may well wonder that it does not oftener happen that so-called spirits tell us of circumstances which we do not remember. On the whole, it may be safely assumed that no medium has ever yet been able to impart any information that is not known either to the medium or to some living person with whom he is _en rapport_. There is certainly nothing but the merest negative evidence, such as has been described, that such a thing ever happened. On the other hand, there is the strongest possible evidence to the contrary, in the fact that there is room for a doubt on that question. It is self-evident that if facts, known neither to the medium nor those surrounding him,--that is, facts not known to him nor obtainable by means of telepathy,--can be perceived or obtained by him from independent sources, the evidence of that fact would be thrust upon us from ten thousand different sources every hour. This is also negative evidence, it is true, but it is all but conclusive. Thus, the question of spirit identity has given spiritists no end of trouble. Their ablest writers have sought in vain for a solution of the question why it is that spirits constantly fail to give conclusive evidence of their identity by means which could not be referred to the knowledge of the medium or to telepathy. On this subject Allan Kardec, one of the ablest writers on the subject, discourses as follows:-- "The identity of contemporaneous spirits is much more easily proved,--those whose character and habits are known; for it is precisely these habits, which they have not yet had time to throw aside, by which they can be recognized."[36]