48. Before concluding this historical sketch let us say a few words about modern spiritualists in so far as their pretensions have reference to our subject. They assert the presence among them of the spirits of the departed, assuming sometimes a visible shape, and they compare these appearances to those which are recorded in the Sacred writings. But there is this prominent distinction between the two: the spiritual communications recorded in the Scriptures are represented as made to those who were unprepared to receive them, and also for the most part as taking place in open daylight, or, to speak more properly, having no sort of reference to light or darkness. Whatever be their explanation they have an open-air look about them. On the other hand, the manifestations recorded by the spiritualists take place as a rule in insufficient light, if not in total darkness, and in presence of those who are in a state of mental excitement. Now, for our own part, we should not be disposed to credit any communication from the world of spirits that was not made openly, and to those unprepared to receive it, and therefore unprejudiced. The man of science must be perfectly recipient, but he must in the interests of truth guard himself against the possibility of delusion. We know the almost infinite power of the mind not only to delude itself, but to propagate its delusions to other minds, and, as we have already remarked, the conditions of these manifestations are specially favourable to the spread of such delusions. We do not therefore hesitate to choose between the two alternative explanations, and to regard these pretended manifestations as having no objective reality. 49. But while we altogether deny the reality of these appearances, we think it likely that the spiritualists have enlarged our knowledge of the power which one mind has of influencing another, and this is in itself a valuable subject of inquiry. We agree too in the position assumed by Swedenborg, and by the spiritualists, according to which they look upon the invisible world not as something absolutely distinct from the visible universe, and absolutely unconnected with it, as is frequently thought to be the case, but rather as a universe which has some bond of union with the present. This line of argument will be developed in the following chapters of our book. CHAPTER II. POSITION TAKEN BY THE AUTHORS—PHYSICAL AXIOMS. ‘Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.’—HEBREWS XI. 3.