“All that is very wise, and would do very well for a sermon,” said Jack. “It may, for aught I know, be very true. I have no knowledge on the subject, and no acquaintance with the devil or his angels. But I wish you would tell me how it happens that the witnesses to these marvellous phenomena are seldom if ever men of real science, well known, and of name in the scientific world?” “I thought you were one of those who would not admit authority even in matters of faith, and yet you demand authority in matters of science,” replied Mr. Merton, in a tone slightly sarcastic. “You would have the French Academy, for instance, in science what Rome claims to be in religion, and admit a historical fact or a scientific conclusion only on academic authority.” “But you know,” replied Jack, “that scientific commissions appointed to investigate and report on particular cases in France, never succeed in getting a sight of those marvellous facts which are so readily exhibited to others. Is not this a suspicious circumstance?” “Not in my mind,” replied Mr. Merton. “Your learned academicians generally commence their investigations with the persuasion that all facts of the kind alleged are impossible, and they seldom pay attention to the actual phenomena passing before them. They are busy only with their scepticism, and do not see what really takes place. Their study is simply how to explain away the phenomena they do see, without admitting their supernatural or superhuman character. Lawyers are said to be the worst witnesses in the world. Academicians are the very worst people in the world to observe facts. I would trust, in what depends on the senses, a plain, honest, unscientific peasant, much quicker than I would an Arago or a Babinet, for he has no theory to disturb him, no conclusion to establish or refute. The science of all your learned academies is infidel in regard to religion. Babinet, of the Institute, has just written an Essay in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, in which he pronounces the phenomena alleged by our recent spiritists impossible, because they contradict the laws of gravitation. Poor man! he reasons as if the phenomena repugnant to the laws of gravitation are supposed to be produced by it, or at least without a power that overcomes it. Why, the very marvellousness of the phenomenon is that it is contrary to the law of gravitation; and because it is contrary to the law of gravitation, we infer that it is preternatural. The learned member of the Institute argues that the fact is impossible, because it would be preternatural, and the preternatural is impossible, because the preternatural would be preternatural! When I see a man raised, without any visible means, to the ceiling, and held there by his feet with his head downwards for half an hour or more without a visible support, I do not pretend that it is in accordance with the law of gravitation, but the essence of the fact is precisely in that it is not.