duels among friends and dignitaries in the adjoining communities. And I venture to affirm that every person, at least once in his life, has found his best and purest motives very unhappily misapprehended by the class of minds of which I speak.

The unsound and superficial reasoners, who do not exhibit consistency in the examination of any thing, are distinguished by their unwillingness or inability to perceive perfect unity and system in the works of Deity. For example, such intellects can not see any distinct connection between the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms; can not understand the unity and unchangeability of God; they can not apply a scientific principle to the successful analyzation of a moral subject; can not see that the generation and evolution of electricity from the mineral bed are identical with the evolution of thought in the human encephalon; can not see that, that principle which digests food in the stomach is the same which digests thought in the brain, on a higher plane of action; and thus, in every thing, these superficial reasoners divorce fact from fact, principle from principle, and nature from Deity, whenever they make any subject a theme of special thought. Among this class I am constrained to include the vast majority of parents, teachers, alumni, commentators, clergymen and congregations of our beautiful country. It is almost a perfect proverb-that the majority is, in the present state of the world, more likely to be wrong than right. If we seek truth only, it were far better for us to embark on a fishing excursion with Jesus and his twelve apostles than to join any popular system of theology in the world. The French have concluded, after a succession of national experiments, that the Lord is generally on the side of those who have the most cannon and the largest army; because this party invariably succeeds in any lengthened contest.

Strange and uncertain as it may seem to the superficial observer, it is nevertheless a self-evident truth, that, in the present undevel

oped stage of civilization, the majority is most likely to be in the wrong. And I desire to have it very distinctly understood, that the vast majority of minds now existing on the earth, though an evident improvement upon every previous generation, are, notwithstanding their superior enlightenment, a very superficial and inconsistent class of investigators. And clairvoyance and modern inspiration have principally this large majority for their opposers. But why do these minds oppose and repudiate spiritual phenomena? Because they are external and unsound reasoners. For it will yet be seen, that the causes of every visible manifestation lie, very frequently, much deeper in the bosom of Nature, than the external senses of the corporeal organism can possibly penetrate. How then, without the power of exercising the interior perceptions, which belong to the mind especially, shall we ascertain the internal causes of outer phenomena? The answer is exceedingly plain. Exercise properly your reason-principle. The well-educated astronomer does not wait to see the eclipse in order to foretell correctly the precise occurrence and cause of that phenomenon. Nay, not so. He goes into his most secret chamber, lights his taper, takes the slate and pencil, and seats himself with the immortal principle of reason glowing effulgently from his spacious brow; and there, alone and unseen, he traces the mighty revolutions of the planets, notes their various orbits-their inclinations, their aphelions and perihelions; and ere the sun tints the golden clouds of the distant horizon with its electric rays, the astronomer's soul shouts, "Eureka, Eureka, Eureka!"-for he has caught the sublime mystery of the eclipse, and realized the startling grandeur and overwhelming magnitude of that exalted region with which his Reason has formed an undying acquaintance. So likewise, you who would learn the truth, should go into the most secret chamber of your own souls. The spirit of God lives there. There you should go to pray, to sing, to commune with your guardian spirits. And you will there

find that interior principle of discernment by which the hidden laws of every external phenomenon 'may be easily comprehended. Those who reason correctly never confine their investigations to the sphere of the seeming and the transient. They go deeper, and seek the permanent. They are never captivated with whited sepulchres; never with the platter whose exterior is apparently clean; never with a show of talent, a display of rhetorical flights and figures; but they seek the inward condition of the manifestation, whatever it be, in order to know the fountain causes of that which is visible. And then, too, such investigators are very consistent and harmonious in their application of truth. They do not believe that there are any actual inconsistencies or paradoxes in truth; they do not believe that the Deity can be self-contradictory, or that he can make a truth, uttered by a human being, to conflict with a principle in Nature; but, to such a mental constitution, all truth is simple, harmonious, infinite, and eternal. Now, inasmuch as this method of exercising the reason-principle is adopted by only the exceedingly small minority of minds that inhabit this globe, and inasmuch as no other structure of intellect can fully appreciate the philosophy of clairvoyance and inspiration soon to be disclosed, it is therefore positively certain that the vast majority, who are almost always in the wrong, will continue to think and reason upon, and to speak against, these phenomena of mind as they have for the last twenty or more years. While we, who have entered upon this investigation with honest hearts and with a disposition to employ our reason aright, will proceed happily on our way.

Having, as I feel impressed, removed a considerable quantity of misapprehension and error from the field before us, I will now state the various and progressive conditions into which the human soul is, from a combination of causes, not unfrequently thrown. As an amplification of much that I have already said on this subject, the

following is considered the most natural and legitimate classification of human mental conditions,-ranging, progressively and spontaneously, from the moment of birth into this world, to the moment of the mind's introduction into the world of spirits:

IV. THE TRANSITION STATE.

I. THE RUDIMENTAL STAte.
II. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL STATE.
III. THE SYMPATHETIC STATE.

V. THE SOMNAMBULIC STATE.

VI. THE CLAIRVOYANT STATE.

VII. THE SPIRITUAL STATE.

These states, I repeat, are indicative of the progressive conditions into which the human mind, naturally or artificially, and permanently or temporarily, passes in its ascension from the event of birth to the higher circumstance of merging into the empire of spirits. Nevertheless, it is deemed proper to say here, in advance of a more particular definition of these conditions, that the psychological, sympathetic, and transition phases of mind are not to be regarded as absolute improvements; whilst the somnambulic, clairvoyant, and spiritual states are actual advancements upon the rudimental condition.

The first condition-or the Rudimental State-I will now proceed to philosophically consider.

LECTURE V.

MAN'S ORDINARY STATE, CONSIDERED IN CONNECTION

WITH THE EXTERNAL WORLD.

MAN is the coronation of Nature; the highest and noblest work of God. All forms and personalities, in the vegetable and animal worlds, are manifestly inferior to man in every possible respect. And every thing about and within him unequivocally testifies to his physical, intellectual, and moral supremacy. By affirming man to be the highest and noblest "work of God," I do not mean to teach the oriental doctrine of special creation: that the Omnipotent Mind, by the employment of his hands, selected and arranged the physical substances of the earth, and molded them into the most exquisite anatomical and physiological structures, of which he made a single human being; and then, seeing that it was not good for man to be alone, caused him to fall into a deep sleep, selected a rib from his side, and, by the assistance of this isolated structure, made a female companion for the first male development of the human species. This hypothesis of the origin of man is very oriental and mainly chimerical. It indicates, however, in a truly interesting and instructive manner, how naturally the human soul goes into the investigation of first causes and first principles.

In the primary stages of human experience and civilization, it should be duly borne in mind, the prominent manifestations of the soul are-Fear, Hate, Superstition, Imagination, Mythology; and chimerical speculations upon cosmogony and anthropological subjects. You are, doubtless, all aware that civilization was preceded by savagism and barbarism; that superstition existed before reli