Mr. Sowerby held with Mr. Winslow as to the reality of the phenomena, and their natural explanation, but thought they should be divided into two classes, one good and the other bad, as produced for a good or a bad purpose. When produced in a good cause, for a good end, they might be called Divine; when in a bad cause, for a bad purpose, they might be called Satanic or diabolical. The agent is in both cases the same, and the difference is in the mind or will that employs it. Dr. Corning, my physician, who was a distinguished manigraph, and had written a work, highly esteemed by the profession, on Insanity, was quite ready to concede the phenomena called spiritual, or rather demoniacal, and thought we were bound to do so, or to give up all human testimony. He also conceded the connection contended for by mesmerists between mesmerism and so-called demonic phenomena,—a connection, in his judgment, very evident, and wholly undeniable; but he contended, with the most eminent manigraphs of France, and indeed with the members of the profession generally, that the marvellous phenomena recorded were those of mania, monomania, theosophania, nymphomania, demonopathy, and all to be explained pathologically. He included them all under the general head of insanity, and regarded their variety only as so many different sorts of madness. He had himself witnessed the greater part of them in his practice, and treated them as symptoms of mania. “That,” said Mr. Merton, “would be very satisfactory, if the limits of madness or insanity were well defined, and if physicians could never mistake, and treat as insane one who is only possessed or obsessed by the devil. To include the marvellous facts of history under the head of insanity, without having first established their pathological character, and settled it that there is no generic or specific difference between them and acknowledged pathological symptoms, is not to explain them. How do you prove that a person, otherwise in perfect health, with no disturbance of the pulse, of the digestive, or any other organs to be detected, who on all subjects speaks rationally, but who tells you that a spirit has possession of him, speaks through his organs, throws him down, and otherwise maltreats him, is insane? I do not say that such a man is not insane, but how do you prove him insane? “Why, he exhibits the symptoms of insanity, for none but an insane man would utter such nonsense.” “Perhaps so, and perhaps not so. He exhibits symptoms of what you are pleased to _call_ insanity; but how do you know that you have not called insanity what you ought to call by another name, possession, for instance?” “I do not believe in possession.”