principle is the same for Sludge as for Agricola, the higher ideas only serve to intensify selfishness:

With such crudity of moral and mental conditions he has taken certain ideas into his mind-the idea of spirits, of an unseen universe, and of special divine guidance. As he holds and applies them, his ideas are almost on the level of Animism, and you can hardly decide whether they have taken hold of him, or whether he has laid hold of them to use them for his own ends. He tells us they are out of the Bible, and that he takes them as he finds them there. Most who profess to believe the Bible hold that though the things there set forth happened long ago, they don't now; not that the principles have changed, only the mode. He holds by both as still good. There are spirits; there is an invisible and divine order. These things have not gone dumb and dead. The world is still in touch with the power and purpose of God. And his "experience" confirms his belief; not clearly, of course, but clearly enough for a man who likes ingenuity and jugglery on its own account, and who has "private" reasons for believing. It is a theory of things which fits his mind, and, still better, his way of life.

So Sludge believes his Bible, confirmed by his experience. That supernatural which used to hold the foreground in primitive religion he has brought back to its place. All acts and events of this life have their source in that, and must be explained by reference to it. And he has given a great extension to the

primitive conception of things. That found God in what was rare and great. He has learned science, and knows that nothing can be really explained, and that little things are "nearer God" than great things. So he finds hints from God everywhere.

But as these "hints" are occult and arbitrary, how are they to be read, and the obscure relations of things to one's own fate made out? Here, again, Sludge falls back on a primitive mode of thought. In the days when things had no rational meaning or natural order; when all seemed casual; when things had "meaning" only as they bore on the fortunes of men, and all came directly from some divine power-the only way to find their meaning was to call in divine help, and this was done by divination. And so with Sludge. If there be no order of reason in things, the right way to track them is by chance (which is somehow divine), by a mere trick, it may be. And so he uses the old tricks, and tricks that make the ancient ones look wise. Here, in truth, is the reductio ad absurdum of his entire mode of thought. His devices expose the triviality of his ideas. Life, law, and the whole system of God are made infinitely small in the name of a religion, without morality or wisdom, and in which God is only the highest point and chief factor of self-interest.

And Sludge finds a society with uses and encouragements for him and his notions; without faith, but with much crude curiosity about spirits and the unseen world. He easily feigns, or actually believes, that he

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has powers of intercourse with that world, and becomes a "medium." He finds patrons, develops his art and his courage, and grows famous. But his success, and the need there is for such things to grow and keep their novelty, have led him too far he has cheated his credulous patron, and been found out. Mr. Horsfall is so angry that he almost chokes the medium; but Sludge, having got him to listen, shows more ability than he had ever shown before in an exposition of his ideas and a defence of his career.

He allows, to begin with, that he was wrong, but thinks his patron's "sainted mother" wishes her son to let him off, and coolly "begs" the whole question of his powers as a medium by proposing to ask her. He will even quit America if only he may start elsewhere with money enough. When he sees his patron relent he helps himself to a seat and the "good things" on the table, and, feeling happier after that, opens his defence in earnest.

And his first defence is an attack on those who blame him. It was they who made the things they complain of possible. With their shallow curiosity, credulity, and love of excitement, they induced it all. Were a lad to pretend he had got money by supernatural means, they'd quickly call him a thief; but if he only claim to have dealings with spirits, that's different. Men have a conceit that there is an unseen world," and that somehow and sometimes it touches this world. They don't quite believe, and they don't disbelieve such things. The question is

left "open," with a balance on the side of belief, because of the stories good men have told or credited. Thus the youth finds his audience when he comes with his tale. He stumbles and blunders at first, but that proves his honesty, and they find excuses because they are in league with the "delusion." With their glib phrase that there's more in heaven and earth than any know; with their notion not only of mystery beyond life, but of a mystery that is really the medium's vulgar mystery, they give him scope enough. He soon sees all this, plays his game more steadily, and gives them what they wish. And once having taken him up, he becomes part of their amour propre, and a kind of distinction for them.

Thus the "lies" began; and yet, so far, it was not lies," but a kind of poetry of belief-a case of that "over-belief" which is really necessary to give belief its proper power over men's minds. For most men all facts and ideas readily lose that glow which is their life. This is why poets have such use for mankind; they bring the fire and fancy that make things live. And this is just what the medium does for his facts and ideas; he gives life to men's ideas of a spiritual world, and intercourse with it.

That this power is dangerous he admits, for the medium is pushed on by those about him. There is sure to be some "cool head" who hints, or says, that the thing is a delusion. But they don't believe him, or criticize coolly, for now they have a personal interest in it, and object to be proved fools. Having failed to

persuade, the doubter keeps quiet for the sake of the company and the wines, and takes the "spirits" as part of the "price" to be paid for these. And so again the story grows, helped, as every legend is, by the fancy and belief of those who receive it, until it gets far past its author's design. Nor is any one to blame-not the medium, certainly, who is forced on by the wishes of his friends. In fact, the process is natural, and to have stopped it the medium must have had such courage and honour as few men ever show in such cases, especially when self-interest is all on the side of letting things take their course. Success had brought him a pleasant life, and he couldn't sacrifice that, he admits. What he did was far easier, and also more natural. He added to the fiction what

he saw to be wanted. It was dangerous to have got into the middle of such a stream, but exciting too, and he rose to the situation, and soon had all the spirits in free communication. The thing had got beyond his powers, he felt. The spirits made queer mistakes, and talked poor stuff. Bacon could not spell his own name, and did not know his birthplace; and Beethoven made music no better than a Shaker's hymn. But that, too, is in the nature of the case; it is because they have to speak through Sludge.

With the growth of the "fiction" doubts again arise, and these doubts help him, for his patrons argue that the doubts keep the thing from being better; and if the doubter persists, the rights of hospitality are invoked, or the doubter is quashed by the argu