"And yet another objection. The scientist, in his turn, is addicted to laying down terms and bounds to the immeasurable field of human knowledge in the ages to come. He assures us, for instance, that we shall never know the connection between the body and the soul--for there are scientists who still have souls. I would ask--By what manner of authority can man lay down such a _ne plus ultra_? We hold, under certain limitations, the law of development--of progress--to be the normal order of the world. What, then, will be the result when the coming races shall have surpassed the present as far as the present has surpassed the man of the Quaternary and, possibly, the Tertiary ages? Meanwhile the antidevelopists, theological and scientific, who cling to the obsolete and immoral doctrine of degradation, are bound to find, sunk deep below earth's surface, vestiges and remains of ancient civilization in an ever-ascending scale; they must show us, in fact, water running up to its source. They are bound to produce, amongst the old stone folk, a cave-man who, by his noble and symmetrical skull, his delicate jaw, his short forearm, his straight shin, and, possibly, his 'hyacinthine locks,' shall receive the fading honours of Father Adam and Mother Eve. Lord Beaconsfield is 'all on the side of the Angels.' I cannot but hold to the apes. And if he be a fallen angel, I, at least, am a Simiad that has done something to develop itself. "Before entering upon magnetism and occultism in Eastern lands, will you kindly allow me a few words of personal explanation? In 1876 I addressed to the _Times_ the following note upon extra-sensuous perception in the mesmeric state, suggesting the universality of the so-called 'spirit' phenomena:-- "'Sir,--Seeing my name quoted in your columns (October 30, 1876) as one of those who have "certified to the genuineness of spirit phenomena," I venture to request the briefest of hearings. The experience of twenty years has convinced me that (1) perception is possible without the ordinary channels of the senses; and (2) that I have been in presence of a force or a power, call it what you will, evidently and palpably material if, at least, man be made of matter; but I know nothing of what is absurdly called Spiritualism, and I must be contented to be at best a Spiritualist without the Spirits.