“The existence of matter must be conceded, in an argument which has for its object the proof that _there is something besides_; and when that is admitted, the proof rests with the skeptic, who conceives that the intervention of some other principle is necessary to account for the phenomena presented to our experience. The hidden qualities of this substance must be detected, and its whole attributes known, before we can be warranted in _assuming the existence of something else_ as necessary to the production of what is presented to our consciousness. And when such a principle as that of galvanism or electricity, confessedly a property of matter, can be present in or absent from a body, attract, repel, and move, without adding to or subtracting from the weight, heat, size, color, or any other quality of a corpuscle, it will require some better species of logic than any hitherto presented to establish the impossibility of mind being a certain form, quality, or accessory of matter, inherent in and never separated from it. We do not argue thus because we are confident that there exists nothing but matter; for, in truth our feeling is that the question is involved in too much mystery to entitle us to speak with the boldness of settled conviction on either side. But we assume this position, because we think the burden of proof falls on the spiritualists, and that they have not established the necessity of inferring the existence of another entity besides matter to account for all the phenomena of mind, by having failed to exhaust all the possible qualities or probable capacities of that substance which they labor so assiduously to degrade and despise. “But while they have altogether failed to establish this necessity, whereon depends their entire proposition, they have recourse to the usual expedients of unsuccessful logicians, by exciting the ignorant prejudices of bigotry and intolerance, against all that is dignified with the name of dispassionate philosophy. “The truth is, it is time that all this fudge and cant about the doctrine of materialism, which affects the theory of immortality in no shape whatever--as the God who appointed the end could as easily ordain that the means might be either through the medium of matter or spirit--should be fairly put down by men of common sense and metaphysical discrimination.” On the same point, Mr. W. G. Moncrieff says:-- “Often do we hear the words, ‘Matter cannot think,’ and the trumpet of orthodoxy summons us to attend.