"From the effects of the humidity of the atmosphere, some may conclude that the agent must have been _electricity_, inasmuch as the same state of the atmosphere produces a like effect upon the action of friction electricity. Let us allow this, and turn to precisely the same phenomenon, as it has been manifested in the cases of numerous 'mediums' for the so-called '_spiritual manifestations_.'" "We will not state it upon our authority alone, but also upon that of a large number of intelligent believers in the spiritual origin of these phenomena, that the electrical condition of the atmosphere enters into the circumstances of their evolution; that in a humid state of the weather it is not only difficult, in many instances, but sometimes it is absolutely impossible, to obtain them under such a condition." We know that many of the less informed "mediums" attribute these failures to the _capriciousness of the spirits_, and frequently scold them soundly for their misdemeanors, though at other times they seem to pity them because they get so weary and fatigued in answering so many inquiries, and being so long "_on duty_." "It was thought by some who witnessed the case of Angelique Cottin, that the agent which acted so powerfully from her organism, overthrowing tables, twisting chairs out of stout men's hands, raising a man in a heavy tub, was electricity. C. Crowe says it did cause the deviation of the magnetic needle; but M. Arago, who knows more about this abused agent than a nation of theorizers, could not detect the least signs of it by the nicest tests. And yet it would give the person who touched her or her dress a powerful shock, as if it _were_ electricity. Still, it may be the same agent that is ground out of plate glass, that propagates news from city to city on iron wires, and that thunders in the material heavens."